His brother didn’t speak when Blaze ascended the stone stairs, leaving only the echoing sound of his boots scraping on each step and the worry that one of his own may have betrayed them all.
The alarm soon screamed through the upper levels, drawing wide-eyed, fearful faces from the rooms.
“Don’t worry, we’re safe, just make your way to the foyer please. Leave your belongings.” He gave reassuring smiles to those they passed, even though his face felt like a rubber band stretched too thin. When Emma’s face appeared in the sea of women and children making their way to the staircase, Blaze intercepted her.
“Hey, are you okay?” she shouted over the siren.
“Yeah, I’ll tell you everything in a bit. Just head downstairs.”
She nodded, though she looked reluctant to go, and headed downstairs.
“What’s going on?” Emerelda asked, throwing herself into Blaze’s arms. Her cloying perfume reeked of ginger and something fruity.“Are we under attack again?”
Blaze shook his head. “Go downstairs and stay there. I’ll come find you in a bit.”
She bit her plump bottom lip that was stained bloodred. “Where’s Axel?”
He opened his mouth, then hesitated. “He’s looking into something for me.”
She nodded, then brushed her hand over his arm before starting down the stairs.
“Head down to the foyer, everyone, don’t worry! Please move in an orderly fashion!” Blaze called over the siren and din of worried voices. Over the balcony and down below, he caught sight of Breanna clutching Isaac in her arms and Dominic hovering behind her, looking ready to spring into action. He hadn’t had time to catch up with his friend yet, and made a mental note to speak to him about his recollection of events once he and Gertie were done searching the rooms.
When the corridor was cleared of people, they started in the first room, his. Though he knew there wouldn’t be anything to find, he wanted to be fair. Gertie swept her palms out. A faint greenish glow emanated from them, but nothing happened. She shook her head.
They went down the line, checking room after room. A few doors were locked, but Gertie made quick work of opening them. After no success, they entered the last room: Axel’s.
Gertie repeated the motion, and this time, items shifted. The fine remains of several herbs appeared from under his unkempt bed and zoomed into Gertie’s awaiting palm. Blaze’s heart stuttered to a stop before shooting into his throat. Then a small fragment of what looked like a peach crystal rose from the pocket of a balled-up pair of trousers shoved in a corner.
“What’s that?” he rasped. He was surprised his voice carried at all with how he felt his throat growing tighter and tighter.
She turned to him, eyes brimming with regret and sadness. “The three primary ingredients in an anti-ward charm: ferretanis root, oxetant flower, and a dolokai stone.”
They gave off an odor that was both sweet and sour, making Blaze’s stomach churn.
“Please tell me there’s a perfectly logical explanation for why he had these that don’t involve being a traitor.” His voice was pleading.
Gertie shook her head. “I’m afraid not. If it had been just oxetant flower, it wouldn’t have been suspicious because it’s often used as a sleep aid when brewed in tea. But together, I’m afraid they are very clearly for an anti-ward charm.”
Blaze swore under his breath, his heartbeat faster. He’d have to tell his uncle. No, tell everyone. That Axel was the reason their loved ones were dead. That his brother was the reason their safety had been compromised.
He didn’t want to believe it.
He couldn’t.
My brother isn’t a traitor.
He isn’t.
He’ll die! The elders will demand his death.
His breaths came faster and his fists clenched, his vision spotted.
He had just found out their sister was alive, and now, he’d have to fight to hold off his brother’s execution.
27
Emma
Once Blaze and Gertie reappeared in the foyer to announce that everyone could return to their rooms, Emma tried to catch Blaze’s eye.To figure out why she
had awoken to a shrill siren, and why his jaw flexed, and why his hands were balled into fists at his sides. Why his eyes were brimming with barely controlled rage, and why he spoke only in a low voice to Gertie, seeming to forget that Emma existed altogether. Whatever this whole thing was about, he was barely holding himself together.
