“Ah well, if you won’t cooperate, I’ll still have myself, my children, and my niece-in-law to help me draw Yanchasa’s power and to make sure the people do as they’re told.”
“No! No!” Brom screamed. “You promised me. My children and I could go free. We’d never be Fiends! We’d never Waltz!”
Something darted through the air from behind them. With preternatural speed, Roland plucked the throwing knife from its flight. Pennynail was on the move. Roland snapped the thin metal as if it were an old twig. “So be it.” He opened his left hand, revealing a pyramid, and then closed it swiftly, shattering the crystal. From her place on the wall, Starbride screamed and fell.
Darren and Layra loosed arrows; Katya and Brutal dove behind stalagmites. Maia stayed rooted to the spot and stared at her father with tear-stained cheeks, a knife clutched in her fist. “Maia, down!” Katya yelled. She paid no heed, and Katya looked for a way to get to Starbride.
Roland appeared in a blur at her side. Katya brought her sword to bear, but he leaned past her thrust as if she moved through water. He reached inside the neck of her coat and jerked her pyramid necklace from her throat.
“I know now what sets you off, little K,” he whispered. The cold of his breath burned her cheeks. “I’ll kill your brother and your father and save your mother and your consort. Your Fiendish face will smile while I rape and torture them at the same time.”
“No!” Katya shrieked, her anger spiking. Roland planted a pyramid in the middle of her chest, and Katya felt a surge of bitter cold before everything went dim around the edges and complete calm overtook her, quieting her conscious mind.
Chapter Thirty-two: Starbride
Starbride’s pain smothered her, a stake through her side, a sword slicing her in half, a giant wasp stinging its way out of her body. She tore a hole in her gown and tried to dig out the pain, but the skin was too hot to touch. Katya needed her. She had to get up, but her whole world was pushed through the eye of agony. Cool hands touched her face, and she whipped her head toward them, seeking a balm.
Dawnmother’s anxious face filled her vision. Someone was holding her on her side, pushing her down. “Hold her still,” Averie said.
Dawnmother’s face came closer. “Peace, Star. Lie still.”
Starbride couldn’t speak. She needed to scratch the pain out. Didn’t they understand? It grew and grew the more she lay there, agony on top of agonies. It would consume her, leaving nothing behind.
She closed her eyes and centered on the pain. A fire pyramid, a tiny thing, dormant until now, was embedded in her flesh; it sought to burn her up from the inside out. Desperate, she focused and pit her mind against it, but it defied her. With a howl, she drove her thoughts into it and smothered it, cooler and cooler.
“Get it out,” she said. She couldn’t hold it for long. She pointed to her side, on top of the small scar. “Here.”
New pain assaulted her, that of a knife against her skin. The burning became searing, and Averie shouted, “I’ve got it!” before hissing in pain herself. Glass shattered, and the pain changed, newer and duller than before. Cloth ripped, and Dawnmother tied a strip of it tightly around Starbride’s middle.
“I’m going to help Katya,” Averie said.
“Averie, wait!” Dawnmother hissed, but Averie had already departed.
Starbride pushed on Dawnmother’s arms. “We have to help, too.”
“We had to cut a small pyramid out of you, Star. You have a hole in your side.”
Starbride shook her head, remembering the manor house and the rock she thought had cut her. She hadn’t felt it since it wasn’t active; that must have been why Crowe missed it, too. “I think he meant to kill me. Bind me tighter. We have to save the family, or we’ll all die. Weren’t you listening?”
Dawnmother sucked in a breath and helped Starbride to her feet. She felt the cloth bandage around her side, the cooling stickiness of her blood. A little light-headed, she grunted as the movement pulled at the wound. She clutched Dawnmother’s arm in the dark and looked out over the room, trying to spot all the players in the light of the central pyramid and the shadows of the stalagmites.
Maia watched her Fiend father, who stood with Katya. “Oh no,” Starbride whispered as she saw Katya’s Aspect for the second time. “Oh please, no.”
Brutal threw Brom to the side and charged Roland. Impossibly fast, Roland lifted an arm, caught Brutal’s fist, and tossed him across the room to slam into stone. Brutal tried to rise, shaking his head.
