by Cait Spivey
“Well? Come and kill me, little sister.”
“You’re real now,” she whispered.
He tilted an ear toward her. “What was that? What did you say?”
She rushed at him and swung on his left for the neck, hoping to decapitate him in a single blow. He dropped his left shoulder back and parried rapidly, then backhanded her in the face. She stumbled backward, head ringing. She shook her head to clear it and charged him again, feinting a blow to the head and stabbing him in the gut when he went to block the high swing. She pushed her sword in to the hilt and twisted it, but Alcander only laughed—a high, grating sound that chilled her blood. He struck her on the top of the head with the end of his sword and shoved her away from him. She fell, but clung desperately to her sword. He brought his knee up and struck her under the chin. Blood filled her mouth as she bit her tongue on impact and she finally let go of the sword. Alcander kicked her and she rolled away from him.
“Empress!” screamed a nearby soldier. The woman threw herself at Alcander, who swung his sword almost lazily and cut her in half.
“No!” Guerline cried.
“Yes!” Alcander said. “What have you been doing since I left? They’re willing to lay down their lives for you. That’s quite good, Lina. You may be worth something after all. Or you might have been.”
Guerline coughed painfully. Her vision was swimming. She spat out blood and struggled to get up.
“No, no, stay down, Lina. This is not playtime,” Alcander said.
He kicked her in the jaw and her helm flew off. He reached down and put his sword in the ground, then pulled her mail hood back. He ran a swollen finger down her cheek.
“There we are. I almost didn’t recognize you in all this armor. This is my lovely sister, here.” His voice was almost gentle.
“Don’t touch me.” Her voice trembled. She spat more blood into his face.
He laughed again, apparently unfazed. Straddling her, he forced his hand into her hair and yanked her head back, staring wildly into her eyes.
“Stop me! I have power you have never dreamed of. I feel no pain. I have no weakness. I have conquered death. I am a god,” he said, breathing heavily. He lowered his hips onto her and pressed against her hard, cold armor. Her blood drained out of her limbs, sucked back into her heart and set on fire by the anger and revulsion boiling there. Hot rage shot through her body and strengthened her.
She kneed him in the backside, hooking her left hand under his remaining arm to fling him off of her. With her free hand, she pulled her sword from his gut and scrambled away from him. A rancid smell wafted over her as fluids and organs burst from the hole she had made in his stomach. Bile rose in her throat, but she choked it down. Alcander did not even seem to notice the damage to his body.
“I have met gods, Alcander, and you are not one of them.” She got to her feet. He seemed content enough to let her.
“So the unworthy always say,” Alcander replied. “But I was specially chosen.”
“Is that what the thing under the mountain told you, to make you forgive it for killing you?” she asked.
“It gave me immortality!” the dead prince shrieked.
“It gave you rot!” Guerline shouted back. “Look at yourself! You are vile. You could have been an emperor, a great ruler, and this thing has taken it from you and made you into a one-armed sack of gross flesh!”
Alcander roared and charged her. She dodged and slashed at him as he ran past. Her sword split the skin of his back.
“You’re nothing now, Alcander. You are just a murderous puppet. But I am the leader of a great army! This legion is under my command! I have brought them together, and they fight for me, for what is good and natural. You will never know what that means,” Guerline said. Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled onto her cheeks, streaking through the blood that stained her face and blurring her vision.
“I don’t think you ever did,” she said.
Alcander’s face twisted up in fury and he glared at her. “How dare you speak to me that way? You are worth nothing! You are the second child, a daughter, human and worthless! I am the right hand of a great and terrible power! You were not even important enough for my master to kill! You will not say such things to me!”
They rushed at each other and traded blows, the sounds of their battle echoing off the mountains. Guerline cut him many times, but he was too fast, and she could not find enough purchase to seriously damage him. He was stronger than her physically and had unearthly stamina. Her armor was strong, and his blows did not cut her, but she felt each one shudder through her body and rattle her bones.