Before everyone had made their way back to their rooms, Blaze had taken off again. She sighed and headed up the staircase, bare feet slapping the cold, marble floor. She was too tired to chase after him. If he didn’t want to involve her, then she would wait. It seemed urgent anyway. And from the way her body swayed, she imagined she was close to passing out. She needed the sleep. Having the mark removed and absorbing so much Shediem energy had drained her. Rest, she told herself. Then she’d check on him.
Back in her room, she collapsed on the bed, falling into unconsciousness before her head had hit the pillow.
Screams echoed in her head, familiar. A figure huddled in a stone chamber. Hands spotted with purple, green, and yellow splotches gripped her head. Matted hair a dull reddish color jolted Emma with recognition. She tried to scream, but instead, it was the woman’s screams that reverberated through the cell.
Her mother’s screams.
Incoherent mumbling came from her shaking, rocking form.
“Look at me!” a voice of booming thunder echoed, and her mother shook harder.
Emma knew whom it belonged to, though she couldn’t see him. Her mother’s head lifted, looking directly at Emma. Or through her. Dried blood caked her temple. Fresh blood oozed from her nostrils. Her lip was split and one of her eyes was swollen shut, black and purple staining the skin around it. Her face, though beaten nearly beyond recognition, held a fiery hatred that seared into Emma’s soul.
“That’s it. You’re going to look at me when I kill you. Your daughter won’t be able to save you. I’m going to kill you slowly, and she’s going to watch.” Her father’s voice was close, as if just behind her. She spun, but there was only blackness.
Emma’s chest heaved; her lungs wouldn’t fill with air. Why couldn’t she wake? It was just a nightmare. Just another nightmare.
Her mother looked around, trying to find her. “Emma,” she moaned with a pained expression.
Emma screamed for her, to try to get her mother to hear her. “Mom! MOM!”
“Don’t bother.” Her father chuckled. “You can’t see Emma. But she can see you.”
“How?” her mother demanded, though her voice was hoarse. Like she had been screaming for days. She glared directly at Emma.
Why couldn’t her mother see her? The answer came to her just before her father spoke the words.
“I have her consciousness held within my mind through the remnants of my mark. She is seeing what I see. She won’t be able to look away.” His cruel, rumbling laugh echoed through the chamber while her mother screamed.
“Wake up, Emma! Don’t watch, baby!”
Emma fought to breathe. This wasn’t happening. How was this happening? The charred black skin veined with glowing red, like rivers of lava weaving down his arm, and his fingertips were now elongated claws. He was in his true form.
He slashed across Laura’s arm, carving deep gashes that gushed with blood. Her mother’s scream was deafening. Backed in a corner, she cried words that weren’t in English, and Emma wondered from the accented sounds if her mother had slipped into Russian—her native language. It was the first time she’d ever heard her speak it.
Then her mother looked directly at her, though the eyes she looked through did not belong to her. “I love you, Emma,” each word a pained gasp.
Emma reached for her. Tried to run to her to staunch the bleeding. To throw her own body over her mother’s.
NO! Emma fought against the tether that bound her to her father. Take me, I’ll come back, I’ll be
your slave, she pleaded, hoping her father could hear her.
“You broke your vow,” he hissed. “You slaughtered my Gargoloscks. Your use has ended, and now I will kill everyone you love. When no one is left and you are begging for mercy at my feet, I will feed you to my brothers and you will suffer, just like your mother has, for all of your days. Death will be the only thing you think about. It will be all that you crave, but I will not give it to you. You will endure my wrath with every breath. Death will never claim you. I will heap unending agony upon you until you are the cruelest and vilest of beasts. Then you will serve me.”
She couldn’t speak. She was roaring in his mind, but he shut her out. Still she screamed “I will destroy you!” over and over while she watched, unable to look away from her mother, who resembled a small child mentally removed from the physical suffering. She hoped her mother couldn’t feel the pain.
Asmodeus stabbed his massive claws into her mother’s thigh, then her abdomen. When Emma lunged for him, he flung her back with a mighty force. She hit the stone wall and collapsed in a heap, silent.
“Would you like to see her, daughter?” her father crooned. “I shall let you.”
