“Yadvir!” Vanya yelled. “The spell!”
Vanya looked up in time to watch the snarl on Alida’s face change to a twist of agonized confusion, choking on a wet sort of gasp. She looked down at the blade sticking out of the center of her chest, the poison on it impossible to see through the blood. Alida raised a shaking hand but never managed to touch the edge of what had killed her before Soren yanked it out of her body. She collapsed to the floor in a heap, blood pooling on the floor beneath her lifeless body.
The shadows slipped away from Soren’s body like water, dragging him back into focus beneath the flickering illumination of starfire above. Soren had his right arm outstretched, fingers hovering over the back of Artyom’s neck. Vanya didn’t know what to expect—poison or another secreted blade. Certainly not the starfire that curled around Artyom’s head and face like a hungry beast.
Vanya froze, staring as Artyom jerked away from Soren, the starfire following his every move even as the warden dropped his sword and twisted around to yank the pistol from Artyom’s hand. Then Soren wrenched Raiah from the other man’s other arm as Artyom clawed at his burning face, and Vanya watched—
He stared—
—as starfire he hadn’t cast cascaded over Artyom’s body, consuming the man with a contained degree of heat and power no House other than Vanya’s had been able to muster in several generations.
That’s not possible.
The thought slid through Vanya’s mind, disbelief and something worse leaving him kneeling there in shock, nausea heavy in his gut. Vanya wrenched his gaze from Joelle’s burning, dying heir to where Soren stood, holding Raiah in his arms, bruised face pale and gray eyes haunted.
“Vanya,” Soren rasped, stepping forward.
He didn’t know what to say when faced with a betrayal that cut deeper than Alida’s. Words died on his tongue, a strange roaring in his ears that Vanya couldn’t hear past. There was an ache in his chest he couldn’t comprehend in that moment—like the worst of grief settling in his bones.
If he could have found the words, he might have given voice to things he couldn’t take back. But Yadvir pitched himself into the room just then, wild-eyed and panting, clutching his wand. “Your Imperial Majesty?”
Vanya packed up the tangle of emotions and shoved it all aside. He hauled Javier with him when he stood, the captain only half-conscious and needing his wound tended to, but they didn’t have time for that. He pitched Javier into Yadvir’s arms. “Take him. Wait for us in the hall.”
Yadvir dragged Javier’s good arm over his shoulder and left without a word. Then it was only Vanya, Soren, and Raiah left alive in the room, bodies between them, the walls scorched black. Vanya stared at Soren across a distance that felt as if it grew and grew with every breath he took and nothing in him was capable of bridging it.
“Give me my daughter,” Vanya finally said, the order coming out hoarse. Soren didn’t hesitate to hand Raiah over, her limp, sleeping form passed between them. Vanya clutched her close, listening to the soft sound of her breathing in the silence. He looked at where Soren stood so close, but it was as if Vanya didn’t even know him. “You lied to me.”
Soren’s expression twisted as he raised one hand between them, dropping it when Vanya took a step back. “Vanya—”
“You will get us all out,” he cut in, biting out the words. “You are the only warden in Calhames, and you will do your duty.”
Soren pressed his lips into a hard line, clenching his hands into fists to hide the way they shook, but Vanya had seen the way they trembled. “Of course.”
When they stepped out into the hallway, he found Cybele tending to Javier’s shoulder, having ripped her gown at the hem to make padding with which to try to stop the blood flow. Of thepraetorialegionnaires who’d gone with them after Raiah, only Javier had survived, and his continued survival was questionable.
“I don’t think it hit an artery, but he needs a doctor,” Cybele said shakily.
“Soren will coordinate with the Legion outside once we’re back with the others,” Vanya said, studiously not looking at the warden. “The revenants need to be contained and eradicated. Once it’s safe to move, we’ll evacuate everyone who secured themselves somewhere in the palace.”
Their way to the palace gates needed to be cleared first. Vanya wasn’t risking Raiah’s life in a fight to leave the palace. If that meant Soren had to corral and trap whatever revenants remained in the palace, then so be it.
The dead were his duty, after all.
In the end, Vanya was grateful for whatever sedative Alida or Artyom had given Raiah, for she slept in his arms through the nightmare retreat back to that room where Taisiya was hidden, through the hours of waiting as a way out was cleared for them and everyone else who had sought safety in a palace that had become a grave and managed to survive.
Raiah slept and never knew just how tightly Vanya held her, dry-eyed in his anger and second-guessing all the moments in the past where he’d handed her over to Soren for safekeeping. She slept through every fraught step Vanya took on his way out of the palace when Soren finally came for them hours later with the Legion at his back.
When they reached the palace gates, their group surrounded on all sides bypraetorialegionnaires, general-ranked legionnaires, and automatons, Vanya handed Raiah to Taisiya, studiously not looking at where Soren stood. Hisvalide’s eyes flicked from him to the warden and back again, something curious in her gaze. But she asked no questions, only cradled Raiah close, and let thepraetorialegionnaires sweep them to safety.
“Your Imperial Majesty, we have a motor carriage waiting,” an officer said, practically vibrating with the need to get Vanya past the gates.
“In a moment.” Vanya turned to face where Imperial General Chu Hua stood on the street, looking at him with such relief in her face. “Is everyone out?”
Chu Hua nodded grimly. “The survivors are clear.”
“Did any revenants get past the palace gate and walls?”
“We’re not sure, but right now, no one has sounded any alarms. We’ll be initiating a search shortly.”
