The Broken Ones (The Malediction Trilogy 0.6)(45)

A shriek tore from my throat as she whipped me down the stairs, end over end, the steps brushing against my cheeks until I came to rest on the floor, magic splaying my legs apart, my skirts up around my waist. Then I was flying up them again.

“Dramatic, but not quite right. Let’s try something else.”

She threw me down again, my hair slapping the staircase as I flipped. Then my body jerked to a stop, the line of my neck pressed against the icy marble of a step.

“We’ll break your neck first,” she said. “Then smash your skull.” My body turned, my forehead resting on the stone. “Then break a few ribs.” I flipped and rotated down the rest of the steps, my skirts now sodden with urine as I came to a crumpled rest at the bottom, my face soaked with tears.

“Just like that. Enough practice. I think we’re ready.”

Last chance. Only chance.

I sobbed as she lifted me up to the top, cringing as she turned me to face her, brushing the hair from my face. “Last words, my lady?”

I slammed my knee into her stomach.

She doubled over, and I kicked her in the face, feeling her control over my own magic loosen. Lessa shrieked and pressed a hand to her broken nose, eyes streaming tears, and I took advantage, slicing through the power binding me. I landed hard on my feet, barely keeping my balance on the edge of the stairs.

“Bitch,” she howled, and I shoved her hard before turning to run.

I sprinted down the hall toward my father’s rooms. Heat roiled after me, and I dived onto my stomach, pressing my face against the carpet as silvery fire filled the air above me, igniting the wallpaper and artwork. Smoke billowed in all directions, and I held my breath, crawling on hands and knees until I was in the room, kicking the heavy door shut behind me.

The lock clicked into place, but it would only buy me seconds, the heavy wood no match for a troll of Lessa’s strength. I could feel her coming down the hall, feel the weight of her magic surging ahead of her.

And I was trapped.

I knocked a bookcase in front of the door, using my magic to shove a heavy table next to it, for all the good it would do.

“Quit making a mess, Pénélope.” Lessa’s voice drifted through the walls, lilting and singsong. “You know I’ll have to clean it up.”

“I hope you clean quickly,” I shouted, pushing more furniture between us. “It no longer looks like much of an accident.”

The door shuddered.

My breath caught, and I took a step back, then another, knowing she was playing with me. Knowing she could tear the whole manor apart if she wanted. My back pressed against the wall, and I gripped the soft velvet of the curtains as I watched the mess of door and furniture slowly shift inward.

Curtains. Window. A way out.

I whipped the fabric aside, flipping open the lock so that the pane swung out. Below was the atrium, the glass foggy with condensation. It would never hold my weight.

Which might just work in my favor.

Picking up a heavy chair, I lobbed it out the window, not bothering to watch as it crashed through the glass and into the atrium below. Instead I ran to a closet on silent feet, easing the door shut behind me and then taking a deep breath and forcing myself to relax.

Breathe.

My magic softened and diminished, only that which always burned, that which kept me alive, still present and tangible. And, I prayed, negligible enough that Lessa wouldn’t notice it.

Door and furniture were flung aside, and the other girl stormed into the room. Her eyes latched on the open window, and in a blur of motion she was leaning out over the edge, expression panicked. “Pénélope?” she shouted, mockery vanished in the face of my potential escape. “Bloody stones and sky, you better not be dead!”

Then she jumped out the window.

Go.

I flew from the closet, leaping across broken furniture and out into the smoldering hallway. The smoking walls were a blur as I ran, faster than I ever had before, because I had to beat her. Had to make it out the front and into the streets before she realized I wasn’t bleeding and broken in the atrium.

Run.

I leapt down the stairs, relying on momentum over balance, my magic throwing open the doors so I didn’t lose my pace. The soles of my feet slapped against the paving stones, and I coated them in magic to protect them as I raced toward the gate, the guards watching me with astonishment. “The upstairs is on fire,” I gasped. “Go help.”

Then I was running in the street.

But where would I go? Who would help me? Who cared enough about my life to risk my father’s wrath? The answer was, and always would be, the same.

Marc.

Ignoring the startled expressions of those I passed, I zigzagged my way through the city, down carved white steps, over the river, and into the Dregs.

The tavern where I knew he was meeting the half-bloods appeared ahead, and I drove toward it, certain that despite my circuitous route, Lessa was behind me. Certain that she’d catch me and drag me home to my father.

The flimsy door swung on its hinges, and I shouldered past the proprietor, seeking the sense of power that only a full-blooded troll would possess.

Down.

My hands hit the door to the cellar, my feet catching on the frame. Then I was falling. I had a heartbeat to contemplate what a strange twist of fate it was that I should die from the very same accident I had just fled when magic enveloped me.