Chapter Thirty-Two The Villainess in the Greenhouse of Good and Evil

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The Villainess in the Greenhouse of Good and Evil

Lia's body was fastened to her throne with silver thread. Her corpse made the most beautiful puppet.

The Emperor said, "She believed goodness was real, friends could be trusted, and love might be true. She died because she was wrong."

Time of Iron , ANONYMOUS

R ae used her gauntleted hand to shove the prime minister aside, racing desperately down the flight of the stairs to the greenhouse. There was peace here, the leaf-hushed quiet found in deep forests, the air made close, warm and fragrant by green, growing things. There was life here, though it might be crushed. Thick stone walls muffled the sound of oncoming troops and the surge of ravine fires, but the great glass windows shook with the onslaught of a world tearing itself to pieces.

Rae ran until she saw the arch of the stalk bearing the Flower of Life and Death. The Flower had emerged from its green bud like a delicate winged creature from its egg. The outermost petals were moon-white and gorgeously insubstantial, a fringe of Valenciennes lace surrounding a red so dark it was almost black, shading to lilac, to primrose, and finally to the innermost row of petals still unfurling.

When Rae started forward, reaching to pluck the flower, a hand clamped on her wrist. Pio forced her gauntleted fist down by her side.

"This is no time for your tricks!"

"Let me go and you'll never have to see my trickster face again," Rae promised.

"I merely want you safe in your chambers!"

"Why? I know you hate me. You sent ghouls and assassins after me."

"I certainly did not. I'm a politician," Pio snapped. "We kill people through making laws, not breaking them."

"It must have been you!"

"Actually, he argued against sending the assassins. He was overruled."

The new voice was calm with the assurance given by absolute authority. A shadow emerged from under the spreading petals of the Flower of Life and Death. The rays of the blood moon, streaming cold and stained through the greenhouse windows, struck the silver of his gauntlets.

"All bow before the crown," said King Octavianus.

For a long moment, Rae stared at his face, the masked crown pushed back to reveal brilliant green eyes. A guard stood at a respectful distance behind him. Only one. Every man who might be spared must have joined battle against the raiders. Octavian wore full battle regalia, bronze breastplate gleaming, cape bright as the stars lost behind bruised clouds. Her favourite character, and he was nothing but this.

"My beautiful, treacherous lady. I sent assassins and ghouls to test your claims you could tell the future. Could anybody else truly command the royal assassins or drag up my dead from my ravine? How did you imagine it was anyone but me?"

Because she trusted the Emperor.

Octavian had let the ghouls loose and killed a dozen women under his protection. And he'd sent assassins on the night of the ball, not to test if she could tell the future, but because he was having a jealous fit about her dance with the Cobra. He was a spoiled, selfish child.

"You're right." Rae stared him down. "I should have known."

Octavian's charming face darkened. "You used your new powers of prophecy to hoodwink the palace. You seduced the Cobra, and the Cobra's man seduced the princess. You saw with your witchcraft that the King of Tagar was being poisoned. You framed me as you once framed your stepsister. You used the princess to incite the Ice King's wrath, and you planned to steal the Flower of Life and Death to cure him when he stormed the capital. This is a plot to betray our country and marry the Ice King. You were determined to get your revenge, and be a queen. You never will. Kneel to me."

All the pieces fitted together. It sounded a lot more plausible than Rae being a dying traveller from another world, who needed the flower for herself.

Here came the conclusion to her misery and guilt. Villains always did come to a bad end. She might as well face hers with courage.

Rae curled her lip. "You aren't worth kneeling for."

Octavian's hand moved to the hilt of a new sword. This hilt wasn't shaped like a snake. She wondered what he'd done with the other. Thrown it away, perhaps, as he would throw her away.

Her head would be the first revenge the Emperor took against his enemies.

"I feel the ravine's power burning in my blood," Octavian promised. "I will be glorious and terrible, and you will finally be sorry."

A pointed cough sounded. Pio gave his king rather a cold look. "We don't have time for this, Your Majesty. General Nemeth leads the men against Tagar's troops, but their numbers are greater than ours. Though beacon fires have been lit, reinforcements cannot arrive tonight. We need your strength."

"I am already strong!" Octavian snarled. "I'll show you. I'll show her . She's the rot at the heart of my court. She even corrupted the pearl of the world."

He stared at Rae with furious contempt.

"I saw through Lia's treacherous attempts to delay me so you could steal the flower. I have her under watch in the throne room. Guard! Keep Lady Rahela in the greenhouse."

The Flower of Life and Death bloomed into incandescent fullness, Octavian captured under its spotlight. The charming prince his court had idolized, the heroine's true love.

