Chapter Twenty The Villainess on the Romantic Balcony

CHAPTER TWENTY

The Villainess on the Romantic Balcony

Lady Rahela lay dead, smoking from the fire. Her serpent's bracelet had sunk deep into the blistered flesh of her arm. The king touched the heap that had once been the wicked Beauty with the tip of his boot.

"Throw her in the abyss with the wretched thing on. I will have a new mark of favour made." He smiled at Lady Lia. "For my new favourite."

Time of Iron , ANONYMOUS

"O ut here alone, m'lady?" asked the lord creeping on Lia.

Disrupted moonlight from the broken room made the balcony a place of bright silver and dark shadows. Rae saw enough. His hand was already on her waist, crowding her pretend-playfully against the balcony rail. Lia's only chance of escape was diving over the balcony.

Rae snapped, "Hands off."

The guy turned, startled.

"She's not alone. Her sister is here." Rae gave him a sultry smile and slid the scanty fabric of her dress upward.

The gentleman's eye seemed irresistibly drawn to her bared thigh. Rae slid her enchanted knife out of its place strapped to her leg. Suddenly, the gentleman's eye seemed irresistibly drawn to her bared blade.

Lia squinted. "What have you got there?"

"A knife!" Rae beamed.

"Oh no," Lia murmured.

"She's mad!" The young lord's eyes darted towards the glass doors like hamsters desperate for escape. He seemed to be sobering up fast.

"That's offensive. Accept some people make a calm rational decision to choose the path of evil. I have no mental health issues, I'm just wicked and out of control." Rae advanced on him, knife and teeth gleaming. "There's a villainess on the loose on the romantic balcony! Nobody knows what she'll do, not even the villainess!"

"I meant no offence," the gentleman stammered. "Lady Lia was sending me come-hither glances—"

His sentence ended in a strangled scream.

Rae hadn't stabbed him. The lord's throat had an arrow sticking out of it. The arrow was buried deep in his neck, only the feathered shaft still visible. Blood, black by moonlight, poured down the front of his embroidered coat.

Slowly, the young lord toppled over the balcony rail and down into the dark.

Rae dived for Lia, bearing her to the ground. Rae expected Lia to struggle, and was surprised when she clutched Rae. Rae wrapped one arm around Lia's shoulders. With her free hand, she kept tight hold of her knife.

Lia's voice was small and scared. "Rahela, what's happening? I can't see."

"Someone's shooting arrows from the rooftop," Rae whispered back. "Not sure why."

Nothing like this happened in the book! Rae had tuned out Alice reading about the belle of the ball, pursued by all. She would have tuned back in for ‘also pursued by assassins'. Only now did Rae see stories needed more romantic interludes and fewer assassins.

If she died in this world, she would never wake up at home.

Her senses felt as if they were being sharpened. Her nerves scraped along with them, like one of Key's knives on a whetstone. Rae was so painfully aware of her surroundings it made her want to scream. It was as though someone was forcing her to look at what she didn't want to see, shouting that this was real, real, real. The night wind touched her cheek with a cold finger. There was a shift in the shadows on the grey slope of the roof.

Rae pulled Lia close, huddling against the stone railing. The arrow buried itself a fraction of an inch from Lia's gleaming slipper. Lia made a tiny distressed sound. Rae screamed, a loud and anguished scream that throbbed on the night air. She knew what real pain sounded like. She could fake it.

Lia's voice rose, high with panic. "Are you hit?"

Soon the ballroom's current song and dance would end. Someone might hear screams from the balcony. The bowman wouldn't risk someone hearing. He would come down to finish the job. How much of a challenge could two women be, when one was wounded?

Rae's arm around Lia's neck, and her fingers around her knife hilt, ached with how hard she was holding on. Lia's breath in her ear was rapid as a heartbeat.

They both heard the stealthy scuff of a soft boot against a roof tile. A shadow detached from the darkness, leaping and landing lightly on the balcony in front of them. Rae nudged Lia, and kept yowling at increasing volume.

"Argh!" Rae yodelled, making her voice as grating as possible. "The pain is unbearable!"

The highly virtuous had high pain thresholds. Heroes soldiered on, but villains were whiners.

Lia added to the confusion, in her own way. "Sir, I have done you no wrong, I beg you show us mercy—"

Her tear-filled cornflower-blue eyes shone in the moonlight. The man, wearing black and grey clothes that blended perfectly with the shadows, padded forward. He seemed immune even to the beam of Lia's eyes, which was astonishing. Lia was a beseeching heroine lighthouse.

