by Meg Xuemei X
Lucienne decided to tease him just a little more. Just as Ashburn eagerly engaged himself in the game, she manipulated the screen to switch for a split second to a nude Playboy cover girl. She watched Ashburn’s vampire-pale face go red with embarrassment. The natives didn’t have outsiders’ vice. They didn’t even know what porn was. Fighting a smile, Lucienne then selected a movie channel and let an epic battle scene play on.
Ashburn was unable to pull his eyes away from the screen. For a moment, he seemed to be in a trance, as if his mind were inside the firewalls. More than anything, Lucienne wanted to pry into his mind one more time, despite the horrendous prospect of being assaulted by an army of massive voices. Just then, the redhead cut in between them, incredibly fast for a girl without any training. Ashburn was trembling, his entranced eyes paling to the color of ice.
“Are you all right, Ash?” Violet called. “Is the witch — is the queen’s machine hurting you?”
“Violet!” Clement reprimanded.
“My son’s probably hungry,” Peder said. “Have you eaten since you came home, Ash?”
“Let’s go to the kitchen, Ash.” Violet tried to pull Ashburn away. “I’ll fix you something to eat.”
“I’ll make lamb stew,” Clement said. “Ash will rest here.” She headed to the kitchen.
“Malicious code, Trojan horse,” Ashburn said.
Can he really see through the firewall of the computer? Lucienne watched Ashburn with an amazed look.
“What’s that?” Peder blinked.
“A virus inside the machine,” Ashburn said.
Peder paled.
“It only hurts machines,” Ashburn added.
“Oh, that’s good then,” Peder said as color returned to his face.
Kian’s Eidolon vibrated loudly. He took a look. “The king’s coming.”
“And the whole town,” Ashburn added.
Clement stopped in her tracks. Her lips started shivering. Peder’s teeth clattered.
“Mr. and Mrs. Fury, I’ll handle the king. Don’t worry about a thing,” Lucienne said and then turned to Violet. “You might want to stay in Ashburn’s basement.”
“I’ll not do your bidding,” Violet said. “I’m not your maid.”
“You’re not qualified to be my maid,” Lucienne said. “But the last thing the Fury family wants right now is you adding more drama. You’re not even wearing your own clothes. The prince, who has proved he has a vivid imagination, will surely create another situation for Ashburn. Would you like to add unnecessary complications?”
“I know what you’re after,” Violet said. “I’m not that easy to get rid of!”
She thinks I’m after Ashburn. Lucienne looked amused before a hopeless pang perched on her heart. If she knew I can’t have intimacy with any man, and I might never be able to, she wouldn’t be so nervous and defensive.
Ashburn watched Lucienne. He’d caught a flicker of pain in her eyes. Lucienne looked away.
“Violet, you must leave before stirring more trouble for us,” said Clement.
“I’m not the one who stirs trouble,” Violet said. “Besides, Ash needs me.”
“I hate to ask you to go, Violet,” Ashburn said, “but it’s the best for now. I’ll tell you everything later. Have some cake in the basement.”
Violet stormed off after tossing Lucienne a dirty look.
Lucienne turned back to the group. “My machine bird found Ashburn on the other side of the mountains. He was half buried under the snow. When we found him, he was unconscious. My medical team used the gods’ holy water to bring him back, and in the process healed his legs. That’s the story we’re going to stick to.”
Clement and Peder nodded gratefully.
Lucienne focused on Ashburn.
“I have no objections.” Ashburn gave a small shrug.
“All set then,” Lucienne said.
As Kian spoke into the radio to his men, shouts from the natives carried into the house. Torches cast shadows that chased each other across the windows. It looked as if the whole town was about to set siege to the Fury house.
Lucienne shared a quick look with Kian, and he gave her a nod. “We have seven men outside, four on the rooftops. We’ll shoot if the natives attempt to burn down the house.”
“No one burns down my house!” Ashburn’s eyes narrowed to slits, cold as the never-melting ice.
The front door exploded. Two of the king’s guards charged in, followed by King Henry, Queen Isis, and Prince Felix. Six guards brought up the rear, armed with hunting daggers.
