Bright Blaze of Magic (Black Blade, #3)(21)

That eerie silence descended over the restaurant again, more tense than ever before, and everyone started looking back and forth between Victor, the Draconi guards, and their own Family members, debating what to do. No one wanted to bow down to Victor, but they didn’t want to get slaughtered either, especially when they knew that they didn’t have a fighting chance.

“How about a demonstration then?” Victor called out. “Just to assure you all how serious I really am.”

No one answered him, so he turned and gestured for one of his guards to step forward into the center of the restaurant where everyone could see him. I didn’t recognize the guard, but he wasn’t important right now. Getting my hands on a weapon was.

So I sidled forward, creeping up on the Draconi guard closest to me. But he noticed the movement out of the corner of his eye, and he turned and glowered at me, brandishing his sword in a clear warning to stand still or else. So I stood still. Now wasn’t the time to make a move, but soon—very, very soon.

“Go ahead,” Victor told the guard. “Stab yourself in the heart with the blade black. Take the magic in it for yourself, and show everyone how strong you can truly be.”

The guard stared at Victor, then down at the sword in his hand. I looked at the weapon—really looked at it with my sight magic. To the casual observer, it was a genuine black blade, right down to its dull, ash-gray color. But I could see the sword in supersharp detail, and I could tell that the ashy color wasn’t from any natural bloodiron, but rather from the paint that had been sprayed on the surface.

So the guard had one of the fake weapons. I almost felt sorry for the guy. He didn’t know what he was about to do to himself, but there was no way I could stop him. Not with Victor and all the other Draconis here. Even if I’d shouted a warning to the man, I doubted he would have believed me. Not with the head of his Family urging him on.

“Go on,” Victor ordered. “Do it. Stab yourself. Now. Or I’ll have Blake do it for you.”

Blake stepped up and gave the guard an evil grin, swinging his own sword back and forth in warning. I looked at his weapon too, but it was as fake as the guard’s.

The guard swallowed and nervous sweat beaded on his forehead, but he had no choice but to do as his boss commanded. So he slowly changed his grip and turned the point of his sword around, so that it was facing in toward his own chest.

“Go on,” Victor said. “Stab yourself. Now.”

The guard nodded at no one in particular, then sucked in a breath, lifted the sword, and plunged the tip into his own chest, close to his heart. Blood arced through the air, spattering onto one of the white tablecloths. The guard screamed in pain and doubled over. Horrified gasps rippled through the crowd, but no one dared step forward to try to help him.

It was too late for that anyway.

I’d only seen one other person stab herself with a black blade in order to absorb the magic stored in the weapon. When Katia Volkov had plunged two daggers into her own body, she’d screamed and doubled over in pain too, just like this guard. But after a few seconds, Katia had straightened right back up and yanked the daggers out of her chest. The black blades—and the bloodiron they were made out of—had transferred the monster magic from the daggers into Katia’s body, and they had also sealed up her wounds, making it seem as though she had never stabbed herself in the first place.

But that didn’t happen with this guard.

Since his sword wasn’t made out of bloodiron, it didn’t contain any magic, and the wound the man had just inflicted on himself was very, very real—and very, very fatal. Blood poured out of the deep stab wound, and the man screamed again and collapsed in a heap at Victor’s feet, clutching at the sword that was still stuck in his chest.

Silence descended over the restaurant again. Blood kept oozing out of the man’s chest, and his screams quickly faded to hoarse rasps, before his head lolled to one side and his body went slack altogether.

Dead—the guard was dead.

Killed by plunging a fake black blade into his own chest. Victor might have ordered him to do it, but guilt still burned in my heart at the part I’d played in the man’s death, even though I couldn’t have saved him.

Victor’s mouth dropped open and he stared down at the dead guard in disbelief, trying to figure out what had gone so wrong with his perfect plan.

A low laugh sounded, and everyone’s heads snapped around, as they wondered who would be laughing at a time like this.

The answer? Claudia.

She strode forward and the crowd parted to let her through. She skirted guards and tables, moving through the restaurant until she was standing in the middle of the open space behind the dead guard and directly opposite Victor.

He looked at her, then down at the dead man on the floor. His mouth flattened out into a harsh line.

“What did you do?” he growled.

Claudia laughed again. “Why, I didn’t do anything, Victor,” she said in a voice that was as icy as his was angry. “You’re the one who was stupid enough to give your guards fake black blades. Not me.”

His golden eyes narrowed with understanding. “You switched out the blades. Somehow, you found out about them. You broke into my office and swapped the real weapons for fakes.”

Claudia nodded. “Now you’re catching on.”

She stared Victor down for another moment, then deliberately turned her back to him, as if she no longer considered him a threat, and walked over to Hiroshi Ito.