Page 107 of In the Ravenous Dark
The horses come to a stop, facing the ranks of foot soldiers. Everyone looks confused—the bloodmages, the troops, and Penelope alike.
“What is the meaning of this?” the king asks calmly into the awkward, heavy silence. His eyes skip over me—but several times, as if they’re fumbling for what they know is there. I swear I see a flash of red in them.
Penelope’s gaze is alarmed as she glances back and forth between the assembled ranks and the mounted bloodmages, backed by the king. “Your Majesty, how… why…?”
“You don’t think I’m aware of what’s going on in my own palace?” the king asks coldly. “I suspected you might try something, Penelope.”
I watch a war play out in her expression. She neither wants to let herself be accused of treason nor to accuse Tumarq of it. “I’m not trying anything. I’m trying tostopit. Something was amiss, and I wanted to investigate before I disturbed you, Your Majesty.”
“The company you keep is far more disturbing.” His eyes flicker over me again, and then settle on Tumarq. “And perhaps oddest of all is finding my most trusted general here with you, alongside truants from the necropolis and potential traitors.” He pauses. “Order your men to stand down.”
“No,” Turmarq says before Penelope can speak.
“Then you”—the king tosses an unconcerned, arrogant look at Acantha—“order your bloodmages to attack any who will not surrender. If they resist, take no prisoners.”
He doesn’t look back as he turns his horse away. He’s not even going to watch his people kill one another by his command. And with him will go my chances for revenge, and for averting a war.
I move.
32
Surprisingly, it’s Bethea who moves first. Before Acantha can open her mouth to give the order, Bethea casts off a length of the iron from around her neck and flings it, her spoken words of death magic whipping it through the air like a blade. For a split second I think it’s going to cleave the bloodmage’s head from her shoulders, but instead it binds around her throat, choking her off and knocking her from the saddle.
Bethea’s face is set in grim satisfaction. Acantha was the one who sent her and her mother to the necropolis, after all.
The king pauses, barely sparing Acantha a glance where she wheezes and gags on the ground, and turns his horse to face Bethea. But Crisea has already stepped in front of her, shielding her.
“Cris,” Penelope cries. “Don’t!”
Maybe it’s because that’s the nickname my father once used for her. Maybe it’s that she’s protecting Bethea like I was already moving to do. But I step out in front of both of them and the lines of troops. The phalanx of bloodmages points at me like a crossbow, the king like the bolt about to fire. I doubt he’ll lift a hand to do it, so as not to give his hidden powers away, but he’ll use someone else’s.
“Wait,” I cry as I let the shadows around me dissipate. The king’s eyes shoot to me, and I don’t imagine it this time—they flash red. In that moment, his mask cracks, his lips move, and his hand rises.
This is my chance.
Metal darts wreathed in blue flame lance from his fingers—blood and death magic that only I could block. Instead of trying, my own hand flickers and my breath exhales the words. A stone clacks at the king’s feet as I brace for his unearthly projectiles to hit me.
Ivrilos appears before me, stepping back against my chest so he materializes fully. His blades, along with a huge gust of air that rises with his whisper, hammer aside the metal darts, and a gout of water douses the flame, leaving only steam in the air. Japha stands next to me, hand extended—the one that guided the water.
I didn’t have to save myself, because they did it for me.
“That was death magic, from the king!” Bethea cries.
“And blood magic as well,” says Japha, their voice carrying. “The king is a bloodmage.”
“More than that,” Ivrilos shouts. “He is my brother, dead these four hundred years. But whereas I am a shade, he is a monster. A revenant in disguise.”
“And I can prove it,” I add, and I sketch the final sigil, the one under my eye that my father left me. The stone I threw toward the king shimmers. And then the light expands—the shield I cast on it—billowing out like a blown glass bubble, encasing the king like a miniature veil. Inside, he flickers and ripples like a reflection in water. At times, you can see the king everyone knows as he struggles to maintain his mask against my magic, and other times—red eyes in a too-young, too-mad face; short dark hair with no gray; a leaner chest heaving in anger; muscular arms streaked with a bloodline. Kadreus.
A different person entirely.
The bloodmages, at least, would know what sort of sigils I used. It’s much like the city’s own veil against the blight. Some of them pull their horses away in surprise and horror.
“They speak the truth,” Tumarq declares.Finally.“The king has fallen to this blighted impostor, who sits in his place on the throne.Rally to me!” He raises his sword, and all the foot soldiers draw their own.
The king looks around at his bloodmages. “Kill them,” he says.
Even though a few horses shy sideways, none of them move forward.
