“What are you doing?” said Bael.
“These are my grandfather’s men. You can’t go about snapping their limbs off.” With a quick burst of heat, she melted the rifle from his grip.
“Here.” She handed the rifle to Bael. “You wanted this.”
She turned to thaw a second cutlass from another guard. Feels good to have a real blade again. “I’m ready.”
Already, shouts penetrated the stone walls—soldiers readying for an attack. They had to move quickly.
Bael used his shoulder to ram into the wooden door, splintering the wood with his enormous body. Ursula followed close behind him, and the three of them sprinted through the outer gate, then through a series of halls. Shouts rang out nearby, but they managed to avoid the guards, moving quickly down a stone corridor and up the steps into King Midac’s great hall.
Ursula froze in the hall. It was the same one she’d seen in Bael’s memory. Rows of columns lined the hall, supporting a three-story ceiling. Where banquet tables had stood during the armistice, she now found a stone floor and a red rug leading up to two thrones. She swallowed as the memory flashed through her mind. She’d watched her mother die here. She’d watched her own dreams bleed out on the floor.
Guards clustered around the thrones, blocking the king from view and raising their rifles. But Grisial was already shifting, the massive girth of her reptilian form shielding Bael and Ursula in a barricade of white scales.
Ursula lifted up a hand. “We aren’t here to hurt you.”
But the guards ignored her, firing their rifles. Grisial screamed. Like ten thousand claws drawn simultaneously along a granite wall, the sound pierced Ursula’s marrow, and she instinctively pressed her hands to her ears, dropping her cutlass to the ground. Above her, windows shattered, glass spraying into the air in a million tiny fragments. Even the marble columns vibrated. After what seemed like an eternity, Grisial quieted, and a deathly silence fell over the room.
Her ears ringing, Ursula peeked around Grisial’s side. Like Ursula, the guards had dropped their rifles. As they bent to retrieve them, Bael shouted, “Put down your rifles. We wish only to speak with Lucius.”
“A shadow demon!” hissed one of the guards.
“Why have you attacked my men?” said another voice. Softer than the guard’s, but filled with confidence. Unquestionably King Midac.
“The Darkling is building an army,” Ursula called out. “He plans to conquer everything. We need to speak to Lucius.”
“Lucius isn’t here,” said Midac.
Before Ursula could reply, a tremendous crash trembled the hall as the ceiling was punctured by the bulk of a massive red dragon. The beast tore through oak beams like they were matchsticks. There was no mistaking Lucius, the Drake, as he slid through the ceiling into the great hall.
Still in his dragon form, Lucius turned to face Grisial. With a piercing scream, he charged. He was bigger than the White Dragon, and she dodged to the side, leaving Ursula and Bael exposed. The Drake could have devoured them then, but his eyes were fixed on Grisial. She spun, breathing frigid water at Lucius. Ice solidified on his chest and forelegs, and for a moment, he was frozen in place. Then, he wrenched one of his legs upward, and the ice shattered. He stalked toward Grisial.
The Drake inhaled, and his chest began to glow with fire. Ursula could see the shape of Excalibur, the outline of the blade embossed on his breast—a part of him. With a shriek, he unleashed a gout of flame at the White Dragon. It raced across the room, a horizontal geyser of fire. It would have immolated Grisial had she not simultaneously breathed an icy stream of water. Ice and fire collided with a tremendous cracking sound.
Ursula and Bael dove behind one of the marble columns. The king was bellowing something about dragons fighting in his castle, but the noise from the dragons practically drowned him out.
Lucius and Grisial continued to spew their elemental flames in a storm of ice, fire, and steam. Still exhaling fire, Lucius dug his claws into the marble floor and began advancing toward Grisial. She breathed ice at him, but began to falter, her massive sides heaving as she expelled the last of her frozen reserves.
“Stop, Lucius!” shouted Ursula. “Your fight is not with Grisial. We only wish to speak with you.”
One of Lucius’s golden eyes rolled in her direction. Ursula stepped from behind the column, her heart beating a wild rhythm in her chest.
