Storm Born Page 0,129

You spent all your time bitching and moaning, acting like it was so hard to be you. It was stupid, but they all ate it up. Even Aeson did."

She sounded near tears, and a lump formed in my throat. Not because I felt sorry for her but because I knew with a deadly certainty what she was going to say.

"He thought because you were the oldest and had your stupid warrior thing going that you'd be the one to have the heir, not me. He was going to toss me aside, even though I've been faithful to him the whole time - even before he brought me over. It didn't even matter. He was ready to get rid of me for you."

I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to block out her eyes. Those enormous gray eyes, gray like the sky on a rainy day. Just as mine were the violet of storm clouds gathering. Wil's words came back to me, lamenting their childhood: Our dad was always off on some business trip, and our mom was constantly sleeping around on him. Their mom had indeed slept around - with one of the gentry, on one of Storm King's assorted liaisons in the human world. There had been a reason Jasmine reminded me of myself.

"Jasmine...please. We can deal with this...."

"No. I'm tired of you, Eugenie. You're the worst sister ever, and you aren't going to be the one who gets to have the heir and start the conquest. I am."

I glanced over at the lanky form beside her. "Finn...?"

He shrugged, as chipper as ever. "Sorry, Odile. I gave you the chance. I spread your identity around, hoping you'd see reason. You think I wanted to be some shaman's toadie? I picked you because I thought you were going places. You blew it, so I traded up."

My shock over these developments shot into anger. Finn had betrayed us. He'd let Aeson know we were coming. He'd even tried to stack the deck against us by separating Dorian from me earlier.

Before I - or anyone else - realized what I was doing, I strode over to where my captor had tossed my assorted weapons. In a flash, I held the wand. I touched Persephone's gate and said the banishing words. Finn's mouth dropped open in astonishment, but he was such a weak spirit - never meant to be more than a toadie, after all - that his resistance was a nonevent. My will, channeled through the wand, pulled him through the pathway I'd created. A moment later, he vanished, transported into the Underworld.

Banishing him didn't really fix the mess I was in, but it made me feel better.

Jasmine's face darkened, her eyes narrowing with bitter hatred for me. Christ. I still couldn't believe this. She was just a kid.

"Your staff got downsized," I told her.

"I've got more."

I felt a surge of water in the air and a dozen translucent, feline forms appeared beside her. They reminded me of lions, but their bodies moved like water swirled inside them, dynamic and restless, just underneath their translucent skin. Their eyes glowed an almost neon blue, and their teeth and claws looked about ten times longer and sharper than a normal lion's.

"Yeshin," Dorian murmured in my ear. "More water creatures."

I caught the implied message. Maiwenn had had nothing to do with the fachan or nixies. Jasmine had sent them, using the power inherited from our father to attempt to kill me. She'd wanted to get me out of the way so she'd be the only one in line to fulfill that crazy prophecy. Maybe I should have been outraged, but mostly I felt jealous. Jasmine could summon water denizens, and I could not.

The yeshin moved toward me with a sinuous grace, saliva - or was it simply water? - dripping from their fangs. For a moment, I couldn't act. Then Kiyo moved in a golden-orange streak beside me, tackling one of the yeshin to the ground. Their limbs and claws bit into each other as they wrestled, rolling over and over in the dust.

I came to life, grappling on the ground for my gun. Finding it, I ejected the clip and dug through my coat pockets until I found a silver one. Meanwhile, four other yeshin advanced. Dorian waved a hand, and a small dust cloud rose up and swirled in the creatures' eyes. With his other hand, he pointed at me and yelled at the guards.

"All of you! You know your duty. Defend