Clement and Peder bowed to their king. Ashburn bowed slightly with a blank expression. The king’s eyes bulged at the standing Ashburn, who towered over all of them. The queen gasped, and Prince Felix fumed.
With a grim look, King Henry removed his glare from Ashburn to Lucienne and nodded an acknowledgement. “Queen Lucienne, what brought you here at this hour?”
“King Henry,” Lucienne said with a nod, “I was wondering the same about you. My men found Ashburn Fury and brought him back.”
The King touched his mustache in irritation. “You should have reported this to me immediately!”
“You’re out of line! Queen Lucienne reports to no one, and definitely not to your lot,” Kian said coldly. “She’s still your benefactor. The coats you and your guards are wearing are from the queen’s pockets. Don’t provoke her or she will dethrone you.”
The king’s lips thinned. He avoided looking at Kian. “I meant that my subjects—the Furys should have reported to me immediately.”
Clement and Peder told the king in trembling voices that Queen Lucienne’s men found their son half buried in the snow at the feet of the mountains.
“Ashburn the Extra, where is the gods’ magic box you stole?” Prince Felix demanded.
Lucienne watched how Ashburn responded. She knew if he was convicted of stealing the box, the entire Fury family would be executed.
Ashburn answered with his hands shoved into his pocket, “Your Royal Highness has mistaken me as a thief and a criminal, but I’m neither. I’ve never taken anything that’s not mine.”
“If you didn’t steal the magic box, then where did the gods’ light go?” the prince asked.
“Good question, Your Highness,” Ashburn said, his dark brows creasing. “But I do not have the answer you’re seeking. By the way, what does the gods’ magic box look like?”
“You tell me!” the prince said.
“Sorry, Your Highness,” Ashburn said. “I’ve never seen one. How can I tell you? It is said only the royal family has seen it.”
“He’s tricking us, Father.” Prince Felix gritted his teeth. “This peasant is playing us!”
“I have no love for games, Your Highness,” Ashburn said.
“You’re the biggest liar I’ve ever known!” Prince Felix pulled out a long leather whip from his belt.
The prince’s whip is as inferior as its owner, Lucienne thought. She sent Kian a look telling him not to interfere. She wouldn’t miss an opportunity to keep testing Ashburn. She needed to know his limits.
Ashburn looked coolly at the whip.
Clement threw herself before Ashburn, crying. “Don’t punish my son, Your Highness. Whip me, please. It’s all my fault.”
Peder knelt. “Don’t hurt my wife and my son, Your Majesty, Your Highness. Please whip my back. I deserve it.”
Ashburn herded his parents behind him. “Let me handle this. If they dare lay a finger on you—” The veins on his temples jumped. Lucienne noticed black flames forming at Ashburn’s fingertips, the same black lightning emitted by the Eye of Time when it burned her lab during a test.
“The more the merrier.” With a sneer, Prince Felix raised his whip.
Before Ashburn could act, Lucienne cut between the Furys and the prince. In a heartbeat, her steel whip was out. It slashed in an arc, slitting the prince’s whip and leaving only the handle in his hand.
Prince Felix opened his mouth, then closed it
, then opened it again. “My whip!”
“Manners, prince,” Lucienne said. Her anger was fueled even more, seeing the image in the malicious brat’s mind. Ashburn’s back was crisscrossed with whipping scars from previous encounters with the prince.
Her whip pitched in the air with a hiss, yanking a dagger from a guard standing behind the king. Lucienne shook the whip loose and the dagger flapped in midair. Flailing wildly, it could drop on and stab just about anyone in the room.
The king and queen ducked under the table and screamed for their son to follow suit. The guards staggered back toward the door. Lucienne’s warriors remained unmoved.
Prince Felix darted toward the table, but Lucienne tripped him with a leg. Falling backwards on the floor, the prince’s green eyes stared at the dagger plummeting toward his face in absolute terror. He screamed.
The queen joined the screaming.
The king shouted, “My son!” and darted out from under the table. He pushed a guard toward the falling dagger as a human shield, but the guard was too heavy to be thrown on top of the prince.
