“You can’t promise that, my lady,” someone shouted. “Just step aside. It’s the duchess we want.”
Araceli had told me to wait for her, but I couldn’t wait. This crowd looked on the verge of exploding.
I threw open my window. “Ican promise you that I’m going to throw the slavers out of the city. Under my leadership, the royal treasury will completely pay off its debt. Here’s a down payment!”
I dumped the duchess’s jewelry box out the window. As I’d hoped, the stampede for the jewelry distracted the entire crowd, including those holding the battering ram.
Donya’s eyes jerked over to me. “Get back inside!” she cried, her voice faint over the chaos.
“I have everything under control,” I said.
An old man near the front of the mob pointed at me. “Don’t be fooled! She’s trying to distract us. She’ll never keep her promise. Get her!”
Ha, it wasn’t like they could do anything to me while I was several stories above them.
Someone below hurled a rope. It glowed golden, likely due to someone using their gift. The rope fastened around my wrist and yanked me over.
I had seconds to regret all my life choices as I fell.
I landed directly on one of the spikes of the fence surrounding the palace. My gift made my skin bend so the metal didn’t pierce me. Then I bounced.
What a wonderful moment to confirm my gift still worked even though I wasn’t in my own body. The buoyancy made me a bit lightheaded. I wasn’t out of danger yet. The mob screamed incoherently. As I landed on an adjacent spike, it slid off my rubbery skin, and I tried to grab it. No matter what, I must land on the side of the fence away from the mob.
My sweaty hands slipped. Flipping around in the air, my bottom landed on another spike and bounced again. This time I managed to kick the fence.
I fell backward. After landing on the snow below, I bounced three times before I lay still on my back. My life flashed before my eyes. It was mostly boring, except for after I became the duchess.
Snow soaked through my dress as I stared up at the mob, fortunately on the other side of the fence. Unfortunately, several people held bows and arrows and could easily shoot me from between the bars. Though winded, I got to my feet, prepared to run.
“It’s a miracle!” the old man cried. “The Sun God saved the Blood Duchess! She must have truly changed her ways.”
Donya may not have been skilled at deception, but she successfully seized the perfect cue. “It’s true! The duchess has repented for her bloody past. All the royal family’s debt will be repaid. We will also be paying interest in order to compensate for any hardship you incurred due to our late repayment.”
An “Oooooh” ran through the crowd.
For a moment, I thought myself safe.
Then a young child threw a fist-sized rock at me. It sailed through the fence bars and smacked me in the forehead, catching me completely unprepared.
I felt blood dripping down my face and swayed, woozy from the pain. But I feared falling over and passing out. If I did, then the illusion of a miracle would be broken. My vision blurred and doubled.
An odd silence fell over the crowd. A cold breeze ran through the air, slashing at the cut on my face. The moment teetered on the edge of violence.
Then Araceli ran out the palace door. “More debt repayment! Get in line!” Guards followed her holding candlesticks and vases and other knickknacks snagged from around the palace. “We need to record the names of each person and the value of what they receive.”
Oh yeah, I probably should have thought of that. We definitely didn’t have enough money to pay everyone twice if people decided to lie. People might also lie about their names, but that sounded like a problem for Araceli to handle. My problem at the moment was remaining vertical.
Whether from the promise of money or the threat of the guards, people started to line up in an orderly fashion. Quite a few of them slunk off into the shadows, including the one who’d thrown a rock at me. I would consider those the smart people. The real Blood Duchess would have been collecting names for a far more sinister reason.
Araceli pulled me to my feet. “You’re either crazy or a fool,” she said, but I would swear there was a note of approval lurking behind her words.
“I can be both,” I said, then passed out against her shoulder.
I woke up lying on my back in bed.
Looking at my pale hand, I briefly wondered who had painted my nails and why my skin color had changed. Ugh, did my joints feel unusually sore? Why was my head heavy from excess hair? Who’d hit me on the forehead?
Reality came rushing back to me. I must have survived the mob, because I was back in my bedroom. The duchess’s bedroom. Same difference. I felt nauseous. I’d nearly died, and it was all the fault of this stupid body. It hadn’t worked properly or been fast enough when I’d needed it the most. Ripples of fat sagged off my bones. I glanced at my tummy, felt sick, and looked away. It wasn’t my body. I didn’t like it. I didn’twantto be the Blood Duchess. I had a mad desire to rip off my skin and throw this whole body away.
