Serina stumbled back, into Gia. They tumbled to the hard floor, cracking elbows and hips. Belatedly, she became aware of the din; the other guards were cheering Diego on.
Val squeezed Diego tighter, until he squirmed and his face went purple. At last, when the guard’s eyes were on the verge of rolling, Val let him go.
Diego slumped against the bars, coughing and sputtering. His ruddy cheeks stayed an ugly purplish red, clashing with the tan of his bald head. He was maybe forty, with the kind of muscle made for violence.
Another of the guards shouted, “Come on, Val. Let us out. We’ll give you a good fight before we kill your treasonous ass.”
Val’s face was flushed, his glare murderous. It took him a while to compose himself enough to answer. “You’re lucky no one’s killing yours, Carlo.”
Serina’s legs shook. There were seven guards locked in their own small rooms. All but one of them dangled their arms through the bars and stared at her, their expressions eager, like ravenous dogs.
Slowly, she untangled herself from Gia, and together they stood up, careful to stay well away from Diego’s reach. The other girl who’d been on guard duty had escaped down the hallway to the door. Serina didn’t blame her. She sent Gia after her, with a whispered “I’m okay” to the girl’s raised brow.
Then Serina drew Val in the opposite direction, toward the storage rooms. He moved sluggishly, probably resisting the urge to beat Diego senseless.
“Is it safe here?” Serina asked quietly. Her scalp burned.
Val ran a hand through his hair. His cheeks were still an angry red. “It should be,” he answered. “We took anything they could use as weapons. They can’t get out of the cells. You’ve got all the keys to the doors. I made sure there weren’t copies anywhere.”
“We should remind everyone to stay back from the cells,” Serina said, shivering.
“Yes.” Val ran a hand down her arm. “Are you okay?”
“Just shaken.” Serina glanced back at the men, who were still yelling insults. “I guess we have to feed them.” This was meant as a joke, but it didn’t quite come out that way. It seemed a shame to waste their precious rations on men who wanted to kill them.
“If we run out of rations, they can be the first to starve,” Val said mildly.
Serina glanced at him. His betrayal of the other guards didn’t appear to weigh on him; in fact, he seemed lighter now, more at ease, than she’d ever seen him.
“Did you want this to happen?” she asked softly. “You seem so comfortable with rebellion.”
Val paused before an unlocked cell housing the rest of the burlap bags of rations.
He took her hand, gently, and stepped into the small patch of bare floor in the cell, where they were out of sight of the guards. “Did I want a rebellion?” he murmured. “Yes. I hated this job, this life. Every day felt like penance for not getting here in time to save my mother. Every day was agony, watching more girls die.”
“And now that’s all over,” Serina murmured. “No one else will die.”
“No one else,” he agreed.
She drifted closer, until only a breath separated them. Adrenaline still rocketed through her body, but the signals it was sending had changed. Their hands shifted, separated. She moved hers to his shoulders, ignoring the pinch of her injured ribs. His slid to her waist.
Her pulse fluttered in her throat.
“Serina…”
“You said you thought there was something between us,” she said, her voice thick. “I said I needed time to sort it out.”
“Yes, that’s true,” he murmured, and his eyes darkened, and he stared at her mouth.
“What if I told you that things are different now? Now that you’re not a guard, and I’m not a prisoner?”
His fingers drifted to her bruised cheek. The lightest touch but somehow it still stoked a fire. Only, it wasn’t the fiery pain she’d been managing for hours now. It was something else. A fire that burned without hurting at all.
Their first kiss had been impulsive. Fleeting.
Serina had begun that one, and she began this one now, leaning forward until their lips just touched.
Val’s answer to her question came as a gentle pressure, an affirmation. He kissed her back slowly, sweetly, and let her take her time.
Serina’s belly filled with heat. She wanted this moment to last forever, to block out all the horrors of the night before, all the blood and death and pain. To block out the guards’ harsh voices, the memory of Diego yanking on her hair.
And for a few precious seconds, it did.
