The princes protege the.., p.34
The Prince's Protege--The Five Kingdoms #3, page 34
“Such clumsy weapons you humans create. At least elves temper steel with filaments of their souls.” He returned his attention to the king, who was struggling to extricate himself from the smashed furniture. Marten winced and gasped as his abused back muscles spasmed.
“You’d like to die in your own fashion? Is that it?” Charin glanced round. “You!” He pointed a finger at Edlund. “Kill him.”
Edlund shrank back, shaking his head. “I’m no swordsman.”
“Pah! You are in the service of your god! Do you think I would let you lose?”
All colour drained from Edlund’s flushed face. Without warning, the portly lord turned and bolted, displaying an unexpected agility, considering his broken foot. Betha slithered to the floor, gasping, no longer crushed up against the wall by her tormentor’s weight.
“Useless bag of flesh.”
Charin did not seem particularly put out by the departure of His cowardly servant. He stretched out the hand not grasping the sword and flicked His fingers. An ominously dark slash cut the air.
The ragged edges of the unnatural aperture rippled, as if disturbed by an unfelt breeze, and an acrid odour seeped into the room. Marten squinted apprehensively at the bilious chartreuse glow pulsing within the fissure, interrupted by chaotic flashes of amber and scarlet.
The god contorted His wrist in a sickeningly fluid manner, as if His arm was boneless, and a thing crawled through the breach in the air.
Terror drove Marten to his feet. The molten metal stench of the monster evoked memories of the night before. Of the creature in the casket.
If this wasn’t the same beast, it was surely its kin.
A huge head came first, horned and tusked, with unblinking eyes of dull ruby. Its tapered snout was topped by a pair of flared nostrils which extended half the length of the skull, their edges fringed with tendrils that writhed as if in constant torment.
The body that followed was serpentine, recalling the shape of the talisman, complete with four stubby legs ending in needle-pointed claws. Gleaming scales of scarlet and emerald rasped over one another as it hauled the length of its body, followed by an elongated, razor-finned tail, through the shrinking gash in the ether.
It slithered to the floor, where it squatted, scenting the air like a hound.
The room heated up. Marten struggled to breathe, the furnace-hot air sucking the oxygen from his lungs. His nostril hairs shrivelled.
He had no idea how to fight a demon.
He tried one last, desperate plea. If you truly want me to live, please, Chel, I need your help now.
He imagined the feel of Her arms around him. Recalled the sound of Her voice, the warmth of Her comfort.
But She did not answer.
Marten composed himself. This must be what you meant, then: that I have the courage to face my death alone. I only wish I knew how this would serve my people.
He drew himself up, and stared over the head of the hell-beast straight into Charin’s silver gaze.
“You are but one side of my deity. I commend my soul to Chel’s mercy.”
Was that a flicker of uncertainty? Or annoyance? Charin’s exquisite features twisted into a grotesque mask. The creature at his feet whined. Neither moved to attack.
Marten’s innards knotted with dread, but a whisper of confidence sparked into life, fed by his growing anger. This demon, or its kin, had devoured Nonni and his child.
He narrowed his eyes at the beast, licked his burning lips, and cleared his throat. Once more, he summoned the sensation of Chel’s protective arms around his shoulders, pouring all the strength that memory evoked into his command.
“In Chel’s name, demon, begone.”
Scales rasped loudly, grating against Marten’s ears as the beast thrashed, and keened. Shards of wood from the shattered table spewed outward from its lashing tail, and Marten yelped as a sliver cut into his cheek. He ducked as the beast’s whipping tail sheared the air where his head had been but a moment before, and jumped back to what he hoped would be beyond its range.
Still, it made no direct attack. Gathering his courage, Marten repeated his command, louder this time.
“In Chel’s name, begone!”
Marten’s ears rang with the strength of the creature’s angry roar, but to his astonishment its vivid colours began to dull, fading slowly to pastels. The extraordinary heat in the room diminished. The gleaming scales lost their lustre, turning translucent. And then the terrifying body started to shrink. It withered like a plant starved of water, shrivelling to the size of a fist before, with a resounding pop, it vanished.
