Page 145 of Conspirators' Kingdom

“Tell your husband I sent you when you meet him in hell.”

Taisiya whirled behind her column as Itet’s arrow raced past her ear with a keening whistle.

“I suppose I should have gone for you instead. I hear your lives are linked, and without your lightning, you make an easier target.”

Taisiya tore her long skirts to avoid getting tangled in their length. She bunched up the fabric and tossed it one way while she ran for the cover of the nearest column in the other direction. Itet’s first arrow found her discarded skirts, but her next arrow sliced through the skin on the back of Taisiya’s leg. She muffled her scream.

“Didn’t I promise to go hunting together? Tell me, witch, did you know then we would be hunting each other?” Itet hissed.

“Honestly? I had hoped to avoid it,” Taisiya answered, throwing her voice. “I was convinced you could be made an ally. Even more so after Khety killed your brother.”

“You killed my brother as much as Khety did!” Itet screamed.

Itet’s hooves heralded her charge. But she had rushed to the spot where Taisiya had thrown her voice, one column over. Taisiya let loose another shot of lightning. While the electricity failed to harm Itet, the force itself had not been negated. Itet’s head smashed into the stone column hard enough to fracture a part of it. She switched her bow for a mace, tossing the broken weapon and quiver to the ground with a snarl.

Good.

Much to Taisiya’s surprise, Itet leapt from her prone position with alacrity, brushing off the injury as if it were nothing. She hooked her green finger around another chain. She grinned as she circled, the charm dangling.

“Healing charm.”

Not good. Taisiya loosed another bolt, tossing Itet further away. Damn, this wouldn’t work. She needed to do something even that charm couldn’t heal.

Itet threw her broken mace to the ground and palmed a number of daggers on her person.

“Run.”

Taisiya obliged, ducking behind another column just in time to save her already bleeding leg from getting skewered. She barely managed to stay one step ahead, always rushing for another column, dodging another dagger. Taisiya needed to think. If Itet couldn’t be hurt by the lightning, or by the force of being thrown by it, she had to hit the woman with something else. Sharp pain lashed her foot, making Taisiya gasp. She’d run full circle, into the rubble left behind when Itet had flown into the column. The solution clicked in her mind. Itet’s dagger pierced her calf. Taisiya cried out and fell.

Itet approached her slowly, palming her dagger, a grim, cold look in her blue eyes.

“I think it’s time you gave up. We both know you’re done running, and Khety is getting away.”

She loosed a bolt of lightning, flinging Itet across the room into another column. Itet recovered slower this time, fury in her expression.

“We’ve been over this,” she growled. “Healing! Charm!”

Taisiya unleashed a veritable storm at and around Itet. Pinned against the column by Taisiya’s onslaught, Itet howled in anger. Chips of rock went flying, scattering about the chamber and cutting Taisiya as they flew past. Still, she didn’t stop, not until she’d done what she needed. Nearly spent, Taisiya relented, gasping for breath. She hadn’t trained to use so much of her magic at once before, but it had been worth it. Taisiya looked up, almost ignoring Itet as she approached.

“Done?” Itet asked, shaking off rock dust and rubble.

Taisiya didn’t answer, just smiled.

“You know, we could have been friends,” Itet said, her eyes cold and hollow.

“I know. But then you hurt my son,” Taisiya answered.

Just as Itet made to charge, the ceiling above Itet crashed down with a deafening crack. Taisiya shielded herself with a cage of her own lightning as rocks the size of wardrobes splintered and whizzed past, sending up a choking cloud of rocky debris. As if to add final note to the decimation, a column collapsed, cracking with a deep, reverberating boom. The sharp scrape of smaller rocks flowed outward from the devastation.

When the dust had finally cleared, Taisiya pulsed her lightning cage, shrugging off the last of the rubble and then released her magic, utterly spent. A small fragment of Itet’s horn lay littered amongst the rubble. Taisiya sighed. It was over now. The magic trapping Mereruka had been undone. Picking herself up, she limped across the rock-strewn floor, not daring to remove the blade in her leg lest she cause more harm. As Taisiya was testing her balance, the rubble shifted. It was all the warning she had before she was struck from behind.

The water level was half an arm’s length from the ceiling. In a matter of moments, it would be impossible to avoid pressing one’s face against the iron of the grate above. Mereruka found himself staring up at those iron bars as he treaded water, wondering if the agony would be worth the air his lungs would burn for. At least Radjedef would be the first one to taste that particular horror. Already he was struggling to angle himself so that his four scaled horns wouldn’t touch it before it was absolutely necessary. Serfka seemed half in shock as he stared above at the fate awaiting him.

“He can’t… he can’t mean to leave us to die here.”

Mereruka was inclined to slap him, but he was still hoping he might survive this and Serfka needed to be on his side. Thankfully, Radjedef had grown sick of the Vizier’s desperate denial. Mereruka was only surprised it had taken this long for him to scream.

“If we survive, no one will ever call me thick-headed again! Not so long asyoustand in the same bloody room! Khety is happy to let us drown! Will you be kissing iron before you realise that?” Radjedef snapped. “And you!” He turned his furious yellow gaze on Mereruka.

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