Starbride didn’t wait for the heat to fade before she pitched her flash bomb. Another wounded cry came from the hallway. Pennynail leapt over the few tongues of flame that clung to the floor. Starbride ran after him and dug another pyramid out of her satchel.
A bearded man sagged in a doorway off the hall and grasped his face. He fumbled inside a satchel and clung to the doorjamb. Pennynail rammed the pommel of a dagger against the man’s forehead, and he slumped like a wet sack.
“Starbride!” Hugo cried.
The air rushed from her lungs as she pitched forward under his weight. Her knee slammed into the floor, and she threw her arms forward to catch herself. Behind her, she caught the ring of swordplay. Starbride scrambled forward, and turned to see Hugo on one knee, parrying the furious blows of a lithe, leather-clad woman. He’d knocked Starbride out of the way, and now he couldn’t get back up again.
Leather Woman ducked to the side as a throwing knife sailed over Hugo’s head. It missed her by inches and stuck in the wall, but it gave Hugo time to stand. Pennynail stepped past Starbride and moved to flank Leather Woman. She dodged to the side and kept them both in front of her, rapier snaking back and forth, and her dark eyes shifting to each target.
Starbride scooted to the downed pyradisté and tugged the satchel free of his body. She slung it around her own torso and then went through his clothes. When she found one more pyramid, she stashed it in the enemy satchel.
Leather Woman parried a strike from Hugo and gave ground as Pennynail came in for a jab. They backed her into the room they’d come from. Starbride stood to join them when she heard a crash and scream from farther down the hall. She scurried past the fight and peeked around the corner. Fiendish Lady Hilda had blown another hole in the floor, above the intruders, and as Starbride watched, she pulled a screaming man through the small space. She widened the hole with his body and turned his screams into half-conscious moans.
Lady Hilda’s head snapped up. She stared at Starbride, her too-wide mouth smiling with sharp teeth. Starbride dipped into her satchel and curled around the first pyramid she found. Before she could throw it, Lady Hilda flung the man’s body. Starbride ducked out of the way as the living missile streaked by and smacked into the wall. The body flopped down and lay at an odd angle, unmoving.
Starbride resisted the urge to run. Instead, she shouted, “Look out!” knowing Lady Hilda couldn’t be far behind the flying body. Pennynail sprinted to her side while the sharp clash of steel said that Hugo still dueled with Leather Woman. Starbride pressed herself close to the wall, out of Lady Hilda’s line of sight.
“We’ve found Lady Hilda!” Starbride yelled. She hoped the rest of the house could hear her. A clawed hand broke clear through the corner of the wall. It shredded the leather on Pennynail’s sleeve and drew lines of blood across his arm, the droplets spattering the floor. Starbride flung her pyramid around the corner, and flame blossomed.
Lady Hilda screeched and drew back. Pennynail left off clutching his arm long enough to throw a knife as she stepped around the corner. Not even singed, Lady Hilda caught the knife in mid-air, clearly more at ease with her speed than she’d been the day before. Maybe she’d never put her Fiendish Aspect away.
A yelp from behind made Starbride turn. Hugo held one leg off the ground, but he’d scored a hit. Leather Woman clutched his rapier where it entered her chest, her eyes wide as she sagged and took his weapon with her.
“Hugo!” Starbride cried.
His eyes snapped to her at once, and he reclaimed his rapier before he crossed to stand beside her. Lady Hilda hesitated before three people instead of two. From below, Starbride heard Katya bellow, “Starbride!”
“Up here! We’ve found Lady Hilda!”
She had just enough time to stumble backward as Lady Hilda rushed them.
Chapter Thirty-one: Katya
Katya started toward the stairs, but Captain Ursula pulled on her arm. “Wait!”
“Get off of me!” All that mattered was reaching Starbride, but Ursula’s grip was like steel.
Brutal grabbed a huge piece of debris and chucked it up the stairs. He grunted, bent double, and grabbed his back. The debris hit the top of the staircase and rolled down, rattling all the way across the steps.
Halfway up, the middle of the staircase exploded. Katya raised an arm to protect her head as debris pattered over them. She looked in awe at Ursula. “How did you know?”