The gears of Rae's mind turned, cool as metal clicking into place, noting every detail of the scene. Her body betrayed her by being afraid. Sweat burned her eyes, and ran a trail of fire down her spine. She stubbornly clutched her leg, wailed, and studied him from under her lashes. This guy was a professional. He wouldn't stop unless someone made him stop.

When the assassin's knife arced, Lia grasped his sleeve in a last silent appeal. His downward swing was checked by Lia's grab. Rae seized the opportunity to launch herself at him, brandishing the knife she'd hidden in her skirts.

"Suddenly I'm feeling a lot better," she panted, mistress of deceit and treachery.

Characters who quipped during fights were more likely to survive. God, she hoped she lived through this.

The hilt of the knife slid treacherously in her sweaty hand, wanting to slip. If she dropped her knife they died. Rae clutched the hilt and sank the blade into the man's chest. The knife's magic should guide her hand, but she tried to move like Key, stabbing twice as she tumbled to the ground on top of him. She heard her blade slide into meat and felt the assassin's blade glance against bone, the socket of Rae's eye and her cheekbone sending an echo of pain throbbing through her body. She stabbed the knife into the man's throat. This wasn't real, it was a video game where she must do anything to win. There was blood on her face, flecks of hot tin taste between her lips. Rae didn't know if the blood was hers, sliding down from the wound across her eye, or spatters of his. It wasn't real, no matter how real the blood felt. The assassin's body went slack beneath her.

Lia's terrified whisper cut the night. "Rahela!"

He wasn't actually dead! She was a fool, the murderer always seemed dead but then wasn't dead after all. Rae gazed down into the assassin's still face. He looked dead. Rae twisted around to see Lia, and saw a new shadow fall on Lia's upturned face. Realization came dark as the moment after sunset.

There was more than one assassin.

The sweat on Rae's skin turned to beads of ice. As Rae froze in her crouch over the corpse and calculated her odds for another leap, she saw another shadow drop down onto the ground. Two assassins, one for each woman. The shadows closed in.

The air went brilliant. Moonlight turned broken glass into lightning as the doors of the balcony exploded outward. Key came crashing onto the scene. He threw a knife at the assassin approaching Lia, blade burying itself in the man's back. Instead of reaching for another knife, Key moved faster than glass could fall and plucked a shard flying through the midnight air. He landed beside Rae with the shard in one hand and the assassin's hair in the other, dragged the man's head back, and cut his throat with the glass shard. A black pool of blood spread beneath Key's feet, blood in his wild hair, blood staining his teeth as he snarled. He looked like a devil, and a nightmare about to happen to you next.

Rae was so proud of her minion.

She opened her mouth to praise him, and found herself saying, "I killed a man."

She was convinced Key was about to say ‘good job'. But his eyes travelled over her blood-streaked face, and he didn't. He reached out with the arm not holding a knife, and drew her in against him. His body was a shield between her and this world.

"Remember," he murmured. "Other people aren't real."

No back-patting for villains. Only sinister whispering. It was still nice to be held.

"They're not real," Rae repeated, numbly. "They're not real."

She curled her fingers in under the blood-slick straps of his armour. His cracked leather gloves caught on her hair.

"You don't have to kill if you don't like it," Key promised. "I'll kill them for you."

"Kill who?"

Against her hair, she felt his mouth curve. "Everyone."

He moved, arm around her waist holding her steady. Warmth splattered on the bare skin of Rae's shoulders, and Rae realized he'd casually murdered someone behind her back. Rae whirled to behold yet another assassin crumple, and searched with sudden terror to see if Lia was safe.

She was curled down by the balcony rail, fragile and helpless as a white kitten. Key deserved a reward for saving them from assassins. Rae stepped aside so he could have a moment with his lady love, and so she could confirm a suspicion.

She knelt beside the man she'd killed, loosened the ties on his shirt with fingers she forbade to shake, and bared a mark on the corpse's breastbone. A tattoo of a crown, laid atop the mountains of truth.

"This is the royal seal," Rae said slowly. "These are palace assassins."

"And how do you know that ?"

Emer stood on the threshold of the ballroom, voice as sharp as the sea of broken glass between them. Rae didn't dare invite Emer's scorn by saying the gods had told her. Emer wouldn't believe that. She wouldn't believe anything Rae could offer.