“We have met before, Lucius, here in Mount Acidale, but also in your warren in New York. You saw Abrax abduct me. He’s the Darkling. If we don’t stop him, he will bend mankind to his will. Mount Acidale will fall to his armies. You will have failed in your duties to protect the realm.”
Lucius stopped breathing fire. He growled, a deep rumbling sound that shook the room, trembling over Ursula’s skin. Across the hall, the guards trained their guns on her.
“I come in peace. Grisial, if you transformed into your human form, it might help to show them that we mean them no harm.”
Grisial’s icy blue eye studied her for a moment, then the dragon shook her head. Before Ursula could say anything more, she reared back, but instead of attacking leapt into the air. With a single beat of her wings, she disappeared through the hole in the roof.
“Bollocks,” said Ursula under her breath. There goes our ride.
Across from her, Lucius was already transforming. Red hair sprouted from his head as his legs and arms shifted into their human form. Then he was striding toward her, pointing Excalibur at her throat.
“Bring them to me,” commanded King Midac from across the room.
Lucius’s gaze slid to Bael, who still held a cutlass and rifle. “Drop your weapons, or the girl dies.”
Slowly, Bael lowered the sword and rifle to the flagstones.
“Now follow me,” said Lucius.
Ursula followed Lucius across the shattered stones of the hall toward the king’s throne, their footfalls echoing off the flagstone floor. Around her, beams from the roof burned among steaming puddles of water. King Midac sat in his golden throne, staring at them. Dust whitened his hair, and the guards encircling him trained their rifles on Ursula and Bael with extreme intensity.
“Are you the ones who attacked Lucius?” said the king, his voice hard.
“Do you mean just now, or when he was at the brothel?” said Ursula, as confidently as she could manage.
“Do not speak of such filth in my presence.” The king’s gaze swiveled to Lucius. “Is that true? You were dining with strumpets when they attacked you?”
Lucius flushed, his cheeks turning a surprisingly bright shade of pink. “It was my leisure time, Your Majesty.”
The king glared, leaning forward in his throne. “Your job is to protect Mount Acidale. Not to consort with harlots and whores.”
The Drake’s cheeks reddened further.
“Look, I realize that appearances are important, but Mount Acidale is in danger,” Ursula interjected.
King Midac’s anger turned to her. “Mount Acidale is not in danger. Despite his caddish ways, Lucius and his dragons are excellent protectors.”
Ursula’s jaw clenched. “Abrax is seizing power in the Shadow Realm. He plans to topple the gods, then seize the kingdom of men. You saw him in New York—”
“What happens in the Shadow Realm is of no consequence here.”
“Abrax is the Darkling,” said Ursula, desperate to emphasize the enormity of the situation. “He’s coming for all the gods, because he wants to rule the earth and the magical realms.”
King Midac pointed a finger at her. “The Darkling is only a story made up by a conniving wizard, created to keep the simple-minded afraid, and in his control.”
“Lady Viviane gave me Excalibur for the specific purpose of fighting the Darkling.”
“You lie.”
“I do not.”
“Then why does Lucius have possession of the blade? If the Darkling were real, you would never have allowed him to steal it from you.”
Ursula sta
red at the king, dumbfounded. He was willfully ignoring her. Abrax was readying an army of demons and golems to enslave mankind, including those in Mount Acidale, and no one believed her. Her fingers clenched.
King Midac’s eyes narrowed. “The girl wants to harm me. Seize her,” he shouted.
Before she could move, Lucius threw her face-first onto the flagstones. While he pressed the blade of Excalibur to her jugular, a pair of guards clasped her hands with a set of golden manacles.
Behind her, Bael bellowed like an enraged bull, and when she glanced back, she found him surrounded by five guards, their swords trained on him.
“If you fight, demon, I won’t hesitate to kill your friend,” hissed Lucius.
Ursula’s eyes slid away from them, focusing on the flagstones. This was where her mother had died. Still, Ursula couldn’t quite connect to the memory, as if it weren’t her own. Emptiness—a dark oblivion—gnawed at her chest.
