The Beauty of Darkness - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,128
they’d been set ablaze, the iron bolt becoming rage in my hand, and I pulled, loosening it further, my groans only adding to Malich’s satisfaction. His eyes gleamed, looking into mine as if he already knew where he would carve the lines. Easy.
“No fainting on me now, Princess,” he said as he jerked the last button of my trousers free. His hand slid beneath the leather, down along my hip, his grin widening. “I keep my promises, and I told the Komizar that you would suffer.”
I yanked on the bolt, twisting it as it sprang free, the sudden release adding velocity to my swing, and it plunged into Malich’s neck, the pointed end emerging through the other side. His eyes widened.
“And I keep my promises too,” I said.
His lips parted as if to say something. He was unable to speak, but I saw it in his eyes. For a few glorious seconds, he knew—he was a dead man, and it was by my hand. While he could still hear me, I whispered, “I hate that it feels so good and so easy to kill you, Malich. Rest assured I will never beg you for anything ever again.” I pulled the bolt free and blood spurted from his neck before he thudded to the ground. Dead.
I stared at his crumpled body, the blood running slowly from his neck, trickling into lazy red rivers across the cobbled floor. His eyes stared blankly at the ceiling.
His grin was gone.
It was then that a thunder of footsteps closed in from all sides. Six guards surrounded me—again ones I didn’t recognize. The Watch Captain stood among them. He was the member of the cabinet who oversaw the citadelle guards.
He looked down at Malich’s body with recognition and shook his head.
A nauseous wave rushed through me. “Not you too,” I said.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Captain, don’t do this,” I pleaded.
“Believe me, Princess, if I could reverse time, I would, but I’m in much too deep to turn back now.”
“It’s not too late! You could still save my brothers! You could—”
“Take her.”
I stepped forward and swung, the bolt still in my hand, but my knees gave way and I hit the floor.
Two guards scooped me up by my arms, and another pulled the bolt free. Blood spurted, and my head swam as they dragged me. I tried to keep track of where they were taking me, but all I saw were blurred shapes swirling in front of me. Stop the bleeding, Lia. But with their hands clamped on my arms, there was no chance of that. Instead I pleaded to their loyalties, trying to convince them that the Watch Captain was the vilest of traitors. Even my words seemed slurred, distant, and one of the guards repeatedly told me to shut up, but I didn’t stop. He finally cracked me in the jaw. The soft flesh on the inside of my cheek sliced into my teeth, and the salty tang of blood filled my mouth. The passageway faded in and out, and floor and ceiling spun into each other. But it was a word a guard muttered just before he threw me into a dark room, that slammed into me harder than his fist.
Jabavé.
There was a reason I hadn’t recognized the citadelle guards.
They were Vendan.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Just a little farther, Lia.
Hold on.
Hold on for me.
I smelled a river, glimpsed the weighty bowed pines of a forest, saw frosty breaths swirling the air above me, and heard the steady determined beat of boots crunching in snow.
I felt warm lips brushing mine.
Just a little farther.
For me.
My eyes drifted open—I wasn’t dead yet. The snowy world, the blinding whiteness, and the scent of pine vanished. Instead I was in a black windowless room, but I still felt the arms that had held me, the fingers that had brushed back strands of my hair, the chest that had been a warm wall against the cold, and I heard the voice that wouldn’t let me go.
Keep your eyes on me. The fiery blue that had demanded I stay.
I tried to focus, search the blackness. The cell was stuffy, the air as old as the walls themselves. It smelled of dirt and rot. I pulled my hand close to my stomach, pressing it tight to stop the bleeding, but the pressure sent a blinding stab through me.
I sucked in air, forcing my lungs to breathe.
I couldn’t accept that it was over.
That there would be no word sent to save my brothers.