Key wasn't attending to his lady love. His attention was on the dead. No horror showed on his face, only concentration.

He told Rae, "The assassins were after you."

Lia was eventually assassinated in her version of the books, but Rae wouldn't win any supporters by making that prophetic announcement. "I'm sure they were after Lia. She's very persecuted. Certain people attract true love and terrible danger like flies."

Key seemed unimpressed. "Someone sent assassins to your bedroom door on the day you announced you were a holy prophet."

Rae glared. "I strongly feel this could've been mentioned to me before now!"

Key ignored her justified indignation. "Someone sent ghouls over the wall of the courtyard when you were trapped in there. Someone set a bowman on the roof to begin firing when you came out on the balcony. Someone's trying to kill you ."

When he listed all the near-death escapes, they did seem to point in that direction. Rae brutally crushed down fear. Assassins weren't a disease. She could fight them. She could think her way out of this.

She rose and began to pace beside the corpse. "I don't mean to shock anyone, but the king's trying to get with me. I assume he's not putting out a hit on it before he hits it and quits it. Who else commands the palace assassins?"

She was surprised when Lia spoke up, her voice silver bells in the night. "The king's favourite. The Last Hope. The prime minister and the commander general."

Rae snapped her fingers. "It's the prime minister. Older politician, unmarried and mean, with vaguely sinister facial hair!"

A classic secondary villain.

"My lady, facial hair is not a motive. This is not a joke," Emer said savagely.

Emer wanted Rae to take this seriously, but Rae shouldn't. She couldn't. She would go out of her mind if she did.

"Perhaps she thinks it's funny because she still believes I'm the victim," Lia whispered. "As if I'm the centre of every plot in the palace."

Key stared down at the curled-up kitten-woman. "Get up. Stop bothering people."

" Key ," Emer snapped. Rae absolutely agreed with Emer.

Presumably Key was doing the thing in stories where guys masterfully scolded the ladies they loved. The appeal of that particular move was lost on Rae. ‘Oh lover, tell me how you know better than me all night long.'

Lia blinked up at Key uncertainly, and who could blame her? He sighed and reached out. Lia put her pearl-pale hand in his. Key clearly needed more practise assisting his lady: he heaved her up with the courteous tenderness of a man handling a sack of potatoes. He acted as if Lia was nobody special, but Rae knew better. The heroine was special to everybody.

"Thank you for your assistance." Lia was always gracious with the staff. "Were those five assassins?"

"Six."

Key dropped her hand and lunged forward at an empty patch of night which, faced with Key, moved and became a final assassin turning to meet the swing of Key's blade.

"The king is coming!" Emer hissed.

Mid-swing, Key dropped his knife. The assassin let out a single relieved breath before Key grasped the man's throat and, with one efficient snap, broke his neck. Key kicked the body carelessly aside as the king arrived.

Octavian and assembled courtiers stood framed in jagged silver, all that remained of the glass doors. The bloodstained balcony was less than a foot away from the gilded ballroom, but the stretch of broken glass seemed to form a great distance.

"Rahela?" Octavian's voice rang out. "Lia! What happened? "

What happened was they were almost killed with no heroics provided by the hero! Octavian was supposed to save Lia in the nick of time. Instead he was doing the majestic equivalent of turning up late to the meeting with Starbucks.

Rae should soothe his pride. She needed to express relief and pleasure at his presence.

Rae came to this conclusion as Lia said, her voice an imploring flute, "Your Majesty, thank the lost gods you're here."

Lia stumbled towards Octavian, swaying slightly before she collapsed against his chest. Key's brows drew in so sharply together they resembled crossed swords. Poor Key. Witnessing this tender moment must be like getting his heart crushed by a romantic hammer.

The king held out his free hand to Rae. "Come to me if you need comfort."

He wasn't wearing his gauntlets again, but he was still the future Emperor, reaching out for her.

The almost-tempting moment was broken by a nasty laugh.

"She was nearly killed by royal assassins. Burn down the palace until you smoke out who ordered it, then have their heart and eyes torn out. Give them to her on a plate." Key sneered. "What's the point of power, if you never do anything worthwhile?"

Cold poured over Rae as though shock was liquid nitrogen. The court froze with her as they watched a peasant mock the king. Octavian started forward, sable cloak flaring in the night wind, visibly recollected his royal dignity and made a sharp gesture. A guard stepped forward, raising a fist encased in a magic gauntlet, and struck Key in the mouth.

