Traitor Born (Secondborn #2)(35)

Hawthorne snatches up his helmet and settles it back on his head. He lifts his shield. The gold reflects the dim light of the storm-clouded room. He pauses by the door.

I stop behind him. “Do you have a weapon?” I ask, while easing an iron rose from the belt around my waist. The points of the petals curve like claws.

Hawthorne crouches down on one knee and flips his shield over. The underside has a wide grip that unlatches, revealing a golden dagger hidden within. “When do you know me not to have a weapon?” He grasps the hilt of the blade and extracts it from the shield before latching the handle back into place. He holds the shield in one hand and the dagger in the other. Using the shield, he nudges the door open a crack.

I squat down behind him. Lifting the iron rose to my hair, I cut the vine that holds my crown secure to my head and then ease the circlet from its bed of thorns and roses. The iron crown is heavy in my fist. I wish I could cut out the rest of the vines, but they’re woven into the braids.

Movement—the sound of pounding feet. A woman dressed in black runs past the door, crying and stumbling. Blood and brain matter mottle her hair. Streaks of red and pieces of flesh, presumably not her own, dot the black eel skin of her costume.

Recognizing her as one of the women who came in with my father, I bound up and leap over Hawthorne, pulling the door wide. Fusionmag pulses rip past my cheek, singeing a piece of my hair. I recoil. The bullet connects with the back of the woman’s head, blowing her brains out through her face. Her body crumples.

I turn to see who fired. A ghoulish man, dressed in all black with raven wings, aims his fusionmag at me. His face is covered by a black leather mask, but his lips are exposed in a sinister smile. He utters a single word: “Roselle.”

He pulls the trigger. Hawthorne lurches in front of me, holding up his golden shield. The metal dents in and sizzles. Hawthorne flinches and shouts in pain.

I shift to Hawthorne’s side, draw my arm back, and throw an iron rose. It embeds in the forehead of the dark-clad God of Death, slicing through his skull and exposing the inside of his cranium. I throw two more, hitting his cheeks. He falls backward from the force, bouncing onto the floor. Holographic snowflakes shower down but never reach his body.

“Incoming!” Hawthorne shouts. He maneuvers around me with his shield in front of him. Another round of fusion pulses careen against it. He pushes me back into the room, closing the door.

We crouch down. Hawthorne points. I nod and take the position he indicated, hugging the wall across from him. We wait. Fusionmag blasts shatter holes in the door. A gunman pushes it open, and Hawthorne stabs his dagger into one of his knees. The black-clad figure falls forward. I swing my crown down at him, slicing his arm. The iron blades cut through his muscles and the tendons, slicing his flesh to the bone. He screams in agony, drops the fusionmag, and writhes on the ground.

A second gunman at the threshold fires at Hawthorne, who protects himself with his shield. I dive for the fusionmag the first assassin dropped. Rolling with it, I aim at the man in the doorway and pull the trigger. The pulse caves his face in.

“They’re all dressed like Vinsin, the God of Death,” I mutter to Hawthorne. “Who sent you?” I demand of the writhing man beside me.

Hawthorne crawls forward and claims the fusionmag from the dead gunman in the doorway. He gets to his feet and peeks around the corner. Chilling screams come from the main ballroom.

The Death God at my feet is bleeding out fast. The hue of his skin is ghostly white. Lifting my boot, I kick him hard in the side. “Who sent you?”

The assassin smiles at me, his teeth smeared with blood. “You’re gonna die,” he croons in a singsong voice. He bites down on a white tablet in his mouth. The cyanide goes to work immediately. His eyes roll back in his head, and froth trickles from the sides of his mouth. The rest of his body twitches.

I look at his left hand. No moniker shines from it to indicate his Fate. But there aren’t any marks there. It’s like he never had one.

“We gotta move,” Hawthorne urges, taking my arm and hauling me to my feet.

“My father!” I whisper-shout. “I was following him.”

“Which way did he go?” Hawthorne mouths.

I point in the opposite direction from the main ballroom. He nods, and we both peek out into the corridor. Golden fusionmag blasts light up the gallery entrance. Beyond the railing is the ballroom and the Gods Table one level below. Hawthorne strips his crimson cape from his shoulders and wraps it around his singed forearm before lifting the shield once more.

He silently signals me to move away from the sound of the massacre. He steps out into the corridor with his shield arm held up and his fusionmag pointed in the direction of the main ballroom. I fall into place behind him. Threading my left arm through the circle of my crown, I let the iron hang on my wrist like a very large bracelet. I place my left hand on Hawthorne’s shoulder. In my right hand, my fusionmag points away from him, protecting Hawthorne’s back. Together we inch away from the ballroom, one tentative footstep at a time.

We pass several more rooms. Each time, I swing my weapon toward them, only to find them empty. The snowy scene on the wall of the corridor has a streak of blood spattered across it. I tap Hawthorne on the shoulder with the barrel of my fusionmag. He slows his pace. I pivot my gun in the direction of the room on my right.

A Death God runs into the winter corridor from the gallery. Hawthorne fires and picks the target off with one shot. The assassin crumbles onto the floor. Distracted, I miss the target at my side until almost the last second. The Death God seizes my arm, wrenching the hand that holds the fusionmag. My other hand slips from Hawthorne’s shoulder. The iron crown slides into my palm. The Death God almost pries the fusionmag from me, but I swing the crown, slicing his jugular vein. He falls onto me, clutching my forearm, attempting to hold himself up while his blood gushes out.