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I HAD EXPECTED a sterile monochromatic space. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Warm, sand-colored tiles lined the floor. An indoor garden, lush with green plants, spread on both sides of me in curved, raised beds, bordered by a gently winding pond, where fat lazy koi floated under the lily pads. The air smelled of lotus and roses. Tiny insects, blue and green and ruby-red, floated between the flowers, like a scattering of weightless jewels carelessly flung by the handful into the air.
In the center of the garden, a round mechanism of golden and silver gears rotated, balanced on a thin spike. Hair-thin wire rings wrapped around the mass of gears. The rings spun and turned, hypnotic in their beauty. Magic emanated around it. Was this an atomic model of some sort?
I made my mouth move. “What does it do?”
“I don’t know,” Landon said. “He built it one afternoon on a whim.”
A giant door waited at the other end of the room.
I reached forward with my senses. Vampires.
My hands were trembling. Hell no. I’d had twenty-seven years to prepare. I wouldn’t lose it now. I inhaled the air, letting it out slowly. My hands steadied. My pulse slowed.
“You can’t go any farther than that door,” Landon said to Curran.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll wait in the doorway.”
We passed between the flowers, circled the mechanism, and stopped before the door. I touched it and it swung open. A long room stretched before me, its white marble walls soaring up. I stood on a raised walkway. Twenty feet wide, it spanned the length of the room, running from the door all the way to the opposite wall. A trench bordered both sides of the walkway, filled with vampires. Past the trenches, on the sides, men and women waited, standing quietly. My father’s court.
The walkway ended in a raised dais. In the very center of it, on a throne formed by the bodies of serpents carved from glossy white stone, sat my father. He wore white.
I looked at his face.
He looked back at me.
The instant I saw his eyes, I knew why my mother loved him. His skin was a deep even bronze, saturated with the sun’s warmth. His nose was straight with a sloping tip, his cheekbones carved with careful attention, his jawline strong and masculine. A length of white cloth tossed over his head covered most of his hair. A short beard with a touch of silver traced his jaw, but the eyebrows above it were black, and his eyes were young and full of life. He could’ve been Arabic or Jewish, Hindu or Hispanic. Had he been twenty years younger, he could silence a room full of women simply by walking in. But he chose to appear older. When orphans dreamed of being adopted, this was the kind of father they pictured. His eyes radiated wisdom and kindness, intelligence, and calm surety, born of age and confidence in his own power. He could’ve been an ancient king, a great prophet, or a revered teacher. He had killed my mother. I hated him. Yet when he looked on me now, I wanted to stand taller. It was like being in the light of the morning sun. When the power of those eyes shone on my mother, she had no chance.
What little doubts I had evaporated. He really had meant to kill me in the womb, because nothing short of complete desperation would’ve torn my mother from his side.
Next to me Curran paused, ready, like a lion before a strike. His face iced over. Muscles bulged on his legs, stretching the jeans. His eyes had turned completely gold. He lost all expression and slid into that perfect calm of a predator focused on his prey. He was treating my dad to an alpha stare.
For some dumb reason, nervous laughter bubbled up inside me. My father and Curran were glaring at each other. Maybe if I whistled and waited long enough, a tumbleweed would roll by.
The stone serpents slid against each other. Their heads rose above my father’s shoulders and they looked at me with crimson eyes. Here he was inside a swan palace, a marvel of delicate beauty, sitting upon a throne of massive stone snakes. My father knew he was a bastard. He was the venomous serpent in a bed of roses. Apparently, he didn’t just acknowledge that fact, he beat people over the head with it. All that was missing was a neon sign that read EVIL AND CONFLICTED ABOUT IT with a flashing arrow pointing at his head.
Hugh d’Ambray stood to the right of the throne and a couple of steps below it. His face looked like he had to be physically restrained from losing his shit and slaughtering everything he saw. His gaze snagged on something over my right shoulder. Landon. A muscle jerked in Hugh’s face. Oh noes, someone didn’t like being upstaged.
