Raleigh, where was Raleigh?All of my muscles screamed in protest as I moved my head to search for him.They felt disused, as if they had atrophied in the time I’d lain there.When I found Raleigh, he was paralysed.
‘Clara!’His scream was too loud.I gritted my teeth, bracing against the echo in my eardrums.Everything was too much.My mouth felt too full.I ran my tongue over my teeth, then froze, clarity washing through me like poison.
I clamped my mouth shut before the Queen could notice, but Raleigh already had.His horror condensed to something deeper,something feral, then bled away to something unreadable.He lowered his sword.His order had been fulfilled.
I was dead by his hand.
‘Fight, Clara.’The command ran through me, but it was no hypnosis.There was no sticky haze, only clarity.This wasn’t a command from a vampire to an entranced thrall.It was the command of a sire to his spawn.
‘I don’t believe that was my order.’The Queen approached Raleigh, grabbing him by the collar and spinning him to look at her.‘My order was for you to kill her, not stand here and watch her die of whateverthisis.’She waved a hand at me as I rolled over, hiding my face from view.‘I want her dead by your hand.’
‘My orders are fulfilled.’He jabbed his sword at her, but she dodged him easily and grabbed his throat, her nails pressing crimson crescents into his flesh.
‘I’ll have your eyes for that.’
‘You won’t have the chance,’ Raleigh rasped.
The Queen began to laugh, but behind her, I was already dragging myself to my feet.It felt like I was moving through sludge, but time was dragging too.
My knife.I needed my knife.
The Queen’s laugh pierced my ears, so shrill I wondered how I’d endured it before.I screwed my eyes closed and reached under the tomb again.This time my hand struck silver.
It felt like removing something from a hot oven.Though my gloves protected me from the worst of it, the silver threatened to melt my flesh if I dared hold it too long.I forced myself not to look, knowing that if I saw my own weapon everything would be over.
Dread washed over me.Terror.Behind my eyelids my greatest fears played out before me.Raleigh, broken, tortured, forced to live.Moira and Enrique strung up and unrecognisable from their own fate.My father, Yann, the people of Orlfen bled dry like cattle.I forced myself to watch, to endure, knowing that if I didn’t they’d become real.And with all the will I had, I forced my arm forward and brandished the crucifix carved into the blade.
The Queen and Raleigh both recoiled in unison.She let go of him in her attempt to shield her eyes.
‘I said.Don’t.Touch.Him.’
The Queen hissed.She vanished, and then a rushing force had me flying across the room.I crashed into a statue.Felt the marble crumble around me.I tried to push past my daze to rise to my feet, but she was already there.She grabbed me by the collar of my coat, then hurled me back to the ground.Sharp pain exploded in my chest.I gasped, choking on the conflicting sensation of my body trying to catch its breath and the fact that I no longer knew how to breathe.
‘Pathetic,’ she said and brought her foot crashing down on my ankle.
I screamed, white pain blinding me to everything else as the bone shattered.Every individual splinter sliced through muscle in wave after wave of agony.
‘Leave her alone!’In her distraction, her hold over Raleigh had slipped.He ran at her, brandishing his sword, but all she did was raise one hand.Raleigh halted.His limbs shook, face contorted in the effort to fight against his bonds.
‘Give me the sword,’ she said calmly.
Raleigh hesitated for a long moment, but finally her hold over him won out.He slowly and shakily lowered the sword into her waiting hand.
Her fingers closed around the steel hilt as though it were forged for her.‘Good boy,’ she said, then drove the blade into his stomach.
A deafening noise sliced through the air and it took me a moment to realise it was my own scream.Raleigh staggered backwards, mouth open and quivering.The Queen withdrew the sword, just as Raleigh had done to Lukas, and repositioned the blade just over his unbeating heart.I dragged myself to my feet, but my ankle quivered under my weight, then collapsed.I could feel the splintered bone puzzling itself back together.Too slow.I’d never make it.
‘You really were my favourite toy.’She pressed the blade in, just enough to pierce the first layer of skin.
Raleigh screwed his eyes shut.
‘It’s such a shame to lose you.’
I clawed closer.My pain was nothing.
‘But you did this to yourself.’She gave one final terrible smile.
Then something shattered.