He struck her to the ground again, and she clambered to her hands and knees, coughing. Her hair was coming loose from its braids and sticking to the blood on her face. Though she stared at the ground, she felt him approach and kneel next to her. She looked at his feet under her arm. He stuck his sword in the ground again; she realized why when she felt his fingers in her hair. He pulled her head back, but she kept her eyes on the ground.
“Look at me, sister.”
She didn’t move. He shook her head violently.
“Look at me!”
Guerline took a deep breath. Then, with all her remaining strength, she surged up, twisted her body, and swung her sword. The handle grew hot with magic, so hot she felt it even through her gloves. It sliced through Alcander’s neck without a sound. His body remained still for a moment, then slowly began to fall. Guerline frantically stumbled away from him. She stared in horror, mouth agape, at the headless body. His head was facing her, his eyes glazed over, his own mouth open. She went to it and rolled it over with her foot so that it looked away from her.
“I will not remember you this way, brother,” she said softly.
And then she vomited.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Before Guerline could cough the last of the vomit from her throat, something grabbed her by the neck and lifted her off the ground. She kicked and screamed, twisted her body, but her captor didn’t release her. She could feel fingers, human fingers, in a grip that was firm but not deadly. It wasn’t trying to kill her.
That was its first mistake.
She gripped her sword in both hands and stabbed upward. She had to get it to let go of her before they got too high, or she wouldn’t survive the fall. If it wasn’t killing her, it was taking her somewhere. All experience told her she didn’t want to go there, wherever it was.
Her sword wasn’t hitting anything—or if it was, her victim wasn’t reacting at all. She tried to look up and get it in view, but its grip on her neck was too restricting. Her feet started to go numb.
Color flashed around her and wind burned her cheeks. They were moving fast. What carried her? A witch, or some other hell-beast? The blue sky disappeared and she was surrounded by black. The air rushing past her got colder. Her heart sank to her tingling toes as she realized she was being taken under the mountain. She renewed her struggle to get free, jabbed her sword back, and swung her body around.
The blade stuck in something and a shriek echoed in the blackness. The fingers around Guerline’s throat slipped away. Guerline screamed as she fell, every muscle in her body tense.
The ground rose up quickly to meet her and her cry was cut short by the bright thud of her armor against rock. She pushed up onto her hands and knees, coughing and wheezing, trying to get air back in her lungs. If it weren’t for the pain in her chest, she might have been convinced that this entire adventure was a nightmare. There was no end in sight, and there never would be. Even if she survived this, she still had to rule Arido, and that meant that every grievance in the country would become hers. She’d never have peace. Even if her land flourished, she herself would never be able to rest. A moment’s rest for the empress could mean disaster for her country.
“Shh, now, little queen. I’m here. I’ll help you.”
She caught a whiff of her mother’s perfume. She breathed it in deep and sighed, then sat back on her heels.
“You should have chosen another guise. My mother and I were never close,” Guerline said.
She stood and held her sword ready, though she still couldn’t see anything in the blackness that surrounded her. Slowly, the darkness lifted and an expansive chamber came into view, illuminated by rolling luminescent smoke. A pale blonde girl with red lips and black eyes strode toward her out of the mist, smiling. Ianthe. Guerline did not lower her sword.
“Does this one please you?” the girl asked.
Guerline stayed silent. She mustn’t engage with the thing. If she gave it an opening, some way to get at her, she was done for. Her one comfort was that her survival didn’t mean much. As long as Lisyne and the others could complete the seal, it didn’t matter whether Guerline herself lived or died. Now, perhaps, she at least had an opportunity to distract the thing and give them more time.
“Do you want to know why I brought you here?”
The girl-thing smiled when Guerline gave no response.
“I know you do, so I’ll tell you even though you do not ask me. I brought you here because I wanted to see you. You have managed to exceed all my expectations of you.”