Our gazes met. I winked at him. Your turn to be in the cage. It has no bars, but it’s still a cage.
On the other side of the throne, on a small bench, Robert and Christopher sat in identical poses, their spines rigid, their knees together. They stared straight at me with glazed-over eyes. They probably couldn’t even see me.
“It’s stasis,” Landon whispered behind me. “It will wear off with distance and time.”
The vampires and Roland’s court stared at me.
“You can do this, baby,” Curran said quietly, his gaze fixed on Roland. “Go in, get them, kill anything that gets in the way. You are coming out alive. I promise you that.”
I raised my head. My voice rang through the room, too loud. “I’ve come for my people.”
Roland leaned forward slightly and the snakes slid, adjusting themselves to the change in his posture. His voice resonated through the room, deep and saturated with power. “If they are yours, come and claim them.”
Okay. That can be arranged.
I started down the walkway. Two vampires vaulted out of the trenches in front of me, fangs bared. Oh look, it’s a party and everybody is invited. Good. I liked parties.
I unsheathed Sarrat. The blade sang as it sliced through the air. It slid through vampire flesh like a knife through a crisp apple. The first vampiric head rolled off the stump of its neck. I buried my sword inside the second vampire’s heart, ripped it with my blade, and freed Sarrat.
Four vampires leaped onto the walkway. This was a test. He wanted a show of my power. I had no choice about it.
The vampires charged.
Four was too many.
I dropped my magic shield and grasped the four undead minds. The minds of their navigators tried to hold on, but I tore them away from their navigators. The effort hurt, but it was the most efficient way. I grasped the four undead minds and squeezed. Four skulls exploded, spilling the red mist of their blood onto the pale floor. Someone gasped. I kept walking, crushing the undead minds in front of me like peanut shells crunching under my boot. My magic churned and boiled around me. If it had a voice, it would be roaring.
The bloodsuckers leaped at me from the trenches and fell back, broken and twisted. The trenches ran with red. The stench of undead blood saturated the air. I felt the navigators bailing, disconnecting half a second before I reached for their undead.
The last vampire fell onto the floor. I stepped over it and kept walking.
A woman leaped onto the walkway from the trenches. She had a strong, harsh face and dark hair, and wore dark brown leather with a dagger on her waist and a katana in her hands. Hibla.
In my mind I saw Aunt B snarling in pain and Hibla’s sword severing her neck.
Hey, Aunt B, look what I found. I smiled. I couldn’t help myself. There was nothing holding me back and there were so many things we needed to discuss. I had a score to settle and if I lived, I would tell Aunt B’s gravestone all about it. Hell, if I could, I’d bring her Hibla’s head.
Hibla bared her teeth. She was some sort of shapeshifter. She claimed to be a jackal but nothing that came out of her mouth could be believed. Enhanced strength, supernatural speed, and judging by the way she held her sword, a great deal of training.
On my list of people to kill, Hugh occupied spot number two and Hibla took up spot number three. My father wasn’t willing to throw away Hugh, but Hibla was expendable. He wanted a demonstration of what I could do with the sword, and he must’ve known I couldn’t resist this bait. Very well. I would oblige.
Hibla raised her katana.
I charged. She struck from above, and I caught her blade with Sarrat. She pushed, trying to bring my sword down. Shapeshifter strength. How fun. The pressure of Hibla’s katana ground on Sarrat. I dropped my guard, she jerked her sword up to cleave my neck, and I sliced across her chest. My blade came away bloody. The blood soaked into the pale bone-metal. Thin tendrils of smoke rose from Sarrat, which was fed by my rage. My sword was furious and hungry.
Hibla stumbled back, her eyes wide. Hurts, doesn’t it?
She lunged at me, her blade fast like a striking snake. I blocked, letting her sword slide off the flat of mine. She pushed me back across the walkway, each blow hard. I would tire out before she did, but she had no idea how much anger I was carrying inside.
