Sophie closed the bathroom door and opted to open the door on her right. This was the master bedroom, as far as it could be called that. There was a small double bed on one side of the room, and a very crooked, single bamboo bed at the foot of it. Both of the beds were empty and had ruffled sheets, which meant they had been slept in recently. Sophie moved around the room, shining her torch every which way she looked. Next to the door was a single cupboard that Sophie assumed was used for clothes. Unlike downstairs and the bathroom, the bedroom did show signs of a struggle. The nightstand next to the double bed had fallen over, taking everything that had been on top with it.
Sophie bent her knees and picked up a broken picture frame. She turned it around in her hand and looked at the photograph within. Two women were standing next to each other; each of them had an arm draped around the other. Sophie recognised the woman on the right immediately as Amisha Jasman. It took her a little while longer to recognise the other woman. But once Sophie took in the slightly bigger nose, the wavy brown hair and the thicker, fuller lips, she knew.
Whoever the woman downstairs was, it was the same woman as in this picture. Amisha knew this woman, and knew her well.
Sophie looked at the room again. A double bed and a single bed… Sophie had automatically assumed that the single bed was either for Banyu or Citra, one of Amisha’s children. What if she was wrong…
Sophie leapt to her feet and left Amisha’s bedroom. She opened the third door and found a second bedroom, with two single beds. Both empty, but only one of them had its sheets ruffled. The other bed was still made up. Three people had been sleeping in this house when the Disciples had broken in, while there should have been four. Sophie looked down at the photograph in the broken picture frame she realised she was still holding. There was something about the two women. They had the same eyes; not only in shape but also in colour. And the ears, and the shape of their heads… Sophie would bet anything that it was Amisha’s sister who was lying on the ground downstairs.
Sophie was about to go down and tell Sky what she had discovered when she heard something. It had been so soft that she wondered if she had imagined it. Sophie narrowed her eyes and scanned the room silently.
There it was again. A sort of shift in movement. Like a foot sliding over the ground. Something…
Sophie shone her torch into the room. The two bamboo beds stood higher above the ground, but there was no way of looking underneath them. The sheets draped over the sides all the way to the ground. Sophie moved closer to the made-up bed, which was closest to where she had heard the sound. She crouched down, lifted the sheets and tossed them onto the bed.
She was met with a wall of bamboo.
She could’ve sworn she’d heard something coming from underneath…
Sophie scanned either side of the short bamboo wall that held up the bed and found what she had been looking for. At the bottom right corner of the short end of the bed was a little hole. It was no larger than a single finger, and anyone else would’ve missed it if they hadn’t been looking for it specifically.
Sophie put one finger into the hole and tugged. The slab of bamboo came away without any effort at all, revealing a whole space underneath the bed. Sophie took a steadying breath, wondering what she would find in the secret space. She leaned down to get a look at the inside and gasped.
A small boy, no older than eight, was huddled all the way at the other end. His eyes were full of fright as Sophie shone her torchlight on him.
“Banyu?” Sophie whispered.
The boy shook violently and tried to crawl even further away from her.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” Sophie said softly.
Banyu’s bottom lip trembled and he made no move to come towards her. Sophie switched her torch to her left hand so she could free up her right.
“Do you see this?” Sophie asked, shining the light on the Band around her right wrist. “Do you know what this means?”
Banyu’s eyes widened slightly, and whispered, “Aster?”
Sophie smiled at the boy and nodded. “That’s right. I’m an Aster. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to protect you.”
There was confusion on Banyu’s face, and Sophie realised that the boy must still be learning English and wouldn’t understand most of what she was saying. Sophie dug into the part of her magic where she could access languages and the Band on her wrist started to pulse with a golden glow. She then pointed at herself and said, in Indonesian, “My name is Sophie.”
Sophie then pointed at Banyu and added, “Your name is Banyu, right?”
She waited for the boy to nod his head. “You can call me Sophie,” she said in the boy’s native language.”
