Chapter Thirty-Four The Villainess Under Siege

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

The Villainess Under Siege

"The strength of bulls cannot stop him. No, he will not leave off," said the Oracle. "Until he tears the city or the enemy limb from limb."

Time of Iron , ANONYMOUS

A fter you pushed the king into an abyss before a thousand witnesses, it was wisest not to stick around. Fortunately, the crowd of courtiers and worshippers were distracted. With the sounds of war clashing in her ears and a crowned shadow covering the sky, Rae wrenched herself free from restraining hands and made a break for it. The earth groaned and shuddered like a dying man as she ran, the palace battlements tilting beneath her feet. She saw a pair of hands, mottled green as though gloved in rot, grasp the parapet. As the ravine opened wide and wider, the dead were being vomited out.

Rae clutched a toppling turret for balance, brushed the ashes off her burning dress, and ran on to save Lia. The air was burning and so was her throat. She grasped onto a bush shaped like a swan by the tower for the ladies-in-waiting and drew in desperate lungfuls of air that seemed on fire. Her silk slippers sank deep into morning dew.

Except when dew seeped through slippers, it shouldn't feel warm. The lawn intended for ladies' light footsteps was soaked in fresh gore.

Raiders were in the palace, violent men seeking revenge for the attempted poisoning of their Ice King. Raiders must have come for the king's women.

Before Rae came here, she hadn't known the sound of sharp steel cutting through living meat and bone. She knew it now. She forced her feet to keep moving, though she dreaded what she might see.

She emerged from behind the bush to see Lady Horatia Nemeth, wearing a lacy gown in her favourite shade of pink, sinking a morningstar into a raider who was now meat for the crows. After Horatia was done with him, he might be mincemeat for the crows.

"Take that, blackguard!" said Horatia.

"Stop, he's already dead."

Emer sounded bored, as though she'd been trying to restrain the bloodthirsty aristocracy for some time. She carried an axe over her shoulder like a woodcutter. The steel was coated with a pale red glaze.

Not magic, but blood.

When Rae's gown rustled the bushes, Emer and Horatia turned in a single savage moment like wolves in gowns. Emer's axe swung and stopped with a jerk.

"My lady! Where is Lady Lia?"

"King Octavian imprisoned her in the throne room," Rae answered succinctly. "I pushed him into the ravine. When he returns, he will have ultimate power. We have to break Lia out before then."

Emer glanced at the sky writhing with ominous storm clouds and scorched by lines of eerie lightning, and the crowned shadow over the palace. She shouldered her axe again and went to Rae's side.

Rae bit her lip. "Where will you go?" she asked Horatia.

The weight of this world was heavy on her shoulders. She felt responsible for them all.

The set line to Horatia's mouth suggested anger. She put her fingers in her painted-pink mouth and whistled. Several ladies-in-waiting appeared. One wore a breastplate, sheened with red magic, over her baby-blue gown.

"We're staying," Horatia announced. "The girls have been training since the Court of Air and Grace, when the king failed to protect us. This tower is defensible. Papa loves to tell war stories and they simply bore Fab to tears, so I listened. And now I believe I know tactics?"

"I see," Rae murmured.

Horatia's eyes were the colour of shallow lakes, but grief darkened them into deep pools. "Besides, Hortensia can't leave the tower. I must protect my sister."

She coughed, as if embarrassed by her own emotion.

If not for Rae, ghouls would never have attacked the Court of Air and Grace. Hortensia would never have been hurt. Rae remembered a dying villain in a play saying, I mean to do some good in spite of my own nature.

When one had wicked curves, one also had storage options. Rae reached inside her corset, and took out the Flower of Life and Death.

The petals were crumpled like tissue paper, but the fragrance was still sweet. Rae smelled the flower and felt carried back to the apple blossoms in her yard at home. Loss hollowed out her insides. She intended to get home, but just in case she didn't…

She couldn't waste a miracle.

Rae laid the flower in Horatia's hand. "Keep this for me. If I don't make it back by morning, give it to your sister."

She hoped to return and live, but she wouldn't act as if she were the only person who mattered in the world.

Wearing her magic gauntlets, Horatia seemed to be cradling the glowing flower in a silver nest to keep it safe. "Are you certain?"

Rae took a step back. "Yes."

"Did you really push the king into the ravine?"

"Yes."

"My dear!" A faint smile curved Horatia's stern mouth. "Treason's really getting to be a habit with you."

Rae left the general's daughter standing in the blood-drenched garden, holding the cure for her sister. She raced towards the throne room with Emer beside her.

When they approached the golden entrance to the throne room, they saw the doors were barred. Four guards were posted outside.

Rae flattened herself behind one of the huge pillars. She pulled Emer in beside her and whispered, "We have to take them down."

Emer spoke in her driest tone. "That shouldn't be a problem."

"What do you mean?" Rae asked, then heard the slithering, shuffling sound of grave-wrapped feet, marching in the relentless unstoppable rhythm of the dead. She risked one look around the pillar and saw the pack of ghouls descend on the guards.

Blood-drenched teeth bared in decaying faces filled her vision. The guards had no enchanted weapons or armour to protect them. They had no chance. Rae withdrew behind the pillar, clutching Emer's iron-cold hand. The marble wall at her back was all that held her up. She scarcely dared breathe.

They waited until the screams faded and the hungry gnawing ceased. The indistinct whispers of the dead scraped and slid along the malachite passageways, in search of fresh meat.