Peder and Clement looked petrified. Ashburn watched Lucienne with an unreadable expression. When the blade was a mere two feet from the prince’s face, the whip caught it and lifted it sharply. The whip flung the dagger toward a side wall. Its tip pierced the wood frame of a window, its blade shuddering.
Pride and admiration displayed on the face of each and every one of Lucienne’s warriors.
“You’re getting better every day,” Kian said in an Irish dialect. “Soon, you’ll catch up with me.”
“You think?” Lucienne smiled at him, then turned to King Henry with an icy expression. “If anyone interferes with the gods’ affairs again, the gods won’t be this merciful. Finding the magic box is my mission, and Ashburn Fury is assigned by the gods to assist me. Anyone who touches him or his folks will have to answer to me. Do you understand?” She scanned the royal family and their guards, still in shock.
The prince had wet his pants. A guard escorted him to the bathroom. The queen stared at her son’s figure with concern before shooting Lucienne a venomous look.
Lucienne glanced at Ashburn. The black flame had vanished from his fingertips, his eyes now mercury silver. Lucienne let out an audible sigh of relief. She had managed to contain the lightning inside the bottle. She couldn’t afford to let the world know about Ashburn Fury’s power. His gifts needed to remain classified.
“If the boy didn’t steal the gods’ magic box, how does the Furys house have the gods’ light while no one else does?” Queen Isis asked, loud enough to let the words carry to the islanders gathered outside the door. “The people of Nirvana must know!”
The queen was tightening a noose around Ashburn’s neck.
“The Priestess speaks well!” shouted King Henry. “Ashburn Fury must have stolen the gods’ magic box and fooled Queen Lucienne!”
He was returning the favor by calling her a fool.
Curses and yelling rumbled from the crowd outside, echoing in the Fury house and rattling the windows. Torches moved up and down, casting menacing shadows onto the group through the windows.
If Lucienne couldn’t dissolve this crisis quickly, a riot would break out. Her men would have to open fire on the natives. Blood would be shed, and all her efforts at keeping peace would fall by the wayside. Lucienne rubbed two of her fingers against her temple. “King Henry and Queen Isis,” she addressed, “there’s a scientific explanation. This is the gods’ will—”
“Your Majesty,” Ashburn cut in with a voice loud enough for the mob outside to hear, “when Queen Isis referred to the light in my house, the gods’ message released itself from my locked memory. The gods have a message for all the citizens of Nirvana.”
The crowd became so quiet that even the sound of a leaf fluttering in the wind could be heard. The king and queen shared a dark look.
“I’m the gods’ priestess,” the queen announced. “The gods’ message will come through me, not through an unworthy, lowly boy like you!”
This had gone from bad to worse. Dread churned in Lucienne’s stomach, but she was ready to do what was necessary. She threw Kian a warning look, and he nodded. There was no way out for Ashburn. When the riot broke, she and Kian would hold the royal family hostage in order to force the mob back off. She knew that her men might have to shoot a few extremists to set an example.
“This message came through me,” Ashburn said. “Otherwise, why would the gods have brought me back? The Book says anyone who crossed Hell Gate hasn’t ever come back alive. But the gods let the outsiders find me, so they could fulfill their obligations to the gods.” His voice boomed louder. “The light in my house is only the first sign. The gods will bring light to the whole kingdom in exactly one minute.”
He was creating a bigger mess. Lucienne looked ruefully at the sheen of sweat appearing on Ashburn’s forehead. She shouldn’t have allowed him to talk in the first place. But then a realization hit her—he might just pull it off.
“If the gods’ light doesn’t return in the next few seconds, you’ll be hanged!” Before the king could finish the last word, the lights inside the Fury house exploded, blinding everyone. As the light in the house dimmed again to accommodate the human eye, outside, lights were flicking on steadily all over town, and soon everything was lit up like a Christmas tree.
The crowd shouted boisterous cheers. Everyone in the Fury house rushed outside, staring in awe at the magnificent light shimmering from every household. Nirvana was bathed in glorious light once again.