“Sophie,” Banyu whispered.
Sophie nodded, trying to give the boy an encouraging smile. She gestured for him to come towards her. “It’s okay, you can come out now.”
The Band on her skin tingled as she spoke in a language that wasn’t her own. Banyu seemed to understand that there wasn’t any danger anymore, and even though the boy still quivered from head to toe, he started to move.
“That’s right. Good job,” Sophie encouraged.
A sudden crash downstairs had both of them freezing in place. Sophie whipped her head round towards the bedroom door.
“Sophie!” Sky yelled from downstairs.
Another crash.
Sophie snapped her head back to Banyu, who had already retreated all the way to the back of the space under his bed. He had started crying and shaking almost uncontrollably.
“Good, that’s good.” Sophie tried to sound reassuring. “Just stay there, okay? Stay there and don’t move. Just like before, okay?”
She didn’t give Banyu another glance as a third crash sounded downstairs. Sophie quickly grabbed the slab of bamboo and closed the bottom of the bed again. As carefully as possible, she brought down the sheets again so that nothing about Banyu’s bed seemed out of place. Nothing about it that might have an intruder wondering if there was something suspicious underneath.
Sophie could hear someone climbing the stairs, so she sped towards the landing to meet them.
A female Disciple, recognizable by the signature brown fighting leathers, was almost at the top of the stairs when Sophie took a hold of either side of the bannister, and swung her legs forward. Her feet met the Disciple’s face with a crunch. Sophie knew she had broken bone.
Having lost her balance, the Disciple fell backwards down the stairs. Sophie darted after her, unsheathing the rapier at her belt as she did so. Halfway down the stairs Sophie found that the female Disciple had landed on another Disciple who had been coming up the stairs behind her.
The two of them were about to get back to their feet when Sophie did the exact same thing again: she grasped the railing on either side and swung her legs forward. She connected with the female Disciple again, but the male one behind her caught Sophie’s foot and pulled her towards him. Sophie lost her grip on the railing and fell hard on her back on the bottom few stairs. Pain shot through her back.
The male Disciple loomed over her, just as the female Disciple started to regain her footing. The male Disciple was holding a single sword and was about to drive it down into Sophie’s chest. He brought the sword down, but right at the last second, Sophie spun sideways, missing the blade by inches.
The sword met bamboo with a sickening crunch.
In her scramble to get up onto her feet, Sophie swung her rapier-bearing arm around herself, slicing right across the side of the male Disciple’s knee. He cried out and staggered back, just as the female Disciple started gaining on her.
Still in a crouched position and with pain searing up and down her back with each movement, Sophie raised her left hand to the female Disciple and pressed the small button. A tiny bolt shot out of the crossbow on her wrist and flew straight through her opponent’s throat. A small click told Sophie that a new bolt had automatically slotted in to place.
The female Disciple clawed at her thr
oat, but there was nothing she could do. She sank down to the ground as blood sprayed out of the wound.
Sophie pushed herself up to a standing position, her back throbbing as she moved. The male Disciple rose again, but having stumbled back when Sophie had caught his knee, he had no access to the sword he had attacked her with before. Looming over her, he reached for a weapon at his back.
Sophie planted her feet strongly at the bottom of the stairs and waited for the Disciple to come at her. She couldn’t risk going to him and leaving the stairs exposed. She needed to keep any Disciple away from getting up the stairs and finding Banyu.
For a moment, Sophie’s heart stilled as she took in the weapon the Disciple had just drawn from his back. She hadn’t seen it until he revealed it in that moment.
It was a double-bladed axe. With red swirling decorations on the hilt and a red stone in the centre in between the two blades. A sudden cold spread through her body. She knew which King this Disciple served, and it wasn’t good.
The Disciple lifted his arm up into the air and brought the axe down. Sophie saw it coming and blocked the blow easily. Even though her rapier was far less strong that the double-bladed axe, she only needed it to redirect the blows enough not to touch her. Sophie swallowed, ignoring the stabbing pain in her back as the Disciple tried again. Her jump was more like a stumble as she moved to the side, just in time to avoid another blow.
