Page 27 of Unbroken (Rath & Rune #4)

In the interest of speed, Ves carried his mother on his back through the city. He ran when the streets went in the direction he wanted, took to the rooftops or the trees when they didn’t.

Fuller’s mansion lay at the very end of High Street, where it met Front Street at a sharp angle overlooking the ocean.

The waves grumbled against the strand below, then roared as they rolled into a small inlet where an offshoot of the Cranch River met the sea.

The estate itself seemed deserted, though whether any staff slept inside the big house, Ves couldn’t guess.

He set Mother down when they reached the garden. As with the other WHS members, Fuller’s garden sported massive flowers and enormous leaves. They’d been left untended, spilling out of their beds and engulfing benches and statuary.

“They’re all poisonous,” Mother said, eyeing the flowers with interest. “White snakeroot, belladonna, monkshood, hemlock, lily-of-the-valley, foxglove…”

“Like Rappacini’s garden.”

“Father always did like his stories.” She moved toward a towering hedge. “There—the tree is within that maze, and I suspect this is where Victoria brought Sebastian. She wouldn’t expect to be disturbed here, and I imagine it will satisfy her artistic sensibilities.”

Ves strode to the maze entrance. “Oleander,” Mother said from behind him. “It isn’t supposed to grow outside of a greenhouse in this climate. Fuller used his Dark Young’s magic long before he got the idea of taking its sap. Oleander is poisonous, naturally.”

Of course it was. “A good thing I can’t be poisoned, then,” he said, and swung up and onto the top of the hedge.

From this vantage, he could see across the maze, all the way to the middle. The hedge blocked most of what lay there, but the uppermost branches of a tree were visible, along with a golden wash of lantern light.

The tree twitched and shivered, seeming to lean away from something. Even from across the maze, its song came to him—a murmur of shifting leaves and sliding bark, of wind and water and earth.

Another Dark Young—and it was afraid.

Ves didn’t waste a second. He dashed across the top of the maze hedge, springing from row to row, using his tentacles and feet to keep from crashing down into the dense foliage.

In the center of the maze stood the Dark Young, branches writhing in distress. Victoria, uncloaked, bent over a motionless figure tied to one of four stone benches ringing the clearing.

Sebastian.

His skin was horribly pale, the color of a marble statue. His head had tilted to one side, eyes closed, lips tinged blue.

He was dying.

A mix of terror and rage slammed through Ves. Without hesitation, he sprang onto Victoria’s back, bearing her to the ground and tearing her free of Sebastian’s throat. A tome that must be the Book of Blood went flying away to land on the ground nearby.

Victoria kicked him hard in the stomach with a foot like a goat’s hoof. All the wind left his lungs, and he skidded away from her to crash into the nearest bench. The kerosene lantern toppled, a line of fire and fuel pouring out over the ground to lick at the base of the oleander hedge.

Victoria flipped over, hooves on the earth, one hand balancing on the ground. The skin of her face had flushed pink, the bark receding, woody horn shrinking. Some doing of the Book’s?

If so, it was receding quickly, the effects of the sap reasserting themselves even as he watched. A screech of frustration escaped her, and she raked her clawed hand across the ground. “No! It was working! How dare you interrupt?”

“You were killing him!” Ves managed to get to his feet, tentacles outstretched. He shifted, putting himself between her and Sebastian.

“So? My life, the life I had, the life I wanted, was taken from me.” Her eyes narrowed with hate. “You’re just like this awful tree. You want me to be a monster like you, so you won’t be so alone.”

“I’m not alone, and you don’t have to be either.”

She leapt at him, murder in her eyes. He struck her with a tentacle, knocking her back, but she was on her feet again in a blink.

Behind her, flames licked eagerly up the hedge, sparks beginning to drift free.

Lightning danced across the sky, a boom of thunder close enough to feel in his bones, but not near enough to bring rain.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow move—Mother, slicing away Sebastian’s bindings with her knife. Sebastian lifted a weak hand, and relief poured through Ves. He still lived.

The movement attracted Victoria’s attention as well. Her lips peeled back, revealing a mouth full of sharp teeth. “He’s mine,” she growled, gathering herself to lunge.

Ves grabbed both of her wrists with tentacles, yanking her onto her back. He couldn’t trust his mother, of course he couldn’t—but he had no choice. “Get Sebastian and the Book out of here!”

* * *

Sebastian’s head spun. Weakness gripped his limbs, even as a strange woman cut away the bindings holding him to the bench. What was happening?

“Get up,” she said, sliding an arm around his shoulders and forcing him to sit up. There was something familiar about her, but a wave of dizziness swamped him and drove away the thought.

“What? Who?” He blinked—and saw Ves, outlined against a blaze of firelight, dragging Victoria across the clearing and away from him. “Ves!”

The woman’s nails dug painfully into his arm and shoulder. “The smoke from the burning oleander hedge will kill us,” she snarled in his ear. “Now, move!”

Somehow, he made it to his feet and staggered after her. She scooped something from the ground, tucking it beneath her arm, and dragged him along with her free hand.

They plunged into the maze, putting as much distance between them and the burning oleander as possible.

At last they came to a small bench tucked into a dead end, and she guided him to sit on it.

His head still spun, and he felt as though he could lie down and sleep for days…

but no. Ves was in danger, fighting Victoria. He needed to help.

“We have to do something,” he managed to say.

She studied him thoughtfully with dark eyes. “We will.”

Another question belatedly occurred. “Who are you?”

“Lenore Rune. I expect you’ve heard of me.”

