Page 117 of Destroyer

So she allowed herself to give in, just for a moment. She allowed the need for Fen to overcome all else… just for a moment.

“Ru,” he breathed, his words like a prayer. “I’m yours. From the moment I felt you, your bright soul calling to me, I was yours. My ruined heart is yours.”

It was almost too easy then, their bodies pressed together like one, as he lowered his head to kiss her, his breath on her skin… it was so easy to slip the artifact from his grasp.

And in that breathless instant, before he collected himself enough to react, Ru turned and tossed the artifact across the square. By some miracle Gwyneth saw it coming and caught it, shoving the stone inside her jacket with a look of sheer terror.

“Go!” Ru shouted at Gwyneth, pushing Fen away with both arms. He stumbled, never looking away from her.

It didn’t matter, in the end, whether he had meant to destroy the city, whether he’d been coerced, whether it was an accident. Ru didn’t need to ask, just as he hadn’t explained. And Ru… had she meant to destroy Lady Maryn and all those researchers that day? The intent was irrelevant.

They were the same, she and Fen. She and Taryel.

But in one way, they still differed. Ru knew that she would fight the fate that had befallen her. She would use the artifact for something true and good, or she would destroy it. She had no way of knowing what Fen would do, whether he had become warped by the centuries, what uses he might have for his own blackened heart.

He had clearly lost himself, but Ru knew exactly who she was. The artifact would remain with her.

“It seems we’ve arrived in just the nick of time,” a clear voice rang out across the spectral square.

The sound cut through Ru’s insides like a blade, just as fear boiled up in her chest, her heart skipping a beat. The timbre of it was so clear, so politely bright and well-formed, that it was impossible to misplace the speaker.

She turned and saw him across the spectral square, mounted on a white horse and flanked by half a dozen figures in billowing robes.

Lord D’Luc smiled.

CHAPTER41

Frigid wind caught the company’s flowing white robes, and in the moonlight they seemed to belong with the ghostly city, to have emerged directly from it like spirits.

“I’ll take that, please,” said Lord D’Luc, flashing his teeth at Gwyneth across the square. His hair moved in the wind as if underwater, wreathing his face in ethereal strands.

“Take what?” Gwyneth’s voice shook. She and Archie held hands, their own overcoats flapping around their legs, feet planted firmly in joint defiance.

Lord D’Luc tutted as if addressing a wayward child. “The artifact, dear girl. Bring it here.”

Gwyneth didn’t move.

Archie pulled her close and hissed something in her ear, but his words were carried away on the wind. As Ru watched the pair square their shoulders, fixing Lord D’Luc and his company with challenging stares, a swell of affection for her friends rose up in her. They were braver than she was, stronger.

“The artifact isn’t what you hope it is,” said Fen, turning to Lord D’Luc and addressing him with a resigned air. As if he had expected the man’s arrival all along. Any remaining humanity, any mortality, had fled from Fen’s eyes. He looked almost like that looping specter of himself, skin pale in the moonlight.

“Ah, so the wandering historian has graced us once again with his presence,” sneered Lord D’Luc. “Please, enlighten us.”

Fen stared back in response, silent.

Ru realized now that Lord D’Luc hadn’t seen the projection of Taryel. He’d arrived too late to draw the connection.

“Very well,” Lord D’Luc said, his tone careless as he waved a hand. “Ranto, Nell, ensure that these delicate academics don’t wander off into danger. Inda, bring me the artifact.” The words rang out clear and cold.

Three of the robed riders dismounted in tandem, like three heads of a mythical serpent. They strode toward Gwyneth, Archie, and Ru, white cloaks flapping behind them.

The Children weren’t met with much resistance. The cold had taken its toll, draining Ru and her friends, and leaving them weak and confused. Ru wouldn’t have known where to go even if she had wanted to run, to make a mad dash for freedom. When Nell’s steely fingers gripped her arms, holding her in place, Ru simply let it happen. She watched helplessly as Inda held Gwyneth tightly with one hand, fishing inside her jacket with the other. A moment later, Inda removed the artifact, wrapping it swiftly in a cloth she produced from inside her cloak.

Ru wanted nothing more than to seek the comfort of the artifact, to press a thought to the thread that stretched between them, but she didn’t dare. She knew what it was now, how dangerous it was, and she knew why Lord D’Luc wanted it so badly for himself.

Taryel’s heart, parted from his body in the precise moment of the Destruction, had now become a distillation of what Ru and Fen… Ru and Taryel embodied: cataclysmic power. It was a weapon.

Cleansing fire.

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