Each time their blades clashed it gave Sophie a fleeting chance to look around her. There were more Disciples in the house. Two were lying dead on the floor in the kitchen and one was on the upside-down dining room table. Another double-bladed axe with the same red lines was lying discarded close by.
Sophie let the male Disciple get two more blows in. Out of the corner of her eye she saw another male Disciple advancing with a knife in his hand.
The Disciple in front of her brought the axe down again. Sophie blocked it, then gritted her teeth and used all her strength to push the Disciple a few feet away from her. It was enough space for her to be able to shoot him with another one of her bolts.
Sophie frowned at the double bladed axe in the Disciple’s hand as she raised her left hand, ready to shoot. Even with her weakened because of her fall, it hadn’t taken much of her strength to push this Disciple away from her. And yet he was carrying this incredibly significant weapon. As far as Sophie had always known, only inner circle members and the King himself carried them. Not random foot soldiers, which this Disciple clearly was. It was like this King was screaming at them which Underworld he ruled. What on earth was he playing at?
Sophie didn’t have the time now to question it. She pressed the button on the side of her index finger and the bolt shot the Disciple right in the heart. The Disciple stumbled back, and Sophie shot at him another two times to make sure he wouldn’t be able to come back and attack again.
Sophie didn’t have a lot of time to recover. The next Disciple was taller and stronger. Shooting the other Disciple another two times had given him the opportunity to get up close. He flung his arm towards Sophie with his single knife. Sophie dodged it, but found her shoulder grasped in his strong, free hand’s grip. Sophie struggled. She dropped her rapier so that she could clasp her hands around his knife-bearing hand. Sophie growled as she put all her energy into keeping that hand with the knife in it away from her own throat.
The Disciple’s face was so close to hers that she could smell his breath. Sweat was streaming down his face in the heat of the Indonesian jungle, as he, too, was using all his strength to get his blade to cut through her skin. Sophie knew she wouldn’t be able to stop him. Her magic didn’t give her extra strength. If she wanted to beat this man, she would have to do it another way. She would never be stronger than a male fighter; so, she would have to be smarter.
Sophie risked her balance to lift her foot and kick the Disciple hard against his knee. The Disciple balked and stumbled slightly. It was enough of an advantage. He had loosened his grip on her shoulder and his knife-hand had retreated away from her face. Not too far, though, but far enough so that Sophie could reach for the dagger at her belt and free it. When the Disciple regained his focus, Sophie was already swinging the dagger. In one quick movement that had her back barking, she sliced it across his chest.
Blood sprayed across her face and clothes as the male Disciple went down. Sophie stumbled back and steadied herself on the bannister behind her. Her back was screaming, and the heat of the jungle was tiring her out quicker than she was used to. She gasped for air and coughed once before scanning the room. Lian was in combat with two Disciples at once, while Sky was nothing more than a blue flash. One moment he was to Sophie’s left, stabbing one Disciple in the belly with his short spear, and next he had vanished and appeared behind Lian, cutting down a Disciple before he could do any damage to his brother.
Sophie wanted to go to them; she wanted to go to Lian so she could fight back-to-back with him. She could see blood running down the side of his temple, but couldn’t tell how bad the damage was. Worst case, Lian could get dizzy and disorientated soon if he had been badly hit on his head. Sophie needed to heal him quickly just in case, but she couldn’t move away from the bottom of the stairs. There was only one way up and one way down, and she would make sure that no one even came close to finding Banyu.
“Sophie, get over here!” Sky shouted at her when he appeared once more close to Lian. Sophie understood what he wanted; in his eyes there was nothing more they could do here. Amisha and her two children were clearly not here, and what these Disciples were wearing and the weapons that most of them were fighting with was enough to tell them which King they were dealing with. It was better just to shimmer out and work from there.