All the air left his lungs, and he jerked back, reaching for the power of the Books.

This woman would have ended the world; she’d tortured Ves, abused Noct, slain God-only-knew how many people in her quest for power.

She had her sons’ olive skin and dark hair—was that why she seemed so damned familiar?

—but her mouth was cruel and her eyes cold as the marble beneath him.

“St-stay back,” he said. “I’m not going to let you hurt Ves.”

She arched a brow, seeming utterly unconcerned. “My son is in danger, but not from me. Victoria is strong and has the power of the Book burning in her blood. He might be able to out-fight her, but knowing Vesper, his heart isn’t in it. But you…you’d do anything to save him, wouldn’t you?”

What did she want? Why was she even here to begin with? “Yes. I would.”

“Good.” She smiled, and displayed what she’d picked up when they fled the Dark Young’s clearing.

The Book of Blood.

The engorged veins stitched across the cover throbbed. Its malevolent power seemed to call out to him with every pulse, and the scars on his forearm beat in time with it.

And Lenore Rune had it in her grasp.

“Let it go—give it to me,” he insisted, though in his weakened state he didn’t know how he could force her.

“Of course.” To his shock, she held out the Book.

He snatched it from her; the cover was unpleasantly warm and soft, like fresh, bleeding meat.

“You are the Hollowell heir, after all. These Books belong to you.” She paused.

“But right now, you can’t do anything with it, can you? It needs to be Bound to your body.”

He tried to stand up, but a wave of weakness poured over him. Thunder roared nearby, and the first sprinkle of rain fell from the sky, not yet heavy enough to douse the fire. “I have to do something—I have to save Ves!”

“Agreed.” She reached into a pocket and removed a cruel steel needle with a length of cotton thread already attached. “That’s why I came prepared. Let me Bind you to the Book, and its power will belong to you alone.”

Alarm bells rang in his mind—but at that moment, there came a terrible crash, like shattering stone. A strange, shrieking cry went up—the tree-like Dark Young, howling through its many mouths.

Victoria was winning. If he hesitated, Ves’s life might be forfeit.

Lenore watched him expectantly. Bracing himself, Sebastian pushed up his sleeve, exposing the three sets of Binding scars already there. “Do it.”

* * *

Clouds of stinging smoke blew into Ves’s eyes, and even though it wouldn’t kill him, it still hurt.

He dragged Victoria across the ground while Mother and Sebastian fled.

He had to make her see reason, to understand that he wasn’t her enemy.

She’d done terrible things under the influence of the Book, but terrible things had been done to her as well, and he truly didn’t want to hurt her.

Thousands of fine, needle-like hairs sprang from her bark-like skin, piercing his tentacles like glass shards.

He let go, instinctively jerking away from the burning pain, but the poisonous hairs broke off in his skin and stayed there.

They didn’t cause the deadly reaction that had killed Fuller and the Chancellor, but it hurt like the skin had been dipped in acid and then set on fire.

Free, she spun to face him. “You’ve ruined everything!” she shouted, and flew at him.

He brought his tentacles up again, but she was ready for him now. Her own vine-like tentacles whipped out, wrapping around his, tangling them together. He heaved her to the side, smashing her into the tree, which shrank back from the combatants as well as something rooted to the ground could.

“Please, let us help you,” he said. Greenish blood flowed down her face, and she shook her head sharply, as if to clear it. “Listen to me—there are sorcerers who might be able to reverse what was done to you. Even if they can’t, you can still have a life.”

“I have no life!” She tensed her vines, shortening them, and suddenly she was in his face. Her clawed hand lashed out, ripping lines of agony across his cheek and jaw. Red blood spurted, the flesh open to the bone. “I’m going to tear out your throat.”

That would certainly kill him. Blinded by his own blood, he rammed his forehead into her face, felt her nose shatter.

Then they were trading blow after blow—fists, claws, tentacles, anything to hurt the other. He needed to stun her, to stop her. If he could just get her away from him for a moment, long enough to heal a little, but she wasn’t giving him the opportunity.

He let her drive him back, away from the tree. There was a bench behind him somewhere, he just had to find it with a grasping tentacle…

There.

He swung the marble bench around, slamming it into Victoria with all the strength he could muster. Bones snapped, and she cried out. She retracted her own tentacles, trying to pull away from him now, to get some space between them for her to heal.

He refused to let go, jerking her closer. “Victoria,” he said through a mouthful of blood; she’d loosened some of his teeth with a blow. “Stop this. We have the Book now. It’s over. Stop fighting and let us help you!”

A mix of greenish sap and red blood covered her face. She spat weakly, swaying in his grasp. “I’ll never surrender to the likes of you,” she grated out through split and swollen lips.

A thorn shot out of the bark skin of her torso, three feet long and thick as his wrist. It stabbed straight through his gut, just below the rib cage, tearing through muscle and organ to emerge out the other side.

The pain seemed oddly distant. His legs went weak; he was bleeding somewhere inside. His tentacles peeled away from her, and he stumbled back, sliding off the terrible thorn. A river of blood gushed out of the wound, and he fell to his knees.

It was bad, but he could heal. He just needed a moment. But his vision was going fuzzy and his limbs were refusing to work right.

Smoke billowed across the clearing, and sparks drifted on the wind. It had begun to rain at some point, the drops icy cold against his skin. He needed to…he needed to…

As if from the other end of a long tunnel, he saw Victoria stumbling closer to him, dragging the bench he’d hit her with. Heaving it above her head with a pained grunt, she said, “Die, you filthy creature.”

Then the marble came down on his skull, and everything went black.