Page 63 of The Rebel and the Rose (The City of Fantome #2)

Ransom was pacing on the shores beneath the Summer Palace when the minstrels began to play. Music wafted from the upper balcony, casting a merry lilt across the strand.

Another of Andreas’s well-crafted lies.

The hour was late, and Ransom’s heart was sitting in his throat.

It had been there ever since they’d left Marvale, riding fast and hard until they met the River Verne.

From there, they followed the river to the west of Fantome and all the way down the shoreline, where the grand white palace speared out of the bluffs like a snaggle tooth.

For days now, they’d been watching the king’s residence for signs of Prince Andreas, but the black gates never opened, and from the outside, the palace itself had remained eerily still.

As though it was holding its breath.

Now King’s Day was upon them. All evening, the noble folk of Valterre had been arriving in droves, their carriages passing through militant gate inspections before being ushered inside.

On the surface, the burgeoning festivities appeared entirely normal, but these were no ordinary guards standing at the black gates.

They were mercenaries, marked by their frightening builds and battle scars, and the golden roses that had been emblazoned on their uniforms. A break with the king’s own crest, a call to a new era.

This was Andreas’s army.

Which meant the prince was already inside.

And so was Seraphine.

Every time the thought of her struck him – which was every three minutes or so – Ransom was seized by the sudden, violent urge to charge across the strand, rip those black gates apart, and kill everyone in his path until she was safe in his arms again.

‘Easy,’ Nadia said now, like she could sense the beast prowling inside him. ‘We need to wait for the opportune moment.’

Ransom clenched his hands in and out of fists, straining for calm. The party would soon be in full swing. Just another few minutes and they’d slip inside and go to work.

Quick, gruesome, bloody work.

‘Yeah, we’re losing him,’ remarked Caruso, who was passing the time by building and then immediately demolishing sandcastles.

‘If Bastian had his way, he’d be dead ten times over by now,’ said Anouk, who was sitting on a rock beside him. ‘Even a man in the throes of true love can’t fight his way through hundreds of hardened mercenaries!’

Try me .

‘Don’t tease him or he really will get himself killed,’ warned Nadia. ‘We’ll go in after that last carriage. Look. Most of the soldiers are starting to head inside.’

They were creeping up the rocky shoreline when Ransom caught a glint of silver in the distance. A lone figure skulking in the royal graveyard. They were just visible over the old stone wall, which was not far from the palace.

Stifling a curse, he took off in that same direction, slipping a vial from his pocket as he went. The others hurried after him. Somewhere behind them, the music cut out.

Ransom was just about to down his vial of Shade when Theo Versini popped up from behind the graveyard wall, wearing a large black rucksack and a look of alarm.

Reaching over the wall, Ransom grabbed him by the collar. ‘What the fuck are you up to?’

Shaking him off, Versini hissed, ‘Rescuing my friends, you brute. What are you doing here?’

‘Same idea,’ said Nadia, coming up behind him. Caruso and Anouk arrived just as another figure popped up from behind the graveyard wall. Silver-haired, and with the same annoying smirk, he was a carbon copy of Versini. Only younger.

The Shadowsmith, meanwhile, fixed his gaze on Anouk. ‘You’re new,’ he said, with some bewilderment.

‘And really important,’ said Anouk.

Ransom jabbed his finger at the Versini the Younger. ‘Who the hell is that?’

‘Tobias. My cousin. Don’t be a prick. He’s here to help.’

Tobias rolled back on his heels. ‘The Lightfireworks are my idea. I’m really the smart one.’

‘I immediately believe you,’ said Ransom, wondering what the hell Lightfireworks were, and already liking the sound of them.

Versini was still staring at Anouk. ‘You look a bit like Ransom.’

‘I know,’ she said, smiling. ‘He’s immeasurably lucky.’

‘Anouk is my sister. Stop staring at her. We rescued her from the Isle of Alisa.’

Versini’s brows shot up. ‘ You’re the other saint? That’s not possible.’

‘Every time we say that something increasingly impossible happens,’ said Nadia. ‘Fate is definitely messing with us.’

‘Speaking of,’ said Versini, growing uneasy. ‘We have some… developments to catch up on.’

A blood-curdling scream cut through the night.

They all snapped their chins up.

‘Later,’ said Ransom, his blood chilling as he turned back to the gates. Mercenaries still swarmed the inner courtyard, though not half as many as before. It was now or never.