“Seemed safe to assume.”
“Katya!” Starbride screamed from upstairs.
“I’m coming!” Katya darted up the stairs, not caring if even the spirits got in her way. Brutal stayed at her side, and the others clattered behind her. They leapt or edged around the hole in the center.
On the second floor, Katya rounded a corner just in time to see Lady Hilda rake her claws across Pennynail’s chest and send him crashing into Starbride and Hugo.
The surprised cries of those who’d never seen a Fiend echoed around her, along with footfalls as several people retreated down the stairs. Castelle and Ursula stood fast, each of them murmuring, “Spirits above!”
Lady Hilda crouched as if to spring up and run away again.
“Not this time!” Katya lunged just as Lady Hilda jumped through the ceiling. Her rapier pierced Lady Hilda’s thigh and continued clean through, sticking in a wooden beam. Lady Hilda shrieked. Stuck halfway through the wood and plaster, she yanked on the rapier but couldn’t pull it free. Katya tried to push farther into the wood, though Lady Hilda’s thrashing threatened to shake her arms loose from their sockets.
Brutal grabbed Lady Hilda’s uninjured leg and yanked, trying to wedge her into the hole she’d created. She shrieked again and kicked, but Ursula helped him pull. Castelle stabbed Lady Hilda in the stomach and gut, over and over, with her off-hand.
Someone behind them fired a crossbow bolt into Lady Hilda’s chest, and with one final pull from Brutal and Ursula, she fell from the ceiling in a rain of plaster dust and wooden shards.
From where she’d collapsed, she swept out with her claws, and everyone jumped back. Castelle pulled on Katya’s shoulders, making her lose her rapier in Lady Hilda’s thigh but keeping the claws from opening her up.
Starbride yelled, “Shield your eyes!”
A glittering pyramid arced through the air and landed squarely atop Lady Hilda’s head. Katya closed her eyes just in time to miss the flash. She hoped everyone else had the sense to do the same. Lady Hilda shrieked again, but it had a ragged edge, as if her strength was fading. While Castelle still blinked, Katya grabbed her sword and aimed to slice Lady Hilda’s head clean off her neck.
“Princess Katyarianna, stop!”
At the top of the ruined staircase stood Duke Robert with several of his guard.
Katya blinked at them. “What in the spirits’ names are you doing here?”
Breathing hard, his hunched form even lower, he pulled a scroll from out of his coat. “By order of the noble’s council, I am taking Lady Hilda Montenegro into custody.”
Katya turned back to Lady Hilda. She’d pulled the bolt from her chest and the rapier from her thigh and appeared human again, though bloody, disheveled, and dirty. She smiled, almost reclining in the debris in the tattered remains of her clothing.
“I see you got my note,” she said.
Duke Robert nodded “Lady Hilda has asked to be tried by the noble’s council as is her right.”
Katya shook her head. “She’s guilty of treason. She belongs to the crown.”
“She has the right to be tried by the council of her choice,” Duke Robert said. “You do not have carte blanche to execute people, Highness. No Umbriel does.”
Katya almost winced at the reminder of what Reinholt had done, and what Duke Robert probably suspected the Umbriels had done to Brom. But by the spirits, she was so close! “You don’t understand what she’s become.”
“I think, Highness, it’s you who don’t understand. I’ll take her now. I have my own pyradisté to
guarantee she won’t escape.”
Katya tightened her grip on the borrowed sword. She glanced at Brutal. He narrowed his eyes; he was with her. If he could stand, Pennynail was with her. Starbride would always be by her side, and Hugo would follow her lead.
Castelle tapped her shoulder. “Prudence.”
Katya almost replied that she was one to talk.
Ursula cleared her throat. “Well, the nobles may get custody of Lady Hilda, but I’m in charge of keeping order in Marienne. My remaining officers and I will accompany you, your Grace, in order to guarantee that Lady Hilda remains in custody.” She knelt and hauled Lady Hilda to her feet.
“Let go of me, peasant,” Lady Hilda said, “before I stain my hands with your gutter blood.”