With a painful jerk, the guards lifted Ursula to her feet. Bael stood across from her, his hands also bound behind his back.
“Imprison them,” said the king. “I’ll decide their fates in the morning.”
Lucius led them from the hall, and Ursula had a strange sense of déjà vu as they were marched down a twisting staircase and into the bowels of the castle.
Chapter 32
In a dank antechamber, the guards peeled her clothes off, forcing her into what could best be described as a burlap tracksuit. It smelled of death, like it had once been stored in Pasqual’s basement. The guards blindfolded her, then led her over a cold, stone floor.
“Put her in with the other girl,” said a gruff voice.
The sounds of other prisoners rose around her—muffled, moaning, calling out. After a hundred yards, she heard a key scraping in a lock and the creaking of iron hinges. A guard pushed her forward, and the door slammed shut behind her.
In retrospect, we should have come up with a better plan.
Hands touched her shoulders as she clawed at the blindfold.
“Ursula, relax. I’ll get this off you.”
A moment later, Ursula was blinking at an emaciated woman in the dim light. Dressed in rags, with matted gray hair and yellow teeth, she looked like she could be the river hag’s sister. Light from an oil lamp wavered over her gaunt features.
“Do I know you?” asked Ursula, backing away.
“Oh sorry, I totally forgot about the glamour,” the old woman chirped. Her skin shimmered, then the illusion fell away to reveal a dirty—but much prettier—face. One that Ursula recognized immediately.
“Zee! What are you doing here?” She threw her arms around her friend, hugging her tightly.
“Oh, you know. It just seemed like a fun place to hang out. I really like talking to the walls and drinking my own urine when they forget to give me water. What are you doing here?”
“It’s a long story.”
Zee cocked her head. “We’ve got nothing but time here, sister.”
“I came here to try to get Excalibur, but King Midac didn’t seem to like me. How exactly did you end up in here?” asked Ursula.
“Same way you did. I tried to steal Excalibur, but Lucius caught me. That freaking sword is hard to hold. It’s like…heavy.” Zee stepped closer, her cheeks gaunt. “You don’t have any snacks on you, do you?”
A banging interrupted them, followed by a shout. “Ursula!”
“That sounds like Bael,” said Zee, raising her eyebrows in surprise.
“He came here with me.”
Ursula crossed to the door, peering out a window at eye level with a pair of iron bars through it. She could see into the grim corridor. Across from her stood a row of doors, each with a similar opening. Three down to the right, she could see Bael’s face looking through a window.
“Ursula,” he called out. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I could have done without the burlap clothing, but on the plus side, Zee’s in here with me.”
“Zee? Your fae friend?”
“Yeah, she’s stuck in here with me.”
Bael frowned slightly. “Well, she could be useful to us.”
“I’ll let her know.” Ursula pressed her hand against a bar, already missing him. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
Bael nodded. “Soon.”
Ursula turned back to Zee, who had a hint of a smile on her lips. “You both seem quite close. What’s going on there?”
Ursula crossed her arms. “Well, he is my fiancé.”
Zee’s eyebrows shot up. “Did you sleep with your own fiancé? I’m horrified.”
Ursula tried to smile innocently, but based on Zee’s expression, she had apparently failed.
“You had relations with a demon?” Zee whispered. “What was it like? I’ve heard Nyxobas endows his prized demons with more than physical strength—”
“Zee!”
“But of course Bael doesn’t have his wings, so it might not be quite as—”
“ZEE!”
“Okay,” said Zee, leaning back against the wall of the cell. “It’s just, you know, I’ve had no one to talk to in here except some woodlice, and they’re not wonderful conversationalists.”
Another round of banging interrupted them, and a pockmarked guard peered in at them through the window. “Lights out,” he growled.
“Yes, sir.” Zee reached for the oil lamp. With a sharp exhale, she extinguished it.
The door clicked as the guard slid a panel over the window, plunging the cell into darkness.
