I hurried back to the passageway where Eljin waited, still holding the torch.
“The door is locked,” I whispered. “And I could hear her in there with him. She’s turned him against me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“There’s another passageway. I’m going to go straight into his room. You should hurry back to Lisbet and help her escape. Go to your father and get his help.”
“I’m coming with you.” He moved forward, stepping past me into the empty chamber before I could protest.
There were worse things than having a sorcerer next to me, if it came down to a fight. But it also put him at risk of falling under Vera’s control. If we both failed, it left everything on Lisbet’s shoulders. There was no time to argue with him, however. I knew Eljin well enough to realize that I wasn’t going to change his mind.
We headed for the door to the hallway, away from Damian’s room, but I held up a hand before we reached it.
“There will be guards,” I said under my breath.
He nodded and pantomimed fighting. I swallowed the knot of dread that suddenly formed in my throat. I wasn’t sure how much more fighting I could stomach tonight — especially against my fellow members of Damian’s guard.
“Too much noise,” I whispered, my voice barely audible, gesturing to my sword.
Eljin pointed to himself, and I nodded. He’d use magic to subdue them, hopefully silently. The last thing I needed was anyone else being alerted to our presence or drawing Vera’s attention.
He met my eyes one last time, and then reached out and unlocked the door and turned the knob.
Deron and Mateo both stood outside the door, looking exhausted, until they saw us emerge from Damian’s chamber. Deron’s eyes widened for a split second, then narrowed again, and Mateo straightened up.
Eljin hesitated before lifting his hands — maybe hoping, as I had, that he wouldn’t have to fight our friends — but Deron already had his sword out and moved to strike him down. It sickened me to fight my captain, but I had no choice. I lunged forward to defend Eljin, but before I could block Deron’s intended strike, Eljin made a sudden gesture and knocked Deron back, slamming him into the wall, just as he’d once done to me.
But Mateo was still free to move. He lunged at me, and since my focus had been on Deron, I barely spun out of his reach in time, twisting my wound. I could feel it tear wide open again, undoing Lisbet’s work. Mateo’s sword sliced through the air where I’d been standing one moment earlier. They weren’t just trying to stop me — they were fighting to kill.
Deron charged forward again, and Eljin slammed him against the wall once more with his sorcery, this time hitting Deron’s head hard enough to make a loud crack. He slumped to the ground, unconscious.
At the same time, Mateo changed tactics and went for Eljin. I didn’t dare shout a warning to Eljin, mindful of the open door behind us. Instead, I had to do exactly what I didn’t want to do — I had to hurt a fellow guard and friend. My sword came down silently, until it met his arm, slicing through skin and muscle. I didn’t cut hard enough to sever his bone, but it was enough. With a howl of pain, Mateo dropped his sword to the ground.
Eljin spun to face him, lifting his hand again, and Mateo’s cry of pain suddenly cut off. I glanced into the darkness of Damian’s quarters, but the door to his room remained shut. There was a strangled noise from behind me, and I turned to see Mateo drop to his knees and then fall face-first onto the ground.
Is he dead? I mouthed, horrified, but Eljin shook his head no.
I stared down at Mateo and the pool of blood growing around his arm. I couldn’t just leave him there. If he was out too long, he might lose too much blood and never wake up. There were bandages in my room, long strips of fabric left over from when I’d had to bind my breasts every day. I turned on my heel and rushed to my room.
When I opened my door, I had to stifle a gasp. It had been ransacked, making me wonder what in the world Vera could have been looking for — if she was the one who had searched it. At least my basket of wrappings was still there, though upended and spilled out onto the floor. I grabbed a bunch of them and headed out to where Eljin still stood over the two unmoving bodies. There was no time to let myself think about what we’d done.
I knelt down beside Mateo and wrapped one bandage around his arm, tying it tightly to stop the bleeding. Then I used another one to tie his hands behind his back and a third to gag him. When he saw what I was doing, Eljin took the other strips of fabric and did the same to Deron.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, before standing up and waiting for Eljin to finish tying up my captain. When he was done, Eljin grabbed Deron underneath his arms and began to drag him into Damian’s outer chamber, where no one would find him and sound the alert. I quickly did the same with Mateo. Once they were both in the room, Eljin shut the door behind them and turned to face me.