Averie took the opportunity to go for Katya, but Katya was frozen in her Aspect, eyes locked with Roland. Her rapier had fallen into the dirt at her side. “No!” Dawnmother whispered. “The princess will kill her. She’s a monster! They all are!”
Cassius sprinted from the doorway to intercept Averie, and Starbride’s stomach went cold. Which would be better, caught by him or by the Fiend? Averie faced off with Cassius, his sword to her knife. She ran and led him on a chase through the stalagmites.
“Clever Averie,” Starbride whispered. “What can we do?” Two men, one of whom she’d thought a friend, still guarded the entrance. She couldn’t spot Pennynail and Crowe. The gray-skinned woman moved closer to the central pyramid, her back to the empty set of shackles. Starbride pulled on Dawnmother’s arm. “If we get Brom into those shackles, maybe that will put Yanchasa back to sleep, and Roland will have missed his chance to do whatever it is he wants to do. He had to be waiting for this time for a reason.”
“Will that free the rest of them?” Dawnmother helped Starbride shuffle along. If they were quiet, they could get to Brom and drag her with them. All eyes were on the drama between Katya and Roland.
“I don’t know.” The pain in her side spiked, and she stumbled. “I’m too slow, Dawn. You get Brom. I’ll distract everyone else.”
“I don’t even know what’s going on, Star, but my life for yours. I’ll distract these…Fiends. You get Brom.”
Starbride hissed through her teeth. “If you ever loved me, if Birdfaithful ever loved Horsestrong, get Brom.”
Dawnmother stared for a half a heartbeat before she hastened to do as she was told. Starbride limped toward Katya and Roland. Over Katya’s shoulder, Roland’s eyes settled on her.
“Katya!” Starbride screamed. Everyone turned toward her except Katya. Roland chuckled.
Something sparkled in the dirt near Katya’s feet, winking in the dim light: Katya’s pyramid necklace. Starbride took a step toward it just as someone hit her from the side and knocked her over. Curling around her wound, she stared up into Darren’s smirking face. “Well, well,” he said, “I suppose you’re not off-limits now, eh?” He’d dropped the bow and now swung the tip of his sword up and down her body. “Tell me what you’ll do for me to keep me from cutting you.”
“I’d rather die a thousand deaths.”
“I wonder if you could take a thousand cuts before you die. Shall we start counting?” He laid the cold steel point against her breastbone, dimpling the skin. “Ready?”
Another blade knocked his out of the way, and Lord Hugo stepped into view. Darren stumbled away, his brow thunderous. “You little shit! There’s plenty of her to go around.”
Lord Hugo grabbed Starbride’s arm and hauled her to her feet, making her side ache. She pushed away from him.
Darren’s eyes narrowed as Lord Hugo brought his rapier on guard. “What is this?”
“Run, Miss Starbride,” Lord Hugo said. “The doorway is open.”
“Fucking traitor!” Darren yelled. “You’d betray your own father?”
“He betrays himself. Under his sway, I believed him, but let loose from it, I find that I’m an honorable man.”
Darren lunged, and the two fell to fighting, their swords ringing together. Starbride glanced at the doorway and then back at Katya. Roland stared at the two fighting men with his head cocked, as if he couldn’t figure out what they were doing.
Brutal hit him from behind. He staggered, but Starbri
de knew he would dispatch Brutal soon enough. Now was the time to act. She stooped, grabbed the pyramid necklace, and told herself to ignore the pain in her side. She leapt, striving for speed instead of grace, and slammed into Katya, who didn’t even rock under the force.
Dimly, she heard someone shrieking, “No!” Dawnmother slapped Brom repeatedly and dragged her toward the central pyramid. Katya turned and caught Starbride’s arms in a grip like stone, her expression passive and calm.
Behind her, Roland smashed a fist into Brutal’s face and dropped him to the ground. “Layra,” he called, “stop those two at the pyramid.” The gray-skinned woman turned, and Dawnmother took Brom with her behind a stalagmite as an arrow whistled past them. Pennynail launched from nearby cover and tackled Layra to the ground. Roland took a step that way when a blur as fast as lightning slammed into him and sent him and his attacker spinning across the room.
