Angeline twisted her hands into her apron. “I wish I could go with you. I want to help.”
“You are helping,” Nomi reminded her. “You know about the escape route. You can help Ria. You can tell the others. But wait a day or two if you can. Malachi will come. He will help.”
Maybe he wasn’t bound by the concessions she and Serina had demanded of him. But she’d seen his disgust when he’d discovered how Asa was collecting Graces. These women would be safe in Malachi’s care.
She folded the handmaiden into a hug. “Be careful.”
Angeline’s arms tightened around her. “You too.”
Nomi sat at the dressing table while Angeline and Ria prepared for bed. She waited, skin crawling, until the room was velvet with night, until at long last, their breathing had slipped toward slumber.
Now it was time.
Nomi picked up the small lamp Angeline had found for her. Then she opened the door slowly, just an inch or two, and listened. Memories of the night she’d snuck out to see Asa the first time threatened to drown her. How naive she’d been, to plot Viridia’s downfall without suspicion, without fear.
Looking back on that night, on her misplaced trust, Nomi could entirely believe her stupidity. She’d been desperate. Guilty. Sick with worry for her sister. Rightfully so, it turned out. And she had made the wrong call.
But this, killing Asa, she knew deep in her bones that this was the right decision. She was plotting again, but this time it was for Viridia’s soul.
It was almost as if the night knew it too. Nomi slipped out of the room and down the hall uncontested. No footsteps followed her or echoed down adjoining corridors. She saw no guards at all. The secret passage would allow her to bypass any soldiers or servants in the halls. She remembered Malachi having one stationed outside his door—she was sure Asa did as well. Probably Marcos, the man he seemed to trust most. The one who’d given Nomi his messages. The one who’d shoved her onto the boat to Mount Ruin.
But when she turned the corner, Nomi froze. A figure waited by the secret panel. Right in front of it, as if she knew it was there.
“I saw you on the terrace this morning,” Ines said. Her curves shimmered in a white silken robe that caught the moonlight. “I wondered if this was how you came in.”
The older woman’s serenity had cracked. Her age had seemed to find her in the weeks Nomi had been away; fine lines framed her eyes, and she was frowning, something she’d once told Nomi Graces never did.
“Malachi said only he and his father knew about the tunnels.” Nomi crossed her arms over her chest. The cloak enveloped her completely; she was a shadow to Ines’s light.
“Malachi had such potential for kindness,” Ines said, and Nomi was struck again by the sense of age, of exhaustion, that clung to the woman. She had suffered in the past few weeks. Whatever else, Nomi believed that. “He should have been Superior.”
“He will be,” Nomi said. “He is still alive.”
Ines took a step back. “You are lying.”
“Asa tried to kill him, but he failed. He did succeed in killing the Superior, though. Malachi didn’t to that. Asa did.”
Ines stared at Nomi, her eyes two black shadows in the dim hall. “And what are you planning to do?”
Nomi took a breath. If she told the truth, would Ines let her go?
“I am a Grace,” she said at last. “I am going to visit the Superior.”
Ines’s hands clenched at her sides. She didn’t speak. But after a moment, after another wordless stare, she lifted her gaze above Nomi’s head as if she were suddenly invisible, and walked down the hall. Nomi watched her go, but Asa’s mother never turned around.
Nomi didn’t wait. She pulled the panel open and slipped into the tunnel.
THIRTY-THREE
SERINA
THE DUNGEON DOOR ground and squealed too soon. Serina sat up, dazed and thirsty, and not ready.
She’d been determined to accept her fate as calmly as Ember, but now that the moment had come, she found herself desperately clutching Val’s arm.
“Serina?” a whisper carried across the sea of bodies.
Serina stood up at the voice. A figure was framed in the doorway, and it wasn’t Asa.
“Renzo?”
He saw her, and his whole face changed, opened up. He beckoned.
“Come on. I’ve got the keys for the shackles. And a firearm. We need to hurry.”
Serina wove through the women, all of them shaking off sleep and beginning to stand, their chains clanking. Dumbly, she asked, “How are you here?”
