Lojen went to his knees, his chest heaving. Wick hopped off the broken security beast, putting a furry paw to Lojen’s shoulder. “Come on. Not done yet, drakken. Your father’s horns. And the Mother’s talisman. Hurry, before the guards come. If we’re lucky, the cameras are still down.”
Bending, Lojen carefully picked up the objects that had haunted him for seventeen years. Reverently, he caressed the horns. “Father.”
Then they raced from the room, leaving a broken carcass of metal smoldering upon the floor just as the entirety of Gargantua trembled violently, nearly throwing them both from their feet.
“What was that?” Lojen asked as he steadied himself with a claw on a wall.
“The bombs,” Wick answered, darting off.
XXXVII
Cadrianna
SHE WAS SEETHING by the time she reached the double redwood doors leading to the party.
Standing within the doorway, Cadrianna scanned the opulence with strained anger. Before she could take another step, a low rumble made her pause. Beside the stair was the trunk of a tree, in which its branches overhung the entirety of the dance floor. At its roots, she noticed a big red blob. It rustled and she realized the blob was in fact a firedrake coiled about the base of the tree, wings folded upon its bulk. The head rose on a graceful neck, the garnet eye of a daemon glared at her.
“Well, fuck you, too,” she told Cinder. “Where’s your daemon master? I’ve got a few choice words for him.”
As if on cue, the dancers upon the floor cleared when the music ended, and in that parted group of revelers, was the Fallen. His unnervingly gorgeous profile faced downward as he conversed with a young woman wearing a stola that would have made her the jealous competition of any unwed or unattached noble woman. But this woman looked as if she had been dunked in a river and beaten with a club decked out with nails then dragged through a trash heap of broken glass face first. Her hair was sopping wet, and the curls hung limp around her battered face, where blood had dried along one temple and had dripped down her cheek into her collarbone.
Unbidden, a pang of jealously germinated. No, Cad, don’t go there. Why would she care, he was a monster, not one to love. And yet, she seemed to. Gods, her heart was a dichotomy. Emre… beloved. Betrayer. Lu Har…
“CAD…”
“The rage built upon lies fills you like a thousand fires upon the snow-covered hills of Kanja.”
Cadrianna spun and found a silver-haired woman standing behind her. Emre’s bikrome. The woman who’d saved her once already by showing her the lies that bound her. Did she already begin to believe? Nocturne, she didn’t know what to believe anymore. “What are you doing here?”
“I bring you a gift, Cadrianna Benld. Should you find it useful, my help is yours. But more importantly, remember who you are, not who you’re destined to be. And do not believe what the Fallen will have you believe. Believe in the First Wife.”
“The First Wife?”
The bikromi woman held forth an oblong-shaped object folded within a linen wrap. Cadrianna reached for it and flipped the corner of the linen to find the outstretched wing of an owl.
“CAD, LISTEN TO HER,” the Strix said. “YOUR EYES MUST OPEN TO THE TRUTH. WITH BRYNN. WITH YOU. WITH ME.”
‘I don’t need help,’ she wanted to say. ‘The shadows are my protection,’ she almost said. Instead, “Why?”
“I saw your fate. And in that fate, I saw mine. We are bound by the blood of Nightingale.”
Cadrianna smirked. “My husband?”
“You expect any less from a Benld? I’m Valeria Dunleith.”
“That’s why your lips tasted like snow.”
“Your ending is yet to be written by the Pentax, Cadrianna Benld. Lu Har will be at the end of your path, waiting. The sword underfoot. The shadows fight the light and the light fights the shadows. Which do you choose?”
‘The shadows are your protection,’ she thought of her training. “No longer. I cannot put my trust in the Pentax.” She looked up but the bikrome was gone.
Holding the daemon blade to her breast, Cadrianna knew what path her life wanted her to walk: it was time for Lu Har to die. It was time to save Brynn.
Would she dare do the deed of ending Lu Har now, while he least expected it? With all the guards, the scourges, and Solanine. Not to mention Cinder and Lu Har himself, she might never make it from Gargantua alive to save Brynn.
Strix, what do you think?
“I’M WITH YOU WHATEVER YOU CHOOSE, CAD. I ALWAYS HAVE BEEN. ALWAYS WILL BE. BLOOD OF NIGHTINGALE.”
Thinking violence, Cadrianna noted the locations of the guards, counting near twenty, but she knew there had to be at least a thousand more elsewhere on Gargantua. Ratko rested his arms on the low brick wall surrounding the dance floor, combing a hand through his elongated beard as he bloodlustily eyed the crowd.
Near the main guest entrance, three figures wore the midnight blue cassock of a vicar. One even sported a blue-dyed horsehair helm
“WHAT ARE VICARS DOING HERE?”
I don’t know, Strix. Solanine would never invite the Scattered Shards. You don’t think?
“I DO, BUT NOT SURE IF I WANT TO SAY IT ALOUD.”
Not that anyone but me can hear you, dear daemon.
“POINT TO YOU, CAD. I SAY WE MOVE NOW.”
Determined, she made her way toward the Fallen, but as she did, her gaze swept past the fountain spewing a crystalline liquid, and beside it a masked man of Drenth stock. Cadrianna stopped, conflicted. Lu Har was there for the taking. But Emre. The bikrome had already gifted her the blade. She had to know what was going on.
“CAD…”