Strike, strike, strike. She lunged at my leading foot with hers. I shifted my balance, knocked her blade aside and smashed the heel of my left palm into her nose. Cartilage crunched. Blood gushed over her lips.
She punched me. No time to dodge. I turned into it, ducking, and took the hit on the shoulder. My left arm went numb. I kicked out at her knee. It crunched. I spun and kicked her in the head. The kick took her off her feet. She rolled back, shook her head, jumped up, and I slid Sarrat between her six and seventh ribs. My saber’s tip scratched Hibla’s heart. Not yet. No, not yet. I pulled the blade back.
She kicked at my stomach. I saw it coming and tensed, and her foot smashed against the shield of muscle. The blow knocked me backward. It felt like someone had slapped my gut with a burning hot iron. I grunted and straightened, and Hibla raised her sword. She was good and fast. But I was better.
“I’ll kill you and bring your head to Hugh,” Hibla ground out.
Not in your wildest dreams. “You’re good, but not my level of good. If you trained all your life, you still wouldn’t be good enough, because I really want to kill you. You murdered Aunt B. She was my friend.”
Hibla attacked. I blocked and sliced across her chest from left to right. She whipped about, thrusting, and I sliced her arm, severing the muscle and tendon. Hibla screamed.
“You didn’t have the decency to face her or to give her a quick death.”
I reversed the blade and stabbed her in the stomach. Hibla gurgled blood.
“She died in agony. I cared for her.”
Her leather armor was in my way, so I cut a piece of it off and tossed it aside.
“This won’t be quick. This will be painful for you. But if you ask me now, I’ll end this fast.”
“I’ll rip your heart out and eat it while you die.” She stabbed at me. Her sword grazed my side.
“Cute.” I drove her back across the walkway, slicing bloody chunks of leather off her. “I want you to understand me.”
I thrust. She moved to block but missed, and I slid the blade of my saber against her inner thigh, cutting through her femoral vein.
Her sword grazed my side and I drove Sarrat’s pommel into her face, gouging her left eye. The eyeball burst and the white of Hibla’s eye slipped onto her cheek. She stumbled and I pulled her dagger out of its sheath on her belt. Oh look, I have two blades now. The better to hurt you with.
“This isn’t vengeance.”
She shuddered and dropped her sword. Flesh spiraled up her bone. She was trying to shift. I lunged forward and sliced across her midsection, one, two, three. Her flesh smoked. Hibla’s top half careened.
“This is punishment.”
They said you couldn’t bleed a shapeshifter to death. They didn’t say anything about cutting her apart.
She lunged at me, a huge hulking monstrosity with her claws out. I ducked between them and slid Slayer through the bottom of her chin up into her deformed muzzle. Talons raked me, but I didn’t care. I plunged Hibla’s dagger into her lower abdomen, jerked it out, and broke free. She roared, baring her teeth. I swung my saber and sank into a smooth easy rhythm. The world narrowed to my blade and my target in front of it. A cut. Hibla’s hand slid off. Another cut. Another piece of flesh. She backed away, and I followed her, relentless, precise, paying her back for Aunt B, who would never see her grandchildren; for Andrea and Raphael, who had to watch her die; for Andrea’s unborn baby, who would never know his or her grandmother; for my fucked-up nightmares . . .
A cut. A cut. A cut.
Do you want to see how cruel I can be? I will show you.
Hibla fell before me, a stump of a creature. She was done.
A man lunged onto the walkway, tall and thin, the magic flowing to him. I had felt that same magic before, just before three silver chains shot out of him and pinned Aunt B to the ground. I dragged Hibla’s dagger against my bleeding side and hurled it at the mage. It bit into his throat. I sparked the magic in my blood and the blade erupted into a dozen sharp spikes, puncturing the mage’s throat from within. His eyes rolled back into his skull. He crashed down.
I looked back at the bleeding piece of meat that used to be Hibla. She couldn’t hurt any more than she hurt already. I swung my sword and watched her head topple off her shoulders. I should’ve just left her there to suffer, but I had things to do.