When Rae let out a whimpering breath and forced herself out from behind the pillar, there were two ghouls left. Wraiths with sorrowful faces, ankle deep in blood and tattered flesh. They turned at the sound of her movement, scenting the air, quivering animals eager to hunt. Rae's hand, shaking in her gauntlet, closed hard around her sword hilt. She ran one ghoul through.

The other reached for her, murmuring almost plaintively, " Rahela ."

Finger bones sharp as knives grazed Rae's hair. The dead touch almost seemed affectionate.

Emer swung her axe at the ghoul's neck. Black blood spattered on her crisp white apron. With the last ghoul beheaded, Rae and Emer unbarred the doors and rushed inside.

Lia waited on the silver dais, a luminous trembling figure outlined by the sharp-edged brilliance of the jewelled throne. She held out a beseeching hand, bright with the gauntlet Rae had given her, and watched her evil stepsister and her treacherous maidservant sweep into the throne room.

"You came for me." Lia burst into tears.

Rae gathered Lia into her arms, shoulders so impossibly fragile she felt like a baby bird held in Rae's palm. Something small, to be protected. Certainty rushed to fill the hollow places inside Rae. Even if the sky was falling, Rae knew how to be a big sister.

"Stop crying," soothed Rae. "You're already so ugly. Crying is making it worse."

Astonishment silenced Lia, as if Rae had stuffed a sock in her rosebud mouth.

"I'm the most beautiful woman in the world!" Her face fell when she realized she'd forgotten to be modest and humble.

Rae gulped a laugh and kissed Lia on the nose. "I know. We're here to rescue beauty in peril. I have a plan."

"My lady Rae, she's already so distressed," murmured Emer. "Must you make things worse?"

Rae continued with determination, "There's a secret passage from the Room of Memory and Bone down to the Cauldron. Emer will take you. I'll bar the doors once you're out."

Barring the doors wouldn't save Rae, but saving herself was no longer the first priority. As soon as she'd seen Lia, Rae had known she would trade places with her, would make any bargain. Rae tried to let go. Lia clung with her magic-steel fist.

"I'll stay with you. I don't mind dying, if we're together."

"No. Little funnyface, baby sister," Rae whispered. " He is coming . When he does, he will be the Emperor. I'm the traitor. I'm the one he hates the most. I can buy you enough time to get away."

"I can't leave you."

Silver trails of tears poured down her moonlight-pure face. Rae had scoffed a thousand times at characters racing to lay down their lives for the perfect heroine. Who cared about saving Lia?

As it turned out, Rae did.

Rae grasped her slim shoulders and shook her. "Why did I come here if not for this? If I can save you, I won't die for nothing. I'll try to live. I'll fight as hard as I can, but if I do die, please let it mean something. I beg you to go."

Let me be your favourite story. Let me be the greatest story you ever heard.

Lia swallowed, nodding. She stripped off her magic gauntlet and held it out to Rae.

"I won't go if you don't take it."

The windows were full of scarlet and shadows. The Emperor would be here soon.

She dropped a kiss on Lia's cheek. "Go live. Tell everyone how brave and noble I was. They'd never believe me, but they might believe you."

Tear-blinded, Lia was even clumsier than usual. She stumbled from the dais. Emer was there to catch her.

"Take care of her," Rae said. "Take care of yourself. And get Lia spectacles, this falling into everyone's arms is ridiculous. Go!"

With an axe in one hand and a beauty in the other, Emer still managed a perfect curtsy.

"My lady Rae. It has been a pleasure to serve."

They vanished away behind the golden doors. Rae barred the doors after them, knowing they weren't safe yet. But when Rae was gone, perhaps the story would show favour to its heroine again. Since Emer was with Lia, perhaps some of that shining fortune would transfer to her. Perhaps they could both be saved.

Rae shut her eyes as if blowing out a birthday candle. She wished them a happy ending.

Scarlet light burned away even the dark behind her eyes. Rae opened them to see the ravine rise, a black cauldron overflowing and spilling its blood-red contents out onto the land. The lost gods and the forgotten past were all returning tonight.

Down in the depths of the ravine, the First Duke waited. The great god in disguise, who had arranged throne, crown and kingdom for the son he'd murdered, as though laying out a sleeping child's clothes in readiness for morning. After the Emperor duelled the Duke in the abyss, the Duke would offer his son a cursed jewel. The Emperor should refuse the jewel and slay the Duke for love of Lia, but Rae couldn't imagine that happening now.

What would happen?

Nothing good.

Her mind could hardly encompass the immensity of the disaster rushing down on her head. It was as if a galaxy would swallow her.

Grey twisted hands scrabbled in the space under the golden doors. Dry as dust the susurration rose, and from dead throats issued a hissing and a byword. Every ghoul in the palace was whispering her name.

Windowpanes rattled like bones with the coming of the Emperor. The thunder of a ghoulish army, using their bodies as battering rams, boomed against the throne room doors. Against the livid clouds, the falling ashes were dark tattered shadows like ghosts swooping to claim her.

Rae had always known she would face the end alone.

In the throne room echoing with dead voices, soaked with light like blood, Rae raised her head high. Villains had no time for tears.

Who can believe the wicked? The wicked could believe in themselves. The world was hard and cruel. It bore down and broke you into a thousand pieces. When nobody believed in you, when even you couldn't believe, you must arrange your broken pieces into a terrifying new shape. You could believe in the fantastic recreation of yourself.

In the end, she was lucky. She'd been granted her dying wish.

If the ending couldn't be happy, at least it would mean something. She would do something great before she died. She would be an unforgettable part of the story.

The golden doors shook like someone in their death throes. Rae raised her sword. The doors crashed down and the Emperor stood framed against an army of the dead.