Scarko’s fingers were numb. Her body continued to ache.
“We need fire,” she commanded of Yezedi.
Yezedi waved her hand and brought a flickering flame to life.
Scarko and Klaus set about creating a makeshift fire pit from the cold earth, while Alexander circled their surroundings, ensuring they were, indeed, alone, his dark Skuggmat shadows trailing after him like living things.
Yezedi lit the cold bramble and the fire roared to life.
“What now?” she asked quietly, looking between Scarko and Vojtech. The drug was wearing off them all.
Vojtech had been curiously silent since they escaped the tunnel. Scarko thought of Rhodri, and her skin crawled with the betrayal between them. The secret. The voice in her head. But when she thought to mention it, when she thought she should come clean, should ask, the voice spoke again: Not safe, not safe, not safe.
We need a light,” Vojtech reminded them, following as they walked in the darkness.
“Where is south?” Klaus asked, perplexed.
Scarko rolled her eyes, pointing in the right direction after glancing toward the stars and calculating, even with such little visibility above the canopy.
“Right,” Klaus shrugged.
“What about Zephir?” She didn’t want to ask, but it was her burden to bear.
Vojtech’s eyes found hers. “We will have to come back for him.”
“We?” She almost choked on the word.
He nodded. “Seeing as you couldn’t carry the Holy Order out yourself…” He shrugged. He didn’t trust her to do it. He would come with her to ensure she did.
Yezedi sank down by the fire, her back to them, as if trying not to listen.
“I had planned to. After—”
“After you took care of your own interests?” Vojtech’s words were soft, but the smile he now held was serpentine.
Her skin crawled. It was the first time she had felt shame about the Praeminister with Vojtech. The first time since she had confessed to him. But perhaps he was angry. He’d had to fight off the Warskians alone with his so-called guard cowering above.
Klaus shifted on his feet beside her, dead leaves crunching beneath them. She knew he was thinking of the Praeminister, too.
“I think I paid for it. In the prison.”
“You could have paid with your life,” Vojtech snapped.
She froze, words escaping her. The anger on his face was chilling. He advanced a step toward her, and she saw Yezedi whip her head around, her intricate braids flying. Klaus shifted, ever-so-slightly, in her direction. She thought her heart might crack at her friends’ subtle movements.
Alexander was watching beyond the fire, eyes wide, his shadows gone.
“You didn’t do as I asked and you nearly got into the Praeminister’s clutches again, all so you could seek out your own petty revenge—”
“Petty?” The word came out in one breath.
Vojtech’s rage faltered, his eyes flickered, his mouth pressed into a thin line.
“You think my revenge petty?” Scarko advanced a step, leaving Klaus behind her, coming so close that she and Vojtech could be touching, so close she could smell the fresh earth scent of him.
“You, the one who wishes to start a second damned Holy War because you wish to be on the throne once more—you think what I want is petty?”
He growled, soft and low in the back of his throat, and she saw his fangs flash in the darkness. “I wish to save the Vrakan children enslaved by the tyrannical king who doesn’t give an unholy damn about his people, only lining his pockets. I wish to save them from what you went through, Scarko. And yes, I wish to rule, because I would do so fairly, something the current king knows nothing of.”
Scarko opened her mouth to say that she highly doubted Vojtech knew of fairness either, when Alexander coughed loudly, interrupting their standoff.
“Someone is coming,” he said as Scarko and Vojtech both pinned their eyes on his.
21
A Bad Thing Happens
Scarko reached for the new blade in her boot, the one Klaus had found for her, had pressed into her hand in the basement to kill Zephir. It was small like her old one, with a pale grey handle, and she didn’t love the feel of it in her fingers. But it would slice her palm just the same, just as it had in the tunnel.
Yezedi stood, too, Klaus beside her, facing Alexander’s direction, the way they had come from the city, north. They could see nothing, not yet, but Scarko heard it—a crunch of leaves, a low murmur of voices.
And then one, ringing through all the rest, commanding, angry—the Praeminister.