Was she dreaming?
“The Heir told me how to get into the palazzo through the tunnels,” he said. “There was only one guard outside. I took his keys and his weapon.” Renzo put his hands on her cheeks, studying her as if she were a stranger. The bruise on her face stung. “Serina. I hardly believed Nomi when she told me. But you… you are a warrior.”
“The Heir… Nomi…” she mumbled. “How…”
A cloud passed across Renzo’s face. “They found me.”
“So… so you’re all here together? With the regiment?” A small tendril of hope unfurled within her.
“No,” Renzo said. He unlocked the shackles around her wrists. “But I hope the Heir is on his way.”
Serina rubbed at her sore wrists, shock making her slow. Her mind was still muddy. “And Nomi?”
“She snuck away on some fool mission to go after Asa. I came after her to help, and then I heard about the women captured from Mount Ruin and the executions. So I figured you might need help too,” he replied. He looked different too, older, without his cheeky grin. Serina couldn’t stop staring at him. “I was afraid for you.”
Serina threw her arms around him. “Asa said you were dead. I thought—I can’t believe you’re here.”
He hugged her tightly but drew back before she was ready.
“Our parents are dead,” he said softly, his dark eyes shining with tears. “His men got to them before I could.”
Serina’s throat closed. That’s what Asa had meant. Your family is waiting for you.
She looked down at her hands, callused and dirty, bruises marring her wrists. The last time she’d seen her mother, Serina’s hands had been soft and smooth, the nails perfectly shaped, not a single mark on her skin. So much had changed.
Without looking up, she said, “We’re going to take the palazzo. We’re going to kill him.”
Asa, his soldiers, this country… she would burn it all to the ground.
“Good,” Renzo said.
She took the keys from him and got to work. Unlocking a shackle, moving to the next, passing the key to hands beyond her reach. “Hurry,” she said quietly.
She turned back to Renzo. “You said you have a firearm. Any knives or swords? Silence is a weapon. We need to avoid firearms as long as we can.”
He nodded. “I’ve got two knives. But that’s all.”
“We’ll get more.” She glanced past him to the guard sprawled on the hallway floor. He was starting to move.
“Didn’t you kill him?” she asked. Her mind was sharp now, clear as it had ever been in her life. She knew what she had to do. She knew where this would end.
Renzo looked over at the guard. “I, uh… I knocked him out. I’m not really the killing type.”
Serina used one of his knives and did what had to be done.
Renzo stared at her with wide eyes.
“This is war,” she said, her voice calm, her mind calm. She was going to get her battle, her rebellion, after all. And it began now. “If the guards live, they can sound the alarm or attack us from behind. They have to die. Do you understand?”
He nodded, but his face paled.
When everyone was free from the heavy metal cuffs, Serina addressed the women, low and urgently. “We planned to go to Azura, but plans change. All of you who wanted to fight back, this is your chance. We’re going to take Asa down. Kill any guards or soldiers you get your hands on, but
don’t touch the courtiers and servants. Collect all the weapons you can. Every soldier you kill, take his firearm, his knife, whatever he has.”
Anika sidled up to Serina and took one of Renzo’s knives. “You think we can do this?”
“We fight back.” Serina tightened her hand on the hilt of her knife. “Always.”
She’d rather die fighting than on display, like Ember. This was for Ember.
And for her family.
Serina and Anika slipped into the hall, leading Renzo, Val, and the rest of the women of Mount Ruin out of their prison. And together, when a guard rounded the corner, Serina and Anika took him down. Anika grabbed his firearm, Serina his dagger.
They were just getting started.
THIRTY-FOUR
NOMI
NOMI’S SLITHER THROUGH the secret passage went faster this time, with the lamp to guide her. And yet, her feet dragged all the same. Her heart beat so loudly she was sure the people in the rooms she was passing would be able to hear it.
She reached the ladder and kept walking. She counted the doors. Dusty, cobwebbed. Small square panels, tall thin ones, all with tiny doorknobs. She stopped before the final faint rectangle, the entrance to the Superior’s rooms.