"Evil is always defeated in the end. I will drag Lia here and have her executed before your eyes."

Before Rae could respond, the king swept off with his shining cape and sword, to be the hero of the story. His prime minister followed, with an air that suggested he was starting a migraine. She didn't watch them go.

Every outstretched petal on the Flower caught light like a display of jewels. Pollen danced in the air, grains of sparkling brightness surrounding the flower in a radiant halo. The Flower of Life and Death's heart was luminous silver and gold.

Rae aimed a sultry pout at the guard.

"Let me confess my sin. I carry a knife strapped to the inside of my thigh, but it won't be any use against a big strong man like you. Should I remove the knife myself, or will you do it for me?"

His eyes crossed and his sword lowered a fraction. That was all Rae needed.

When she moved, he let her. The villainess didn't slide up her skirts or produce a blade. She reached up and plucked the Flower of Life and Death.

The flower felt cool in her hand as water in the mouth when she was parched, heavy like carrying her sister as a child and knowing she bore the weight of something precious. She held victory in the palm of her hand. A sound came, faint as a page turning or a pen scratching.

Rae turned and saw a doorway forming. One line of light, then another, was superimposed on the deep dark background of leaves. Bright brushstrokes made on canvas, or cracks opening in a world. Until the door handle hung before her, golden as a ripe apple.

She took a deep breath of the air issuing from the other side. The air smelled sweet as the blossoms in her mother's yard, sweet as a forbidden apple. The light around the door shone like a grail.

All Rae had to do was open the door.

All she had to do was forget Lia trapped in the throne room waiting for death. Forget her friends, trapped in a city at war. She would have everything she wanted, and to hell with anyone else. She would be just like the king.

If she turned the handle, she would live.

Rae reached out with her free hand, and turned the handle. She let the door swing open and the light shine through.

Just a little.

The question was, how did she want to live?

She whispered into the light, "I swear I'll come back. If I can."

On the cusp of hearing, she heard a response. It sounded like her name. It sounded like her sister.

The Flower bloomed for one night. There were hours of night left still that Rae could use before she escaped. Rae turned her back on the door for now, slipped the flower away for safekeeping, and beckoned the dazed guard. "Want to know your future?"

Real alarm touched the poor man's face. On this night of sacred storms and oncoming death, people were inclined to believe in prophecy.

Soothsayer, oracle, witch of legend, Rae let her eyes widen and her voice drop low. "I see your fate. It's terrible."

She punched the guard in the head with her magic-armoured fist. He slid to the floor with a sad long whimper like a deflating balloon.

Rae made an apologetic face. "Told you it wasn't good."

She was still standing over the fallen guard when she heard a crash, and realized the palace gates had fallen.

Rae stooped to steal the guard's sword, then spun and ran, ivory and blood skirts sweeping the stairs, racing along the battlements beside the seething revolt of the ravine.

She found King Octavian standing on the battlements. His living subjects chanted on the balconies, encouraging him to descend and rise to scourge their enemy. His dead army called for him from the abyss. Courtiers clustered about him, including the prime minister, urgently advising.

Octavian wasn't listening to any of it. Nor was he rushing to execute Lia.

He stared into the ravine, red light flickering on the quiver of his mouth. In that moment Rae knew he was afraid. She was wickedly glad.

The First Duke, who had once been the great god, was waiting in that abyss. Rae knew the Emperor would win the battle against his father. But oh, she hoped it would hurt first.

"Hear my last prophecy, Your Majesty!"

The purr of her voice was a roar. She began her villainous stalk towards him.

He had no guards left. The courtiers around the king retreated, in fear of the future.

"You will fall a long, long way. The dead are waiting for you, and a man more terrifying than the dead."

Octavian trembled. Before all the king's ministers, the treacherous Beauty Dipped In Blood lunged.

"When you finish falling," hissed Rae. "Tell him I sent you."

With all her might and stolen magic, she shoved the king off the battlements and down into the dread ravine.

The faithful of the palace broke off their chants and cried out as their king fell. The city witnessed their last king-in-waiting plummet, a ruler one moment, and the next nothing but a dark outline delineated against consuming fire.

Then he was gone.

The abyss screamed as if suffering the pangs of birth. The heavens opened and hell rained down. What fell from the bruise-coloured clouds looked like snow, but the snowflakes were grey and burned when they landed on Rae's shoulders. The sky wept ash. Pillars of smoke and flame struck the surging clouds, forming a dark shape that cast a vast shadow from the palace to the mountains. It was the shadow of a crowned man.