“Your talent for flattery is truly astounding,” Guerline snapped before she could stop herself. Her cheeks flushed and the girl-thing laughed.
“Truly, if I had any inkling you would have risen to the occasion with such fervor, I would have killed you much sooner,” Ianthe said. “When I first came to you, you were so obviously weak, such a victim of your family, I thought it would be cruel for you to never know freedom. I am not without compassion. But when I visited your court, how changed you were!”
Guerline frowned. “At court?”
“Aye, Lina. I came to you as a man,” Ianthe said.
The Giardan. Guerline glared at the thing and tried to bury her fear. “How were you able to get through before the gate fell?” she asked.
“I have always been able to get through Fiona’s curtain, in small ways,” Ianthe said. “Do not be so alarmed. I have patiently waited for this moment; it would hardly have served my purpose to wreak havoc before the proper time.”
Guerline bit the inside of her lip to keep from screaming at the creature and tightened her grip on her sword. Ianthe spotted the movement and stared at Guerline’s hand, then lifted her black gaze to Guerline’s face.
“You see Lisyne for the monster she truly is, I know you do. Yet you band with her to destroy me, when it was I who liberated you from your family? I who carried the soul of your lover into Ilys?” Ianthe whispered. “I’m merely trying to restore balance, Guerline. I am a natural part of this world, as much as Lisyne or Lirona or even you yourself! This world birthed me as well! Do I not deserve a place in it?”
The creature’s voice swelled in volume until Guerline’s ears burned. She put a hand over her ears and cried out until the pressure ceased. Her shaking glove came away bloody.
Fingers caressed her sweaty cheek and she looked up. Ianthe was right in front of her now, her hand resting lightly on Guerline’s skin, her wholly black eyes locked onto Guerline’s.
“I think you understand me, Guerline second-daughter, chattel-child,” she said.
She leaned in. Guerline’s fingers flexed around her sword handle, but her arms felt leaden and she couldn’t lift them. She couldn’t move as Ianthe kissed her lips. She braced herself, but the kiss was unexpectedly soft, gentle even. Warmth flooded her body, but panic rose in her chest. It was a lie; it was false. The thing was putting her under a spell. She summoned her strength and pushed away from the girl-thing, stumbled backward until she gained her feet again.
Ianthe was frozen with an expression almost like surprise for a moment, and then she slowly dropped the hand that had hung in the air.
The thing looked human to her in that moment, crestfallen. Guerline was seized with a hot lance of pity, a spike in her heart. Deep down, she did understand. Lisyne had called Ianthe the opposite of nature, but how had she come into being if not through nature? Would it be different if the thing hadn’t been trapped for so long? Would she be less vengeful? Would the Aridans even think of her as bad, or would she simply be the other side of the coin of fate?
Had Lisyne ruined everything four thousand years ago?
Guerline lowered her sword, slowly. “Why didn’t you kill me, after you saw how I’d changed? You killed my parents, Alcander, why not me?”
The thing was silent for a moment. Guerline held her breath. Her panic returned, flushing out the pity like snowmelt rushing down a river. She should never have asked that question. That was exactly the kind of opening the thing wanted.
“Can you not guess, little queen?” she asked.
Don’t answer. Don’t say a word.
“It’s because I wanted you alive.”
Ianthe walked toward her again. Guerline lifted her sword and held it in front of her. The girl kept walking, eyes wide and manic. Guerline swung at her, but she caught her blade in her hand and stopped it flat. Ianthe stepped in close to her.
“I like my women with a lot of flesh.”
The last word dissolved into an echoing hiss that sent shivers up and down Guerline’s spine. She pushed her weight against the sword and watched it slice through the pale, stretched skin on the thing’s hand. The thing didn’t react at all—didn’t bleed, didn’t wince, didn’t let go.
