With his dead eyes and dead voice, this was how I’d imagined the warmongering general before meeting him. With his massive physique, here was the Ghalubu of lore. Here was the Razer of dreaded legend.
Here towered a fae and a sänglure capable of conquering a world, no matter the cost.
Of all the men and women I’d assassinated, I’d never killed one I truly feared before.
For the first time, I feared Alobaz Hawxley.
I longed for the blades I’d arrived at the castle with and that the Bazrians had confiscated. Scorch, I’d happily accept second-best and take my poisons or magical amulets. Without access to my power, I needed some tool to wield against him.
But nothing separated the Razer from me. A bewitched rope bound me to him. An enchanted castle had separated me from Marina and any other possible support. I might be stuck in Mauldrene’s guts with him until one of us killed the other.
Because that’s the only way it could end between us.
A D’Arco and a Rubor.
Only one dynasty was allowed to remain standing.
He stalked toward me with steps so firm it seemed they should have shaken the cave’s entire foundation. Worse, they barely set to jiggling the flesh-like floor.
I backed up. He followed. I retreated more. My back hit a slimy, damp wall that felt like it was breathing—ick. I inched away from it, even though it put me closer to him. I needed room to move. I would need to attack with my body. My fingers clenched and unclenched, stretching, readying. My knees bent slightly. I loosened my shoulders.
“Stop,” I said.
He didn’t. He kept right on bearing down on me. Those black eyes narrowed as if I were the only thing they saw.
“Knock it off!”
He did stop now, but only because our chests were mere inches apart. I had to crane my neck back to meet his eyes, those abysmal eyes.
“What the fuck do you want?”
“You,” that dead voice said. “I want you.”
When he crashed his mouth against mine, I pulled the dragon-hide book from my waistband, and smacked him on the head with it.
With a growl, he pulled back—seemingly just to glower at me. His mouth was zooming toward mine again when the cave around us began to vacillate and fade—like a sunrise creeping along shadows, obliterating them, more than that former rainbow.
I gripped the book against my chest as my feet were swept out from under me—and I found myself falling … upside down.
Chapter 19
For Soldiers Who Never Fully Leave Behind Their Battles
Even as I was falling—or rather ascending while feeling like I was falling—I spared a moment from my fright to wish that I would never, ever, fucking ever have to experience something like this again. Some invisible force, which I suspected was Mauldrene, had clutched me by the ankles and yanked me upward at a speed that had to rival the flight of the mighty dragons.
My internal organs felt piled up against my throat as if they might burst free through my mouth. My hair streamed beneath me like a whipping banner while I resisted the urge to fling out my arms in what would have been futile resistance. Instead, I gripped the dragon hide book to my chest as if it were a lifeline that would get me through this—when there was no guarantee the indecipherable treatise would ever help with anything at all.
I didn’t see Baz, but the Rillis rope tugged at my wrist, suggesting it remained attached to him, however the combined faithum of the rope and castle allowed. The cave had long ago disappeared, replaced by what was perhaps yet another of Mauldrene’s long tunnel-like quasi-intestines. In the absolute darkness, there was no way to tell while I was flying upward with my head and feet pointed in the wrong direction.
I didn’t scream. Being inverted at such velocity overcame every one of my usual reactions and emptied me of most thoughts save one: This won’t last forever. It will end. I told myself again and again. I held on to this singular hope as hard as I did the book.
So long later that I had no way to count, I was flipped right-side up and unceremoniously pitched onto a hard surface. I slammed onto my hands and knees hard enough to rattle my fangs, before coming to a stop. Thank Fortune, it was finally over.
Although I was no longer moving, my body still felt as if I was. The floor beneath me seemed to roll. The darkness, a little fainter than before, appeared to swirl.
With the grace of a lumbering pygmy ogre, I flattened myself onto a tangled curtain of my hair and groaned. For dragon’s sake, even lying fully down I couldn’t get the world to cease its horrific moving!
A heavy weight plummeted behind me—or was it beside me? With the impact of a star hurtling from the sky, it rocked my body.