Katya’s grip increased, her face still calm, but now a tiny smile hovered about her lips. Starbride pressed the pyramid necklace to the skin of Katya’s throat. Katya gasped, her all-blue eyes flying open and her blood-colored lips going slack, showing her fangs. As her arms loosened, Starbride kissed her frosted lips and tied the chain around her neck. “If he can think while he’s a Fiend, so can you. Come back.” She made herself fall into the necklace, using its power, pushing it into Katya.
Chapter Thirty-three: Katya
Starbride was in her arms; that was the first thing Katya noticed. The second was that over Starbride’s shoulder, by the capstone of the ancient pyramid, her father’s shackles were empty.
Her mother and brother still stood there, locked in their Aspects and in communion with Yanchasa. The rest of the room was a scattered wilderness of shouts and fights, the ring of steel and the harsh cry of wounded people.
Strangely enough, she didn’t care. It was so hard to care, even with some of her awareness returned to her. She knew she wore her Aspect plain upon her face, and it didn’t faze her. She knew that Starbride was wounded and slumping in her arms. That mattered a little more, but no more than if Starbride had stubbed a toe. Averie ran at a glacial pace near the back of the cavern, pursued by Cassius. Brutal was down. Lord Hugo and Darren fought sword-to-sword, but their movements were sluggish and unnatural, distorted in time. The only things moving like normal were her uncle Roland, still in his Aspect, who wrestled with Da, also a Fiend. She wondered dimly who had let him loose.
Maia moved with aching slowness toward Brutal. Cassius came too near his prone form, and Maia threw a knife. Katya watched it spin slowly, as if through molasses. She could have crossed the room in three quick steps and plucked it from the air. Something important was going on, but none of it mattered. Nothing mattered. The entire world was a pit of meaninglessness occasionally lessened by the promise of bloodshed.
Katya stared into Starbride’s pleading face. She touched Starbride’s waist and felt the blood there. Roland had done this. He’d set the violence loose. At the moment, Katya felt more kinship with him than she ever could with the woman in her arms. Roland was her kin, her mind argued. Roland was her uncle. But Starbride was her consort. Neither tie mattered. The only thing that mattered was the pull she felt to Roland, to the rest of her family, to the Fiends. She was them, loved them, and wanted to kill them even more than these frail humans. It would be a blood-swollen challenge.
She lowered Starbride to the ground with aching slowness. To do anything else would be to ram her into the rock. Katya lifted her rapier and sheathed it. Then, with a step, she was beside Roland and Da where they rolled on the ground. She put a hand on each of them and tugged. They were as strong as she but the slight motion sent them apart.
Both were torn and leaking. She could smell their blood. Her father didn’t recognize her, but he recognized the Fiend, and she knew he wanted to tear into her as much as she wanted to tear into him. They’d need the control of a pyramid or Fiend-merge to do anything other than fight one another. Roland was simply amused.
“You’re ready to join me?” The words plumed from Roland’s mouth in Fiend speech, a tongue she understood perfectly. Da stepped closer, rime forming on his clothes.
Katya considered. Roland promised bloodshed, and that could be amusing for a time. She could kill everyone in the room except her family, her blood kin, and then they could fall on each other. When she was done, she could take Starbride with her. But, her inner voice said, Starbride wouldn’t have anything to do with her if she went on a killing spree. The soft hands would never touch her again.
That wouldn’t matter. In her current form, she could make Starbride do anything she wished. Her inner voice rebelled, echoed by something deep inside her. Injuring Starbride was not permitted. Roland meant their death, all of them, even her family, even his blood. And he wouldn’t save them for last. He’d kill them all as if they were wholly human.
Da leapt. Roland and Katya’s arms shot out as one and knocked Da to the ground, though Katya did it to save him. She stared at her uncle and snarled. “I’m above you.”
He looked at her, genuine surprise lighting his eyes. “Join me, and we’ll have an entire kingdom to play with. We’ll make it perfect.”
“Play with someone else’s. This is mine.”
His handsome face frowned, its icy haughtiness calling to her own. “You forget who your elders are, niece.”
