Bellanca sprinted for Eryx. He reached the double doors, and she threw sizzling magic past him. The wood went up in flames, and he turned, hauling Cleito roughly against his chest. His eyes burned as bright as the inferno behind him.
“You have nowhere to go.” Bellanca closed the remaining distance between them.
Eryx looked from side to side, cursing when he saw his guards huddled against the walls. His face twisted in fury, andhe lifted his sword to Cleito’s throat, forcing her chin up. “Stop, or I kill her.”
“Kill her and I killyou.” Deadly rage flattened Bellanca’s voice, and she flamed up without meaning to. She exhaled sharply, her head in a forge and her whole body the furnace. The still slightly damp cloth around her head saved her from the hot metal, but it wouldn’t suffice much longer.
Eryx backed a step toward the crackling doors. Sweat dampened his temples. “So if I give her to you, nothing happens to me?”
Bellanca hesitated. Wording could be crucial depending on the circumstances. “Give her to me, and you walk away right now.” She hadn’t planned on eliminating him yet anyway.
A muscle ticked in Eryx’s jaw. He tightened the blade to Cleito’s throat. A bead of blood welled up, and the Chaos Wizard’s golden eyes flared in panic. “Give me your binding word,” he growled.
Bellanca’s stomach dropped. Magic might’ve been gone from Atlantis for several generations, but some people still obviously knew that Magoi couldn’t break a binding oath without horrible—and permanent—suffering. But how much did he know? She chose her words carefully, hoping Eryx didn’t realize just how precise and thorough he had to make her be in order to eliminate the wiggle room she needed. “I vow to leave you alive tonight if you hand Cleito over to me right now.Alsoalive.”
Eryx’s nostrils flared. Bellanca’s pulse raced, shooting fire through her veins. A torturous amount of time went by, and she feared he’d ask for a more restrictive and paralyzing promise—one she wouldn’t be able to give him, even for Cleito. But then Eryx lowered his sword and shoved Cleito at her.
“She’s useless anyway.” He sheathed his weapon. “I’ll find the fourth ingredient without her.”
Cleito wobbled toward Bellanca and got behind her, hovering close. Just getting the Chaos Wizard away from Eryx brought instant relief to Bellanca’s magic-hot body. She cooled a little as she glanced over her shoulder. The other woman was the main victory she needed tonight. Her triumph over Eryx could wait until they both had magic and it was a fair fight—and a true conquest.
“We meet again,” Cleito murmured, smiling at Bellanca as though she were a long-lost friend and not a killer wearing the face of a monster.
Bellanca frowned behind her helmet. They’d never met. Cleito couldn’t know her.
The double doors finally cracked and fell to the floor in an avalanche of sparks and half-melted iron. The blaze faded as it ate up the timber and met unburnable marble. Eryx kicked a glowing plank out of the way and backed out of the throne room, his eyes on Bellanca.
She followed, knowing Cleito would stay with her. She might not be able to kill Eryx tonight, but there was no way she was leaving him unpunished for what he’d done to Carver.
She bared her teeth behind her helmet. No one had ever accused her of settling for anything less than an eye for an eye, and she began channeling the magic to make it happen. She learned it, sculpting it in her mind before trying to turn thought into reality. She’d never seen the use in molding fire magic into weapons or shapes before. People did it for show—and to show off—but why bother when plain old fire always did the job she wanted? Tonight required something different, and Eryx merited the extra effort. She smiled. She was no green Magoi and didn’t fear for a second she couldn’t do it. Eryx must’ve sensed her savage smile behind the harpy helmet, because he paled. It made her smile wider.
Bellanca imagined her usual magic as a long thin line, supple and sizzling. She shifted her focus from thought to action, and fire slid from her hand, unfurling until she held a red-hot whip that would give Eryx a taste of his own cruelty.
The whip jumped and crackled on the stone floor. Eryx’s eyes widened. “No…”
“Yes.” The most feral cry of her life exploded from Bellanca as she pulled back the whip and cracked it at Eryx. She didn’t care where she hit him. She just wanted him tohurt.
Eryx yelped. He flinched and leaped back, a red-hot burn streaking across his forehead. “You vowed!” Holding his head, he scrambled away from her. “You can’t! It’s not possible.”
His panic was music to her ears, his fear her cosmic chorus. Bellanca smiled, cold, hard, and vicious. She believed in second chances. Her whole life as she knew it now was the product of one—oneshe’dset into motion. Second chances were for people who showed remorse, who took action, who tried to be better, not worse. Second chances weren’t for people who casually tortured and murdered.
She stalked after him, this false king she would dethrone and eliminate. He didn’t deserve Atlantis. “I vowed to leave you alive tonight. Unharmed wasn’t part of the bargain.” Taking Eryx’s island would have to wait. Revenge for Carver didn’t.
She conjured a second fire whip in her other hand and sent it snaking around his ankles. She yanked, toppling him over. Eryx crashed to the floor with a gasp, the stench of burning flesh wafting off him. He flipped onto his hands and knees and started crawling away from her. Bellanca let the second whip dissipate as she lunged, grabbed the back of his tunic with her free hand, and burned it right off him.
“Not a single scar.” His perfectly intact back struck her as an insult to both Carver and Cleito. “Let’s remedy that.”
Backing up, she let fly a second lash. The fire whip hit Eryx’s shoulder blades, and he arched with a loud hiss that echoed into every corner of the entryway. She hit him again, and he cried out, trying to scuttle away from her. She followed. By the tenth hit, Eryx begged for her to stop. His words meant nothing. Teeth clenched, arm hot and ready, Bellanca struck again and again. Eryx dropped flat onto his stomach, howling and moaning. He lost consciousness just as she counted nineteen lashes. It was too bad he couldn’t feel the final hit, but she struck him a twentieth time anyway.Now, she was satisfied.
She shook out her hand, dropping the whip to the stone floor and letting it burn out rather than gathering the tainted magic back inside her. She turned. Cleito still shadowed her, and she definitely had an audience, but none of the remaining soldiers looked interested in interfering.
Taking a settling breath, she reached for Cleito’s hand with her now cool one. “Come with me. It’s okay. You have a friend waiting for you.”
Cleito didn’t hesitate to slip her hand into Bellanca’s and follow her, though she muttered, “Wrong. Not a friend. Usurper.”
Bellanca gave Cleito’s hand a light squeeze, trying to reassure her. “Eryx doesn’t deserve his throne. I promise to do better.”
“Usurper,” Cleito repeated.
