The shock cracked his concentration. A blade nipped at his chest before Azalus smashed it away. Samoth screamed in his head to focus, and he gripped his sword two-handed, powering it through a soldier’s defenses. He swayed out of a lunge, grabbed the man’s wrist, and slashed his blade across the side of a thick neck. The edge rotated, delivering a fatal cut to the woman battling his brother.
Danzell captured his notice and nodded, eyes hardened into violet ice, but rimmed with grief. She fought for her throne, and whatever had happened on her path to the palace had cost her.
A soldier roared a defiant cry, the man heroic and clearly bent on death. Two crews of slavers trapped Kyzan’s defenders between them with no means of escape. Raze drove his blade deep, cutting short the reckless appeal. The close quarters hampered his skill, and he abandoned his sword in the man’s ribs. He fought with his knife, and a balled fist, taking another life down.
Azalus shouted a warning, and Draeva skewered a bearded Ezari as he chopped his sword like an ax on a slaver’s head. Blood speckled Raze’s face, and he finished the bearded man with a grunt like a barked laugh. In a sudden wave, the soldiers dropped to their knees, hands in the air or covering their heads. Surrendering.
Danzell panted on the other side of what remained of their opponents, Sajem’s slavers at her back. Raze retrieved his sword, and Draeva pushed between him and Azalus. “Where’s Johzar?” she demanded.
The look on Danzell’s face told them the answer before her words confirmed it. “Sajem…”
“Fuck!” Draeva shouted and ran her sword through a soldier screaming from his wounds. Red-faced and trembling, she shook the tip of her blade at the slavers behind Danzell. “What about them? What about Sajem?”
The woman with the snake tattoos wiped a bloody hand across her nose. “I killed him. I was sick of him. We aren’t traitors. We’ll see the rightful Empress on her throne.”
Danzell didn’t flinch from Draeva’s furious scowl or the foul tirade pouring from her lips. Instead, she squared her shoulders and glared down at the kneeling soldiers. “I will allow you to live. But I’m taking your sword hands. If I catch your bloody wrists in the palace again, I’ll cut off your heads.” She gestured to Draeva and the slavers behind her. “Quickly.”
Raze walked away, willing to listen but loathe to watch. Danzell joined him, ignoring the wails rising in her wake. “I’m showing them mercy. More than they would have shown us.”
“We haven’t finished,” he said. “Not even close.”
“Then let’s end this.”
The work of severing hands was over in moments. Danzell strode down the passageway, Raze at her side. Azalus and a small horde of tattooed slavers marched on their heels. Two soldiers at the doorway to the throne room stood their ground, swords raised against the approaching storm. Danzell didn’t hesitate, her blade a whirlwind. Raze slashed, and the two defenders met an abrupt end.
“Ready?” he asked.
“When you are.”
He kicked. The door ruptured open, pounding the walls. Danzell led the way, a warrior Empress demanding her due. Chandeliers and lanterns filled the cavernous space with light, but the room stood nearly vacant. Only a score of soldiers had held their posts, most protecting the front entrance and the door to the council chamber. They charged to face the assault.
A gasp from Azalus turned Raze’s head. His brother bolted for the empty throne. Their father lay against the dais, a bloody hand to his stomach, eyes open but their light as distant as the stars. A smear of crimson trailed across the floor. Rage flared in Raze’s head, revenge burning away his control. Samoth’s soul attempted to tamp the fury down, freeze it out for the icy discipline of an assassin, a role that Raze suddenly knew the man had played in the war.
“Danzell!” he called and jerked his head toward the council chamber. She nodded, and they pressed in that direction, the slavers cutting away the resistance. Raze battled, forging the raw iron of his wrath into resolve. He entered Samoth’s dance, a broker of deathly precision, steel in fluid motion. Azalus’s knife flung blood in a scarlet arc. Other soldiers entered the fray and fell before Raze’s blade. Danzell staggered, gripped her sword two-handed and slashed. He bulled in and stabbed her opponent, lending her the chance to regain her balance. Slavers fought, wounded and outnumbered, their only alternative a swifter death.
Raze shoved the latest victim of his sword aside. He glanced at his brother. “Protect our father.” Azalus hitched a breath and backed away, pivoting toward the throne. Sword at ready, Raze grabbed the chamber’s brass latch. Locked. He rammed his shoulder into the door. The wood cracked, and with his second hit, it splintered, the portal slamming open. He spun inside, blade swinging and creating space around him.