She awoke thrashing beneath a heavy weight, her throat raw from screaming.
Air. There was no air.
She was suffocating.
Dying.
“Emma!” Blaze shouted, cutting through her terror.
“Get off!” she screamed.
Blaze lifted himself from her, his gaze intense as she flung herself off the bed and retched the meager contents of her stomach onto the lush carpet.
“Bloody fucking hell, Emma, you wouldn’t wake up,” he said shakily. He crouched beside her. Gently, he swept back her hair from her face and she heaved again.“It was just a dream,” he said more soothingly.
She shook her head, retching once more, so violently her entire body felt like it was being turned inside out. She didn’t spare a thought for the carpet. Her mother was dying, if she wasn’t already dead. She needed to get to Sheol to save her.
“Levaroth,” she croaked.
“What?” Blaze bit out harshly.
“I need to summon Levaroth,” she replied, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Shooting to her feet, she raced for the door before hitting a solid wall of muscle. She bounced off Blaze’s chest with a snarl—a feral sound that should have surprised her—but she didn’t care, even at the sight of Blaze’s stunned expression. “He’s killing my mother for removing the mark. I need to go to Sheol and save her.”
“Who is? Levaroth?”
“No, my father!”
Blaze’s brows rose.“Who is your father?”
“Asmodeus,” Emma said, trying to push past him. This time he let her go, swearing as he followed behind her. She flung the door open and sprinted down the corridor.
“Emma, wait! You can’t just go back to Sheol. You won’t be able to leave.”
“I’m going to kill them all!” she shouted. If Blaze answered, she didn’t hear.
The grand double doors burst open before she approached the bottom of the winding stairway, and at least ten guards rushed in, many looking ashen faced. Blaze had her by the bicep and yanked her to a stop. She growled at him, but he ignored her.
“Sir! You have to come, there’s a—” The guard she recognized as Gerald fell silent, and a ripple of unease swept through the cluster of men.
Her heart pounded. She ripped herself free of Blaze’s grasp and was out the door, running faster than she ever had. The glow of late morning set the sky in gold and red. Her brain refused to process what she was seeing, ignored the deadly cold that gripped and squeezed her lungs, threatening to steal her breath. Her father, the beast he was, stood outside the gate. Red stained the ground around him like a gruesome welcome mat. A handful of guards, ripped into pieces, were strewn all around the prince, who smiled at her.
Vaguely, she registered Blaze tearing after her, shouting at her to stop. She came to a halt just before the closed gate. Her mother’s body was limp in her father’s arms. Blood soaked the threadbare gown that hung from her starved frame.
Bile rose in Emma’s throat. Red tinged the edges of her vision. She loosed a roar that could match any beast’s. The cold smile that curved her father’s lips grew. His bloodred eyes matched the ground beneath his massive, clawed feet. He looked more dragon than man.
Emma saw the shallow rise and fall of her mother’s chest, and faltered.
“I’ll come willingly,” she said. “You can punish me for all eternity. Put her down. Let her go. Please,” she begged. Every inch of her shook with desperation.
“I will have you, daughter. But first, you will watch her die.” He shot into the air before Emma could process his movement.
A pair of strong arms locked around Emma’s waist, spinning her away.
But still, she saw it happen.
She still saw the steel spikes impale her mother’s frail body.
She still heard the squelch of flesh that tore her stomach to shreds.
She heard the sickening crunch of bones splintering.
Her mouth opened on a silent scream. Her chest spasmed as she fought to draw in the breath to let her screams break free.
She fought the grip on her waist. Her nails clawed into the hot, steely arms that caged her. She was frozen.
Broken.
Being torn away from the bloody sight of her mother’s body.
Heat roared beneath her skin. The searing hot in her veins was a welcome sensation to the cold that filled her chest where her heart used to be.
The arms that held her back released her. And at last she sucked in a breath.
And screamed.
The sound ripped through the sky. The ground shook. Iron bars bowed outward as Emma sprinted toward the man that murdered her mother.
Her father’s eyes widened. Then his voice spoke directly into her mind. I will see you soon, daughter mine.