She stilled, the blade poised above her palm. Vojtech glanced at her but said nothing, his features a mask of icy concentration.
They waited with bated breath, and Scarko slowly, quietly, dragged the knife along her broken palm.
She felt the warm rush of her blood, of the bird skull necklace against her chest.
And then she saw them.
The Praeminister’s lips curled into a smile as a billow of fur-lined white robes swept into the clearing. Flanking him were Warskian soldiers and Vokte police springing from the darkness of the forest, their faces grim, eyes narrowed. There were many of them, so many that Scarko lost count after 20, and there were half a dozen mindeta blowers.
Mere feet separated them from Klaus, Alexander, and Yezedi, holding the front of the line. But they could win this battle. As long as they tore apart the men with the mindeta blowers first.
The Praeminister took in Vojtech’s horns, and a strange, faint smile played on his lips.
“You’re cornered, Scarko,” the Praeminister crooned, his eyes shifting to hers. “If you give yourself to me, I’ll let them go.” He waved a white gloved hand toward her friends.
She stepped between Klaus and Yezedi, and Vojtech followed, standing resolutely beside her. That growl was already working its way up into Vojtech’s throat.
“No.” One word. That was all she would give to the man who had torn her life apart. Who had watched her parents hang, forcing her to watch.
The Praeminister sighed and shook his head. He turned his gaze to the Warskians. “Kill them all but her.” His eyes flashed toward her again. “I want her to suffer a little more.”
The six guards in emerald green with mindeta blowers strapped to their backs stepped forward, their faces equal masks of quiet fury.
The altak had worn off completely. Vojtech turned to her. “You can fight it.” And before she could respond, he lunged forward, to the center guard, who let the pollen of mindeta burst forth in a cloud of white, even as the man’s hands shook in horror.
But Vojtech had his teeth in the man’s neck seconds afterward. Yezedi thrust her hands out, moving to flank Scarko, and fire shot toward another guard with the mindeta blowers, the others unsheathing their swords but not yet advancing.
The guard in the path of Yezedi’s fire crumpled to his knees before he could scream, and Scarko watched as his face turned to a skeleton in the lick of flames.
Klaus and Alexander stepped forward, ice and shadow sprinting up from their own hands, their faces in grim lines, dark. Nearly human shapes slid toward a third mindeta soldier, frozen ice aiming to the heart of a fourth.
But as Scarko made to conjure the blüdsvard with her bleeding palm, her throat caught in her chest. As her friends used their gifts around her and Vojtech lunged for the fifth mindeta soldier with a piercing growl, she saw that some in emerald green did not unsheathe their swords. And they did not wear masks of fear on their hard faces. No, instead, they stepped forward, toward the battle.
And she realized, as ten at once raised their own hands, that they were not fighting an army of overgivas. No, they were fighting Vrakans, Vrakans no longer in drab brown, so as to blend in.
Before she could cry out a warning, as all but one of the mindeta soldiers were destroyed, the Praeminister safely enveloped among the throng of the other soldiers and police, the Warskian Vrak
ans in emerald green unleashed their magic against the Order’s Vraka.
Scarko felt flames rushing toward her, and Alexander shoved her to the ground, where they narrowly dodged the hot fire that stung like ice as it whipped over her head.
“Not the girl!” the Praeminister bellowed, and the flames stopped, but the ice and shadow still swirled around them. As Scarko pushed off Alexander and stood to her feet, she saw Vojtech grab a Warskian Vraka by his throat, his nails puncturing the soft hollow flesh at the man’s windpipe.
Klaus had been hit with a shadow. He clawed at it as it wrapped its arms around his face, covering his skin in shades of bottomless black. Scarko ducked down and ran for him, grabbing the ice cold of the shadow with her bloodied palm. It vanished at her touch and Klaus’s eyes, wide with fear, met hers.
Unbelievably, he smiled. “Good work,” he said, and they both stood to their feet to face the enemy Vrakans again.
