“And what reason would that be?”
The pirate’s grin grows. “You’re looking for a weapon. Something you can control, some real power. Whether you mean to use that power for or against Mhoryga makes little difference to me.”
“You dishonor the princess with such talk.” Valtar’s voice pitches a whole degree lower, every inflection limned with threat.
“You don’t say.” Joro wrinkles his forehead. “Damn. Do you think she’ll ever forgive me?”
The words have no sooner left his mouth than an explosion of light bursts on the far side of the hall, close to the dais. Screams fill my ears.
Then darkness slams across my vision.
8
Rosie
Everything is confusion. Darkness, chaos, noise. The clamp of hard fingers around my arms, a sudden whirl of sickening motion.
I hit the ground hard, breath knocked from my lungs, feet tangled in my skirts. For some moments, everything around me seems to freeze, and I lie stunned, unable even to breathe. Then I draw a gasping inhale into my lungs and smell it:anti-magic. A powerful chemical smell that burns the nostrils and sickens the innards. That would explain why thescintilswent out—a blast like that, expelling so much anti-magic into the air, would easily break down any lesser spells like orb lights. A blast as strong as that would severely weaken even the more powerful protection wards, which means…which means…
A clash in my ears, echoing throughout the great hall. Metal on metal, but where did these weapons come from? We were so carefully searched and stripped at the gate! Then again, Valtar snuck in knives; who’s to say he’s the only one? Now that thebrilliantscintilsare out, the walls and ceiling reveal veins of luminous blue-greenmeorise, a rare dwarfish ore. It’s not enough light to fill the space, certainly not for human eyes. But my not-quite-human vision begins to make sense of the shadows around me. Men shout. Figures crash into one another. Vicious cries and hoarse screams bounce in echo from wall to ceiling.
“Prince Joro has betrayed us!” Alderin’s voice bellows from somewhere in the mayhem. “Find the princess! Defend the princess!”
I push up onto my hands and knees. I can’t crawl out of here, not in this outfit. I’ve got to get to my feet and somehow escape this madness. Where I’ll go for safety, I cannot guess—pandemoniac confusion surrounds me everywhere I turn. Numerous brilliantscintil-sticks flare briefly before the anti-magic fumes put them out again. By those brief flashes of light, I catch glimpses of lance blades and wide, fear-shot eyes. For a moment, I’m transported back to the home of my childhood. Back to that night, full of hellfire and screams, when dark shapes appeared suddenly overhead as they swooped down upon our village and shadowy figures in low-pulled hoods marched down the street, summoning flame to their fingertips. I hear my own childish voice screaming:Mama! Mama!
I grab the hair at my temples, struggling to push those memories down. I cannot go back there; I must stay in the present. I must do as I’ve done before and find a way to survive. A sob caught in my throat, I struggle upright, tearing a long rip in some layer of my skirts. Poor Philippa—if I survive long enough for it to matter, she’ll have her work cut out for her. I stagger three paces, half-blind, still uncertain where to turn, which way to go, when something slams into me.
No, not something.Someone.
I hit the ground once more, this time flat on my back. White light flares in my eyes, dazzlingly painful. I scream and turn away, then force myself to look again, taking in the smallscintilsuspended in a glass ball to protect it from the anti-magic. This is strung on a chain around the neck of Joro. Joro, who bends over me. Joro, who places one hand on my chest, pushing me into the floor.
“There you are, demon spawn!” His teeth flash in that dangerous smile. “You can’t get away from me so easy.”
I claw at his face, managing to cut his cheek with one of my damnably blunted nails. He curses, then lunges, both hands closing around my neck. “No more dragons,” he snarls. Spittle flies from his lips, spattering my face. “No more demons.”
My body spasms, desperate for air. His fingers tighten; I cannot wrench them free. I try to scream, but my vocal cords are crushed. I thrash and writhe, but he’s too heavy, all that weight pressing down on me, choking out my life. His eyes, fully dilated and full of murderous lust, gleam in that swayingscintilon its chain, encompassing the whole of my narrowing vision.
Suddenly I feel it. Deep down inside me. Deeper than any physical part of my reality, down in the depths of my soul.
Fire.
It builds, leaping from spark to flame, crawling up from that space of suppression, green and hungry and growing. The darkness on the edges of my vision ignites, and heat builds in my veins, my fingertips. I stare up into Joro’s eyes. See them widen. See the sudden reflection of green fire in his pupils, and—
His head jerks back, his throat exposed. A flash of steel in thescintilglow, and blood spurts from his opened neck. Hot and gushing, straight into my eyes.
Joro’s hands drop away. I choke, roll, struggling between thedesperate need for air and the equally desperate need to scream and scream and scream. Whatever that heat was inside me vanishes in an instant, replaced by sick revulsion and shuddering panic. I crawl from under the collapsed body on top of me. Then, swiping at my face with both hands, wiping away blood, pushing back locks of hair, I look up.
Valtar stands over me. Over the corpse of the Pirate Prince. That single smallscintilin its glass container casts him in an eerie glow. By that light he looks taller than ever, the looming specter of Death incarnate. One hand still holds a knife, dripping with fresh blood. He stares down at his prey, his lips rolled back in a hungry snarl.
Then he lifts his gaze. Those black-void eyes of his fix on me.
I feel as though I’m seeing him—truly seeing him—for the first time.
I don’t know how long I remain there, crouched in my torn skirts, staring up at that figure of both dread and salvation. Slowly, I become aware of the chaos in the hall dying down, of the anti-magic stink fading, ofscintillights coming back on, one after the other.
“Roselle!” the king’s voice cries out from somewhere behind me. “The princess, where is she?”
I stand. The swimming chamber comes into focus, and the first thing I see is Prince Taigan ripping one of the guardsmen’s lances out of the chest of a fallen Rassumen man. Beyond him, Prince Bryon holds a battered corpse upright with his bare, bloodied hands. There’s gore and violence everywhere I look, all memory of the dancing hall, of the beautiful courtiers, of music and celebration, obliterated. As though those were nothing more than a dreamlike facade over this dire reality.