"You vicious creature."

Blood in his teeth, Key snarled, "I'm my lady's vicious creature. I attack at her word."

Terrified of what might happen next, Rae snapped, "Then stop!"

When the next blow came, Key fell silently, and lay on his belly on the broken glass. At last, he saw reason. He knew enough to fear what the king could do.

"Forgive my guard, Your Majesty." Rae turned her wicked voice arch. "I blush to speak of his presumption, but he's overwhelmed by a secret admiration for Lady Lia. As so many are! But only you can hope to possess her."

The buzz of the court rose, turning from immediate execution towards hot gossip. Octavian stared down at Lia. Lia lifted her shining head, and gazed at him. The moon and Rae beamed benevolently upon them.

"He can scarcely be blamed for that," Octavian conceded.

"Everybody wants her!" Rae confirmed. "Due to her golden beauty and matching golden heart. Even the Last Hope is moved by her, as we saw through their dance."

She nodded significantly to the surrounding courtiers, and heard Lord Marius's name murmured in speculative tones.

"Rahela, please," Lia murmured.

The sound of modesty in unmistakable distress made people start frowning at Rae again. Rae's heart sank. Her hands were covered in blood. Her face was marked and torn. Held up against Lia's unstained beauty, Rae knew she looked guilty.

Prime Minister Pio moved to the king's left. The traditionally evil direction, Rae noted. His voice was crisp, face narrow and undeniably intelligent behind his absurd goatee. His eyes went to the snake bracelet coiled around Rae's wrist.

"If these men were indeed royal assassins, might I point out Lady Rahela carries a token that allows her to command anyone in the palace?"

Until Emer had named the king's favourite as one of those who might command the assassins, Rae had only thought of the bracelet as a symbol. She hadn't realized she was in possession of a device that might move the plot.

"Perhaps this was another attempt to play the heroine," continued the prime minister.

He could go stroke his tiny goatee of bureaucratic evil elsewhere. Rae was not in the mood.

At the king's right, Commander General Nemeth snorted. "An act that could fool nobody."

Rae was so glad she could bring the prime minister and the general together like this.

"She did save me," murmured Lia. "I would hate to think she acted with ulterior motives."

Thanks, Lia, not actually helpful! The eyes of the court, already resting heavily on Rae, went cold and hard. Their attention seemed to acquire more weight as their hostility increased, like water becoming a block of ice pressing down on her chest.

The same thing had happened in the Court of Air and Grace when Lia spoke. Rae frowned, but there was nothing to say. If people already believed you a villain, any self-defence sounded like a confession.

Octavian finally lowered the hand he'd offered. There was an angry curl to his mouth. He must be worried about Lia.

Rae would've thought she'd enjoy seeing her favoured pairing interact more. She didn't want to look at them. She couldn't look at Key lying in the broken glass. Terror for him felt like a small living creature she'd swallowed, trying to claw its way out. She could only swallow it down. Fearing for him was ridiculous. He wasn't even real.

"Lady Lia must be protected as the precious treasure she is, and Rahela adequately disciplined for her indiscretions." Octavian wielded his gaze like a sceptre. "Lady Rahela, you are hereby stripped of your status as my favourite."

Bitter moonlight poured down on the scene, dividing them all into black and white. It was no surprise Rae found herself in shadow.

This had never happened in the book. Rahela was executed. Rae had survived to be disgraced.

How the real Rahela would have burned with shame, robbed of her privileges in front of everyone. Rae felt a cold ghost of that heated feeling as she pulled the snake bracelet from her arm, and hurled the shining viper down on the bloodstained marble and broken glass.

"We done here?"

The king's eyes were narrow as chips of emerald. Lia was safe. Rae was powerless. He had what he wanted. She couldn't understand why his anger was increasing. Nor could she escape his fury. None of them could. That was what it meant to be king.

A guard offered Rae's snake bracelet to Octavian. Under the watchful eyes of the court, the king slid the bracelet onto Lia's slender arm.

He was still looking at Rae. "My ladies-in-waiting have become an embarrassment to the court. The time has come to hold the Trials, and choose my queen."

That wasn't right. The Queen's Trials didn't happen until book two, after Octavian was Emperor! Worse still, Rae remembered the trials with great and terrible accuracy. At the Queen's Trials both Lia and Lord Marius were in danger of their lives. Only the Emperor's power saved them.

