Infinity tcon-3

by Andria Buchanan

  “What do you mean?” Bavasama’s tone was flat, and she narrowed her eyes at me. “What was I trying to do?”

  “No, no, I get it.” I held my hands out in front of me like I was trying to calm her instead of rile her up. “My best friend Mercedes used to do the same thing.”

  “I highly doubt that I have anything in common with a simple teenage girl.”

  “You’d be surprised.” I smirked at her. “I mean, both of you go to extremes to get people to pay attention to you. Of course, she used to just dye her hair or get a fake nose ring instead of doing her room up to look like a haunted house, but you know what they say—to each her own.”

  “I did not do this to compete with your twit of a mother,” Bavasama said, her voice little more than a snarl.

  “Oh, please.” I gave her my most Heidi-like smile, knowing that it would drive her insane. “Your entire life revolves around trying to best the ghost of a woman locked in the World That Is. No matter what you do, you always wonder if people are still comparing you to her. Your baby sister. The rightful queen of this world.”

  I looked over and saw that everyone was staring at us, eyes wide. One of the women on the far side leaned her blond head toward the man next to her and began to whisper in his ear. As soon as she moved, it was like a sign for everyone else to do the same. All of them whispering and staring at Bavasama and me as we faced off.

  “I am the rightful queen,” Bavasama snarled.

  “Really?” I smirked at her. “Because it seems to me that I’m the one wearing the Rose Crown.”

  “Not for long,” Bavasama said, rage pouring off her in waves. “Guards! Seize her.”

  I watched, warily, as two of the guards from earlier stepped toward me. One of the men grabbed my left wrist and pulled me closer, twisting my wrist behind me, and then he grabbed my right arm, pulling it behind my back as well, holding them both tight.

  “Now we’ll see what that crown’s worth to you,” Bavasama said as we stood there glaring at each other. “Kneel.”

  “As if,” I snapped.

  The guard behind me twisted his free arm up around my neck, squeezing, before he tugged on my wrists, pulling them higher behind my back. He put one of his booted feet into the back of my knee and stepped down, forcing me to kneel while he let his hand slip free of my neck.

  “That’s better,” Bavasama said. I narrowed my eyes at her. “Don’t you think that’s better, Piotr?” She turned to smile at the Fate Maker. “Little Allie, right where she belongs, kneeling to her betters.”

  “Of course, Your Highness,” he said. I could see that he was gritting his teeth. “Although I’ve never been a fan of the brute force method. Magic is a much more elegant way to handle your enemies. If you can control it, that is.”

  “Possibly.” Bavasama nodded. “But there’s something to be said for the power of pain. Besides, magic is only as strong as the wizard who uses it.

  “That’s always been your problem, Piotr. You’re weak. You let your emotions blind you to what needed to be done. Your love for my sister kept you from doing what needed to be done. You kept her alive, even though you should have killed her. Your weakness forced me to trap her in the World That Is, a loose end that came back to test us.”

  “There was no reason—” he started.

  “You left a loose end when you prevented me from killing my sister, and now here we are, forced to fight a child for a throne that should have been mine years ago.”

  “Do you think I wanted her here?” the Fate Maker asked.

  “She’s here, isn’t she?”

  “That’s not my fault,” the Fate Maker snapped. “Esmeralda brought—”

  “I don’t care what that stupid enchantress did,” Bavasama shrieked. “You were supposed to be in charge of Nerissette, running things for me until we could find a way to travel to the World That Is and kill my sister and her brat so I could take back my crown.”

  “I was—” the Fate Maker began.

  “You were supposed to be keeping things under control, but you couldn’t,” Bavasama raged. “You let the girl come through, and then you lost control of her, just like you did her mother.”

  “There was no way I could control Esmeralda,” the Fate Maker said angrily. “And the girl had reached legal age; she was the heiress to the throne. Once she’d reached her Five Thousandth day, there was no choice. Besides, it’s easier to kill her here than take the risk of traveling through the Bleak to get to her and kill her in the World That Is.”