Yezedi’s flame was battling with another Eldmat, locked in a battle of strength as the orange light met the red. Yezedi’s face was contorted with anger as she tried to send her own flames further down the line. But the Warskian Vraka’s flame held, his face calm, his furrowed brow the only sign of his struggle.
Vojtech’s growls, punctuated by the snapping of bones, was enough for Scarko to know him safe. The sixth mindeta soldier was no longer standing, and she didn’t waste another second looking for his corpse.
Instead, she and Klaus advanced on two overgiva Warskians, Klaus using his ice to knock the sword from his opponent’s hand and Scarko tugging on the blade with her left hand, wrenching it from the soldier’s hands. She tossed aside the sword, then wrapped her bloodied palm, now soaked with sticky crimson, around his neck, and he crumpled, gasping loudly.
Alexander sent his shadows to battle another’s, and Scarko saw Yezedi still locked in battle with the Warskian Eldmat. Neither had given an inch, their flames colliding in the center, raging against one another.
Scarko left the howling Warskian as she heard Klaus’s ice ring out, clashing against another blade.
But then the Praeminister laughed.
Her blood ran cold. Indeed, the fighting seemed to halt around them.
She turned her head to find the Praeminister’s sinister gaze, lit by the fires raging around them, on her. He should be frightened, should be worried. They had plowed down many of the Warskians, outnumbered as they were. All the mindeta blowers were likely crushed. And yet the Praeminister still laughed.
He looked past her, and she turned to follow his gaze. As she did, she saw Vojtech holding what looked to be a human heart. But he was okay. She felt a small amount of relief, but she kept turning her head.
Her own heart nearly stopped.
Yezedi had lowered her hand, and her opponent his own. They were no longer locked in a battle of wills. Instead, they were both looking toward something else entirely.
Someone had a blade to Klaus’s throat.
His blue eyes were narrowed in defiance, mere feet from her. Dead soldiers, frozen, judging by the frost across their lashes, lay at his feet.
But someone had bested him.
Zephir Crista’s gleaming eyes, so, so green in the darkness, met hers. He adjusted the knife in his hand, just a little, enough to draw a drop of Klaus’s blood.
There was silence. The fighting had stopped.
“Put down that knife.” Scarko’s words rang out across the cold forest.
The Praeminister laughed again. “Ah, Scarko. Always the hopeless romantic.”
Her skin crawled, but she did not turn away from her friend. Klaus did not look frightened, and she was glad of it. He looked pissed.
“If you give yourself to me, I’ll let your dear Glassmat friend go.” The Praeminister spoke with a lover’s caress.
Vojtech growled somewhere behind her.
“Don’t do it,” Klaus demanded.
Zephir pulled him tighter into his own body, his brows furrowed. “Don’t speak, Vraka,” he spat.
Where were Ida and Jalde? Did they know their prized fighter would be here?
“Ida told me where the tunnel went, as her father told her. Told me where you might be,” Zephir boasted, as if in answer to her question. “Jalde never trusted you anyhow.”
“Let him go.” The words tore from her throat.
“Ah, Scarko.” The Praeminister picked his way through the soldiers and police, his white robes sweeping over the blood-soaked forest floor, visible by the fire pit, flames still flickering wildly. Vojtech growled again. The Praeminister came to stand beside Zephir and smiled at her. He extended his hand toward her. Klaus spat on it, and Zephir dug the knife a little closer, more blood dropped beneath the blade.
The Praeminister flashed another smile as he wiped his hand on Klaus’s coat. Klaus was trembling at the contact.
“Come with me,” the Praeminister sneered again.
She took a step forward. Vojtech’s growl tumbled through the forest. Klaus shook his head, his neck cutting against the blade. His eyes were pleading.
“Scarko, no.” But his voice faltered.
She took another step. The Praeminister’s eyes were hungry. She remembered them well. Could not forget them. He held out his wrinkled hand again.
She was close enough to take it. Zephir watched her carefully. Klaus was still shaking his head, blood dripped down his neck.
“Scarko.” It was the Djavul’s voice. She ignored it. Vojtech hadn’t tried to intervene. What was he waiting for? Surely, he would save Klaus as she diverted the Praeminister.