I gestured for him to follow me, and we hurried to my room. Once I had the door shut, I sagged against it for a moment. Pain throbbed across my back with each beat of my heart.
“You’re bleeding again,” Eljin whispered.
“There’s nothing I can do about it now.” I pushed away from the door, forcing myself to stand up tall. There was no time to rest, no time to wish that our situation was different.
“Have you ever heard of anyone like Vera?” I asked quietly, but Eljin shook his head.
“She’s not a true sorceress, or else I would sense the magic in her blood, and I haven’t felt a thing from her.”
“Then where does her power come from? How do we stop her?”
Eljin shook his head again. “I wish I knew.”
“She’s going to do everything she can to put us under her control when we go in there. Don’t let her look into your eyes.”
“I’ll try to gag her, so you can talk to Damian. I hope that you can succeed in breaking her control.” Eljin looked down at me, straight into my eyes, his expression grim. “But what if you can’t get through to him? Are you prepared to kill her? It might be the only way to stop her,” he continued, when I tried to protest.
“We can’t,” I said with a scowl. “Rafe has commanded Jax to kill himself if I’m not back before dawn tomorrow — or if I hurt or kill him or Vera.”
Eljin continued to look at me silently. “I love him, too,” he began, making my stomach twist from fear of what he was about to say. “But it’s one life, Alexa, compared to hundreds, even thousands of people who will suffer and possibly die if Vera and Rafe turn Damian into their puppet. If you don’t succeed in stopping her without violence, we might not have a choice.”
“No,” I said fiercely. “I can do this. There has to be a way. I’m not going to let him do that to Jax. I can’t …” I broke off as an image of the fear on Jax’s little face rose up. I swallowed hard, forcing the emotion down. I didn’t have time to argue with Eljin.
Without another word, I turned away and strode over to the wall Damian had come through. As I searched for the knot that would open the passageway, I wondered yet again if things would have been different if I’d accepted him, if I’d let my heart guide me instead of my head. Would this have happened if Vera had shown up to find Damian engaged to be married? I wondered if that was what Tanoori had meant when she’d told me to stop being so stubborn. Did she mean to stop refusing Damian?
I forced the thoughts away as I searched along the wall, pushing every knot I found in the wood. Finally, one sunk in about half an inch, and the hidden door popped open with a gust of dank, musty air.
“If I have to, I will kill her myself,” Eljin whispered from behind me.
I didn’t turn around.
“You know I can’t let you do that. I won’t.” And with that threat hanging in the air, I plunged into the darkness, feeling along the wall with one hand. I clutched my sword in the other, though I knew I couldn’t use it — unless it was to stop Eljin. I prayed he wouldn’t force me to hurt him as well.
The pass
ageway wasn’t long at all, since Damian’s room was next to mine. It turned sharply left, then right, quickly coming to a dead end. If my guess was right, I was next to one of his windows and would come out beneath the thick drapes that hung in his room. I searched along the wall until I found the release. Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself for whatever lay ahead and then pushed it. The door popped open about an inch. There was no sound of voices, no talking.
I didn’t dare wait, in case the door wasn’t hidden like I thought, and they’d just seen the wall move. In the darkness of the passageway, it was impossible to know. Terror pounded along with adrenaline as I pushed the door open wide enough for my body and slipped past it and ran right into Damian’s thick velvet drapes. We were hidden then — at least for a moment.
Eljin was right behind me; I could feel him standing so close that the warmth from his body filled the inches between us. I tightened my grip on my sword. I couldn’t use it, but Vera didn’t know that. Sometimes a good threat was all that was needed.
With my empty hand, I reached out and grabbed the drapes, yanking them aside, and rushed forward.
