Page 140 of The Rebel and the Rose
There was a deep, dread-filled silence.
Returning his attention to Sera, Andreas canted his head. ‘Changed your mind yet?’
‘End this horrible spectacle, Andreas,’ she urged him. ‘Let these people go. You and I can talk in private.’
And I swear I’ll find a way to kill you.
‘But wait…’ He feigned a sigh. ‘What good is it removing the king if I let his bastard heirs live on?’
Sera heard their whimpers before she spotted them. The king’s young sons were being shoved through the crowds by a pair of soldiers. The queen was with them, her beautiful face stricken as she pushed her boys behind her, trying to hide their view with the swell of her skirts.
Her grey eyes were wet, the noise that burst from her at the sight of the dead king halfway between a howl and a sob. ‘Oh blessed saints!’ she cried out. ‘What have you done?’
‘Andreas,don’t.’ Sera bucked and thrashed against her binds. ‘They’re innocent!’
In the chair across from her, Lark stiffened behind his mask, revealing a hint of his own discomfort. ‘Stop him,’ she hissed. ‘You’re not bound to that chair. You can take him. You can stop whatever he’s about to do.’
But the Necromancer simply shook his head. The minutemovement signing three more death sentences in Andreas’s bloody theatre. The prince could not be stopped. He was about to murder the king’s heirs in full view of his court, and smile while he did it.
The question ofhowwas answered by the name he called out. ‘Come out, Lisette,’ he crowed. ‘Let us put the loyalty you have pledged to me to the test.’
The doors to the ballroom opened. An icy-looking blonde woman arrived in a gown of glittering silver, leading a crowd of thirty or so people. Not soldiers, nor nobles. Not mercenaries nor would-be revellers. Dressed in black, and prowling among the kneeling guests with predatorial ease, they gathered in the middle of the ballroom. If they noticed the king’s bloodied corpse or his four hanging advisers, they made no sign of it. Not a flinch among them, but then, Sera supposed they were used to the casualness of murder.
They were Daggers, after all.
There was no mistaking the silver of their eyes, or the sinister black whorls darting across their skin. Shadows gathered where they stood, poised like adders waiting to strike. Sera vaguely recognized the icy blonde and assumed that in Ransom’s absence she had been the one left in charge. Lisette, the prince had called her.
Lisette, who, under no obvious compulsion and at the lure of ever more power, had turned her Order over to the silver-tongued saint.
‘Andreas.’ The queen’s voice broke. She rushed forward, grabbing onto the front of his frock coat. ‘Andreas, they’re just boys. You were like them once.’
Uncurling her fingers with exaggerated slowness, he said in a voice dripping with scorn, ‘Yes, I was, Odette. And you weren’t very nice to me, were you?’
‘Andreas!Please!’ The queen was screaming now, begging on her knees, desperately clutching at the hem of his coat. Behind her, her sons stood stock-still, staring horror-struck at their father’s dead body.
Sera’s magic was in her throat now. She couldn’t talk. Couldn’t think. Every inch of her pulsed with a dangerous mix of panic and rage, the force of a tornado quickly rising inside her. Power gathered in her hands, sizzling across her palms. She dug them deeper into the armrests. The wood of her chair began to smoke, her magic desperate to be free at any cost.
Andreas shoved the queen off him. ‘If you want mercy, crawl to my Daggers and kiss their feet. You will find none here.’
With an anguished cry, the queen turned for Lisette.
A shadow crested from the floor, drowning her on her hands and knees. Her scream cut out with chilling abruptness.
Lisette didn’t even blink. But she smiled like a serpent when, after ten quick heartbeats, she tugged the shadow away. There lay the Queen of Valterre, devoured by Shade. As dead as her husband.
Her sons’ screams echoed from every corner of the ballroom.
The ropes around Sera’s wrists went up in smoke as the boys rushed to their mother.
‘NO!’ With an anguished cry, Bibi lunged from the crowd and threw herself on top of them, making a shield of her body.
Another wave crested – and shattered in a hail of golden light.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ fumed Lisette. ‘Get that Lightfire off her.’
Ripping her hands free, Sera leaped off the dais. She went instead for Andreas, seizing upon the momentary distraction. In the absence of thought – all those old festering fears that so often held her back – Sera gave herself over to emotion. To that gathering tornado of rage and pain and determination.
Her magic bellowed from the far reaches of her soul.