“How?” Charin’s rage buffeted him with hurricane force. “No mortal can defy me like that, unless...” His face became vacant for a moment. “Ah, I see She has been training you.” He gusted a disappointed sigh. “Very well, I shall deal with you myself, after all.”
His hands lifted, energy sparking around them in jagged spikes. Marten’s hair stood on end, but inside, all he felt was an incredible, calm satisfaction. He had successfully rebuffed Charin, even if he was still going to die. No man could say more.
Firebolts built within the cages of Charin’s fingers. His divine lips curved upward—and loosed a terrible scream.
Marten dived sideways as untargeted lightning shot across the room to strike a chandelier and the top corner of a dresser, both of which exploded. He flung a protective arm over his head as Charin shrieked again. The god’s celestial body wavered in opacity, with Urien’s compact form becoming intermittently visible within the fluctuating light.
He fell to one knee.
With a furious howl, the god vanished. Marten stared in astonishment at the dagger impaling his opponent’s left calf.
Behind Urien, Betha sprawled in a crumpled heap inside the door Edlund had left open when he fled.
Marten slipped a knife into each hand. Even crippled, Urien was still dangerous. The hilt of Marten’s sword nestled in the injured lord’s fist, and his small eyes gleamed with rage. With a growl, Urien reached his spare hand behind himself to jerk the dagger free. The copper taint of free-running blood mingled with the lingering aroma of demon.
“Don’t think you’re getting out of here alive,” Urien snarled as he clambered upright.
Marten didn’t waste time replying; he attacked while Urien was still off balance.
Urien swayed out of range of Marten’s short knives, taking an experimental swing with his purloined sword. Balanced as it was for Marten’s greater height and reach, Urien’s aim was slightly off. Marten jumped back out of reach.
Here we go again, only this time, he isn’t going to let me win.
Marten hurled one of his daggers as a distraction, and when Urien danced aside, Marten stooped to grab one leg of a shattered table.
Urien’s face contorted as he sidled towards Marten. Clearly the pain was getting to him. Or was it a bluff? Marten determined not to take anything for granted.
With a feint to the left, Urien sliced the blade towards Marten’s ribcage. The stout table leg blocked the blow, but Urien took the opportunity to snatch a heavy decanter from the shelf beside him, and throw it at Marten’s head. Even as he dodged to one side, Marten knew he’d made the wrong move.
He twisted desperately away, and the sword’s tip grazed his shoulder instead of impaling it.
Urien grinned. “You’re learning. Pity for you it won’t be quick enough.”
Rotating his sore shoulder, Marten stalked around Urien, staying beyond the shorter man’s reach. Urien spotted Marten’s objective before he reached it: a small, decorative shield, mounted on the wall above a serving table bearing wine flagons.
“I don’t think so.”
Urien attacked in a blur of sword strokes, forcing Marten to relinquish his goal. He backed away, seeking anything else he might use to his advantage. An array of gleaming cutlery caught his attention, and he snatched up a handful of meat skewers.
“Planning on a mid-fight snack, are we?”
Marten ignored the jibe. He passed his knife into his left hand along with the table leg, and palmed a spread of skewers in his right. Urien lunged towards the shield Marten had been going after, and Marten threw the skewers after him.
Two of them slammed home, penetrating Urien’s upper arm. The sword fell from his limp hand.
Urien shrieked a curse, and Marten ducked, dodging a metal box flying towards his head. Urien plucked the skewers free, and discarded them with a clatter. Then he lunged towards Betha.
Marten yelled a warning, but Betha was still too stunned to respond, her head barely lifted from the floor when Urien grabbed her by the hair.
“I’ll cut her throat,” he hissed. Crouching over her, he yanked her head back, and pressed a slender knife against her skin. Marten froze.
Urien narrowed his eyes and gave a lazy smile. “You really fell for the bitch, didn’t you? Poor fool. I’m betting you won’t stand aside and watch her die.”