But Sophie couldn’t leave. She knew Banyu was upstairs, but she wasn’t about to shout that across the room. Instead she gave Sky a hard look and shook her head to let him know she was staying put. She saw him frown at her before he disappeared again and attacked another Disciple on Lian’s right.
It was only then, looking at the space where Sky had been seconds ago, that Sophie realised that the lights had been turned on. And that same light illuminated the jungle outside, where even more Disciples were coming towards the bamboo house. It was a trap; two houses in the same time zone at the same time to split them up. They couldn’t call Nathan and Matu; the two of them had no way of knowing that their siblings were in trouble. And Sky couldn’t exactly leave to go and get them. The three of them would just have to hold these Disciples off long enough for Nathan and Matu to arrive here after they were finished with their top-to-bottom search of the three-story townhouse in Perth.
Sophie didn’t want to think about how long that could take. Instead, she ignored the burning feeling in her back and prepared herself for another Disciple who had noticed her by the stairs. A second Disciple followed closely behind. Sophie pushed herself away from the bannister and picked up the axe the other Disciple had dropped at her feet. She allowed herself to forget everything around her. She gritted her teeth, raised the enemy weapon in her hands and engaged in battle.
When Nathan shimmered himself and Matu towards Sky and into the home of Amisha Jasman, he hadn’t expected he’d shimmer right into the middle of a battle. It was carnage. There was fighting going on everywhere. Lian was in the kitchen, three Disciples dead at his feet as he engaged with another. His movements were slower than Nathan knew he could move, and he was bleeding heavily from a gash near his right eye.
Sky was a blue flash through the room. There were bodies of Disciples littered all over the place; by the sitting area, by the main entrance and by the dining room table. The moments when Sky would appear for longer than a few seconds, Nathan could see that his brother was tiring, too. His movements were less precise and he was gripping his short spear tighter than he usually did.
Sophie was near the staircase in the middle of the oval-shaped room. She was standing slightly bent forward, her shoulders hunched, as if her back was giving her trouble. Nathan c
ould see that her clothing, although covered in blood, wasn’t torn anywhere, which meant that whatever was hurting Sophie wasn’t inflicted by a weapon, but by a blow or a fall.
Nathan didn’t have much time to think. The second he had shimmered into the room, a Disciple near him discovered their sudden appearance and turned around to attack them. Nathan quickly reached for one of the broadswords at his back, but Matu was already in front of him, swinging his fists and sending the Disciple flying backwards and onto his back. Matu dived after him, the Band on his wrist blazing a bronze colour. As he went, he twisted his hand so the blade from his knuckle knife was pointing forward, and he dug the blade deep into the Disciple’s chest.
Nathan heard a Disciple coming up behind him. He skipped backwards one step, which gave himself enough time to free one of the broadswords. That simple movement caused sweat to break out on his face immediately. The heat and humidity of the place was almost overwhelming.
When Nathan turned around, he found not one, but three Disciples heading his way. He took up a fighting stance and raised his sword up in front of him. Nathan barely registered the two Disciples coming in behind, as his attention was focused on the one in front that carried the weapon Nathan had hoped he wouldn’t see here. Even in his cold, deadly state, Nathan felt the dread of facing that axe. He wasn’t afraid of these Disciples. Their clothing alone suggested they were just foot soldiers, here to do some dirty work. No Disciple here was an inner-circle soldier as far as Nathan could tell. No, Nathan didn’t fear this battle. But he did dread the implication of what this weapon meant. Which was probably precisely why a mere foot soldier had been given one for this attack.
Nathan brought up his sword and blocked the swinging axe of the first Disciple, and ducked away from the slashing sword of the second.
There was a blue flash and Sky had taken out the third. Nathan barely made out Sky’s silhouette as the blue light of his shimmer took over and his brother was gone again. Nathan didn’t have time to see where his brother appeared next; he was too busy fighting off the two Disciples at once.
A Queen To Come Page 11
