Endless Knight (The Arcana Chronicles #2)(51)

Pain seared along my split skin. Blood coursed down my face, dripping off my chin and jaw. Just as it had in the barn when I’d first discovered I could bring plants to life.

Ogen laughed at my fall. Lark muttered, “Dumb-ass.”

Drip, drip, drip.

Too weak to move, I stayed in that position, on my knees in the gutter, face-planted, as if the curb were my pillow. With my back to the three, I watched runoff race around me, draining into a nearby opening.

“Get up,” Lark said. “Stop dicking around.”

Hadn’t we passed a retention pond just moments ago? One with charred trees and dead reeds all around it? My blood was probably rushing toward that pond even now.

“More cannibals are coming, Evie.” Lark huffed with impatience. “They’re hot on our trail, because you’re ‘unclean’ or something. Surely we’re better than they were.”

No. No, you’re not. At least the cannibals were loyal to their own. Lark was a two-faced betrayer. Because of her, my Jack and my Matthew had died horribly.

That ember of fury was flaring into a wildfire, so hot I almost missed a telltale electric tingle pricking my skin. Something nearby was coming to life, unfurling for me. Rising from the dead. Seconds later, I detected tree trunks fattening with life, new limbs splaying.

Bleeding, kneeling like a victim, I smiled. Because I was about to kill this trio. My army was silently stretching to the sky, slithering along that muddy slope, sneaking up behind these Arcana. I’d show them unclean.

There was no reason to quell the heat of battle now. I would give myself up to it.

To fight, I needed to get free. The cuffs around my wrists were welded together, preventing me from reaching a claw down to slice the metal open. If I could just work one hand through the tight circle . . .

I strained to twist my smaller left hand free, but my thumb got in the way. The heat of battle was like a growing thing within me. I knew what the red witch would do in this situation. Hatred scalding me inside, I gazed down at my thumb.

Pitilessly.

I couldn’t reach the metal, but I could reach my own flesh. Didn’t know how long it’d take me to regenerate, didn’t care.

With an undertone of disquiet in his voice, Death ordered, “Empress, rise.”

Oh, I’m about to. The Empress didn’t get caged or collared—or captured.

Biting the inside of my cheek, I used the claw of my right forefinger to slice halfway through my left thumb. A nerve there sang, the pain dizzying, but rage blunted the shock of what I was doing. Blood spurted into the rushing water. More fuel for my growing fire.

Death’s stallion stamped its sharpened hooves on the street, sensing the building threat. Lark’s wolves growled and raised their snouts to sniff the air. They’d scent nothing out of the ordinary.

Death commanded, “Rise, Empress, or Fauna will send her familiars in for a bite.” I heard him dismount, his spurs spinning.

With another swipe and a stifled scream, I severed my thumb. Out of the corner of my eye I watched the water sweep it away. My mutilated left hand slipped through the cuff with ease. The right cuff was no match for my claws.

Freed.

I was a marionette, and hatred pulled the strings. Finally, I was ready to rise.





21

I turned to them, my face a mask of blood, my reddening hair whipping in the wind.

Death’s eyes glowed behind his helmet grille just before he twisted around, drawing his swords.

A wall of murderous green towered above him like a tidal wave. He craned his head up and up.

I commanded the swell to break over this embankment, to swamp them all. With a yell, Death flashed out his swords. But he was not yet my focus—I had a plan for him. I tried to ignore the pain as he slashed through my battalion.

Lark sicced her wolves on me. If they caught me, they’d rip me to shreds, as they had those Bagmen. It would be my legs cracking beneath their fangs. Before they could reach me, vines snatched their paws, trapping the beasts upside down. Whimpers, howls. They couldn’t be killed until I took out Lark.

All in good time.

Ogen bellowed, leaping for me; a cypress crashed down on him. Pinned, he punched the trunk with fists like anvils. Agony racked my body. So I punished him with a larger toppling tree. His yell was cut short. Another tree, and another. To combat his strength, I sent poisoned thorn stalks to bind and kill him. Just to be safe, I ordered roots to suck him into the earth, wrenching him down.

Other plants were at work on a more insidious task. . . .

Eyes wide with horror, Lark abandoned her wolves, sprinting a retreat. My vines seized her, suspending her upside down as well, like the Hanging Man. As she dangled and screeched, I waved for her to be brought closer, until our faces were inches apart. “You’re worse than they are,” I murmured, canting my head at her. “We trusted you.”

“Wait, Evie! Please!” Her eyes were terrified. As Joules’s had been.

I enjoyed it just as much. “You’re going to die extra bad.”

I sensed there was little of that retention pond left, the surface replaced with a bed of writhing plants. Vines and slimy water strands. I waved my hand, and Lark was sent airborne, screaming as she sailed directly into that squirming green morass.

Trapped there. A nest of serpents. A nightmare.

One vine reared above her like a viper, plummeting down to gore her. She twisted and rolled, dodging it. Again the vine struck. She eluded it, but she was getting slower.