CHAPTER 93
KIRAN
Light from Beezie’s lanterns in the main dining area streams into the cellar, highlighting flecks of dust that swirl in the air as Dinah’s slight frame descends the ladder.
Fin, Lydia, and I all tense as we await the news she brings.
When Tavi used her last moments to transport Fin and me outside of the palace, she didn’t send us far. We ended up dumped into an alleyway, where a beggar immediately reported to Dinah the appearance of two males who looked suspiciously like the deposed king and prince. Dinah hunted us down not long after, leading us to Bezzie, who, as it turned out, had not defected to Az, after all.
In fact, she had several choice words to say about the boy she’d always known was trouble.
We’ve been hiding out here ever since, in Bezzie’s hidden furnished basement, devising a plan to extract Asha from the palace. It’s been grueling—the waiting. The problem is that we’ve had difficulty finding a way into the palace that isn’t heavily guarded.
Not that I wouldn’t rip through hordes of guards to get to my wife. Not that I wouldn’t gladly die trying.
But if we die trying, and we fail to rescue her, then Asha will be the one to truly suffer.
So we’ve waited. We’ve spied. We’ve plotted.
Lydia and Elias joined us two days ago, bringing news that the body of Queen Abra had been found separated from her head in an abandoned warehouse on the border of Avelea and Dwellen.
There was no word regarding what happened, or the whereabouts of Piper or the parasite, who we assume escaped at the moment of Abra’s death.
Dinah looks at me first, holding a metallic lamp in her hands. “I think I can get into the palace in the early morning. Tonight maybe, even,” she says. “There’s a statue of Tionis in the graveyard quarter I doubt Az knows about. According to the guard schedule I snuck from one of their pockets, there are two gaps. The first, I’m pretty sure only I could get through. The guards on duty at that time aren’t sympathetic to our cause, but they are new. There’s a low risk they’ll recognize me if I sneak in dressed as a servant. If we want to go as a group, though, we’ll have to wait until just before sunrise, when there’s a gap in coverage.”
Relief lingers on the edges of my mind. It’s something. Not enough to banish the anxiety threatening to rip my chest cavity in two. But it’s something.
Just a few more hours, and hopefully I’ll have heard from Asha.
Assuming Dinah doesn’t get caught.
“But Kiran,” Dinah says. “There’s something else.”
Fin and I exchange a worried look.
Dinah sighs. “We have visitors.” She beckons to the hole in the ceiling, and two figures descend the ladder, both with too much ease to be natural.
My fingers flex into fists as the first figure lowers her hood, and none other than Blaise stares back at me.
“You.”
It’s as good of an accusation as I can come up with as heat boils in my head, threatening to burst the capillaries lining my skull.
I’ve always blamed my anger on my Flame and Rajeen. But now that my Flame is gone and I’ve discovered my true heritage, I know better.
It’s just me.
It’s always been me.
Blaise opens her mouth to say something, but I get to her first.
I’m not really sure how it happens, how I outpace her and her companion. I suppose it’s just the rage rolling through me.
But I blink, and then I’m pinning Blaise to the wall by her throat.
The instinct for survival flashes in her eyes. Fangs jolt from her gums, but as fast as she is with her vampirism, she’s not fast enough.
Not when my skin has a grip on hers.
There’s something about being bereaved of my Flame that feels unjust when it comes to destroying the female who betrayed Asha, who left my wife drained of blood on a battlefield, handed her over to the male who threatens her with his body nightly.
I should be able to make her burn.
But then again, burning is only a single feeling, an isolated sensation.
There’s so much more I can do with the magic that remains. The magic my father didn’t know to take.
Blaise’s fangs flash, but I’m faster, as I unleash every bit of fear I’ve ever experienced from my fingertips, allowing it to seep into Blaise’s flesh.
Her already pale face drains of its last flecks of color, her brown eyes bulging wide as I unleash dread upon her.
Her companion bellows in anger, but I can’t make out his words, not with the rage buzzing in my mind. All I hear is the muffled sound of a scuffle as Fin and Lydia hold him back.
There’s a flare of light behind us—Lydia’s fire, I suppose, but it’s hardly anchoring me to the present.
Not when all my attention is on Blaise.
It’s the fear of Rajeen that I release on her first. The dread of a child at the hands of his angry father’s drunken whippings. The trepidation of his father catching him in the act of weeping. The boiling tears that mar his face.