“Yanchasa is my elder, same as yours.” She hit him then, a quick punch that he barely scraped out of. She whipped her rapier from its sheath.
Roland tried to dance away. He brought up his arm to block and called for aid. Katya snorted. Any human moving against her might as well have been moving in thick soup. Roland’s son and lover might have possessed the Aspect, but they’d never Waltzed. Katya felt their caged Fiends, pale shadows of what she had, and laughed at them.
Roland cried out as Katya stabbed him in the leg and brought him to his knees. He grabbed her ankles and yanked her feet out from under her. She twisted as she landed and pushed the pain aside. Roland tried to clamber on top of her, but she pushed off the floor with one shoulder and rammed the guard of her rapier against his face.
The guard dented and crumpled, breaking against Roland’s Aspect. He snarled, and she knew she’d hurt him a little. She hit him again and again, and the twisted shards of metal dug tiny holes in his skin.
He grabbed her wrist and squeezed. She felt the bones begin to buckle; their grinding filled her head, and she knew she couldn’t defeat him with pure force. She gathered her feet between them and shoved. He flew to his feet to stagger backward. She cast her rapier aside, ran for the pyramid, and threw her hands against it. She didn’t need the shackles. With her mind awake to guide the Fiend inside her, she’d beat Roland using his own game.
Light blinded her, and her Fiend recognized the experience, remembered it in a way her human mind never could. Down through the capstone her mind traveled, into the ancient pyramid to where a great mind slumbered.
Katya thought that the earthquakes must have been Roland’s doing, but not so. There had been too much time, too much diluting of Yanchasa’s Aspect. Time had come back to the Fiend, and with it, an awakening mind. Roland had been right. They should have tried to siphon more off, to take some more of the Fiend into themselves, but that might have meant madness, the same as it meant for one of those who’d originally bound Yanchasa, Vestra’s own husband.
Well, was that not duty? It would be a sacrifice that Vestra herself would have made, were she given another chance. Katya opened herself to Yanchasa’s presence, giving in fully, the Fiend in her wanting the power and the human part fighting to care about the outcome.
Chapter Thirty-four: Starbride
The world went white. There was no other word for it. One moment, Starbride was in Katya’s arms, the next she was lowered quickly to the floor. Then Katya moved to join the fight between Roland and King Einrich. Seconds passed between the three of them, and Starbride lost hope. Without King Einrich in his shackles, t
he plan to complete the Waltz using Brom couldn’t work.
Katya and Roland became a blur together, and when a single blur streaked for the pyramid, Starbride’s heart sank further When the streak stopped, and she saw it was Katya, Starbride rejoiced until the world went white.
Beside her in the cold white void, Roland said, “The little fool.”
Katya had tried to help, and something had gone wrong. Starbride didn’t know whether Katya was a fool for trying or if Roland thought Katya a fool for not helping him. She supposed it didn’t matter if the world had become a void.
A ripple shook the room as Starbride’s sight faded back to normal. Queen Catirin and Prince Reinholt lay on their backs at the pyramid’s base, their Aspects gone, faces slack, though she noted with relief that they still breathed. In front of the pyramid, Katya turned.
The horns arcing over Katya’s head had grown by a foot, joined by another pair that started at her temples and continued around the sides of her head. Her pupil-less eyes were enormous in a face that had stretched downward, as if someone had shoved a horseshoe where her chin would be. Her too-wide mouth was filled with sharp teeth, and her ears curved up to points high above hair the color of blood. Ice formed under her feet as she examined her hands; the long, birdlike fingers ended in claws. She grunted, and the back of her coat burst open as four feathered wings unfurled in a splash of blood, spattering the pyramid with drops that froze and rolled down in little red beads.
“So, little K,” Roland said from Starbride’s side. “With me to guide you, we will be unstoppable. You desire slaughter. I can feel it.”
Katya stared at him, her head cocked as if he were an interesting new toy. Starbride’s insides shriveled in fear, and she cursed Roland for drawing the monster’s attention anywhere near her. She couldn’t think of this thing as her lover. Ancient parts deep inside of her knew this creature was the embodiment of fear, and she could no more fight that fear than she could her own heartbeat.
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