  “It would have been,” Bavasama said, her lips curling upward in a snarl. I—along with everyone else in the dining hall—watched as the two of them kept slinging verbal assaults. “Except for the fact that you didn’t actually manage to kill her and my crown is still on my niece’s head.”

  “That would be because it’s my crown,” I chimed in.

  She turned to glare at me. “Not for long. After all, you’re nothing but a prisoner in my castle.”

  “Yeah, but you seem to forget that I’m a prisoner with an army marching toward you, and I have one very temperamental dragon for a boyfriend. You even think about trying to hurt me and I guarantee you he will hunt you down and kill you. It won’t matter where you go; there is no world that you can run to that’s far enough away that he’ll stop looking.”

  “You’re very sure of yourself, aren’t you?” Bavasama smiled at me, her white teeth gleaming like knives.

  “Nope, but I have all the faith in this world and my own when it comes to him.”

  The door at the end of the dining hall creaked open, and my aunt stepped back from me. We both looked over, and I watched as two guards carried Heidi and Jesse into the room, my friends draped over their shoulders. They marched to the front of the room and dropped the two of them onto the floor in a heap. I heard Heidi grunt in pain.

  “Allie?” Jesse sat up and looked at me, stunned. “What are you doing here?”

  “Um…”

  “It’s sort of a long story and not really all that interesting,” Bavasama said. “So let’s just cut to the chase. She’s here, you’re here, you’re all prisoners, and one of you is going to die.”

  I looked up at Bavasama and then over at her silent audience of nobles still sitting around the dining table, all of them staring at us.

  “Since only one of you is royal—and I’ve always had a soft spot for family,” Bavasama said, “I’m going to let my darling niece here choose. Who’s it to be Allie?”

  “No.” I ground my teeth together, my eyes fixed on my aunt’s.

  “Choose,” Bavasama said. “One of the three of you dies. Who will it be? Are you willing to sacrifice yourself for one of them? The girl, perhaps?”

  I swallowed but kept my mouth shut.

  “No.” Bavasama shook her head. “I’ve heard about how she treated you. Seen it, too. You see, I have a mirror of my own. Not as nice as the Mirror of Nerissette, of course. Mine only allows you to look between worlds, not travel between them, but it still let me keep an eye on you and Preethana. Did you know that?”

  I just glared at her, not saying anything, refusing to give her the pleasure of knowing that she was getting to me.

  “I watched your entire childhood, just planning for the day when I got to kill you. But in the meantime I watched as this maid tormented you. She called you Fish Girl. Shoved you around. Treated you like nothing. So why should you give your life for hers?” She looked over at Jesse and pursed her lips. “What about the boy? He’s handsome enough. Not very bright. Cowardly. But you would never have to doubt his loyalty if you spared his life.”

  I stayed silent, still glaring.

  “No? Well, someone has to die, and you have to choose. Otherwise, I kill all three of you, and that’s a bit of a letdown. So come along. Which one lives? The girl who tormented you or the boy you were supposed to fall in love with? Come, come, not like it matters. You thought they were dead anyway. This just corrects the mistake. Choose.”

&nbs
p; “I’ll do it.” Jesse coughed and then tried to stand, wobbling because of his bound ankles. “If you leave Allie and Heidi alone, you can have me.”

  “Oh, how noble,” Bavasama said sarcastically. “How chivalrous. In the end the boy who was supposed to be your Crown Prince is willing to die for you. Although, it could be a trick. He could be hoping that his offer will persuade you to choose her to die instead.”

  “No,” Jesse said, louder this time. “Don’t choose, Allie. I don’t want you to choose. I’m volunteering. She can take me.”

  “Jesse…” I turned my head to stare at him.

  “It’s okay.” He smiled at me. “It’s my fate after all.”

  “There’s no such—”

  “You.” He turned to the Fate Maker. “You said I was an accident. That I wasn’t supposed to come through to this world. You said that I was a spare.”

  The Fate Maker nodded. “You were.”