Hitching up their rucksacks, Versini and his cousin hopped over the graveyard wall. ‘Can you get us inside?’

By way of answer, Ransom raised the vial to his lips. ‘Stay behind me.’

He swallowed the Shade in one go, this time welcoming its power.

As Seraphine’s scream poured out of that upper balcony, a wall of shadow erupted from the graveyard to the shore.

A thing of rage and murder, a kind of fury Ransom had never known.

He flung his hands out, driving the dark forward in a menacing tidal wave.

The black gates twisted back on themselves, the carriages beyond crushed and flung aside.

Andreas’s mercenaries scattered as the darkness bore down on them. The fools that stayed and drew their swords were dead in an instant.

Ransom never hesitated. Never flinched. As the cries of the woman he loved echoed through the night, he gave himself to the darkness, to that impulse to kill, and kill, and kill, until his body was scoured deep with shadow-marks and there was no one left to stand in his way.

Death swept across the courtyard. They followed its path into the mouth of the glittering Summer Palace and up the grand stairwell.

When the doors to the ballroom were flung open, Ransom glimpsed a black wave just as deadly as his own.

A thing he could not remedy, only worsen.

Corralling his shadows, he stepped back, silently ushering Versini forward. A plea blazed in his silvered eyes.

Make it count .

Dipping his chin, Versini charged ahead, a firework already crackling in his fist. ‘Watch and learn, Dagger,’ he said, hurling it into the ballroom.

The explosion was a marvel. Followed quickly by ten more, the force of the crackling Lightfire was so quick and bright and violent, it blanched every speck of darkness from the ballroom.

Ransom hurled himself into it, letting it eat away the last of his Shade.

Screams erupted as guests fled for their lives.

Flames danced along the oil-slick floors, spitting smoke into the air.

Moving quicker now, Ransom shoved his way into the fray, frantically scanning the ballroom.

As if fate itself had tapped him on the shoulder, he turned, finding her gaze in a sea of others.

The realness of her, standing there, unharmed, was like a fist around his heart.

He was suddenly aware of its weight in his chest, of every painful thump that pushed him forward.

Seraphine.

My Seraphine .

She stumbled as she went to him.

They were halfway to each other, wading through a tide of fire and death, when a figure lunged from the left, grabbing her by the throat. She hit the floor with a strangled cry, pinned by the mangled, seething form of Prince Andreas.

Ransom roared for her, caught in such a blinding fury that he barrelled straight into the King of Valterre, who rose up from the floor in the space of a single jarring heartbeat.

Staggering backwards, Ransom tried to make sense of the man who now stood between him and Seraphine.

It was not the king but his corpse. Suspended there like a doll cursed to life.

Still bleeding from its chest and mouth, eyes rolling back in its head, the dead king hovered before him on pointed toes.

‘Guess who?’ crooned an eerily familiar voice.

Ransom froze, the word soundless on his lips: impossible .

Fate was not letting up. Here it was again, only now it wore the face of his best friend.

When the king’s body dropped and Lark Delano appeared where he had been hovering, with eyes of burning gold, and wearing the same shit-eating grin he always did, Ransom didn’t know whether to pull Lark into a hug or run him through with a sword.

It was Lark, but not as he used to be. His skin possessed an odd greyish hue and it was tight across the bones of his face, the shadowy sockets of his eyes making him look half skeleton, half man.

For years death had ambled alongside Lark Delano and he had worn it lightly. Now death wore him like a second skin.

‘ You’re the Necromancer.’ Ransom’s head spun at this new unsettling truth. ‘How?’

‘A kiss of fate.’ Eyes wild and gleaming, Lark grabbed him by the shoulders. ‘The kingdom is changed. Join us, brother. There is a place for all of us in the prince’s court.’

Seraphine’s scream knocked Ransom back into himself. There wasn’t time to take a breath, to face the astounding, earth-bending impossibility of his best friend’s resurrection while the woman he loved fought for her life.

He pivoted around Lark, but his friend tightened his hold, holding him back. ‘Let them work it out,’ he said, as if Prince Andreas wasn’t ten feet away, choking the life out of her. As though his mercenaries weren’t closing in on them.

Yanking his friend’s collar, Ransom pulled him close. ‘It’s good to see you, brother, but I need you to move the fuck out of my way. Now .’

Lark squared his shoulders, and Ransom might have decked him right then if Nadia’s voice hadn’t rung out at that very moment.

