Katya started for her, but a shadow stepped from the void behind her. She wore a metal breastplate over a knee-length coat, leather trousers covering her long legs, and tall black boots studded in metal. Her black hair was short and spiky, and her reddish brown skin was the same hue as Starbride’s. She radiated strength and confidence along with beauty and charisma. As Katya watched, she shifted to male and then back to female before she laid her hands on Starbride’s shoulders.
“Is that you?” Starbride asked.
Yanchasa bent to whisper in Starbride’s ear. Starbride frowned. “You abandoned me.”
“Never in my heart, beloved,” Katya cried. “They forced me to leave Marienne, and I hated them for it.”
“You could have come back for me.”
“I did! You don’t know how badly I wanted to run back to you as soon as I awoke.”
Starbride’s frown deepened, and the ghostly light of a pyramid shone from her forehead. “But you didn’t.”
“Monster!” Katya shouted at Yanchasa. “She knows the truth. It’s only your poisonous words swaying her.”
Yanchasa whispered in Starbride’s ear again. “You want me to be weak.”
Katya put all the force of love behind her words. “I want you to be whatever and whomever you like, my love. I adore every part of you.”
Starbride shifted, color blooming in her eyes before fading. “I’m afraid.”
Katya stepped closer. “Then lean on me, dearheart. I will help you as you’ve helped me. We’re better as a couple than we could ever be alone.”
Starbride tried to reach out, but Yanchasa laid his hand over hers.
“I don’t know how to stop it,” Starbride said.
Katya knew they didn’t have much time. They were in some dream world of Starbride’s creation, but Katya knew only one way to fight. She concentrated, and her rapier appeared in her grasp. “I think it’s time you face me for a change, Yanchasa.”
Chapter Forty
Starbride
Starbride’s vision was hazy, but she felt Yanchasa’s comforting presence, his words in her ear. She could hear Katya, but the sound came from the end of a long tunnel. Still, Starbride could feel her emotions as if they existed in the same head. She’d pulled Katya into a dream.
Had it always been a dream? Yanchasa’s focus shifted, and Starbride could see Katya’s hazy form coming closer and then sharpening, a rapier in her grasp.
But not aimed at Starbride. No, she pointed at Yanchasa. His attention split too far, some on Katya, some on transferring his essence from the capstone into Starbride, and even more trying to pull in one of the council members, a long process, but Starbride could feel a form beginning to solidify. She bet the adsnazi felt it, too.
Yanchasa’s power filled her head with white noise, but as Katya leapt, Starbride felt that river slow. A longsword appeared in Yanchasa’s hand, and she batted Katya’s attack away. Undeterred, Katya came on again. This time, Yanchasa parried and slashed at Katya’s arm.
The blow tore through Katya’s bicep as if she were made of smoke. Katya gasped and backed off, her arm not bleeding, but blinking in and out of focus. She may not have been physically present, but the blows would take a toll on her psyche.
With a laugh, Yanchasa charged, and Starbride felt his control slip again. She’d had a dream, she remembered, in the hideout while Roland still controlled the city. She’d been running, trying to escape the castle, and Katya had left her behind. It had been buried deep, but part of her had always thought Katya had abandoned her.
Her waking mind had never believed that, especially after she’d gotten in touch with Katya, when their love had been easy to feel. Lately, it had been Yanchasa plumbing her subconscious and fanning the flames, but she couldn’t realize it because he was inside her mind.
That shouldn’t have been possible. She was a pyradisté. No one could invade her thoughts, not unless they used the same method as Roland and obliterated her brain before ransacking it.
“I believed you,” she said. Grief had made her vulnerable, and she’d let him in, and then, Horsestrong forgive her, she’d believed everything he’d said. He’d turned her emotions as if cranking a handle, the adsna letting him control what she felt and when.
Yanchasa’s sword rang against Katya’s, but she cast one look over her shoulder. “I didn’t have to lie to you, daughter.”
Most of the time that had been true. Yanchasa had found every insecurity, every doubt. Starbride struggled against the power that coalesced around her like a web.