Ursula drew her face close. “I’ll give you the same choice I give any lowlife. We can do this the easy way or the very easy way.” She aimed the pommel of her sword at Lady Hilda’s chin.
Lady Hilda sneered, but Duke Robert stepped up before she could respond. “Accompany us if you wish, Captain, but we’re leaving now.” He took Lady Hilda’s other arm, and one of his guards fitted her with arm and leg irons. Katya almost rolled her eyes. The Fiend could break those in a heartbeat. A cassock-clad man came forward and before Lady Hilda could protest, lifted a pyramid to her face.
She slumped in the arms of the guards.
“Starbride,” Katya said, “is she really out?”
Starbride rustled in an unknown satchel for a moment before she produced a pyramid. “It seems so, but I can check further if—”
“You cannot pyramid a noble without their express permission or the permission of the nobles’ council,” Duke Robert said. He waved at his men, and they hauled Lady Hilda down the stairs.
“Form up!” Ursula called. She looked Katya in the eye. “I won’t let her out of my sight. You could come with us…”
“Thank you,” Katya said, “but I’m not joining the duke’s party without a few more friends to watch my back. I’ll take care of your wounded. Just leave us the cart.”
Ursula nodded, gratitude in her eyes, and then she was away after the duke.
“Did the nobles just declare their defiance?” Hugo asked quietly.
“Certainly seems that way,” Katya said. “How is everyone?”
“Pennynail is hurt the worst.” Starbride helped to support him while he tried to stem his wound.
Brutal knelt in front of them. “Let me take a look.”
“Has anyone seen Averie?” Katya asked.
“Seeing to the wounded.” Starbride held a handkerchief to a gash on her forehead. “We sent someone to tell you where we’d gone.”
Katya shook her head, feeling her own injuries at least. Even Hugo was favoring a knee. “I didn’t get it.” She couldn’t let all the worry out right then. She’d collapse.
They climbed down the ruined stairway and carried the bodies of the dead Leather Woman, the living enemy pyradisté, and the barely living Watch officer. Maybe Lady Hilda thought her pyradisté already dead; more likely, she didn’t think of him at all. Pennynail had trussed him with his arms behind his back.
Castelle gathered her own fighters. She’d lost one, and another was badly injured. She helped Katya gather the dead and then stood outside and stared at the house.
Katya followed her. “How’s your arm?”
Castelle just shook her head. “I don’t like this, Katya.”
“I know. I’m sorry you lost a friend.”
“He went the way he wanted to go, in combat. No, I don’t like that Lady Hilda is going to get away with this.”
“I’m on the nobles’ council and so is my father. And we have allies besides.”
“Count me as one of them, but the look in old Robert’s eye makes me think that some of the old school will use Lady Hilda to defy your family. Unrest in the capital smacks of weakness to them.”
Katya moved a few steps farther from the house. “It’s not weakness. What Reinholt did might have blown over if not for…” She shook her head.
“If not for what?” Castelle stepped closer. “What the hell is going on? I don’t know if you noticed, but Lady Hilda wasn’t exactly human during our little confrontation.”
“I know.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was a Fiend.”
Katya took a deep breath. “She was.”
“What?” Castelle rubbed her tattooed temple. Her hat had fallen off at some point, and she hadn’t bothered to retrieve it. “If you want my help, tell me what’s happening. I’m no good to you if I don’t know what I’m up against.”
In all their time together, as close as they’d gotten, Katya hadn’t shared the Fiend or the Order. Castelle had never pried, unlike Starbride. Castelle hadn’t cared enough to follow, to stumble onto the truth.
But here, now, was a different Castelle, more mature, a woman ready to help, to be involved. She’d already committed to helping Katya’s cause, and she didn’t even know what that cause was. That was the same old reckless Castelle, but this new one wanted to know what her friends were dying for.
Katya told her part of it, that the Umbriels were part Fiend, that they had to be in order to pacify the great Fiend Yanchasa, who rested under the palace at Marienne. “That’s what it means when the kings and queens of Farraday call themselves the ‘foes of Yanchasa the Mighty.’”
“So when you and I were a couple, you were a Fiend?”
“Not anymore. That’s a long story, but when we were together, yes.”