Benjmur, a borrowed sword in hand, darted to the wall where Nallea sat, blue eyes wide and face swollen with tears. Kyzan stood by the window, guarded by two slit-eyed soldiers, Benjmur’s ancient dagger wagging in his hand like a baton. Danzell backed into the doorway, breathing like a bellows, the slaughter in the throne room far from concluded.
“Kill them!” Kyzan screamed. “Kill all of them!”
The soldiers flanking him leapt forward. One died before landing a strike, but the other possessed greater skill, parrying Raze’s defter ripostes. The fight outside the door moved closer, and Danzell grunted behind him as her sword cut through the force trying to pin them in the room.
“Kill them!” Kyzan shrieked.
Raze rotated back, ceding to his opponent’s blade, and then danced forward, the scrape of steel grating in his ears. The day of battle had taxed his stamina, the sword heavy in his hands, his adversary fresh. Benjmur shuffled toward him, blade poised for a lunge, and Raze couldn’t tell the target.
“Father!” Nallea cried.
Benjmur halted. He backed up, crossed the room, and rammed his sword through Kyzan’s chest. The Emperor’s mouth opened, a gurgling wheeze preceding a glut of blood. The soldier battling Raze blinked, a mistake that cost him his life. Danzell’s opponent slid from her blade. She spun and gasped as her brother toppled to the floor. Nallea leaned over and vomited.
Benjmur seized his dagger from the floor and slipped it into his belt. He hoisted Nallea up by the arm. “We have to run.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Raze said.
“I didn’t kill your father,” Benjmur held up a hand. “Nallea will tell you. I never touched him.”
Nallea tore her arm from her father’s clutch, wiped her mouth, and sobbed again. “He’s telling the truth. A soldier stabbed him. Where’s Azalus?”
“I didn’t betray you,” Benjmur said, raising his bloody sword. “I can explain every choice.”
“You’re a traitor, kidnapper, and murderer.” Raze stalked toward him.
“Nae, wait! Please,” Nallea begged, thrusting herself between them. “You saw him kill Kyzan. Maybe there is a reason.”
“He’s guilty,” Raze shouted, prepared to shove her aside and run her father through.
“One chance,” she pleaded. “Give him one chance to explain. Please. I need to hear it. Please, Raze. Or I’ll always wonder.”
Danzell spat blood onto the stone floor. “We can’t stay here.”
Raze met her eyes. Neither of them had the slightest doubt regarding Benjmur’s guilt. But could he slay the man in front of his daughter? He gestured to Danzell. “Let’s go.” Together they charged from the council chamber, Benjmur and Nallea behind them.
In the throne room, Draeva cut off a screaming man’s hand and wiped blood from her face. She and five slavers remained on their feet, the others dead, including the woman with the inked serpents. Blood smeared the floor, three soldiers’ mutilated wrists trickling into crimson pools.
“Soldiers on their way!” one of Sajem’s slavers shouted. He and another man closed the room’s massive front doors, and for lack of a crossbar, slid a pair of swords through the handles.
“Azalus,” Nallea cried and darted toward t
he throne. Azalus looked up. She fell to her knees, clasped Rydan’s hand, and stifled another sob. “We have to go.”
Azalus steeled himself. “Raze, I can’t leave him.”
“Nor can I.” Raze helped his brother as he struggled from the floor, their father cradled in his arms. “Stay behind me.”
Azalus’s furious eyes shifted to Benjmur and back, brow creased in question. Raze replied with a slight dip of his chin. First, he needed to find out what the man had done with Bel.
~43~
If the smashed cellar door and its litter of bodies remained undiscovered, the black passageway between the storerooms promised a stealthy way out. Most of the city’s inhabitants likely trained their eyes on the Temple of Souls. They watched their ancestors, the souls of a nation, destroyed in a crimson blaze. What if they understood that those souls flew free?
He led the way through the rear corridor, the number in his party reduced to twelve, most wounded and in no condition to fight. Nallea boasted neither skills nor the mindset. Her father clutched her arm and hurried her along, whispering assurances in her ear. Azalus strode behind them as Rydan bled in his arms.