“Please. You don’t have to do this.” Marten shuffled his feet, checking for anything beneath his soles that might throw him off balance. He would only have one chance. He dropped the table leg and ran his hands through his hair, palming a tiny throwing dagger from a hidden sheath in one long cuff as he did so. He hugged both hands around the back of his neck.
“I thought your master had plans for the lady?”
His reminder fetched an instant of doubt to Urien’s face. An instant Marten seized.
As did Betha.
She grabbed the blade at her throat with both hands, heedless of it slicing into her palms, at the same instant as Marten loosed his throwing knife. It struck home with a meaty thunk in Urien’s upper torso, and the treacherous lord’s shrill scream fetched a satisfying glow of warmth to Marten’s belly.
Urien’s nerveless hand relinquished the knife he’d held to Betha’s throat. With a deft twist, she reversed the blade and plunged the sharp point into his gut. He dropped to his knees, eyes bulging, and hands scrabbling ineffectually at where his own weapon impaled him. His breath came in panicked gasps as Marten closed the distance between them.
The king bent over his duplicitous subject, to peer closely into Urien’s glazing eyes.
“Haven’t you heard? I enjoy inflicting pain,” he said sardonically, and drove the knife deeper into Urien’s chest.
Betha elbowed Urien in the ribs and he toppled sideways. His last words bubbled up with a gush of scarlet blood. “Charin will have you yet. He has plans for...”
Urien’s final exhalation whistled out, and the blood flowing from his mouth decreased to a trickle, then a few drips. Marten stood over the body. He had to lock his knees to remain on his feet, his muscles trembled so violently.
Nonni. Our child. He killed them. Their souls are gone forever. What sort of monster can do such a thing?
Tears clouded his sight. He blinked quickly before focusing on Betha. Astonishment tangled with grief, and he took a conscious grip on his rapid breathing, forcing it to slow.
We survived.
The tension in his muscles began to fade, draining towards the ground and out through the soles of his boots.
We survived, he repeated to himself. Chel saw fit to spare our souls.
Chel’s parting words to him the night before echoed through his head. “Magic is born of the soul. That is where you must seek your answer.”
His gaze rested on the crown of Betha’s fair head. His heart ached when he imagined being apart from her. His rage at Edlund, and at Urien, for threatening her, reverberated through his entire being. He would—and had—killed to protect her, and he knew without question, he would do so again.
He pictured Charin, blasting divine lightning from his hands. If that was what the Temple called a miracle, and what Betha’s beautiful soul produced was evil magic, then the clerics had it all wrong!
That’s what you were trying to tell me, wasn’t it?
He didn’t need a reply from Chel to know he’d finally seen the truth. Magic wasn’t either holy or evil, it was just magic. The difference was the user’s intent.
He shook his head, astounded he’d been so blinkered, for so long. To think, he’d condemned Betha to suffer when she didn’t need to, and she’d stayed true to her promise to him, no matter the cost. Who could be worthier to become his queen than the woman he’d wronged through prejudice and stubborn reaction to events?
Besides, Marten could no longer imagine a future without Betha. He loved her. He wanted to share the rest of his life with her. And that mattered more to him than any political alliance, the approval of his advisors, or even the religious dictates of the Temple.
Betha stirred, pushing herself up off the floor. Wondering if she would ever be able to forgive him for his stupidity, Marten offered a hand to help her rise.
To his dismay, she shrank away.
“Betha—”
The odour of relaxing bowels rose from Urien’s corpse.
Betha sniffed and shuddered. Without a word, she spun, and hurried towards the door with her bleeding hands tucked into her armpits.
“You’re hurt!” Marten protested, desperate to explain himself, but terrified of what her reaction might be.
She flung an answer over her shoulder, but her strides never faltered. “So are you.”
Suddenly a host of varied pains hit Marten all at once: his shoulder, his back, a gash in his upper arm he hadn’t noticed before.
He limped after her. “Slow down!” he implored.
But Betha lengthened her steps, slipped through the door, and vanished into the passageway beyond.