“I would have noticed. All the time we spent together…”
Katya shook her head. “It only came out when I was enraged or during the Waltz.”
“I made you plenty angry.”
“Not just angry. When someone threatened to hurt Starbride, I broke through the enchantment and became the Fiend. That’s how she knows.”
“To save her. How romantic.”
Katya rolled her eyes. “And dangerous.”
“That’s when you knew you loved her, wasn’t it? When you broke a powerful enchantment by will alone?”
Katya swallowed, thinking of that day and of the tenderness that came after. “Yes.”
Castelle looked away. “Well, we, uh, we won’t have to worry about that anymore. So does this mean that Lady Hilda is an Umbriel?”
“No.” Katya told her as little as she could manage about Roland, about him merging with the Fiend, about it taking over upon his “death” and how he was determined to take the throne even if it meant tearing Marienne apart.
Castelle nodded along with the tale. “He’s given this Fiendish essence to Lady Hilda.”
“That’s what I’m guessing.”
“So the younger brother of the king whom everyone thought was dead became a Fiend and now wants to destroy you.”
“You’ve got it,” Katya said.
“How exactly is the Fiend transferred?”
“Well, one can be born with it, like I was, if both their parents have it.”
“But you said it could be passed from person to person through a ritual.”
Katya’s cheeks burned hotter, and she cursed them. Why did only Castelle have such an effect on her?
“You’re blushing. It must be what I think it is.”
Katya turned away.
“So, ex-Prince Roland and Lady Hilda…Ah well, it doesn’t matter. The important bit is that he’s collecting allies. You’re sure the civil unrest is his fault? From what I’ve seen, Magistrate Anthony is the one kicking up all the fuss.”
“Roland has to be at the center. There have been too many pyramids floating around.”
Castelle jerked her thumb to where Lady Hilda’s pyradisté lay bound in the cart. “There’s the pyradisté that could have provided them.”
“It has to be someone of Roland’s skill.”
“Well, since I know little to nothing of pyramid magic, I’ll have to take your word for it.”
Katya smiled softly. “I h
ave an inside source.”
“She’s very beautiful.” Castelle gazed at the house as if she could see Starbride through its walls.
“And she’s already given her heart away.”
“Am I making you worry? You know what I always used to say.”
“‘If you know you’ve got her heart, you never worry’? Yes. That’s why I always worried with you.” Katya didn’t wait for a reply. She moved into the house instead, suddenly needing to be near Starbride as if the mere thought of her conjured great power.
Starbride knelt in a sitting room and helped Averie and Brutal dress the wounded. As Katya came in, Hugo shuffled in from the kitchen with a large cauldron of water. “I don’t know how you carried two of these, Brother Brutal.”
“Training, Lord Hugo, that’s all.”
“I think you started with more muscle than I’ll ever have.”
Brutal chuckled, but his attention remained on those around him.
Katya knelt by Starbride’s side. “How are they?”
“Besides one of Castelle’s men, we lost five Watch officers. We’re trying to get the rest ready to move. It’s going to be crowded in that cart.”
“We’ll have to head for the Watch house as quickly as possible and hope Roland doesn’t see an opportunity. How is Pennynail?”
“Stitched and resting.”
Katya grimaced. She’d been stitched in the field a few times. Averie and Pennynail had to sit on her once after a brigand cut the back of her thigh wide open.
Soon, they had everyone patched and wrapped for travel. There were plenty of free horses. Katya wondered if Duke Robert had wanted to confiscate them to slow Katya down, but Captain Ursula wouldn’t let him.
They traveled as quickly as they could. Duke Robert couldn’t hold a council without someone from the royal family in attendance, usually the king, and Da would try and slow things down, as would Countess Nadia and her friends. Katya tried to tell herself that she was far from alone in her troubles, but she couldn’t shake her unease. Nobles and courtiers were scheming, but she’d never expected rebellion inside the palace itself. All the givens she’d taken for granted were abandoning her one by one: the love of the populace, the love of her brother, the cohesion of her family, the support of the nobles. Even the strength of her Fiend.
For Want of a Fiend Page 25