Memories swarmed Raze’s head. They burrowed into his heart and choked his breath. Not glossy recollections polished with nostalgia, but the poignant memories of a complicated life. He yearned for a word or touch but stifled the urge, denying himself even a glance back. Samoth uttered warnings in his head and drew his focus back to their flight. Raze strode ahead, Danzell at his side. Draeva and the slavers brought up the rear.
Ahead of him, two soldiers turned a corner into the passageway. Eyes wide, they froze, then darted back the way they’d come. Raze looked over his shoulder at Azalus and Draeva. “Prepare for the worst.” Choosing speed over stealth, he set off at a jog, his sword in the lead. Danzell kept pace, ready to face whatever lay around the corner.
He burst into the intersection of connecting hallways. Four soldiers stood ready with swords raised, only two near enough to matter. Raze gripped his sword like a staff and blocked a downward swipe. A steel edge slid along his weapon and cut the fingers on his sword hand, reopening the old wound from the freehold. Another blade sliced his arm, and he fell back into the adjoining corridor where Danzell had commanded slavers to sever wrists, the stone floor painted red. Nallea shrieked, shoved back as Raze stumbled into her. Danzell leapt in front of them, meeting the barrage.
A company of guards poured into the intersection, separating the three of them from the rest of the party. “Danzell!” Raze barked, and she retreated to his side. The initial four who’d ambushed them pursued. Raze dropped their number to three with a lucky thrust. The narrow hallway evened the match, limiting the soldiers to two abreast. The third of their force, a wiser man with a grandfatherly beard, hung back, wary of the flailing steel but prepared to jump in should one of his comrades fall.
“I am your Empress,” Danzell shouted. “Kneel or die.”
One of the guards hesitated, too slow or arrogant to comply, and she skewered him.
Raze clashed with an armored woman, blood from his hand slick on his hilt, his arm trembling. Her blade scored the leather protecting his chest. Desperate, he switched hands. Samoth’s expertise in left-handed swordsmanship lay dormant inside him, but he hadn’t practiced the skill. The soldier’s weapon pealed across the stone wall, met his blade at the crossguard. Raze heaved her back with a grunt. Danzell spun and stepped in with a thrust that pierced the woman beneath her arm.
The white-bearded man dropped to one knee, head bowed, and his sword clattered on the floor. Down the hall, the slaughter raged on. Wails of pain blended with the shriek of steel. Danzell strode up to her prisoner and pricked his chest with the tip of her sword. “Do I need to remove your hand?”
Raze turned to Nallea. She leaned against the wall, mouth covered by her cupped fingers, bones jittering so hard he listened for the rattle. He grasped her by the arm and strode farther down the corridor. “Try the doors,” he ordered, his hand nearly useless.
“You’re wounded,” she cried but obeyed, and when she found an unlocked door, he pulled her into the chamber.
“Hide until this is over,” he said. “We’ll return for you.”
“But…” She fingered her soulstone. “Azalus…”
“I’ll protect him.” He gripped her pendant and gave it a short tug, breaking the delicate chain.
She gasped. “My soulstone. Why…?”
“I merely borrow it,” he said.
“But…”
“Wait for us. Azalus will come for you when it’s safe.” He strode from the room and shut the door. The hallway stood empty but for a pair of servants who spun and fled. Danzell and her soldier had joined the fight that continued around the corner.
He knelt by one of the slain soldiers and ripped the glowing soulstone from the man’s neck. His fingers fumbled, bent the wires, and shoved off the round lid. He rolled the soul’s luminescent pearl onto the floor. With greater care, he opened Nallea’s pendant, tossed the vacant soul-catcher aside, and replaced it with the shining soul. Gritting his teeth, he bound it closed, imperfectly, bloody, but good enough.
At the junction of passageways, he listened for the ongoing battle. Shouts of anger and harsh commands rang from the throne room, but without the shrill cry of steel and wounded bodies. Sword in his left hand, he crept down the corridor and peered in the doorway.
Soldiers had cornered Danzell, Benjmur, and the last few slavers near the ravenwood throne. The one new face beside Danzell was the white-bearded defector. Azalus stood beside Draeva, sword drawn. He had placed their father in the same spot they’d found him, and the man didn’t stir.
Swords and spears on both sides bristled like quills. Ranks of men and women in indigo armor filled the throne room. Kyzan’s body lay in the middle of the stone floor, arms folded over his chest as if he lay in state.
