Page 77 of A Crown of Tears and Treason
Pages and canes wouldn’t protect them.
I scurried up the beams, right above the largest bell. My fingers struggled to hold on to the vibrating wood.
I straddled the frame, clicking the bracelet on my thigh as I went. My switchblade dug into the small grooves of the screws holding the bell to the headstock. Hands shaking, my blade screeched against the metal. But the screws twisted and the bell dipped abruptly.
Not enough.
“Damn it,” I cursed and wiggled down onto the massive bell, embracing it.
My legs roared from the pain of holding on and my right palm, slick with sweat, slipped on the beam, just as myswitchblade loosened the left screw. Then the right. Good thing it had been encased in the bracelet; my fingers were slick with sweat, I would have dropped it.
The bell’s vibration turned chaotic as it swung my body as it pleased. I had to act fast. I attacked the middle screw with all my might, teeth gnashing.
One of the Serpents looked up. “Watch out!”
Too late.
The heavy bell collapsed, bringing down the middle beam as it fell. I rolled my body away from it. But my palms were too sweaty, the other beams too shaky to hold on.
The bell cracked the floor and bones alike as it plummeted into the platform. I fell into the cloud of dust. But learning to climb meant I learned how to fall, too.
Wrapping my knees to my chest, I rolled in the air. I spun as my feet collided with the ground, landing in a crouch. Everything hurt, but adrenaline kept me going.
Three of the Serpents lay mangled underneath the bell. Two of them had ducked away just in time.
Their daggers were already tainted with blood. I had a switchblade and an entire frightened group behind me.
“You have to pass through me,” I said, with a courage that came from deep within. A deep and vicious shiver raced through my veins.
I didn’t feel like myself.
I felt powerful.
Like the true Protectorate leader I’d been born to be.
A spark flowed through me, overriding all logic.
“Our pleasure,” one of the Serpents sneered and pounced.
All those terrified breaths at my back, the whimpers, their erratic hearts.
I could hear them all.
They unlocked something inside me.
My chestburned.
Time slowed down, just like it had when the snake attacked.
My body hummed with power.
Blue tendrils blasted from me, harsh and unforgiving. The light was too glaring.
I couldn’t see anything, but the smell of charred flesh scorched my nose, and the desperate roars of death howled in my ears.
I kept on blinking, but everything was a blue haze.
Slowly, the floor came into focus, cracked and covered with a light coat of dust.