Yanchasa staggered, and Katya delivered a stab to her thigh.
“Keep fighting, Star!” Katya called.
Yanchasa’s rage blew Katya away like an autumn leaf, and she tumbled out of sight in the void. “Fool, you’re nothing without me, can’t you see that?”
And it was so. No one could give her power like Yanchasa could, no one could ever be so close, so intimate. Yanchasa appeared before her and cupped her face in his icy fingers. “I can be everything to you, daughter. Embrace me fully, and you’ll need no one else. I can watch from within your mind, and sometimes, if you’re tired, I can use the body while you rest.”
And she was tired, very much so, and the power filling her felt so warm and comforting. How bad could it be to—
“Get the fuck away from her!” Katya yelled, charging out of the white.
Yanchasa and Katya traded blows again. Starbride shook herself back to thought.
“Star, I love you,” Katya called. “You can’t doubt that, not ever.” Her feelings leapt the space between them and wrapped Starbride like a warm blanket.
“Keep her busy!” Starbride yelled. She pushed against the power and held on to one truth: Katya loved her, and she loved Katya. Even if Yanchasa sometimes spoke the truth, that didn’t make him any less of a betrayer.
She repeated that to herself as she tried to close the flow of power, but she feared it was too late. Yanchasa howled and blinked from sight, but Starbride knew the fight wasn’t over. The ribbon of power doubled and smacked into her like a hammer.
“It would have been easier if you’d accepted,” he whispered in her mind. “But I can steal your body if I have to.”
“No more promises of love?” Starbride asked. In response, pain cascaded through her skull, and she cried out. Katya’s arms went around her.
“More difficult,” Yanchasa said, “but I can manage.”
His power filled her. Her arms and legs jerked in their sockets, and she willed them to still. Yanchasa cut into his council-summoning efforts, and the excess power surrounded her.
“Fight it, Star!” Katya cried.
“I’m trying.” It wouldn’t be enough. Yanchasa’s feelings of victory rose inside her, coupled with contempt for the beautiful woman in her arms. Farraday was a kingdom without ambition, but all that was about to change. “You have to kill me.”
Katya held her tighter. “Everyone keeps saying that, but I’m not going to listen. Redtrue, can you bring us closer?”
Redtrue’s hazy shape sharpened, and the edge of Katya’s form slipped into Starbride’s. Katya pressed their foreheads together, into each other, and Starbride felt the force of Katya’s iron will. Yanchasa’s power waned, but they were still two young minds against an ancient one, one that had been plotting, waiting. Yanchasa had grown tired of wasting time with amateurs like Roland and wasn’t about to give up the prize she’d been given.
Starbride felt a sliver of affront, and a fourth consciousness brushed her own. Roland’s power crackled alongside them. He’d been a strong pyradisté before merging with his Aspect. No wonder he’d always seemed leaps and bounds ahead of everyone.
“This is twice everyone has turned against you,” Starbride said. “Now I know why I felt so rejected, Yanchasa. You were feeding me your own fears. Even Roland has turned on you. How did you think of him? Amateur? Puppet?”
Roland’s angry power flared, free to do as he wished, no longer under Yanchasa
’s thumb. She knew the feeling. Yanchasa gave a hair’s breadth of ground.
“It’s like trying to move a boulder with a spoon,” Starbride said. “We can’t stay like this forever, Katya.” All of them would tire before Yanchasa, bodies that needed to eat and sleep.
“Try harder!” Katya screamed.
Starbride didn’t know if they could. Katya eased deeper into her until Starbride couldn’t separate Katya’s thoughts from her own. Both wanted the other to live as much as each wanted to go on living. One consciousness, bearing both sword and magic, they were invincible, unstoppable.
Yanchasa’s grip weakened. “Think of the power, daughter!”
She and Katya had all the power they needed. They fought as a single force, aided by Roland and Redtrue and now the adsnazi, forcing Yanchasa back into the capstone. Starbride thought of her real parents, the love of her father, her mother’s determination. “I am not your daughter.”