But when I saw Damian’s arms wrapped around Vera — who wore nothing more than a silken shift, her dark auburn hair unbound and cascading down her back, and his mouth on hers — I ground to a stunned halt, making Eljin crash into me.
I must have made some sort of sound of horror, because Damian’s eyes opened and he saw me standing there.
He broke away from Vera, and she made a pathetic whimpering sound. “What is it —”
“Alexa” was all he said, and she spun around to face me.
ALEXA,” VERA REPEATED, her voice as honeyed as I remembered it. But now I knew that honey hid a venom more toxic than any predator’s in Antion. I looked away from her, refusing to meet her eyes. “How kind of you to show up here.”
Eljin came to stand next to me, and Vera giggled. She actually giggled. The sound made my stomach turn over. That wasn’t the reaction I’d been expecting.
“Oh, how sweet. You even brought the resident sorcerer to me as well. You’ve been a sneaky one, hiding away where I couldn’t find you.” She lifted an eyebrow and wagged a finger at Eljin.
I stared at Damian, beseeching him with my eyes, silently pleading with him to come back to me. But he looked at me dispassionately, no sign of his former feelings evident in his expression or the stance of his body. His arm was still around Vera, who stood next to him, as though they were now a team. My nightmare came back to me all of a sudden, of the two of them towering over me, watching me fall and fall as they tore apart the entire world around us….
Eljin lifted his hands, and I could feel the pull of magic, as I always did when I was close to a sorcerer using his power, but Vera just laughed again.
“Try all you’d like, sorcerer, but your power is useless against me. I’m impervious to your parlor tricks.”
I turned to stare at Eljin in horror. “Is she telling the truth?”
I watched as his hands began to shake, and yet Vera continued to laugh, completely unaffected.
Finally, Eljin dropped his hands, his eyes wide. “What are you?”
Vera laughed again, the sound as clear as a bell, and yet it scratched down my spine like nails on steel. “Wouldn’t you like to know. You’ll have to pay my king a visit, if you want to find out. But, alas, I don’t think that’s in your future.”
With a cry of frustration, Eljin yanked his sword out of his scabbard. “You might be impervious to sorcery, but no one is immune to steel!” he yelled, and charged at Vera.
“Eljin, no!” I shouted, dashing forward, but it was too late — he was too close to her. She looked directly at Eljin as he raised his sword to bring it down on her head and, with a smile on her face, said, “Halt immediately.”
Eljin froze, his sword still in the air above her.
“You don’t want to hurt me.” Vera smiled at him. “The plan was to keep Alexa alive, but now that Damian has become so … agreeable, I don’t think she’s necessary anymore.” The sweetness of her voice turned deadly cold. “Kill her. Kill Alexa. Now.”
Terror seized my lungs in an ice-cold grip as he spun to face me, his eyes empty above his mask. I’d warned him not to look into her eyes. In his anger, he must have forgotten.
“Damian, help me! Don’t let her do this,” I shouted as Eljin lunged at me.
I jumped back, out of his reach, and lifted my sword to deflect him when he jabbed again, his movements quick and lethal. My blade met the magical shield I’d spent weeks learning how to penetrate in Blevon, and I had to stumble back to avoid getting sliced in half. I was so shocked that he was fighting me, that Vera had taken control of my one ally, that I could barely bring myself to attack back. Instead, I concentrated on deflecting him. I spun away from yet another swipe of his sword. “Eljin, stop! You don’t want to do this! She’s your enemy, not me!”
But instead of responding, he lifted his arm, suddenly choking me with his magic. When my body began to burn with the need for oxygen, I finally realized he wasn’t going to show me any mercy. He’d been commanded to kill me, and he was determined to do just that. I glanced at Damian to find him staring at me, his expression bemused.
He wasn’t going to help me, either. He was going to watch me die.
I had no choice but to stop Eljin. Fighting the spiraling darkness, I lifted my sword and rushed at him. I refused to die. If nothing else — if I couldn’t save Damian — I at least had to get to Jax in time. I had to ignore the fire in my desperate lungs as I swiped my sword at his raised arm. He jumped back to avoid my hit, but in so doing, he lost control of his magic, and the invisible grip on my neck disappeared.
