Bloodleaf (Bloodleaf #1)(93)

Got it. My hand closed around the knife handle.

Lisette was crying. “Don’t, Father. Please don’t hurt me. You’ve gotten what you wanted. You have control of Achleva now—?”

Toris turned a glassy stare on her. “I am not your father,” he stated.

And with predatory dispassion, he drove his knife into her heart.

I screamed, drowned out by the shocked cries of the crowd. Lisette.

Zan had tried to pull her back into the safety of his arms, but there was nothing he could do. Blood swept across the bodice of her dress as he lowered her down, her hair fanning out on the stone steps, and she reached for him even as blood began to well up in her throat and drip from the corners of her lips. “I’m sorry,” she said, choking, trying to return the wedding ring to Zan with bloody hands. “I never wanted to hurt you. I lo—?” She sputtered blood. “I love—?”

“It’s all right,” Zan reassured her. “Hush now, be still. I’m sorry, too. I’m so sorry.”

“Nihil nunc salvet te,” said Toris.

Zan laid a soft kiss on Lisette’s brow. “Go in peace,” he told her. “Empyrea keep you.”

She closed her eyes.

The wind howled, and a pulse of light burst from her body and rolled like a shock wave through the air until it hit the wall’s cylindrical shield and spread across it like an ulcerous cancer.

Lisette’s spirit stood beside her body, staring sadly down at it. Don’t linger here, I thought. Find serenity in the arms of the Empyrea, my friend. She gave a slight nod, as if she had heard me, and then walked slowly, gracefully up the stairs toward the castle, fading away a little more with each step. She was gone before she reached the top.

“The queen of Achleva is dead!” Toris announced, smiling. “Long live the queen!”





?35




“Toris!” My voice cut across the square like the fall of a scythe. I’d drawn a drop of blood and sent the resulting magic out in waves, not as heat or fire but as sound. I climbed to the high peak of the roof and stood like a pillar against the wind as the clouds went black and began to churn in circular rotation, lightning crackling in their angry depths.

Toris, who had been advancing on Zan, his knife still slick with Lisette’s blood, snapped his head toward me. His guards, too, began to surge in our direction as I defiantly raised a vial of blood into the air.

“Have you been looking for this?” I trumpeted. I pulled the stopper from Victor de Achlev’s blood vial. “The blood of the Founder. The last remnants of Cael’s essence. His magic. If those guards come any closer, I will spill every last drop.”

Toris froze. When his men did not, I let a single drop fall.

He screeched, “Halt!”

I lifted my voice. “I have what you want. You have what I want. I suggest a trade.”

On his knees, Zan wore an expression of naked emotion; hope, fear, and fury fought side by side with a longing so keen and clear, it nearly broke me. Toris yanked him to his feet. “I would request we begin our negotiations inside. Will you join me in the Great Hall, dear Princess?”

I did not respond. Instead, I tipped the vial of blood a second time.

“All right,” he said testily. “We can negotiate here.”

“If you want this blood returned to you, you must first open the gates,” I said. “Let these people evacuate the city. You and I both know that you kept them inside only to motivate Prince Valentin to marry Lisette. Their purpose has been served. Let them go.”

Toris waved off the guards, and they stepped aside to allow people to pass, though nobody moved. Then he cocked his head to the right, anticipating my follow-up demand for Zan’s release. He knew I would ask; I knew he would refuse. If there was one thing to be said about Toris and me, it was that we understood each other.

“When the city is empty, I will exchange the Founder’s blood for Prince Valentin. If any of these people are not allowed to go freely from the city, I will spill it. If any of your men harass any of mine, I will spill it. And if Valentin dies before I come to make the exchange and the wall comes down, I will die spilling it. Am I clear?”

“You’ve been making so very many demands, dear Princess. For this to be fair, I must be allowed to make some of my own.” His voice lost its jovial lilt. “We’ll meet at the top of the tower at dusk. Come alone. Come alone and I will accept the terms.”

The Founder’s actual blood was still hidden at the top of the tower. If I meant to barter for Zan’s life, I’d need the real vial. “We are in agreement.”

“No, Aurelia! Get out! Go!” Zan cried as Toris fastened his hands behind his back and yanked him to his feet. Then, with his luneocite knife still poised at his neck, Toris withdrew toward the castle.

“The tower!” Toris said before he disappeared, with Zan, behind the great castle doors. “Before night falls.”

I turned and bellowed, “Open the gates!” As I said it, a bolt of lightning sailed down and struck a high, steepled window less than a block behind me. In little more than a second, the aged timber lit up like a torch.

The crowd became a stampede as lightning struck again. And again. Wails of fear and frustration were drowned out by the ear-splitting blasts of thunder. A number of Toris’s implacable guards tried to funnel the furor toward the gates and were quickly trampled underfoot.