Murmurs rose up from the crowd in response, and Amma glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, my gods, blaming Xander? What a good idea,” she whispered.
“I know.” He was already grinning slyly at those below them, but his brow ticked upward at her. “But don’t forget, you’re meant to be terrified of me, not impressed.”
“Oh, right.” Amma let out a scream and tried weakly to flail out of his grasp.
“Infernal darkness, Amma, not right in my ear,” he groused under his breath, then chuckled deeply, laughter rising up in him and over the assembled, a dark sound that pulsed over Amma’s back and made her shiver with delight even with the dagger still hovering near her throat.
Up the stairs from between the bony feet of the soldiers, a tiny ball of grey fluff zipped out, and it clamored itself up Amma’s dress, hopping over her arm and onto her shoulder. The familiar rat perched there and addressed Damien, “Are we really doing this, Master?”
Damien’s laughter died off. “If we are, you’ll need to look a fair bit more frightening than that.”
Kaz gave a squeak of elation and propelled himself off of Amma’s shoulder, arcana sparking in the air as his body contorted, wings bursting forth so much bigger than she’d ever seen. With an explosion of smoke and sparks, Kaz was an imp once again, but the word did not do him justice, hovering with the beating of his wings and twice as big as any of the humans assembled. Clawed, horned, and horrible, Kaz’s arms trailed the ground, wind off his beating, leathery wings hot and rancid-smelling, and the crowd screamed in horror at his appearance.
“Nice illusion,” Damien said quietly, nodding to himself, then cleared his throat to address them all again. “It was a pleasure to abscond once with your pretty, little baroness, stealing her out of her bed in the middle of the night.” Though he still held the dagger to her neck, his free hand came up and slipped under her jaw, tipping her head up and back. His fingers pressed into her skin as he took a moment to look down on her, grin intoxicating so that she had to bite her tongue to keep from returning it and, worse, to keep from pressing her lips against his and having him right there in front of the gods, the undead, and everyone. “And now, it seems, I’ll be abducting her once again.”
“Ravenheart!” Cedric’s voice called out from the crowd. “You dare to steal the heart out of Faebarrow right before its people and lay waste to the land with your rotting army of undead?” He had pushed his way to the front and had that sword he always wore with the jewel-encrusted hilt in hand. “This shall not stand, villain!”
Damien made a questioning sound in the back of his throat, eyes lazily falling on the marquis. “Stealing the heart of Faebarrow? Laying waste to the land? Invading with an army?” He ripped his dagger away from Amma and pointed at Cedric instead. “Am I not only following in the footsteps of the villain who came before me, Caldor? It seems it takes one to know one. And it’s Shadowhart, by the way.”
Cedric was incensed, a look Amma had seen before and made her heart race faster than any weapon that could be brandished at her. He pushed against the line of skeletal soldiers that stood at the foot of the wide staircase. “You dare accuse me, accuse thecrown, of acting in the interest of evil? Yet you…you abduct the baroness only to…to bring her back and abduct her again?”
“Right. I did do that.” Damien brought the dagger back and tapped it against his chin in thought.
Cedric’s pushing abated for a moment, brow pinched. “It just seems quite complex and roundabout and unnecessary.” A low murmur of agreement rose up from the assembled, forgetting their fear. There was even a clattering of bones that seemed to suggest slight confusion.
Damien let out a growl, gesturing with the dagger flippantly. “Well, you know, sometimes you just need to have some fucking fun, all right?”
Amma was spun off into Kaz’s overlong arms then as Damien sheathed the dagger and stalked down the steps toward where Cedric stood. She reached out, but the overgrown imp squeezed her in place, surprisingly strong for what Damien had called an illusion, not to mention terrible smelling. She choked as she tried to call out and could only watch as Damien pulled a bloody hand through the air as a crimson sword appeared in it. The metal glinted like liquid under the low, red lights all around them, so similar to the time in Elderpass when he had slain the succubus.
The skeletal soldiers parted just enough to allow Cedric to charge him, and Amma finally worked out a scream as the two fell against one another. Matched, their weapons clanged together, loud with a searing sound, both urged on by magic. Cedric was a mage in his own right, something Amma had failed to mention to Damien, but it did nothing to stop the blood mage as he bore down on the marquis from a step above.
Cedric murmured some arcana then, and his blade pulsed, pushing Damien back. He reeled to the side, both standing staggered on the steps to face one another. Damien looked surprised, and then he grinned wickedly, hand flexing around his hilt, blood dripping off of it. “Whatisthat, Caldor? Not of this realm, certainly.”
“I’ve been blessed by Osurehm and Archibald himself,” Cedric called back, raising his weapon overhead and swinging with a swiftness that a sword so heavy should not have had. “Not to mention the blood of a dominion runs through the Caldor line.”
Damien threw up his own arcane weapon to block Cedric’s as it came down, and a black mist enveloped the two as a yellow light sparked out from inside it.
Amma’s gaze honed in on Tia then, the guard attempting to cut her way through the undead. With her crest of the twisted liathau across her chest, they only pushed her back, deflecting her blows and never swinging on her, so she was able to dodge and run through the ever-thinning crowd of shrieking bureaucrats, cowering merchants, and fallen Brineberth soldiers. The guard’s eyes were on fire as she focused on her target, switching from Amma, trapped in what appeared to be a demon’s grasp, to Damien, caught against Cedric with his blade.
There was an arcane blast as the men pushed off one another, staggering backward at least twenty paces apart. Cedric laughed then, a smile across his face. “You’ll pay for the damage you’ve caused with your life!” His arm and weapon pulsed with an odd, grey aura, distorting both.
“Did you say dominion, Caldor?” Damien gestured with his sword, face screwed up, no longer standing defensively but intrigued. “That’s rather vile to be divine, isn’t it?”
Gripping his weapon two handed, the veins in Cedric’s neck pulsed. “Vile? Your attempt at stealing my property,”—and at this he jerked his head toward Amma though never looked at her—“is the truly vile thing here.”
Damien gave his eyes a hefty roll. “Well, if you’re going to talk like that.” With his free hand, he gripped the red blade and slid it upward, cutting into his palm. When the blood dripped down his arm and a violet sizzle rose up from the wound, Cedric’s face fell.
“A blood mage?” he gasped. “Demon spawn?”
“Nice of you to finally catch on, but I’m getting bored now.” Damien released the palmful of blood he’d collected, throwing it at Cedric to form thin, swirling blades in the air. Cedric threw his own forearm up, and a glint of golden light flashed, the blades breaking against it as he grunted in pain. One of them got through, slicing up Cedric’s arm, his dress coat shredded, blood spattering, skin blackened from the arcana in the spell. Damien stood a bit straighter, and he grinned.
But then Amma noted Tia, even closer. A few more swings, and she would be thrusting her own sword at Damien too, sans arcana, but full of her unyielding rage. Amma didn’t know if the undead would allow her to continue her onslaught without fighting back, or if they let her through, how Damien might juggle the two of them.
“Tia!” she shrieked, reaching out both arms and flailing in Kaz’s grasp, the only distraction she could think of.
She slowed for a moment, eyes flashing in fear at the distress in Amma’s voice, but her call did its job, alerting Damien of the guard’s presence. He immediately pulled back up the steps as the undead fell between himself and Cedric once more, creating a barrier that Damien could turn his back on.
“Get back here, villain!” cried Cedric, swiping with his sword. A pulse of arcana cut into the soldiers before him and pushed them back up the stairs, one actually clattering to the ground in a heap of bones. “Fight me like a real man and discover what this power is for yourself.”
