Broken Veil (Harbinger #5)(78)

The revelation came like a slap. The kishion had carried the beings inside. They were willing vessels. Fear crept up her spine.

How could she, one person, hope to stand against them?

Cettie’s fingers twitched.

“You will open the Leering,” Jevin said in a menacing voice, his hands clasped behind his back, much like Fitzroy used to do. The two men might share that mannerism, but it was clearly all they shared. “We both know that only you can do it. That you were meant to do it.”

The sickly magic made Sera begin to tremble. She’d never felt so abandoned, so alone. Please, she thought to the Mysteries. Help me!

“A prayer, Empress?” said Jevin, his voice full of menace. “You think that will help you now? Now, when you are kneeling before the altar of the Queen of the Unborn?” he said, holding out one hand in a reverent gesture to the Leering.

Sera felt a strangling feeling in her throat. She could sense the Myriad Ones gathering around her. Were she not wearing a chain, she would have been completely vulnerable to them. She tried to utter the word of power to banish them, but her mouth would not work.

Banirexpiare, she thought instead, since her lips could not utter it.

Nothing happened.

Jevin chuckled coldly. “They’re already banished. Here. Among the dry bones. Where else would you send them? A farrow of pigs? It is night still. The stars reign. Even the moon blushes to share its light. It is the moment of our greatest power.”

Sera wilted inside. There were no dragoons to command. No zephyrs that could reach her in time. If Durrant knew where she was, he would have sent legions to protect the abbey. No one was coming. She was alone.

Cettie’s head began to lift. Sera glanced at her erstwhile friend. Cettie’s eyelids were quivering. But a look of relief dawned on her face when she saw Sera. A little smile.

“Don’t . . . be . . . afraid,” Cettie whispered.

“Ah, our little traitoress is recovering from the poison already,” Jevin said with a look of disgust. “Christina. Would you help your daughter up?”

The woman bent down and hoisted Cettie up onto her knees, but the poison was still ravaging her body. Her limbs were slack, without strength, but her eyes were alert. She gave Sera a fierce look. Her lips moved without sound.

“Anthisstemi,” Jevin hissed. Another jolt of power shook through Sera. Her weariness fell away, all her senses sharpening. Cettie appeared to be restored as well—she sat up taller on her knees and turned to Sera and said, “They’re coming.”

Who was coming?

“No one is,” Jevin said with a mocking tone. “Lord Welles has started an insurrection. Many of your people are still loyal to him. Your mother persuaded him yesterday to join our cause.” He gave Sera a knowing look. “Hetaera can be so very . . . persuasive. He believes he will be granted governorship of certain lands on this side of the mirror gate. A governor, not a prime minister able to be dismissed by the whims of the privy council . . . or a peevish young woman. You destroyed him, Your Highness. You tarnished his pride, his sense of self. It made it all the easier to seduce him in the end. In doing your duty, you played right into our hands. There are no sky ships coming. The friends you left behind in the cesspit will be killed by the Fear Liath. As will all the children. Unless . . .”

He raised his eyebrows in a tempting manner. “Unloose her. Free our queen willingly, and perhaps we’ll be merciful.”

Sera swallowed again. The thickness that had blocked her speech loosened. It was strange, as if Jevin had loosened some sort of invisible noose he’d held around her neck. She felt his power, felt the firmness of his mind. But Sera had always been stubborn too.

“I won’t do it,” Sera said, shaking her head. She tried to wriggle loose of the bonds, but they cut into her skin. Her wrists were swollen, and her fingertips hurt from the lack of circulation. The cave had an earthy, mineral smell—the smell of death.

Jevin sighed. “Then I’m afraid you will have to be convinced. Christina?”

Sera’s courage began to waver, but she would not be cowed by his cruelty. “What are you going to do? Torture me?”

“No,” Jevin said with a menacing voice. “We’ll torture your friend. That’s much more painful, isn’t it?” Sera’s eyes widened with horror. “A pity Mrs. Pullman didn’t live to do it herself. She would have relished the opportunity.”

Christina had a firm grip on Cettie’s arm, but when two of the kishion approached, she relinquished her to them. One of them was Will. They grabbed Cettie’s arms to control her, but Cettie didn’t fight them. All her attention was on Sera.

“Whatever happens, they’re coming. Don’t save me. I accept thi—”

“Silence!” Jevin snarled, and Cettie went mute. She couldn’t say a word, and the throbbing power of the Mysteries filled the air, awful and wrong.

“There is no one coming,” Jevin said, his cheek twitching with barely controlled anger. Sera caught a glimpse of his rage, as if a furnace door had been cracked open . . . just a little, exposing the white-hot flames within. It quickly shut, and his calm facade was restored.

“You’re lying,” Sera said.

“I have no reason to,” Jevin said with an incredulous look. “We’ve won. Despite all your resources, all your power, all your goodness, we managed to bring you here where we wanted you. Your fleets are in disarray. General Montpensier is about to destroy Lockhaven. And the Queen of the Unborn will return in all her glory and majesty. What happens next is on your conscience, Sera Fitzempress. You chose suffering and death for your people when you chose to fight back. How easy to sit on your velvet chair with your velvet stool, giving commands but not living the consequences. The suffering. Well, now you get to experience it for yourself. What should we use first? Black henbane? Cettie is a poisoner. She already knows how this will feel.”