She took a deep breath. Closed her eyes, thought of Serina. Of Renzo, safe on his way to Azura. Of her parents, dead on the floor of their apartment.
She thought of Malachi and the hope she held in her heart. Hope that he would be a different kind of Superior, that he would help the women of Viridia. Please, she prayed.
Then she doused the lamp and opened the door.
Moonlight shone into the Superior’s bedroom from a doorway that led to an open terrace beyond. A vast bed took up the right half of the room. A gilded armoire loomed against the other wall below a display of dangerous-looking weapons that gleamed in the dim light. The bed was hung with sheer gold-flecked curtains, partially obscuring the bed itself. She couldn’t tell if Asa was inside, nor if he was alone. What would she do if he wasn’t alone?
A shiver whispered along the back of her neck.
She slipped the knife out of her boot and stepped silently into the room. Nomi knew Serina was better suited for this task, seeing as Nomi had no idea how to use a knife. But even if her sister had been standing next to her, Nomi would have shouldered the duty of this undertaking. She had given Asa his opportunity, if not his power. She had to be the one to take it away.
She snuck up to the bed curtains and peeked inside. The silken sheets—black and shimmering—were smooth, unwrinkled. No one was in the bed.
Nomi’s stomach flipped. She’d been so prepared to see Asa asleep in this bed, his dark hair mussed. She’d expected the memories to come flooding back; she’d braced for weakness and doubt. She’d imagined it would be difficult to see him in the flesh again, to resolve the capricious murderer with the man who’d promised her the world.
But he wasn’t here.
She backed away from the bed, toward the secret passageway. She’d have to wait for him to return. She wasn’t abandoning her mission now. As she turned, a flicker of movement caught her eye.
There, through the doorway…
She slipped out of her boots, knife in hand, and padded barefoot across the cold marble. Before she reached the doorway, she could hear his voice: soft, persuasive.
She snuck a glance around the corner.
Asa stood on the balcony beyond the doorway, facing a girl with a curtain of black hair, her head bowed. His hand rested at the joining of her neck and shoulder. Even from the other side of the terrace, Nomi saw the tension running through her.
Oh no. Maris.
“I saw you,” Asa was purring. He was taller than she was by a few inches, and he used that height to loom, to assert his power. In his shadow, Maris cowered. “You belonged on Mount Ruin, didn’t you? You had your own secret. Your own… aberration.”
Nomi bit back a gasp.
Maris said nothing, but her hands clenched at her sides.
Asa’s lips thinned. He twisted his hand into her hair and yanked, driving her head down. Maris stumbled to her knees, crying out.
Nomi tightened her grip on the homemade knife and charged.
The short distance benefited her. Slap, slap, slap… three footfalls and she’d reached them. He was just turning toward her, mouth opening, when she used her momentum and her fury and all her broken pieces to drive the knife into his gut, to the hilt.
Asa staggered back a step.
But he didn’t falter the way she expected him to. Infuriated, he launched himself at her, yelling and cursing, his eyes wild as an injured animal’s. Her legs caught in her cloak as she tried to back away.
She fell down, and he followed, sprawling on top of her, her knife still protruding grotesquely from his side.
He wound his hands around her neck. Suddenly, painfully, she couldn’t breathe.
“Nomi,” Asa growled. “Good. I so wanted to kill you myself.”
Nomi’s fingers scrabbled uselessly at her throat. She wriggled beneath him, but his legs and the billows of her cloak pinned her to the ground. Black spots danced across his twisted face. She should have slashed his throat, she should have…
Maris threw herself at Asa. Her weight toppled him, and for a few seconds, Nomi could breathe. Maris tried to scrabble out of the way, but Asa crawled after her, the knife still buried in him, still not slowing him down. Maris sobbed as she tried to escape.
Nomi clambered after them and shoved Asa as hard as she could. He listed to the side with a furious groan. But he recovered quickly, backhanding her across the face. Nomi fell to her knees. He got his hands around her neck again and drew her up.