  “But I’m not.” Jesse kept his eyes locked on the Fate Maker. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot. All of us have a purpose here. The cat didn’t just pull us through for no reason. I must have a purpose, and this is it.”

  “What?” I looked at him, and he turned to smile at me.

  “I was sent here to be the Golden Rose’s Personal Knight,” Jesse said. “To lay down my life to protect hers.”

  Bavasama stepped forward. “That’s lovely. Very sweet. The boy who died to save a girl who’ll never love him back. That’s just beautiful. Kill him no—”

  The discordant wail of a hunting trumpet split the air, and everyone froze as somewhere outside a lone dragon let out a high-pitched, angry howl.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  “No!” Bavasama looked at me, her eyes wide. “No, they can’t be here yet.”

  “Wanna bet?” The guard let go of me, stepping backward like he was going to flee, and I moved closer to my aunt, putting myself between her and my friends. “There’s not much a couple of ticked-off dragons, a dryad who’s lost her second family, and my lord general can’t do if you give them enough incentive.”

  “That incentive isn’t going to save you,” Bavasama said. “You’re still my prisoner, and when all of this is over and your army is defeated, I’m still going to kill you.”

  “I’d love to see you try, Auntie Bav.”

  She jerked her arm forward, trying to slap me, but between the judo classes that Mom had insisted I take and years of watching out for Heidi in the halls, I knew something about being prepared for random kicks and punches. Instead of letting her make contact, I ducked and did the one thing I’d never had the guts to do with Heidi: I hauled my own fist back and smashed it into her nose.

  “Allie!” Heidi screamed.

  “Kind of busy right now,” I said as I lashed out at my aunt again, managing to scrape a couple of my fingernails across her cheek.

  “The Fate Maker and that other wizard are getting away,” Heidi said as Bavasama threw herself at me and we toppled to the floor, pulling each other’s hair and clawing at each other.

  “You’ve got legs! Go stop them already.” I lifted my face, trying to head butt the woman sitting on top of me.

  “Oh, great, I’ll just go take on a wizard, and when that’s done I’ll start bare-knuckle boxing with a couple trolls,” Heidi said. I didn’t bother responding while trying to keep Bavasama from getting in a solid punch.

  “I’m going to kill you,” Bavasama said, her face close to mine. “I’m going to kill you, and it’s going to be slow and very, very—”

  I managed to get a good grip on her and flipped us over, shutting her up, me on top this time with my knee digging into her stomach.

  “Painful,” she said with a grunt and then reached for my hair, trying to rip it out by the roots.

  I jerked my head back, away from her, and tried to roll us over so I could bash her head against the floor.

  “Guards,” Bavasama yelled from underneath me. “Guards!”

  Two big, burly hands wrapped around me, and then I was lifted in the air. Looking around, I saw that all the other nobles had fled and Jesse was pinned in another guard’s grip, squirming to get free.

  Bavasama stood up slowly and wiped her hands on her skirts before reaching up to wipe the edge of her mouth. “You think your army is going to stop me?”

  “You better believe it,” I snarled back.

  “I’m the rightful ruler of this world.”

  “You’re a psychopath.”

  “I will rule this world,” Bavasama taunted, “and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

  “And once again, I have to say, wanna bet?” I made sure to pop the b in a way that I knew would annoy her.

  “Of course.” She came closer so that we were nose to nose. “Here’s the bet. If your army defeats me, then you get to kill me and keep my kingdom.”

  “Sounds like a good bet to me,” I said, thinking back to what I’d seen in the Orb of Fate. Esmeralda had said that the only thing the Orb could show you was your heart’s deepest desire, but there was some part of me that couldn’t help but think that maybe this time it had shown me what was to come instead.

  “But if they fail,” she snarled, “I’m going to march you out onto those walls and cut off your head before throwing your body into my moat and putting your head on a pike for your entire army to see while they kneel in allegiance to me.”

  “Not going to happen,” I said confidently.