She took the Praeminister’s hand with the one not covered in blood. He jerked her forward and pulled something from his robes.
The flash of a syringe beneath the night sky. It went to her neck before she could move, but she did not resist even afterward.
Vojtech’s growl nearly shook the forest floor. Still he did not advance. Yezedi hissed somewhere behind her. The world was growing fuzzy, yet Scarko could still stand. Still see.
The Praeminister yanked her hair, tipping her head back. She looked up at the dead canopy of trees, the stars twinkling beyond.
“Get to your knees,” the Praeminister’s breath was foul. He shoved her down to the cold ground and carefully stepped on the arch of her foot, through her boot. It was painful, but not unbearable. And then he took a sword from a nearby Warskian, and before she could take another breath, he speared it through her boot, the tiny bones of her foot, yanking it back out just as quickly, a crunchy, wet sound ringing out in the forest.
Pain lit like fire through her foot, and she felt the warmth of her own blood soak her boot.
Someone screamed out her name with such primal fury it nearly scared her, more than the splintering pain: “Scarko!”
Was the voice real? Or was that in her head?
She recognized it, the voice, and her heart stilled. But it had been in her head.
She looked to Zephir, blinking past the pain. He still held the knife to Klaus’s throat. Klaus’s eyes were blinking furiously, tears down his cheeks. His lip trembled. But Vojtech would save him. He would not die.
“Let him go,” she managed to say through the dizziness of mindeta from the syringe, dizziness that had already pushed the pain from her mangled foot away.
Vojtech hadn’t growled again. She didn’t know if he was still there at all. Perhaps he was moving in, to save Klaus, to get him away from Zephir’s clutches.
Zephir didn’t let Klaus go, but he handed the knife to the Praeminister, who had stepped away from her and dropped the bloodied sword. She could not escape with a broken foot.
The Praeminister held the knife as Zephir held Klaus. He looked at her with a smile that sent a bolt of dread deep down in the pit of her stomach, and then he turned his bare head away from her.
Where was Vojtech?
But while Zephir held him, the Praeminister extended the knife out.
And then he slit Klaus’s throat, slowly. Cruelly.
Sca
rko shoved the pain away and stood to her feet, and Zephir let Klaus go, let him sink to his knees as blood oozed out of his neck like a smooth, macabre waterfall.
She made to attack the Praeminister even as her heart twisted, but he kicked her, hard, in the chest. She faltered back with a snarl, but her name again was a guttural roar through the forest.
“SCARKO!” There was fear in the voice, unbridled rage. That voice she had heard before.
Not Vojtech’s. Not Yezedi. Not Alexander.
She only had time to blink as a whoosh of air flew over her head and someone, someone made of tightly coiled muscle, blue-black hair, and midnight blue horns, leapt atop the Praeminister, who shrieked with pain even before Rhodri rammed his horns into the man’s eyes.
Chaos ensued.
“I’m sorry,” Rhodri ground out to her and he removed his horns from the Praeminister, the stem of eyes trailing atop them, and then he rammed his horns into the Praeminister’s throat.
Scarko realized, as roars and screams and the sound of fire and ice clashing against flesh and blades echoed around her, that Rhodri was sorry she didn’t get to kill the Praeminister. She smiled softly. And then she turned to Klaus, Zephir nowhere to be found, and she slumped over his lifeless body. She closed her eyes. The mindeta pulled her mercifully under.
22
Not Here Again
She awoke in a room she vaguely recognized—pale white walls, black curtains partitioning off beds, one in which she herself laid in. She blinked, her body aching, sharp pain spiking through her left foot. She hauled herself to a seated position. Her mouth was dry, her lips cracked. Her vision was blurry, and she blinked, clearing it.
Her head ached.
Klaus.
She gasped, her hand over her chest as she remembered his blood, the knife the Praeminister slid across his throat. It couldn’t have been real. They wouldn’t have been able to get back here. Vojtech would have saved him.
Stranger Rituals Page 21