“I will not be refused!” A pulse roared through them, and Katya nearly jerked from Starbride’s grasp.
Roland’s magic spiked in response. Starbride grabbed for Redtrue’s power and forced her and Katya back together, their minds merging with such a rush that they emitted a pulse all their own.
Yanchasa screamed and gave way, and they intruded on her psyche the way she’d plagued Starbride’s, saw her fears laid bare: that she would spend eternity imprisoned, never to feel the sun upon her skin again, never to see Edette or the other three, never to taste a pear or feel the rush of blood from a defeated foe.
“Get out of my mind!” he shouted.
“You’re just as scared as the rest of us,” Katya-Starbride said.
And they weren’t alone. Redtrue followed them, and she pitted her own considerable will against Yanchasa’s. Roland’s power hammered on the pyramid, keeping all the precious ground they won. Katya-Starbride sensed the adsnazi pushing Yanchasa toward his prison as gently and unstoppably as a leaf being carried down a river.
Yanchasa jerked and struggled and screamed in dual voices, but they forced him down, cramming his consciousness into the pyramid and sealing the way out.
Chapter Forty-one
Katya
It felt so right. Each wanted to stay joined with the other. They could be Katya-Starbride always, sustained by love.
But in whose body?
“Making love will be easier and more difficult at the same time.” And with that thought, they were separate again, though Katya still reveled in Starbride’s affection.
“That was you,” Starbride said. “Trust you to break us apart with a thought like that.”
A ping of exhaustion traveled through the void like a vibrating harp string. Redtrue.
“We have to leave,” Katya said. Still, she didn’t let go of Starbride’s spectral form, not trusting that Yanchasa wouldn’t spring back between them. “Let’s go together.”
Redtrue was lying on the floor, her head cradled in Castelle’s lap. Next to them stood Riverwise, the young man who hadn’t been afraid of the capstone or its magic. Roland knelt by the large pyramid that had tumbled from Starbride’s arms, the one that held the capstone’s energy. He heaved as if he’d just run a race, and Hugo and Maia were at his sides. Around all of them stood a half-circle made up of Brutal, Freddie, Vincent, and Dawnmother.
And Starbride was in her arms. They stood together.
Katya heard a crunch at her feet. Four tiny pyramids littered the ground, leaving Starbride’s body unmarked. Katya kissed her forehead over where the smallest pyramid used to be. “I’m so sorry, Star, if you ever felt anything less than loved.”
Starbride put her arms around Katya’s neck. “Deepest fears from my most inner self,” she said. “Nothing I ever truly thought. Katya, I’m so sorry. I can’t, I can’t even tell you…” She sagged as if her legs wouldn’t hold her.
Katya squeezed her hard and held her up. “I love you, Star. I always will. Just breathe for now and think on that.” She cleared her throat. “It’s done,” she said loudly, making the others turn toward them.
Leafclever and his adsnazi stood arrayed before them, pyramids out. “Then, at last, can you stand out of the way so that we can deal with the monster that still lives inside that pyramid?”
Brutal didn’t move. “Redtrue said you can’t cleanse it yet, not without knowing what it might do to those still connected with Yanchasa.”
Leafclever frowned. “We will not harm someone through magic, you know this. But we can take possession of that artifact in order to insure no one else is harmed.”
Brutal looked back to Katya. “Let them through,” she said. She worried that Starbride remained silent, but she knew that shame and guilt had to be hard at work in Starbride’s mind. Katya bit her lip, unsure of the right course. She’d never had to tend to someone who’d just regained their humanity. As if reading her mind, Maia appeared at her side and helped her guide Starbride out of the way.
“Can you still hear its voice?” Katya muttered in Starbride’s ear.
She shook her head. “Katya, how will I ever apologize?”
“They know it wasn’t you. I know. All we need is…” She’d been about to say time, the thing that Starbride had asked for with Yanchasa sharing her head. “All we need is rest.”
Maia pressed in close, and Katya heard her whisper, “Welcome back.” Dawnmother pressed to Starbride’s side and wouldn’t let go. Two of the adsnazi lifted Yanchasa’s pyramid carefully and walked it from the room.