Power Octavian had not yet unlocked.

She realized everybody was staring expectantly from her to Lia, and back again.

Rae said, "Break a leg, sis."

The court gave Rae a collectively horrified look.

Rae mumbled, "It's a saying that means good luck."

Octavian proceeded as if he hadn't heard, though the edge in his voice said he had. "One last inconsequential matter. This guard trespassed on the balcony. I sentence him to fifteen lashes in the Room of Dread and Anticipation."

Half hidden behind a curtain, Emer's hand flew to her mouth to trap a protest. Above her hand, her eyes reproached Rae.

"Do you desire to speak for him, Rahela?" the king invited. "Perhaps you wish to be banished from the court and me? You're a holy woman now. You could be bound to a cave like the Oracle, meditating on the lost gods."

If she was banished from court, she wouldn't be there when the Flower of Life and Death bloomed. If she was exiled, she died.

Rae opened her mouth, then bit her lip.

" Boss ." Key stood, shaking off the broken glass, and shook his head. Loudly he said, "I'll take the whipping."

Guards clamped hands on his shoulders. By now Rae knew how Key fought. He could bring these guards down, but the king would simply summon more. No man could stand against an army.

She understood why the hero was always the most powerful man in the room. The king was the god of their court. He made it so the sun would shine and the winds blow gently on you… or not. You didn't want to imagine what that kind of power could do, if you weren't on his side. It was predetermined by the story that the power would be on the right side. It was good for the hero to have more influence than anybody else. The heroine and the righteous were protected by the hero's power.

But they were villains.

Octavian leaned across a space of glittering destruction and peered into Key's face, already bleeding from being shoved into broken glass. Key's snarl was feral, wilder than his hair. Octavian's smile and smooth hair gleamed like his masked crown.

"I wasn't asking your permission to whip you. I don't need anybody's permission for anything. Keep your eyes and your mind off my woman. Remember your place. In the gutters of the Cauldron, with the rest of the trash. There is only one place lower. One more wrong move, gutter brat, and you will be hurled into the abyss."

The train of the royal cloak swept over shards of glass, drifting away over the black mirror of the ballroom floor. The future Emperor departed, triumphant. Rae was what she hated to be, silent and helpless. She had to watch as the guards dragged Key out through the ballroom to be whipped. She had to watch as Lia sailed away at the king's side, arm shining with the mark of his favour.

Rae stood alone amid ruins of blood and glass, even her maid cowering from her. Rae's face was ripped and stained as her harlot's dress. She lied and cheated and killed. She betrayed loyal servants and did not utter even a word to defend them.

She looked bad. She was bad.

Once again, a messy situation turned into a crushing victory for Lia.

The lights of the chandelier sparkled through the broken doors and refracted in Rae's eyes, sparks of stray thoughts that might start a blaze. Lia had said, " The loser pays a forfeit " at the archery tournament, and inspired Lady Hortensia to exile Rae. Lia wept on command. Every time, Lia was too helpless and sweet to effect anything. Lia said, " Being useless is all I have, " and she used it. This wasn't just the story working out for the heroine.

Rae negotiated around the broken glass into the ballroom, where Emer silently joined her. She trailed back to her room in a daze.

Someone was whipping Key. Someone was attempting to murder Rae. And Lady Lia, innocent and beautiful, was coolly climbing her way to the top.

Rae wasn't the only one who could scheme. Rae was an amateur compared to the girl who never let her fa?ade slip as she engineered every situation to her benefit.

Emer always looked at Lia with such serious attention. Rae had believed that was guilt, but perhaps it was something more.

"Did you know Lia was clever enough to beat me at my own game?" Rae asked, sitting at her bronze mirror as Emer brushed her hair.

"Yes, my lady," Emer murmured.

"And did you know someone was trying to kill me?"

"Yes, my lady."

Rae couldn't hide the edge of frustration slipping into her tone. "You didn't think any of this was worth mentioning?"

"Servants shouldn't speak unless they are spoken to. And my lady, you didn't ask."

The accusation on Rae's tongue stilled as she heard a noise from without her chamber door.

Scarcely daring to speak, Rae whispered, "Since you know so much, Emer, do you know who's coming?"

Emer shook her head slowly.

Footsteps echoed on the stone steps, against the stone walls, like the tolling of a bell. It could be another assassin. It could be the king or the Last Hope, Key or the Cobra. It could be life or death.

Rae and Emer watched the door handle turn.