  “Oh, yes, it will. Then I’m going to have your father and your boyfriend the dragon and all your friends brought to me, and I’m going to torture them all until they beg to die. Every single one of them. I’m going to break them into itty-bitty pieces, and it’s all because of you. When they die I’m going to make sure they die screaming your name.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “You seem to be forgetting one thing, Auntie Bav.” I smirked at her.

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m the one with the army full of ticked-off creatures who want nothing more than to destroy you and burn your palace to the ground.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Bavasama said with a sneer. “We shall just bloody well see.”

  She turned to look at one of the free guards and jerked her head toward the doors. “Go and find the maid. Then take her to my dear niece’s room.”

  “Yes, Your Graciousness.” The guard nodded and hurried away.

  “Take her and the boy away.” Bavasama flicked her fingers at the guard holding me tight against him. “I can’t stand to look at her, and besides, I have an army to crush.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” He began to pull me from the room, walking backward the entire way so that his back was never turned to her.

  I watched as Bavasama moved to the window. She stared out the window for a moment and then paced back to the throne. When we reached the doorway, I dug in my heels. “Hey, Auntie Bav?” I saw her wince at the name and couldn’t help but smile. “Do me a favor. One queen to another.”

  She looked up, and I could see that her eyes were blazing with anger—and most likely more than a little fear.

  “When my army comes in here and kicks the crap out of you, don’t die.”

  “I don’t plan on it. If anyone’s going to die—”

  “Good.” I cut her off and smiled. “I’d sure hate to lose the fun of killing you myself.”

  “Take her away,” she said, her eyes simmering with rage. The guard pulled me through the doorway with Jesse and his captor following behind, slamming the door shut behind them.

  “You’re risking an awful lot, girl,” the guard holding me said quietly. “She’s got a short fuse on her and a mean temper.”

  “Yeah? So do I,” I said and tried to jerk my arm out of his grip. “The difference is I’ve got one heck of an army standing outside your gate, and they very much want to come inside so they can kill anything that moves.”

  “I doubt they’re as big as you claim. The people of Nerissette were always weak-willed cowar
ds.”

  “Yeah? Well, three different invasions in the past year have taken care of that,” I said as he began to pull me up the stairs, moving too fast for me to actually walk. I was forced to let him drag me along instead, my ankles banging against each and every stair as we went.

  “That’s too bad,” the guard snarled. “After all, weak-willed slaves would have been so much easier to break after we marched over the border and conquered them.”

  “My people will never be slaves,” I snapped as one guard shoved me into my tower room and the other shoved Jesse in alongside me, knocking us both to the floor before they shut the door, both of them laughing.

  “Jesse.” I reached out to grab his hand. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. They didn’t hurt me.” He tangled his fingers through mine and squeezed them tight. “Not that it matters much. I’m not exactly a fabulous example of how to be a crown prince.”

  “That’s—”

  “I mean, in the end I couldn’t even get the girl. Not that I mind because, well, I always sort of thought that you and Winston would be cool together. I mean, you’re both super-smart, and half the guys on the football team sort of thought you were together and just keeping it secret. Well, they thought Winston was keeping it secret, you know, romancing the nerd and all.”

  I grimaced at the easy way he suggested that a guy could want to hide being with me.

  “Not that I thought that,” Jesse said quickly. “I don’t think Winston’s like that. He’s too good of a guy. All that military-parent stuff I guess. He was always the guy who did the right thing. He’s…what do you call it?”

  “Noble.”

  “Yeah. And it’s not like you’re a dog or anything,” Jesse continued as I slunk over to the table and sat on top of it, dropping my head into my hands. “You’re a pretty girl, I just don’t think anyone ever saw it because you were so shy. You let people push you around and overlook you, and so they just kept doing it.”

  “I know,” I said softly.

  “But you don’t do that anymore.” Jesse came over to sit beside me and nudged my shoulder. “Do you? I mean, you led an army here. You fought the Fate Maker, and soon you’re going to defeat Bavasama, and no one will ever do that to you again.”