She tried to claw it out of her head. Still she screamed. A cry for blood. For death.
Then she doubled over as fresh agony tore through her body, consuming it. Threatening to split her skin.
When it eased enough, she jumped to her feet. But her father was gone. Still, the cold and crushing weight in her chest increased.
Her gaze cut back to the top of the fence, where her mother hung, cold and still, only fifteen feet from where she stood.
And then the world went black.
Her lids were heavy, her mouth dry. She didn’t open her eyes. Images of her mother’s body impaled on the steel spikes of the gate flashed. Grief pummeled into her, knocking the air from her lungs. She sobbed softly, turning back into her pillow and begging sleep to claim her again. Her mother was dead. Living was pointless. She had failed. Her father won.
Behind her, a weight sank onto the bed. Blaze’s warmth pulled her around to face him. She buried her face in his chest, letting silent tears fall.
“I wish I could take it away,” he whispered. “I know you feel like you’re drowning now, but you will surface because you must. The fight isn’t over.” He stroked her hair and soon her sobs subsided. The steady rhythm of his heart lulled her into a dreamless sleep.
The warmth around her shifted, making her conscious of the fact that Blaze was still in her bed, limbs entwined with hers. His lips brushed her forehead.
“You need to get up, my love,” he said. She swallowed hard, then nodded. She would shower, dress, then she would face her new reality. Her mother would be furious to see Emma losing the will to live when the world was on the brink of a supernatural war that she was the key to.
She would bury her mom. Grieving could take place once she made it through what was to come…if she made it through what was to come.
Her mother’s life had been the cost of freedom. War was declared the second the Mark of Fallen Flame had been removed. But who had removed it? She hadn’t been consciously trying to do so, yet it happened. Somehow.
&
nbsp; It surprised Emma that the whole world hadn’t been devoured by darkness while she slept as retribution for her betrayal. Perhaps he had yet to make his next move.
She extricated herself from Blaze’s embrace, pushing herself up to a sitting position. She glanced at the pity in his pale blue eyes. Another pair of blue eyes filled her mind and she asked, “How is Sergei?”
He swallowed hard before rubbing large circles on her back. “He came out right when”—he sucked in a long, steadying breath—“when it happened. He’s in rough shape.”
Emma’s eyes burned. She’d been so focused on herself that she hadn’t paid any mind to those around her. The event itself was burned into her memory. But everything else was hazy, as if it’d happened years ago instead of days.
“I’d like to bury her,” she told him, her voice wobbly. He inclined his head.“Of course.”
“But first I’d like a shower.” She got to her feet, using what
little strength she had to keep her spine straight. Blaze assessed her. Then he nodded, getting to his feet as well. He strode around the bed, stopping in front of her. The back of his hand brushed against her cheek before he leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to her dry and cracked lips.
“I’ll have food brought up as well.” Emma didn’t bother protesting. She cast him a grateful look before he turned to leave. When the door clicked shut, she undressed and headed for the shower.
A hot shower, in Emma’s opinion, could refresh and soothe away deep aches. But that was before she had watched her mother die in the most heinous and gruesome way possible. She was numb to the way the heat pounded into her taut muscles, and she didn’t bother lingering.
Back in her room, the spicy, sugary scent of cinnamon wafted toward her. The smell reminded her too much of her mother, of the cinnamon rolls she often surprised Emma with. She staggered into the wall, using it to hold her up while she fought to keep her grip on the tattered remains of her composure.
The tray sitting on her table was piled high with eggs, bacon, toast, and sautéed vegetables. Beside it was a warm, glazed cinnamon roll. Gertie had prepared a small feast for her. Emma stared at the food for a long moment. Blaze still hadn’t returned, making it easy to consider tossing the entire tray out her window. Instead, she picked up the mug of coffee—already prepared to her liking—and gulped it down, ignoring its sweet taste and the burn that scraped down her throat. It settled heavily in her stomach, warm and unsatisfying. She grimaced.
The Throne of Broken Bones (Weapon of Fire and Ash Book 3) Page 21