I could feel Curran watching me from the doorway. I wasn’t alone. He was there with me, like a rock I could lean on. I leaned on that stare and looked up.
The dais was almost in front of me. I wiped Sarrat on my jeans and took a step forward. A wall of red pulsed in front of me. A blood ward. My father had sealed the dais with his blood. If I broke it, no person in this room would have any doubt I was his daughter.
My father’s gaze fixed on me.
It was too late to turn back. I had a sword and he was feet away. My entire life had been spent working up to this moment. I could do this. I was the daughter of Nimrod, the Great Hunter, the Builder of Towers, Hero of His People and Scourge of His Enemies. My father’s kingdom and those like it had brought about the cataclysm that purged magic from the world.
I thrust my bloody hand into the ward. It shuddered like a living thing caught in convulsions and solidified into a translucent wall of red. The people behind me screamed. The wall cracked and shattered into chunks. The pieces of the ward rained down, melting into thin air.
It didn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt at all.
Magic spread from my father. It rose behind him like wings, like a hurricane pulled apart into shreds that could condense into a devastating storm at any second. The barrier of the blood ward had been containing it, but now the ward was broken and I felt every iota of Nimrod’s power. I forgot to breathe.
My grandmother was not completely dead, but she wasn’t alive, not in the true sense of the word. My father was alive. Semiramis’s magic had terrified me to the bone, but against this storm, her power was a mere shadow, a candle caught in the blinding glow of an industrial floodlight. It was the kind of power that could pick up chunks of skyscrapers and fuse them into Mishmar.
If that power turned against me, it would destroy me. He would simply will me out of existence and I would disappear.
So this was what Hugh meant when he said I couldn’t win.
I had no chance. No chance at all. If I lunged at him now and tried to bury Sarrat in his heart, I would simply stop being, as if I had never existed. I felt it with complete certainty, the same certainty I’d feel if I stood on the roof of a high building and looked at the hard pavement below. To jump was to die.
Christopher and Robert would die a second or two after me, Curran would never leave this place, and Atlanta would fall.
“Do it!” Voron screamed at me in my mind. “Do it! Kill him!”
I felt no fear, just an utter calm. Things became really simple. If I tried to kill my real father, everyone else, especially the man I loved, would pay the price. I could feel Curran’s gaze on me. There were people waiting for me to protect them from Roland in Atlanta. I couldn’t throw my life away. It wasn’t completely my own anymore.
I stopped and stood still. It took all of my will.
My father was looking at me and his eyes told me he knew what I was thinking.
“Do it!” the ghost of Voron roared. “This is what you worked for. This is why I trained you!”
Something fluttered inside me and I realized it was hope. I wanted to live. I wanted Curran to survive this. I thought of him. I thought of Julie. Of Derek and Ascanio. Of Andrea and Raphael. Of Jim. I wanted to bring Robert back to Thomas. I wanted Christopher to smile again and tell me he was trying to remember how to fly.
Death is forever. Death is nothing. But to save a life, that’s everything. My mother understood this and now I finally did, too.
Voron had a purpose for me, but it was his purpose, not mine. I loved him, I still mourned his death on his birthday, and I was grateful because he made me what I was. But I was done living for someone else’s purpose. I had to live for mine. I had people to protect. Curran had sacrificed everything to save me from Mishmar. Now I would sacrifice my vengeance to save him from the Swan Palace.
I walked up the dais and put my hand on Robert’s shoulder. “I claim them.”
My father nodded slowly. “Take them.”
The two men rose, their eyes still glassy. I turned and walked back along the gore-splattered walkway. They followed me, two androids on autopilot. At the doorway Curran looked at my father one last time.
“I’ll see you both in Atlanta,” my father said.
Curran smiled, his eyes like two burning moons. “If you want a war, we’ll give you one.”
I passed him and kept walking, out of the room, out of the garden, into the winter, Christopher and Robert following me and Curran guarding our backs. Nobody stopped us.