Guerline felt faint, but she wouldn’t let herself pass out yet. She jumped back, yanking her sword from the Ianthe’s grip, and raised it high. She charged forward and struck at the thing’s head.
Before she made contact, the thing screamed and turned to look out at the far end of the cavern. Roaring filled the space and made Guerline’s head pound. She squinted at the girl-thing in the rising wind, but she—it—ignored her now. It burst into black smoke and whipped out of the cavern, taking the wind and everything else along with it. Guerline was plunged into blackness and silence again.
She waited a few moments and caught her breath before stumbling in what she thought was the direction of the exit. Luck was with her. She found a wall and kept her hand flat against it as she picked up her pace and tried to find her way out of the mountain. She wasn’t sure what was happening, but she had to get back to the fight, even if she could hardly see through the tears in her eyes.
Lisyne leapt into the air, panting heavily. Their spell steadily gathered strength, the column of white light spinning with great force. It was impossible for her to tell how the battle in the pass went. All her energy was focused on this one thing. She could feel the anxiety of the Kavanagh sisters, though. They were weakening the spell as they tried to cast out lines of awareness down to the field. Angrily, she dragged them back and demanded that they focus. Guerline, Desmond, and the others in the pass only had a chance of survival if those on the hill completed the seal.
The witches doubled down on the spell. They had all stopped chanting. The spell was in them and around them now, gathering power and waiting to be launched upon the enemy. They couldn’t hold it too long or it would sap them all of their strength, but Lisyne was loath to cast the spell before she got a glimpse of the thing. There were places in the mountain where it could hide, or it could slip into some other part of the world under the mountain, and avoid getting hit. If she could hit it squarely and wrap it up in the spell, it would be easier to bring it down.
Something struck her on the back of the neck, searing her skin. She growled and turned out of the circle, one hand stretched toward the column to maintain her connection with it. Two blonde women in yellow gowns were flying around them, firing blasts of purplish-black energy down at the spellcasters.
“The Maravilla twins!” Olivia shouted.
Lisyne growled again and broke her connection. She bent her knees, preparing to launch herself into the air to eviscerate these miserable excuses for witches. The Kavanaghs cried out, though, and Lisyne glanced back to see the column wavering out of control. Cursing, she leapt back into the spell, immediatel
y stabilizing it.
Damn it. She couldn’t leave the spell. She was the strongest of them, and the others couldn’t hold it without her. Tirosyne and Seryne, too, would have to keep their hold. It was up to the Kavanaghs to dispatch the twins, and quickly, without using too much of their own power. That power was needed for the seal.
Olivia pulled herself out of the spell and swept her arm through the air. A strong wind knocked the twins out of the sky; while they stumbled to their feet, Olivia danced through them and sliced their yellow sails, grounding them. Lisyne held the spell with one hand, watching the battle intently. The Maravillas each drew double short swords and advanced on Olivia. Four blades to one were not good odds, but Olivia also had Neria’s Shield. She swung the shield off her back and onto her arm just in time to block one of the twins’ attack. The three witches traded blows too fast for a human eye to see, magic sent to their limbs to increase speed and strength. Olivia’s sword made no sound, not even when glancing off armor, so the first twin did not even notice that she had been stabbed until she saw the blood on Olivia’s withdrawn blade. Olivia raised Silence for the killing blow, but it never landed.
The second twin drove both swords into Olivia’s back.
They hung there, the second twin holding herself aloft with her sword hilts sticking out of Olivia’s shoulders. They had sliced through the straps that held the breast and back plates together and slid through her mail into her flesh. Olivia fell to her knees, her sword falling from her hand. The twin put her foot in the center of Olivia’s back and pushed her to the ground, pulling her swords out in the process. Lisyne didn’t move, but she was vaguely aware of Aradia sobbing.
Olivia lifted one hand weakly, reaching toward the spell column. Blue light gathered at her fingertips and shot into the column. The column swelled. Then Olivia’s hand fell, and she was dead.