“You know,” he grunted, pulling her closer to him, “I really did want you as my queen. My beautiful queen, kneeling at my feet.” His eyes, those eyes she’d once thought gentle and mischievous, added a perverse cast to the image. “But then you backed out of our plan. You turned on me.”
His face twisted, the murderer showing through.
Nomi raised her knee and slammed it into his groin. He wobbled, but he didn’t let go.
Her right hand knocked against her cloak. No, something in the pocket of her cloak.
Hand shaking, she drew out the pencil, sharpened savagely to a point, and drove it into Asa’s eye.
He fell back, ramming into the balcony railing. A strange, savage moan left his lips. His other eye stared at her fixedly. Slowly, its light went out.
His body tipped backward, overbalancing. Nomi gave him an extra, furious push.
Time seemed to slow as she watched him fall, his black silk dressing gown fluttering all the way down.
A moment later, a percussive thud. No screams or shouts of alarm. No one had seen him.
They would soon enough.
Nomi coughed weakly, her throat burning. She collapsed to the floor next to Maris and took several deep, painful breaths.
“Nomi, Nomi…” Maris put her arms around her and held on tight.
“We need to get away,” Nomi murmured. “His guards will find us. I don’t know if I can fight them off.”
“I’ll help however I can,” Maris said, her voice surprisingly steady. “I helped on Mount Ruin.”
They staggered toward the secret panel. Nomi had expected Asa to be guarded, or to call for Marcos when he saw her. She hadn’t expected the chance to walk away. This time, before his men found his body, this was a gift. She needed to use it to find Serina and get the women of Mount Ruin out.
Suddenly, a roar echoed from somewhere deep within the palazzo, clinging to the walls, shaking the foundation. It was the roar of a hundred female voices, all of them full of rage.
It was a battle cry.
Nomi and Maris bolted into the corridor and followed the sound. Maybe Serina wouldn’t be hard to find after all.
THIRTY-FIVE
SERINA
THE LOWER LEVELS of the palazzo were a maze, as labyrinthine as the Graces’ chambers but on a
much larger scale. It wasn’t all cells and dungeons down here either; among the soldiers, each dispatched swiftly to avoid raising the alarm, servants and maids scurried to and from stock rooms, cold storage, and wine cellars. It was one of these maids—a round, doughy woman in a stained apron—who saw Serina, with her blackened eye and her army of women, and screamed until her face went purple.
Serina grabbed the woman’s arm. “How do we get upstairs?”
The woman didn’t stop screaming.
“Please,” Serina added. “We just need to get out of here. We’re not going to hurt you.”
The woman’s voice petered out. She didn’t speak, but her eyes flicked toward a corridor on her left.
Serina patted her shoulder and headed down the hall. Behind her, the tide of women flowed through the passageway and up the narrow stair.
“We need to find the Superior,” Anika said. “If he goes down, they all will.”
“The soldiers will guard him heavily,” Serina said grimly. “We find them, we’ll find him.” And Nomi, hopefully before she gets herself killed.
She sent Val and Renzo to the back of her army—Val to protect them from behind, and Renzo to keep him safe. As safe as possible, anyway. She didn’t want either of them on the front lines. “You stay out of the way, you hear me?” she told her brother, shaking him by the shoulders. He nodded and made no argument.
As Serina entered a long gallery, she got her first glimpse outside—it was full night, with a streak of moonlight gleaming on the ocean. Beautiful.
She rounded the corner and skidded to a stop. The wide walkway was full of Asa’s men, all of them with weapons held aloft. They must have heard the servant’s scream. And it wasn’t just a handful of guards either. This was a regiment.
But they were still fewer than the women of Mount Ruin.
Serina shared a split-second glance with Anika. There was no fear in the other woman’s eyes. She was ready for this. And suddenly, so was Serina. These men, with their weapons and their big looming bodies and their blank faces, they represented all the men who had oppressed her, judged her, hurt her. They were the men who had done the same to the women standing behind her.
Queen of Ruin (Grace and Fury) Page 22