When she drew back, Val opened his eyes, and they were soft and lazy, as if he awoke from a dream. “I’m glad you sorted it out,” he said.
She kissed him again, a quick, laughing kiss, because he had been right the first time. Happy. As implausible as it seemed, she was happy, despite Diego’s attempts to derail her. She had Nomi. And she had Val.
“Come on,” she said, moving to the door without picking up a bag. “The guards can go without rations until the morning. Won’t kill ’em, right?”
Val nodded decisively. “Right.”
Bolstered by their kiss and anxious to see Nomi again, Serina found it easy enough to ignore the guards as they headed back down the hall. The shouts of “I’m going to kill you” and “You’re dead, flower” had lost their power to frighten her.
FOUR
NOMI
“I CAN’T STAND it in here any longer,” Maris said as she paced their corner of the infirmary. She stared at the women lying prone at the other end of the makeshift infirmary. One of them was moaning incessantly. Hopelessly.
Nomi squeezed Malachi’s limp hand. He was still too pale. Too still. “I’m afraid to leave him. What if… what if the others don’t listen to Serina? What if they try to hurt him?”
“I know you’re worried.” Maris ran both of her hands through her hair, obsessively finger-combing out the tangles. “But what if we stand just outside? For a moment, for some fresh air? We’ll keep him in view.”
She had always kept her agitation deeply hidden. But now she looked as if her very skin were a restraint she wanted to tear free from.
Nomi hated to leave Malachi alone, but she couldn’t bear to see Maris so distressed. She stood up, her gaze still pinned to the movement of Malachi’s chest. Up and down, up and down. Almost steadily. The moaning bothered her too, and the coppery smell of blood. Fresh air would do both Maris and Nomi good. “Just for a moment.”
Maris led the way to the door, almost running in her haste. Nomi kept her eyes on the golden square of daylight and away from the shifting, miserable women trying to live through their wounds.
Daylight broke upon her, and the scent of plumeria and a lit match, like a scented candle just blown out. The burnt smell came from the volcano, she assumed. Maris stopped near the crumbled fountain, tipped her head back, and closed her eyes.
Nomi stayed closer to the doorway, but she took deep breaths of the fresh, fragrant air.
Women filed through the courtyard, directed by Anika and others. Nomi looked for Serina but didn’t see her. Instead, strangers passed, women dressed in ragged, sleeveless shirts, in boots or flimsy slippers, with spears and makeshift knives in their hands. Some carried handfuls of citrus fruit pressed into their chests. One woman, tall and sturdy, carried some kind of carcass over her shoulder.
Suddenly, a flash of blue cut through the gathered women like an arrow. A girl threw herself at Maris, so hard they both tumbled to the ground.
Nomi put her arms up, to protect herself or hide from whatever carnage befell her friend. A coward’s reaction.
Maris screamed breathlessly. “Helena!”
Nomi dropped her arms.
Helena? As in, the girl Maris was in love with?
Helena’s sunburned, freckled hands framed Maris’s face as she kissed Maris’s cheeks, her forehead, her mouth. The two girls melted into each other, their bodies twining like vines along the dusty g
round.
Nomi blushed and shifted her gaze to the worn marble woman in the fountain, giving them what privacy she could. Maris had told Nomi about Helena, about how they’d had a plan to bring Helena to the palazzo as Maris’s handmaiden so they could be together. But Maris’s father had discovered them and forbade it, sending Maris to the palazzo alone. Maris hadn’t known what had happened to Helena, had assumed she’d never see her again.
Nomi’s chest filled with unexpected joy. Maris and Helena had actually found each other.
And that wasn’t the only miracle. Serina was free. Malachi still breathed.
For now.
Nomi glanced toward the doorway of the infirmary, but she couldn’t bear to return to its dim, blood-choked air just yet.
Maris and Helena surfaced from their embrace, pink-cheeked and grinning.
Nomi had never seen Maris happy, not really, not like this. Not with the kind of brilliant, joyful smile that reached her eyes. She looked like a different person, or the same person washed clean.