“Surrender,” a tall Ezari officer ordered. The square-jawed man bore a cut through one eyebrow, the black braid down his back half unraveled. “You will be granted a swift death. Force us to fight, and you will suffer for your crimes before you drown.”
Danzell raised her chin, and in an act of regal bravado, the bruised and bloody woman strode up to the dais and claimed her rightful seat on the ornate throne. Raze almost chuckled at her spunk. The white-haired guard followed and stood sentinel beside the twisted tentacles of the tree. He shouted to the room, “Kneel to Empress Danzell Tegir, rightful ruler of Ezar.”
The soldiers and guards shuffled. Benjmur, his brow furrowed searched the room, and Raze assumed he sought his daughter. Their eyes met, and Benjmur’s frown deepened. Still in the doorway, Raze held his gaze and nodded, his expression giving nothing away. To the core of him, he hoped Azalus trusted him and could endure what came next. He strode into the room, capturing the assembly’s attention. He raised his hand, the star pendant, the unique soulstone Benjmur had fashioned for his daughter, dangled from his bleeding fingers. It glowed in the soft light beneath the candelabras. A droplet of blood gathered at the star’s lowest point and fell with a hush to the floor.
Benjmur paled, and his mouth gaped as if he’d caught a fist in the gut. Azalus stiffened and closed his eyes. The Ezari officer held his ground, shoulders back and jaw hard, his eyes returning to the throne. “Lady Danzell, you are implicated in the deaths of Empress Ezalion Tegir and Emperor Kyzan Tegir. Until you are coronated, you are not our Empress, and before that day takes place, you must answer for your crimes.”
“I committed neither crime,” Danzell called to the room.
Benjmur pointed a trembling sword at Raze. “Arrest that man.” He faced Danzell. “The Anvrells killed Empress Ezalion at the Challenge. I witnessed their treachery. The Anvrells slew Emperor Kyzan in the council chamber. I will swear to it.”
“You are a liar, Benjmur Demiris,” Danzell said.
“My daughter would have attested to the truth had that man not slain her.” Benjmur joined the accusing
officer, his face scarlet, body shaking as if coming loose at the joints. “They are responsible for untold murders in the Vales, but none so heinous as these.”
Danzell stood. “Benjmur Demiris, you are a liar and a traitor, and I sentence you to death.” She opened a palm to the officer as an invitation to do her bidding. “I command you to drown him at dawn.”
“Nae, Empress Tegir.” Raze strode forward. Swords and halberds blocked his way, paces from the dais.
She sat and nodded her forbearance, meeting his eyes with a faint twitch of amusement. She’d assumed her role and power with such natural confidence that the room fell under her spell, and for the moment, those listening instinctively complied. How long her enchantment would last was another matter.
Raze dipped his chin, acknowledging his overstep. “Empress, not before he tells me what he’s done with Bel.”
“Governor Demiris?” Danzell gazed at him with passionless eyes.
Benjmur ignored her, his hatred narrowing on Raze. “My unfortunate wife sold her to Johzar, and I fear that if you find her, you will no longer desire her. It was an error on Athren’s part for which you stole her life.”
Raze’s old temper flared, the lies unflinching. Benjmur had destroyed his freehold, murdered his father, and sold an innocent woman into slavery. If the man had his way, Benjmur would deprive him of a life of love until the very end. “Then we are even.” He tossed Nallea’s soulstone to her father. “A life for a life.”
Benjmur snatched it from the air and leapt forward, sword slashing. Raze defended, threw off the strike, and retreated. Soldiers lurched into a response, and Danzell jolted to her feet. “Allow it!”
The tall officer hesitated, then nodded and stepped aside.
The Governor sneered and attacked. Raze parried and backed away in the widening circle of soldiers, needing time to adjust to the blade’s play in his left hand. He breathed and cooled his heart, relying on Samoth’s skill and instincts to assume command. Benjmur jabbed and Raze blocked. His sword swept up, reversed, and skidded along the governor’s edge before swinging down and around. He stepped left, his position wrong. Benjmur gripped his hilt two-handed, adding power to his swings. The play of steel rang harsh in Raze’s ears. He missed a parry and swayed back as Benjmur cut a shiny rope of blood across his hip. His concentration shattered. The hall fell quiet as a crypt.
Legacy of Souls (The Shattered Sea Book 2) Page 27
