Page 156 of The Rebel and the Rose
The time of the Daggers was over. So, too, was the Age of Darkness they had presided over for too long. Ransom and Sera had seen to it yesterday morning, using the latest batch of Lightfire from Halbracht to destroy the remaining stores of Shade in the catacombs.
‘Andreas will strike again soon,’ said Ransom now. ‘And he’ll come straight for us.’
For me.
For as long as Sera lived, Andreas and his power would not go unchallenged. She was not his rose after all, but a thorn in his side.
‘He’ll have an army of unfathomable proportions,’ said Theo, starkly. ‘The living and the dead if Lark Delano is still in play.’
‘We have an army too,’ said Anouk, those hazel eyes flickering gold. ‘If he wants to fight for the soul of this kingdom, let him come. I’ll bring this whole place down on him. Every skull and rock and bone, and all the rats too. Let them gnaw through the ribbons of his intestines once I’m done playing jump rope with them.’
The Daggers at the table stiffened.
Theo cocked a brow. ‘Did they teach you how to talk like that at the priory?’
A thin smile. ‘You’d be surprised what unending boredom does to a young acolyte’s imagination.’
Ransom scrubbed a hand across his jaw. ‘Right. Thanks for that.’
‘There are only thirty of us down here,’ Val piped up. ‘Two saints, and a bunch of impotent Daggers now all the Shade is gone.’ She flashed her teeth. ‘No offence.’
‘We have Lightfire,’ said Tobias. ‘Protection against the Silver-tongue’s compulsions.’
A boon, certainly.
‘But nothing to shield us from Delano’s…talents,’ Theo reminded them. ‘It’s hardly ideal to set up our headquarters in the graveyard district.’ And that was to say nothing of all the skulls in these walls. It’s not like they had had much time tocome up with a place, having fled the Summer Palace in the dead of night.
‘It’s temporary,’ Ransom reminded him. ‘We’ll find a new place now that we’ve dealt with the Shade.’
The mood remained sombre, the odds of what they were facing as menacing as the beasts that prowled at Ransom’s back.
‘Let Andreas gather his forces,’ said Sera, as though it was nothing to her. ‘Let him have his corpses and his slaves. We’ll make our own army. Our own saints.’
Theo’s brows shot up, that silvered gleam returning to his eyes. ‘You’re ready to try again?’
Her magic purred in response, the glow of it warming her skin.
Yes, Maker.
It is time.
She knew it now. She couldfeelit, this sense of rightness, of inevitability. And she was not afraid any more. She was the right hand of Saint Oriel, and she would save this kingdom from ruin if it was the last thing she did.
‘When?’ said Tobias.
‘Who first?’ asked Theo.
‘Whoever is willing,’ said Sera.
Thirty bodies went rigid, the sudden silence palpable. Desire, trepidation, intrigue, fear. She felt it all filling up the spaces between them. Her magic sensed it too, that invisible force inside her reaching out like tentacles, brushing up against these eager souls as if to make its own choosing.
‘Sleep on it,’ said Ransom, rising abruptly from the table. ‘Just as Seraphine will.’
He cast her a meaningful look.
Sera stood too, excusing herself from the table.
The Cavern descended into animated chatter as she made for the north passage, following Ransom out into the tunnels. His beasts flanked them, his power working even now. Not a show of control but a sign of his anxiety, his fear of losing her again. Of losing Anouk.