Asa had never made Nomi smile like that, she realized, and the thought brought her comfort. She’d cared for him, trusted him when she shouldn’t have, but she hadn’t loved him. Not the way Maris loved Helena. That made it easier to hate him now.
“I didn’t know you were here,” Maris said to Helena, her voice still breathless. She stood up and brushed off her dusty dress, her gaze never leaving Helena’s. “I thought you’d be married off, that your parents—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Helena said, tucking a strand of Maris’s hair behind her ear. Her own hair was a ragged sandy-blond mop. “I can’t believe you’re here. I thought I’d never see you again, and you’re here.” She touched Maris’s face, as if reassuring herself that she was not a dream.
“My father turned you in, didn’t he?” Maris asked, the breathlessness gone. “He turned you in, even after I did everything he demanded. Didn’t he?”
Helena raised one shoulder and let it drop. “I don’t know who did. They came for me in the middle of the night. My father didn’t try to stop them.”
Maris buried her face in Helena’s shoulder. They wrapped their arms around each other.
Nomi’s heart ached. Helena’s own father had let her be taken?
She didn’t want to think about what her parents would have done if they’d known she could read and write.
Serina appeared at the head of the path, speeding up when she noticed the commotion.
“Are you well?” she asked when she reached Nomi’s side. She glanced at Maris and Helena, who still stood within each other’s arms.
“Fine,” Nomi said, smiling. “We’ve had another reunion.”
Serina relaxed. “And how is Malachi?”
“He hasn’t woken up yet,” Nomi said. “Maybe you can see if there’s anything more we can do?”
“Of course,” Serina replied.
Nomi and Serina ducked into the infirmary, leaving Maris and Helena in the sunlight.
Nomi stood in the center of a ballroom. Lights glimmered. Colors flashed. She was the only point of stillness in the room; dancers surrounded her, twisting and twirling. She noticed, with growing unease, their masks—not the sparkling masks of the masquerade, but heavy black ones with slits for eyes. Executioner masks.
Her gown was the color of old blood. Heavy. Constricting. She tried to move, but it held her fast.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Before her, the Superior sat on a raised dais. He, unlike his guests, wore no mask. His thin, ill face stared straight forward. Straight at her.
Three figures sat beside him.
Malachi.
Renzo.
Serina.
They wore black. No masks. Blank, dead eyes.
Nomi gasped. She pulled against the cage of her dress. Couldn’t move.
The dancers didn’t slow. They twirled around her, oblivious, their black masks turned toward their partners, expressionless and eerie.
Through the crowd, one figure moved with purpose. He noticed the people on the dais. He noticed her. As he reached the Superior, Asa turned and met her panicked gaze. He moved to stand behind his father. Then he drew his dagger and slit his father’s throat.
Nomi tried to scream.
No sound came out. The musicians didn’t falter. The dancers didn’t deviate.
Asa moved down the line. His mild expression didn’t change. And he never looked anywhere but straight at her.
Nomi felt the pressure of a sob building in her chest, but it had no outlet. She couldn’t move, couldn’t scream, couldn’t save them.
Asa calmly slit Malachi’s throat.
In silence, the Superior and his son bled across the dance floor. Their blood eddied like a river; it stained the delicate slippers and fine leather boots of the dancers. It rippled toward Nomi’s red dress and her dirty bare feet.
Her heart pounded frantically; her muscles strained.
Asa smiled.
The dagger slid across Renzo’s tan skin. His blood flowed red. Nomi lunged uselessly, railed uselessly, screamed silently as her soul churned in anguish.
Asa raised his knife to Serina’s smooth throat. Nomi went blank with rage.
And somehow her scream broke through.
She could hear it, echoing. Broken with despair.
Hands shook her.
Darkness swallowed Asa’s glinting smile.
“Nomi. Nomi! Wake up!”
She shot up, her lungs gasping in gulps of air. Her arms flung outward, as if they were tearing off restraints.
“Nomi, it’s okay. You’re safe.”