‘ Lark? ’ she cried. ‘ Hell’s teeth . Tell me I’m not dreaming.’

Lark’s attention shifted, the fight leaving his body like a sigh as Nadia ran to him.

Shoving him aside, Ransom ran for Seraphine.

The pillars in the ballroom began to crumble as Anouk went to work. Her laughter soared above the fray as she tore chunks of stone right out of the ceiling, flattening soldiers like flies. Methodically breaking down the wall of muscle that kept Ransom from the prince.

Vaulting over rubble, Ransom snatched up the nearest sword he could find. Without Shade, he’d have to rely on his own strength and his middling skill as a swordsman. Rage would make up for the rest.

As the prince’s soldiers descended on Seraphine, Andreas sprang to his feet and slid into Ransom’s path, his sword raised in warning. ‘The rebel returns.’

The words were slow and garbled, accompanied by a lopsided sneer. The skin of his left cheek was peeling off his face, and his jaw was covered in angry red blisters.

Ransom struck, meeting his blade with his own. ‘I’ve been meaning to butcher you.’

Those golden eyes flashing, Andreas attempted a command.

Ransom punched him in the throat, killing it.

Better this way anyway, more personal. He slammed his fist into the prince’s face, over and over again, until they were both splattered in blood.

It was messy and primal and violent, and Ransom couldn’t stop.

Even as flames surged around them, licking at his feet.

Ducking his next assault, Andreas staggered backwards with a ragged cry.

Ransom returned to his sword, meeting him clash for clash. Everywhere he looked, the fire raged out of control. Seraphine was lost somewhere in the smoke. The rubble had stopped falling, and Anouk’s laughter had died out, too.

Panic nipped at Ransom.

The prince swung again, their blades meeting in a deafening clash. A red mist came over Ransom as he fought, hard and fast, with everything he had.

Back, back, back, he pushed the prince, weaving between the bodies on the floor, trying to see through the gathering smoke.

The walls flickered amber and gold, the thickening smoke making him light-headed.

His thoughts spun away from him as he struggled to suck down clean air. There was so little of it left.

Andreas was struggling too. The prince swayed, his grip on his sword slackening.

Blinking heavily, Ransom struck again.

Too slow.

Too low.

Too hazy in here now.

Soldiers swarmed the tightening space, appearing as if from nowhere. They floated through the smoke, making a circle around them. Ransom turned, coming face to face with the Queen of Valterre. Her eyes were black.

Dead.

Already dead.

Fuck .

Not soldiers but corpses. Bodies impervious to fire and smoke.

They advanced on him, dead arms flailing as they swung in every direction.

He ducked a flying fist only to crash into another one, the sickening crack of a dislocated shoulder nothing to a man who was already dead.

Ransom weathered the blow to his jaw, righting himself as more corpses came, fast and swinging.

Somewhere nearby, Lark was laughing.

The prince had disappeared, hidden behind the wall of the dead.

Ransom had to get away from them. His thoughts slowing, he turned and stumbled straight into Bibi. Her blank, black eyes looked right through him.

Fuck .

Bibi raised her fist. He caught it with his own, stilling her assault. She began to sway. The corpses around them seemed to be running out of steam. Lark must be fleeing too.

‘Seraphine!’ Ransom yelled between wheezes. ‘SERAPHINE!’

As the fire surged, bodies fell one by one. Snapping his head up, Ransom spied a hole in the ceiling, where the stars shone through.

Air.

Clean air.

He sucked down a breath, his eyes streaming from the smoke.

The moon was on his side. Silver shards slipped through the cracks in the stone like torchlight.

Across the ballroom, he spied Versini staggering back towards the doorway.

Anouk flopped like a doll in his arms, while Val hobbled close behind, leaning heavily on Tobias.

Ransom’s surge of gratefulness was short-lived, his thoughts tunnelling to one single pounding thought: Seraphine . He would go up in flames if he had to, crawl the length of this room on his hands and knees until his lungs gave out, but he was not leaving here without her.

Because she was here.

He could feel it in his blood and bones. In every painful beat of his heart. And that’s when he felt it – that insistent tug in his chest.

There .

There .

Look and see .

He raised his chin, as if to follow it.

He saw her then, as plain as a fallen star. In the middle of the ballroom, half buried beneath the bodies of two mercenaries, lay the body of Seraphine Marchant.

High above her, the ceiling was starting to collapse.