They all tread carefully, nursing wounds. Katya sent Vincent ahead to have his arm seen to. Brutal and the rest of the adsnazi stopped to help their unconscious comrades and to check on the sleeping men and women they’d passed on their way to the fight. At the sight of a charred corpse, Starbride turned her face into Katya’s shoulder.
“Wait,” Starbride said. “What happened to Bea?”
“You mean me,” Roland said.
Katya paused. She couldn’t see him as wholly man or monster, but she couldn’t say that aloud, not with Starbride so near and vulnerable. An inner voice asked how she could forgive one of them and not the other. Katya frowned so hard it threatened to become a snarl. Starbride hadn’t killed Ma.
When Katya turned to Roland, his face shifted through several expressions, and she worried he might have another fit of madness.
He breathed deep. “When you offered me the Aspect again, I knew what I had to do. There was nothing left of that girl. When I saw her, I remembered. I had to stop me.”
Starbride sobbed a laugh. “You’re a very good actor.”
“As leader of the Order, you have to be.”
Katya had said that a few times. She clenched her jaw and fought the urge to identify with him. He held his pyramid out, and Katya plucked it from his palm.
Hugo put an arm around his shoulders and led him away.
“Bea told me a story about eating too many berries with her brother,” Starbride said.
Katya had to swallow bile. “That’s one of my father’s stories, when he and Roland were children.” Before Maia could follow Hugo, Katya caught her arm. “Roland has to go back in his cell.” Maia’s face hardened, but Katya shook her head. “You can stay with him or bring him something to make him more comfortable, but he cannot go free, Maia. You know that.”
She nodded and followed on her brother’s heels. Freddie replaced her, joining those clustered around Starbride. “You can’t blame them,” he said. “Both Maia and Hugo always hoped their father could be saved.”
“But there are some deeds you can never come back from,” Starbride said. “I should know.” Katya hugged her closer.
As they began the climb up the disorderly steps, Katya noticed Redtrue, Castelle, and Riverwise stayed with her rather than go with the adsnazi. “What did Leafclever mean?” Katya asked. “About you not knowing what it meant to help me?”
Redtrue looked away, but Riverwise sighed. “By choosing forbidden magic, we are no longer adsnazi.”
&
nbsp; Katya stopped and half turned. Even Starbride looked at them with wide eyes. “Wait, you’re not…”
“You’re exiled?” Starbride asked.
“No one can bar me from Allusia,” Redtrue said with a sniff. When Katya continued to stare, Redtrue stiffened, a challenging look on her face. “And just because I cannot call myself adsnazi does not mean I will conform to pyradisté ways.”
Katya knew anger covering grief when she saw it, and she sensed that now wasn’t the best time to thank Redtrue for what she’d done. Maybe there would never be a good time for that, not if it meant reminding her of what it cost. Maybe she could have a word with Leafclever later, or maybe Da could.
“I think I might learn Farradain magic,” Riverwise said.
Redtrue stared at him as if he’d just lit himself on fire. “You will remain close to me,” she said slowly. He grinned into her glower, and Katya thought she might have met her match, or at least had someone who might distract her from her current predicament. Either way, Katya put it out of her mind. She had Starbride to take care of first.
Chapter Forty-two
Starbride
Starbride tuned out the conversations around her. She kept seeing the burnt corpse in the hallway, kept imagining the hundreds she’d killed outside the city walls. She’d let Yanchasa out. How could she have been so stupid?
She knew what Katya would say: “Place the blame where it belongs.”
Could she ever experience the adsna anymore? She couldn’t bring herself to try. She’d have to practice magic the way she had before, with a different pyramid for each task, as blind and deaf to the flow of the adsna as any other pyradisté, unless the adsnazi could teach her differently. They might refuse. She wouldn’t blame them if they did. Horsestrong preserve her, she’d hurt so many people!
Now she understood what Maia had told her about missing the Fiend’s power. Not the desire to kill or the imperious coldness, but the freedom from consequence.
The Fiend Queen Page 33