Everyone had forgotten about Ashburn, except Lucienne. She removed her gaze from the light and the town and looked at him, and he gazed back. His sculptured beauty made her chest tight with a yearning she didn’t want to feel. It was different than the longing she had for Vladimir. It felt right with Vladimir, and yet they couldn’t have each other, at least for now. The pining toward this new boy felt wrong, but she still couldn’t tear her eyes and thoughts away from him. Her blood rushed; her breath shortened, but Lucienne forced herself to stay where she was, fighting her body’s impulse to diminish the space between them.
Violet had come out of the basement, standing beside Ashburn. She followed his sightline.
In the midst of this miraculous event, Lucienne and Ashburn only had eyes for each other.
“Ash!” Violet cried urgently. “Ash!”
As if breaking the surface of the water, Ashburn rasped. He turned to Violet. “What is it, Violet?” He smiled at her, but it was a troubled one.
Violet whirled Ashburn around and turned his back toward Lucienne. “You fixed it, Ash, just as you promised. You can do anything. We don’t need anyone.”
Lucienne was relieved the redhead had broken the spell. She walked away from them. The snuffed-out torches were piled everywhere. The citizens of Nirvana were laughing and dancing. Their joy was contagious, but Lucienne was in a world of her own.
Then Violet’s voice cried amid the crowd. “Ashburn is blessed! The gods made him walk again.”
Lucienne snapped her head toward Violet, who stood alone atop a stone bench at the border of the front yard. Where is Ashburn? Lucienne looked around.
Violet cupped her hands before her mouth. “The gods let Ash bring back the light! He’s no longer an Extra. He’s a valuable citizen!”
Idiot! Lucienne stormed toward the redhead to stop her. Violet felt so threatened by her that the girl would do anything to prove her worth to her boyfriend, but this was the worst time to bring the volatile mob’s attention to Ashburn.
“The gods’ light went out only when Ashburn the Extra stole the magic box!” the prince screamed to make himself heard, but his objection was drowned out by Violet’s high-pitched voice, “Ashburn is blessed! LET THE GODS BLESS US ALL THROUGH HIM!”
When Lucienne was ten yards away from Violet, she felt the familiar energy pulsing around her. She turned toward the pull and saw Ashburn walking intently toward her and Violet. He must want to s
top the girl, too.
A fellow near her cried, “Look! Ashburn the blessed!” Then more fingers pointed at him, followed by more cries of “The blessed!” Like sharks in a feeding frenzy, the crowd swarmed toward Ashburn, hands stretching out to touch him in order to get a piece of the gods’ blessings.
Kian and his men moved, blocking the mob from reaching Lucienne and Ashburn, but wave after wave bore down on the flesh wall of the warriors with a unified purpose: touch Ashburn and be blessed.
The human wave broke through the warriors’ defense line.
“Get into the house!” Lucienne shouted at Ashburn several feet away. As she moved toward the Fury’s house, she found Clement and Peder cowering behind her.
“Follow me,” she told them.
Peder and Clement stumbled after Lucienne toward their house. Ashburn fought to get to his parents and drew near. He and Lucienne shielded Peder and Clement as best they could. Peder, Clement, and Lucienne reached the house, where Lucienne pushed the door, only to find it locked. Peder tried it, and the blood rushed from his face. “It’s bolted from the inside.”
Lucienne glanced at a side window. Prince Felix wiggled a finger at her, smirking. Lucienne tried to kick the door open, but the crowd was on them, surrounding Ashburn, a few feet away from her.
Lucienne looked around. Her warriors, who were unsuccessful in warding off the descending bodies, were more than ten feet away. Even if she opened the door, the mob would follow the Furys in, and Ashburn would have no place to run.
“Go! Go!” Lucienne shoved Ashburn’s parents to the side of the house, out of the mob’s way. She now faced the thickest line of the crowd and became the only obstacle on their path toward Ashburn. They crushed against her, ramming her away. Lucienne staggered, struggling not to be stamped by the mob. Ashburn called her name amid the noises, hands reaching for her, but the crowd separated them further, and the vultures instantly fell on him.
“They’re going to tear him apart!” Violet screamed. “I said blessing, not tearing!”