“The guards are awful,” said Zee.
“So what happens now?” asked Ursula.
“Well, they’ll have us keep the lights out until morning.” Zee enunciated morning the way she might if she’d been miming air quotes. For all Ursula knew, Zee was actually making air quotes, but it was impossible to tell in the dark. “But sometimes I think they have us keep the lights off for days on end.”
Something pressed against Ursula’s side, and she nearly jumped, until she realized it was Zee.
“Sorry,” said Zee. “It gets cold in here.”
Zee rested her head on Ursula’s shoulder and spoke softly. “Do you know how long I’ve been imprisoned?”
Ursula tried to tally all the time that had passed since they’d been separated at Vortigan’s warren under the Statue of Liberty. “I’m not sure. A week or two maybe?”
“Oh,” said Zee. From the tone of her voice, Ursula couldn’t tell if she was relieved or horrified.
“Well, it could be worse. At least you weren’t tortured in prison like Kester was.”
Zee stiffened. “You saw Kester?!”
“Abrax had him. He’s fine. Recuperating with Cera right now.”
Zee sighed audibly. “I was worried about him.”
“He can more than fend for himself.” Ursula was glad for the darkness, so Zee couldn’t read the expression on her face as she remembered Kester stabbing her mother.
Ursula woke in the dark. She could feel Zee’s small form next to her. Although it was pitch black, she could hear by Zee’s slow breathing that she was asleep.
The lack of sensory input should have bothered Ursula, but it didn’t. The darkness felt safe and clean, like she didn’t exist. Like nothing could hurt her—no memories of her mother’s shirt, stained with red, or Kester driving a sword through her ribs….
Ursula closed her eyes and opened them, blinking a few more times. The blackness remained the same. Just her and her thoughts. She closed her eyes again, and sucked in a slow breath.
Maybe she shouldn’t run from her memories anymore. She’d come here to learn who she really was, hadn’t she? She’d never be whole until she remembered everything.
It was time to revisit her arrival in London.
Slowly she began unwinding the memory. She started with the scratchy sheets of the hospital bed, then the firefighter carrying her through the burning rubble of Ethelburga Church. A moment later, she was reconstituting out of ash on the palace roof
. She slowed down the mental images, studying F.U.’s agonized face, then the strange reverse carving of Emerzel’s sigil into her skin.
She wanted to know why she’d done this to herself, but in this memory she was merely an observer. She could watch each moment, see every detail, but she couldn’t feel the emotions. Even in her memories, she was keeping a distance. Why?
She scrolled back further. New memories began to unfold before her—memories she hadn’t seen before. F.U. sprinted backward through a door, into a dark stairwell. Down and down it wound, and she bounced backward down the stairs. F.U. was gasping for breath, tears streaming from her eyes. What had upset her?
F.U. burst through a door into a cacophony of screams and shrieking steel. Men were fighting, bleeding all around her. She was in the midst of some sort of battle. Looking down, she found the gold dagger in her hand as she ran backwards, moving into the battle. The reverse nature of the memory was disorienting as she dodged swords and halberds, moments before they swung over her head.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of demonic wings beating the air—Abrax’s wings. Fear nearly sent her fleeing back to reality as she realized where she was. This was the beginning of the Battle of Mount Acidale—the throne room.
F.U. ducked down, falling to the floor, and began sliding in reverse under a table. Her hands reached for something, and Ursula nearly screamed at the sight of her mother’s corpse.
F.U. cupped her mother’s head in her hands. Red hair draped over Ursula’s shaking fingers, as her mum’s dead eyes stared at the underside of the table. Ursula nearly screamed again as they suddenly focused, and the corpse drew in a shaky breath.
“No, Mother. Stay…” she heard herself say. F.U.’s eyes were blurry with tears. She looked at her mother with an expression of abject horror.
Ursula could see the love in her mother’s eyes, and her mum reached up to touch her cheek. The memory twitched and jerked like an old silent film. F.U. leaned in as her mother whispered in her ear.
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