Adonai’s breath slipping over his lips in a hiss of perfect hatred.
They’d dressed her in a beautiful ball gown, strapless, backless: the height of daring fashion. But what might have been dazzling when worn by a beautiful young dona seemed only tragic about the body of the weaver. Her puckered and bleeding skin, usually kept hidden beneath her robes, was now exposed. Open sores and pus, cracks running through her flesh like fissures in parched earth. Her lank hair was shrouded about her face, too thin to cover it. The wound where Drusilla had cut off her ear had been opened anew, and her face showed signs of a beating—eyes black, lips split and swollen. Her hands were encased in iron, and she was only half-conscious, groaning as the Luminatii cast her onto the bloody floor before the throne.
Mercurio’s heart swelled with pity. Adonai’s eyes smoldered with rage.
“Sister love,” he breathed.
Marielle whispered through bleeding lips. “B-Brother mine.”
The speaker turned burning eyes on Scaeva.
“Vile coward,” he spat. “Bastard whoreson.”
The imperator’s smile slowly faded as the crowd backed farther away.
“Still your rage, Adonai,” Scaeva said. “This was but a well-earned reminder to your sister of her place in my order. You and Marielle served me well for many years, and I am not a man who squanders gifts such as yours. There is a place for you at my side. So take your knee. Swear your allegiance. Beg my forgiveness.”
The shadows at Scaeva’s feet rippled.
“And I will grant it.”
Adonai’s eyes flashed, the blood storm about him swirling, seething.
“Speak ye of gifts?” he spat. “As if I found them in a pretty box on Great Tithe?” Adonai shook his head, long pale hair come loose from its ties and draped about crimson eyes. “Paid for my power be, bastard. With blood and agony. But thou art thief of a power unearned.”
He narrowed his eyes, pointing at Scaeva.
“Usurper, I name thee. Wretch and villain. Already I see how thy theft takes its tithe upon thee. But I have not the patience nor desire to await the descent of fate’s cold hand. I promised thee suffering, Julius.”
Adonai raised his bone-white hands, fingers spread.
“Now I gift it thee.”
The blood storm exploded, a hundred blades of glittering crimson streaking outward from Adonai’s hands. A wail of terror rang through the assembled guests, the crowd surged backward again, the doors groaning. The remaining guards were cut down like spring grass, dropping to the tiled floor in sprays of red. Liviana Scaeva shrieked and grabbed her son, tumbling to one side as Adonai’s blades sped toward the imperator’s chest. And in a blinking, Scaeva disappeared.
The throne was punctured, torn, cut to pieces. Adonai wove his hands like a grim conductor, the blood from the freshly murdered Luminatii rising up off the floor, the storm of crimson about him thickening. Sidonius and Bladesinger backed away, Mercurio between them. Their hands were still bound in iron, but Mercurio had some lockpicks hidden in his bootheel, sinking to his knees and working them free.
The blood speaker stood in the center of the dance floor, standing protectively over his wounded sister. He reached up and tore his robes away, exposing his smooth, muscled chest, long hair billowing about him, lithe arms open wide. The blood of two dozen murdered men moved about him as if caught in a tempest, swirling, slashing, seething. A red wind roared in the vast hall.
“Face me, usurper!” he roared.
The shadows in the room came alive, forming into long, pointed spears. Whipping toward Adonai’s chest, Marielle’s back. With a flick of his hand, the speaker sent his blood crashing upward like a wave on a storm-wracked sea. The wall of gore crashed upon the razored shadows, foiling the thrust, crimson besting the black.
“Coward!” Adonai roared. “Face me!”
Again, the shadows struck at the speaker, again the wave of blood defeated the strike. Adonai’s eyes were alight as he turned in a circle, arms spread, his beautiful face twisted with rage. Mercurio felt his manacles click loose, rubbing his wrists and turning to work on ’Singer’s bonds with his lockpicks. Glancing across the hall, he saw the marrowborn guests, all those highborn senators and praetors and generals now battering on the sealed doors in a frenzy. He couldn’t see Spiderkiller anywhere—the Shahiid of Truths had apparently made good her escape already.
But Adonai seemed in no mood to run.
“Where art thou, Julius?” he roared. “Thou dost prove thyself the cur I name thee!” He turned in another circle, arms spread. “Hide then,