Sweep of the Blade (Innkeeper Chronicles #4) - Ilona Andrews Page 0,9

a comfortable silence. He provoked her, she responded, then she provoked him, and he parried. She watched him play with Helen, treating her like a treasured vampire child. She noticed when he smiled. She trained with him and she told herself that none of it mattered. They were just friends fighting for the same cause.

Today the assassins managed to introduce a seed of the World Killer into the inn. A flower with the power to wipe out the entire planets, the World Killer was impervious to fire and acid. Made of energy, it passed through every barrier they could throw in its way and only became flesh when it was about to attack. It would kill and grow and kill again until nothing alive remained on the planet and the five of them, Dina, Sean, Helen, Arland, and she would become its first victims.

They stood frozen in the kitchen, afraid to make the slightest movement. Then Arland declared that his blood was toxic to the flower. She saw him look at Helen, look at her, and she knew deep in the very core of her soul that he would sacrifice himself for them. The enormity of that realization smashed into her, throwing her so off balance, she couldn’t even think.

She remembered his voice, so calm it chilled her. “Lady Maud, if I die, say the Liturgy of the Fallen for me.”

Saying the Liturgy of the Fallen fell to the one you treasured most. Your spouse. Your lover. Your one who was everything. She couldn’t dishonor that confession and she answered him in the language of vampires. “Go with the Goddess, my Lord. You won’t be forgotten.”

He had thrown himself at the flower. It stung and seared him, wrapping around him like a constrictor snake. It pierced him again and again, poisoning him until it brought him to his knees. He’d screamed, his voice raw with pain, tears streaming down his face, and still he fought it until he finally grasped its root, tore it open and spat his own blood into it. It died.

And now Arland would die too.

They made him release his armor while Helen cried and begged him not to die, then they brought him here into the medward. He had grown so weak. There was barely any strength in his fingers. Her sister kept washing him, rinsing the polluted blood off his body, but his wounds bled and bled. There was no antidote.

She couldn’t lose him. She couldn’t. Thinking of getting up in the morning, knowing she would never see him, shredded her soul. She wanted to scream and rage, but he was looking at her face, their stares forging a fragile connection. She held his hand and looked back at him, terrified this tether would snap and he would be gone forever.

She saw death in his eyes, coming closer and closer. Vampires died surrounded by family or on the battlefield. She had to help him. She had to…

Maud made her voice neutral and calm. “Dina, do you have a vigil room?”

“No.”

“Then I’m going to make one. Off the kitchen.”

She closed her eyes, reaching for the magic of Gertrude Hunt. Dina’s inn responded, moving first slowly then faster, pulling apart floors and walls, forming a new space, shaping a massive tub, growing the proper plants… It would give him the peace of mind. If he was reassured that proper rites would be said and prayer offered on his behalf, he might hold on.

Hold on, she willed. Please, hold on. Please don’t leave us.

She opened her eyes, took the showerhead from Dina, and kept washing him.

His chest barely rose.

“Don’t go,” she begged. “Hold on to me.”

He smiled at her, so weak it almost broke what little resolve she had left.

“Fight it,” she said. She grasped his hand, trying to pour some of her vitality into him.

“Everything is slowing down.” His voice was quiet. He raised his hand, his fingers trembling. She leaned into his palm, and he stroked her cheek. “No time.”

“Fight it. Live.”

His eyes dimmed.

A knock sounded. A door opened and Caldenia ka ret Magren strode into the room. Once a galactic tyrant, now Gertrude Hunt’s only permanent guest, with a bounty on her head that would let you buy a paradise planet. She carried a small box.

A cure. Maud had no idea how she knew it, but she believed it with every heartbeat.

Her fear had paralyzed her, and Maud turned numb.

Even as the needle pierced Arland’s skin and his wounds stopped bleeding, she still couldn’t bring