Nomi opened her eyes, and Serina was there, lamplight flickering across her face. Slowly the ruined ballroom, half-eaten by swirls of blackened lava, coalesced around her.
Serina held her shoulders. Val stood behind her, his expression haunted. Malachi slept a couple of feet away.
“You were screaming,” Serina murmured.
Nomi’s gaze found Malachi’s haggard face. “He didn’t wake,” she whispered.
“Don’t worry,” Serina said, and they were the words of an older sister, offering comfort for comfort’s sake. It was a gesture of love, not an assurance that there was nothing to worry about.
“I saw him,” Nomi mumbled, rubbing at her face. “I saw Asa. I saw him in my dream.”
“Nightmare,” Serina corrected. “That’s all it was.”
Nomi’s throat ached, as if she’d been screaming for hours. At the other end of the ballroom, figures shifted and sighed on pallets. She noticed a couple of the injured women staring at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to wake anyone.”
Reaction was setting in. Nomi could feel the burn of tears, the thickening in her throat.
Serina tugged gently on her arm. “Come on. Let’s get some air. Val will keep an eye on Malachi.”
Nomi pulled herself up and shuffled after her sister. Before they’d bedded down for the night in the far corner of the infirmary, Serina had given Nomi and Maris some threadbare shirts and pants so they could change out of their dirty gowns. Nomi appreciated the ease of movement, but she couldn’t shake off the heaviness of the dress in her dream, the paralysis it had forced upon her.
Maris had found a room in the hotel with Helena; Nomi wondered if she was sleeping soundly or fighting her own dark dreams.
Serina led Nomi through the moonlit dark to a spot at the edge of a cliff, where the wind blew their hair back and the waves crashed in rhythmic percussion below. Serina dangled her feet off the cliff. Nomi didn’t feel so brave.
She curled up next to Serina, close enough that she could lean into her side. Serina wrapped an arm around her.
“I had trouble sleeping my first night here too,” Serina said. “I was so terrified.…”
She told Nomi about the fight that first night, how shocking it had been. She told her about the lava tube, the way the rock weighed down on her.
“I imagined y
ou in a cell,” Nomi confessed, turning a small rock in her hand, its rough edges scraping the pads of her fingers. “You were confined, and angry at me, but you were safe enough. I had no—I had no idea you were fighting for your life. I felt so guilty, but this… Serina, I—”
Her sister cuddled her closer, easing the stiffness from Nomi’s limbs.
“None of us knew the danger in being a woman with a book,” she said softly. “And if you had known, would it have mattered? Could you have changed?”
Nomi burrowed into Serina’s shoulder, ashamed. “I don’t know.”
I don’t think so.
Nomi heaved a breath. “But if I’d known you would pay for my crime, I never would have taken that book. I never would have touched any book. You must believe me, Serina, I wanted to tell the truth. I wanted to tell them it was me. But Ines said it wouldn’t make a difference, that you would have been punished for lying instead.” Her voice shook. “All the plotting with Asa, it was all to get you out of here.”
“I think it’s time for you to tell me what happened,” Serina said. To her credit, she never moved away from Nomi. Her voice didn’t harden. Nomi still couldn’t understand how Serina didn’t hate her.
Her stomach twisted. She didn’t know where to start. “There’s so much. Asa, and Malachi… he gave me a book, except I thought it was Asa who had. Malachi wondered if I could read. It was a little mystery he tried to solve. And he did figure it out. He tempted me with a book of Viridia’s true history—”
“I don’t understand,” Serina interrupted. “Slow down, Nomi. You’re not making sense. What does Viridia’s history have to do with this?”
Nomi’s lip quirked sadly. “More than you’d think. We had queens once. Viridia had queens. Our first came from Azura. She was a woman, a warrior, who overthrew the corrupt ruling cardinal by seducing and poisoning him. She and her daughters ruled for two generations before their own advisors betrayed them. Erased them.”
Serina shook her head. “Of course they erased them,” she said. “They are still erasing us, every day. But I don’t know what this has to do with how you came to be here.”
Queen of Ruin (Grace and Fury) Page 4