Page 83 of The Court of Secrets
“Or me! Because you knew I’d fight you on it.”
His gaze narrowed. “Lunas are powerful because of me and the elders. You should be grateful.”
I heard Blaise come up behind me. “Don’t!” I shouted at him. “He’s mine to kill.”
Vahaga sneered. “You’re making a mistake. The ancestors will come after you.”
I shook my head. “So many souls are being tortured. Our people! You are the traitor, to our people.”
“Letting the people believe in something is the best thing for this kingdom. If you were any kind of queen, you would know it too.”
I spat through gritted teeth, “I’m the queen who will set them free. The ancestors, not the elders, will be set free, and when they are, they can choose to remain here if they wish, or they can find peace. It will be their choice.”
“Choices.” He laughed sinisterly. “They don’t know what they want,” he said, referring to the lunas and spirits in the spirit realm. “They need to be told what to do. If you begin giving people choices, they’ll bring the world down on themselves.”
“You underestimate people. My brother and other spirits of my ancestors helped me tonight. Because of them, I get to watch you join the place I will seek to destroy.”
“Kill me,” he spat. “You’ll be caught. There are those who know you killed Amos. I found out the truth. You were seen in Magaelor. You lied about being kidnapped.”
“I did.” My eyes widened. “I watched him die because he was wrong for this kingdom. He only brought Magaelor war and pain, and you bring nothing but corruption and lies.”
He weakened for a moment. Taking the opportunity, I swung myself around, pulling my wrist from his grip. I pressed the dagger against his throat, staring viciously into his soul. I wanted to watch it fade. “You can join your precious Amos and the elders, but I will still remain queen.”
He scoffed a laugh, and with an absence of fear in his gaze, he said, “You wouldn’t dare.”
I dragged the blade across his throat, relishing in his gurgled words as he collapsed like a puppet who’d had its strings cut. Crimson liquid soaked the ground, splattering leaves and twigs around us. I licked my lips. The anumi in this part of the forest would smell the blood sooner or later and wouldn’t leave any part of him left to find.
The dagger trembled my hand, my nails soaked in blood and mud. I bit down on my bottom lip, tilting my head as I stared at Vahaga’s body. Blood pumped out with each beat of his faint heart until it turned into a steady stream and the last breath left his thin lips.
“Blaise.” My throat dried at the end of his name. “Fly the guards out of here before they wake. I don’t want to leave them to the anumi.”
“Love?”
“Just do it, Blaise.” Tears blurred my vision. I thought I’d feel happy once he was dead, but instead, I felt nothing but hurt. He’d lied to us, and the betrayal made me numb.
I felt Blaise wrap his arm around my chest. I turned, and he pulled me against him. He held me as I cried. He must have thought I was mad to cry when I’d completed my mission, but truth was, I was grieving the loss of something sacred. I reminded myself the souls who had helped me tonight were still there, and I could help them.
Blaise kissed my temple, snapping me back to reality.
“Fly them out.”
He lifted me against him and into the air. The air whooshed from my lungs as the dagger tumbled from my grip. “Blaise!”
“You must have lost it if you think I’m not getting you out of there first. Like I said before, love. I’ll always put you first.”
We circled upward, and I watched the silhouette of Vahaga’s body fade away, merging with the shadows of the trees.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
News broke of Vahaga’s disappearance. Nothing had been found of him; I was right, the anumi had come. Morgana eyed me across the bed. “They came here first.”
“As expected.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. Even though the chances of anyone listening in on us was unlikely, I wasn’t taking risks anymore. “Luckily, you had plenty of witnesses of you never leaving your room.”
“You did the right thing. The cards foretold a dark future with him alive.” She lowered her voice too and gazed over her steaming tea at me. Her brown eyes rounded, reflecting the window behind me, which was pouring with midmorning blue light. Her cards were shuffled on the round table between us. She was back to her old ways. I’d filled her in on everything she didn’t already know.
My stomach knotted. “André wouldn’t have told me to kill him unless it was important.”
“Vahaga would have been the death of you, or you the death of him.” She sipped her tea through a small smile. “Fortunately for us all, you got to him first.” Wisdom aged her eyes, but the rest of her face remained taut and youthful for her forty years. “Moving on to the…” she whispered, “necromancer. I believe your plan will work. We shall go to Niferum, use the souls left behind from the battle, and kill him. I had some of the books you had in your library brought to me. Blaise helped me with that.”