40. GUARDS
BETHA FLED ALONG THE palace’s eerily empty corridors, ignoring the pains in her hands and her shoulder. Before, such sensations would have kindled a thrill she’d have savoured at leisure. Now, they were of no consequence, aside from the mess her bleeding palms were making on her borrowed shirt.
She gulped, and increased her speed, racing around corners, heedless of who might be coming the other way. Not since the coup had the palace been this deserted, and even if she did run into anyone she knew, Betha no longer cared how her contemporaries regarded her. All she wanted was to escape her thoughts, her feelings, her desperate love for a man she could never have.
When she’d looked up from Urien’s body to see Marten standing above her, tall and strong—a mortal man who’d defied the god and lived—Betha had finally accepted he was beyond her reach. She’d been thinking of him as a potential husband, not as a divinely appointed king. How egotistic of her! Who was she, after all? A lowly widow of a minor House. A nobody. Even if he hadn’t rejected her because of her magic, she was too low born to command the love of such a powerful monarch.
No, Marten had done the right thing when he’d dismissed her. She could come to terms with that, though it burned in a manner she assumed must be how others experienced pain.
How did they put up with it? She felt like she was being torn apart from the inside out.
The great double doors of the royal suite loomed before her. A single guard stood to attention outside, and he made no move to stop her as she pushed past him, only saying, “My lady, there’s a—” before she slammed the door in his face.
Betha stumbled to a halt, scanning Marten’s reception room through a veil of tears. Why had she come here? Why hadn’t she gone to her own rooms? What was she thinking?
She turned to leave, just as Marten stepped into the room.
And saw, too late, the dark shadow of a woman hiding behind the open door.
“Ware!” she shrieked.
TOO MANY THINGS WHIRLED through Marten’s mind at once. His love for Betha, and how her apparent rejection pained him more than any knife or sword cut he’d ever received. Nonni, his child, and their hideous end. Davi’s death. Edlund arranging the riot by having Lorndar murdered. Had the guards managed to bring the city under control yet? The palace seemed empty. Presumably his nobles were hiding in their plush, comfortable apartments, while the majority of the guards were out on the streets, striving to restore order.
How many people had been hurt, or died, because he’d not acted swiftly and called a council meeting immediately after Lorndar put his proposal forward?
A solitary guard stood outside the royal suite, the second nowhere to be seen.
“Sire! Mistress—”
Marten cut him off. “Yes, I know,” he said. He’d seen Betha enter the suite before the door closed behind her. By the lesser title the guard had used, he mustn’t have recognised Betha, dressed as she was in oddments of Marten’s own clothing.
He gave the door a hard shove and strode in.
BETHA’S HEART LURCHED as Marten twisted and dipped to one side in response to her warning cry. The tip of the assassin’s blade sliced through his tunic, missing his skin by a hair’s breadth, but the move threw him off balance, and he staggered a few steps with his hands outstretched. The woman—Marganie, the seamstress, Betha recognised with shock—yanked her dagger free from Marten’s clothing and, with a maniacal leer, plunged it towards the king’s exposed neck, even as he spun to face her.
Betha flung herself in front of Marten.
“No!” Marten’s howl of denial cut through Betha’s ears, even as the blade drove into her chest. It slid smoothly between two ribs, stopping only when the short quillions to either side of the hilt kissed her skin.
Sweet agony flared through her body, transforming with shocking speed from the customary exhilaration to something utterly foreign. Her legs failed and she sagged back against Marten. Pain careened along her nerves, radiating outward from the invading metal. The blood pumping through her arteries mutated into liquid torment. Every breath scorched her lungs, pain like she’d never experienced before.
Poison, her stunned mind recognised. The blade must be poisoned!
Betha’s clouding vision registered a struggle in front of her, and she identified Lady Risada grappling with the assassin.
Why would Marganie want to harm Marten? I don’t understand, but sweet Chel, thank you for letting me save him. I’ve done my duty; my king is safe. I’m ready to return to you.