That gasp of air was as exquisite as it was excruciating; oxygen surged back into my body. Without a pause, I attacked again. As hard and furious as I ever had in any sparring match in his father’s castle in Blevon. I knew how to get past his defenses; I’d done it many times before. He was good, but I was better, when it came to sword fighting. It was his sorcery that had given him the advantage in the past, and he had been the one to teach me how to beat him, despite that.
But I’d never intended to hurt him before, and we’d been using wooden swords for the most part. This time was deadly serious, and the sounds of our blades clashing echoed through Damian’s chamber while he stood next to Vera, unmoving, watching us fight.
I jabbed and spun and lunged and ducked as fast and hard as I could, refusing to give him the chance to use his sorcery to fling me back against the wall and knock me unconscious. I had to ignore the blinding pain as the wound in my back tore more and more. Blood dripped, hot and sticky down my spine, soaking my tunic. Over and over, Eljin used his shield to deflect my hits, but I knew how to do this. I knew it. I just had to focus.
I got close, but he was always a split second ahead of me. It had been too long since I’d practiced against him, and I was rusty. If I didn’t beat him soon, he was going to succeed in following her command. I was growing tired — from lack of sleep, from fighting again and again and again, from the pain and loss of blood. This was it. If I didn’t beat him now, I knew I wouldn’t have the strength to continue on, and he would kill me.
I would fail everyone.
Channeling all of my fear and anger, I tried one last time. With a cry of desperation, I spun and attacked, faking right and then lunging left in a lightning-fast move, and finally, finally, he couldn’t get his shield up fast enough. My blade surged toward his body. At the last moment, I checked the direction so that it sliced through his side, instead of his lungs.
He stared at me in shock, the emptiness draining out of his eyes as his sword clanged to the ground. Then he dropped to his knees.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, still standing over him, my body trembling, my voice thick with tears. “I’m so sorry.”
He lifted a shaking hand to his side and stared at the blood on his fingers in shock. “You … you …” His eyes lifted to mine again. �
��I’m dying.”
“No! You’re not going to die.”
“It would appear that he is, actually,” Vera supplied, sounding amused. “Not exactly the result I was hoping for, but I’ll take it. For now.”
I looked away from my friend to glare at her, remembering at the last second not to meet her eyes. I wanted to charge at her, to kill her right there. Rage churned through my body, hot and urgent. I couldn’t hurt her or Jax would die — I knew that. But in that moment, it didn’t matter anymore. Eljin’s words came back to me: that as much as he loved Jax, we might not have a choice if we wanted to save Damian and Antion.
Maybe Eljin had been right. And because I’d ignored him, now he was dying. She’d hurt so many — and if I didn’t stop her, she’d continue to do so. She’d turned our own men against me; I’d had to kill one and injure others to get here. She’d made me hurt Mateo, Deron — and now Eljin. She’d taken Damian from me, from all of Antion.
Vera had to die.
I’m so sorry, Jax, I thought as I lifted my sword, gripping it with both hands, and rushed at her. I stared at her heart — the place where I was going to embed my sword — instead of her lethal eyes. I swung my sword back and then began to whip it around as I took the last few steps —
And suddenly, it was Damian my sword was about to stab, instead of Vera. With a scream of rage and frustration, I forced myself to halt, barely stopping the forward progression of my sword in time to keep from impaling him on it.
“Why?” I cried out, backing away, staring at him with tears blinding me. He’d jumped in front of my sword — willing to die — to protect her. “How can you forget me so easily? I don’t care how powerful she is — what we had was stronger than this. Wasn’t it?”
I looked at him and clenched my jaw to keep the tears from spilling over. I refused to look weak, to let Vera see just how deeply I was hurt. A strange expression crossed Damian’s face — his eyebrows pulled down low over his eyes as he stared back at me. Then his gaze moved to Eljin, who clutched his side with shaking hands.
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