And the blood won’t last forever, she thought. No matter what she does, she won’t be able to use it against me for long.
She opened her eyes, trying not to take their concern personally. Jade and the others had every reason to worry. But…
Cat nudged her as Jade put the crystals into place. “What happened after we…we left you?”
“Long story,” Emily said. She knew she’d have to talk to Alassa about her father. And Sir Roger, and Matilda, and even Alicia. And…she shook her head, slowly. That wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have any time soon either. “It wasn’t a good time.”
“The portal is opening now,” Jade called. “We’re going to Swanhaven.”
“That’s a big place,” Alassa said. “Anywhere in particular?”
“A place we should find a few friends.” Jade sounded tense. “Unless you want to run away forever…?”
Alassa shook her head, firmly. Emily nodded in understanding. It wasn’t in Alassa’s nature to run away and abandon anything, let alone her throne. Alassa would sooner fight, lose and die rather than walk away and live a long life. And the hell of it was that she was the best of a set of bad options for her kingdom. Randor was going insane, the Noblest would tear the country apart and her half-brother was a baby.
She felt the magic brushing against her as the portal opened and smiled, an instant before the entire building shook. Pieces of debris fell from high overhead as the wall exploded inwards, dark figures crashing through in its wake. Emily threw up a shield automatically, cursing as she saw Matilda and two more dark-clad magic ninjas. Matilda might not have been able to use blood magic to control her, but she’d still managed to track her down. The boys had thrown up plenty of wards to hide the warehouse, yet it was hard–almost impossible–to keep blood-linked magics out.
Damn it, she thought, as she hurled a spell at the nearest figure. There’s a battle on and they still came after us!
“Get them out of here,” she shouted, hoping that Jade would have the sense to pitch Alassa through the portal if she tried to fight. “Hurry!”
The ninja ducked her spell and came at her, stretching out his fingers to cast a series of spells she didn’t recognize. Emily jumped to one side and launched another spell of her own, hoping it would disrupt his spellwork. The ninja neatly caught her spell on his wards, pulled it apart and threw the magic back at her. Emily wasn’t sure if she should be impressed or horrified. The man wasn’t powerful, but he was skilled. Matilda flew past her, firing off spell after spell at Jade and Cat.
Damn it, Emily thought again. Her opponent caught hold of her, yanking her forward as he started to cast another spell. We can’t stay here.
She released Aurelius. The snake’s presence blossomed in her mind as he uncurled from her wrist and lunged forward. Her opponent barely had a second to realize what was happening before the Death Viper was crawling up his arm. He screamed in pain, waving his hand in the air in a desperate bid to dislodge the poisonous snake. Whatever charms he’d woven into his outfit weren’t enough to keep the venom oozing through the cloth and touching his skin.
His companion landed next to him, already casting a healing spell. Emily summoned Aurelius back to her, allowing the snake to curl around her neck. There was no way to save the man’s arm, not now. It would have to be cut off before the poison reached his shoulder or there would be no stopping it. She opened her mouth to warn them, then ducked sharply as Jade shouted a warning of his own. A fireball flashed over her head and crashed into the far wall.
“This way,” Jade shouted. “Hurry!”
Emily sucked in a breath as she raced towards the spinning portal. Jade was matching Matilda blow for blow, but his inexperience was telling. She seemed to be winning, if slowly; her magic was tearing into his, while he wasn’t making much of an impact on her. Cat was standing by the portal, a nasty red mark on his face. Emily wondered, absently, what had happened to him.
A thought occurred to her. “Jade,” she shouted, motioning for Cat to jump through the portal as it slowly started to come apart. “Here!”
Jade glanced back, then turned and ran, throwing up a powerful shield to slow Matilda down before she could come after him. Emily jabbed a finger at the portal, ordering him through, then braced herself as Jade ran past her and vanished. She mustered her magic, cast a summoning spell on Matilda’s belt and yanked her forward as Emily jumped through the collapsing portal herself. She landed badly, Matilda’s chest landing on top of her. The portal had sliced her apart, leaving her head and legs on the far side. A moment later, it flickered and collapsed in on itself.
“Yuck,” Cat said. He sounded as though he wanted to laugh, but didn’t quite dare. “Emily, you are covered in blood.”
Emily pulled herself to her feet and looked down. Matilda’s body–half of Matilda’s body–was lying on the ground, blood spilling onto the soil. She was drenched in blood, her dress clinging to her skin. Gritting her teeth, she cast a spell to clean her body as much as possible as she looked around. She wouldn’t feel clean until she had a long bath, and a good night’s sleep, but…it would have to do.
“She’s dead,” she managed. “There’s no way she’ll be coming back from that.”
“Not unless Randor manages to save her head in time,” Jade agreed. He nodded in the direction of a large building, barely visible amongst the trees. “I need to go…open communications with a couple of friends. The rest of you had better stay here.”
“Take Cat with you,” Alassa ordered. “You might need backup.”
Jade and Alassa shared a long glance. “Very well,” Jade said. He looked at Cat. “Coming?”
Alassa waited until the boys were gone, then smiled at Emily. “Thank you for saving us,” she said, as they sat down on the grass some distance from the body. “Now…I think you owe us both an explanation.”
“Yes,” Emily agreed. She still didn’t want to talk about it, but she suspected she no longer had a choice. “I do.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“PAREN WAS THE ONE WHO PLOTTED to ruin the wedding,” Emily said, quietly. “He smuggled guns and explosives into the palace, intending to use them to slaughter the guests.”
“And us,” Imaiqah said. She sounded badly shaken. “He might have killed me.”
“He might not have intended to kill you,” Emily said, as gently as she could. Paren had never struck her as anything other than a loving family man. He hadn’t tried to marry Imaiqah off to the highest bidder, let alone put her in danger. “But he did plan to kill the king.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know just how far he intended to go, Imaiqah. Nanette clearly worked to make things worse, first by sabotaging the uprising and then by killing Paren before he could take control. I don’t know what she intended to do either.”
Alassa gave her a sharp look. “You should have told me.”
Emily looked back at her. “And then what?”
She met Alassa’s eyes. “What would you have done, if you’d known? What would your father have done? What would have happened to hundreds of innocent people if your father had even suspected the truth?”
“What did happen to hundreds of innocent people?” Imaiqah’s voice was very quiet. “You should have told us. Instead…”
“You would have been killed, when the time came to swear that you knew nothing about plots against the king,” Emily said. “You could only make such an oath–and survive–if you were truly innocent. And the only other option was to flee.”
Imaiqah sighed. “I understand your logic. But you never gave us the chance to choose.”
“Except even giving you the chance would have risked discovery, when I took the throne,” Alassa said. She looked down at the grass. “We could have worked something out, if we’d known we had to. There are ways we could have finagled the issue.”