Queen of Air and Darkness
Page 161

Julian had seen to that.
“You couldn’t just leave well enough alone,” Zara hissed, lunging at Emma with her wrist held stiffly. Emma evaded the blow easily without needing to parry. “You had to be the moral busybodies. You had to stick your nose in everywhere.”
“Zara, you took over the government,” Emma pointed out, stepping aside as Zara lunged again. At this rate Zara would tire herself out. “Your father tried to murder us.”
“Because you wanted to hurt us,” Zara hissed. “Because there’s an us and a them, Emma, there always is. There’s the ones who want to protect you and the ones who want to hurt you.”
“That’s not true—”
“Really?” Zara tossed her filthy, bloody hair back. “Would you have been my friend? If I’d asked you?”
Emma thought of the things Zara had said about Downworlders. About Mark. About half-breeds and perverts and registries and cruelties large and small.
“That’s what I thought,” Zara sneered. “And you think you’re so much better than me, Emma Carstairs. I laughed when Livvy died, we all did, just at the looks on your smug, stupid faces—”
Rage flooded through Emma, white-hot. She slashed out with Cortana, turning the blade at the last second so that the flat hit Zara, knocking her off her feet. She hit the ground on her back, coughing blood, and spat at Emma as she leaned over her, laying the tip of Cortana against her throat.
“Go on,” Zara hissed. “Go on, you bitch, do it, do it—”
Zara was the reason they were all here, Emma thought, the reason they were all in danger: The Cohort had been the reason they had needed to fight and struggle for their lives, had been the reason Livvy had died there on the dais in the Council Hall. The yearning for vengeance was hot in her veins, burning against her skin, begging for her to thrust the blade forward and cut Zara’s throat.
And yet Emma hesitated. An odd voice had come into her head—a memory of Arthur Blackthorn, of all people. Cortana. Made by Wayland the Smith, the legendary forger of Excalibur and Durendal. Said to choose its bearer. When Ogier raised it to slay the son of Charlemagne on the field, an angel came and broke the sword and said to him, “Mercy is better than revenge.”
She had taken down the pictures in her room because she was done with vengeance. Cristina was right. She needed to be done. In that moment she knew she would never cut the parabatai rune, no matter what happened now. She had seen too many parabatai on the battlefield today. Perhaps being parabatai was a weakness that could trap you. But so was any kind of love, and if love was a weakness, it was a strength, too.
She moved the sword aside. “I won’t kill you.”
Tears spilled from Zara’s eyes and streaked down her dirty face as Emma stepped away from her. A second later Emma heard Julian call her name; he was there, hauling Zara to her feet by one arm, saying something about taking her where the prisoners were. Zara was looking from him to Emma, not trying to struggle; she stayed passive in Julian’s grip, but her eyes—she was looking past Julian, and Emma didn’t like the look on her face at all.
Zara made a little choking noise, almost a laugh. “Maybe I’m not the one you have to worry about,” she said, and pointed with her free hand.
Julian went white as chalk.
In a cleared space on the field, under the blue-black sky, stood Annabel Blackthorn.
It was as if the sight of her formed itself into a fist that punched Emma directly in the guts. She gasped. Annabel wore a blue dress, incongruous on the battlefield. A vial of red fluid glimmered at her throat. Her dark brown hair lifted and blew around her. Her lips curved into a smile.
Something was wrong, Emma thought. Something was very, very wrong, and not just the fact that Annabel couldn’t possibly be here. That Annabel was dead.
Something was more wrong than that.
“You didn’t really think you could kill me, did you?” Annabel said, and Emma saw that her feet were bare, pale as white stones on the bloody ground. “You know I am made of other stuff. Better stuff than your sister. You cannot make my life run out with my blood as I squeal for mercy—”
Julian let go of Zara and ran at her. He tore across the ground and flung himself at Annabel, just as Emma screamed his name, screamed at him that something was wrong, screamed at him to stop. She started toward him, and a blow hit her hard in the back.
The pain came a second later, hot and red. Emma turned in surprise and saw Zara standing with a small knife in her hand. She must have taken it from her belt.
The hilt was red and dripping. She had stabbed Emma in the back.
Emma tried to lift Cortana, but her arm felt as if it wasn’t working. Her mind, too, was racing, trying to catch up to her injury. As she tried to call out to Julian, choking on blood, Zara slammed the knife into Emma’s chest.
Emma’s legs went out from under her. She fell.
32
HEAVEN COME DOWN
It was all happening again.
Annabel was in front of him and she was looking at him with a sneering contempt. In her eyes he could see the reflection of himself on the dais in the Council Hall, soaked in Livvy’s blood. He saw her in Thule, screaming for Ash. He remembered the swing of his sword, her blood spreading all around her body.
None of it mattered. She would kill Emma if she could. She would kill Mark and Helen; she would cut Ty’s throat, and Dru’s, and Tavvy’s. She was the ghost of every fear he had ever had that his family would be taken from him. She was the nightmare he had wakened and not been able to destroy.
He reached her without slowing and plunged his longsword into her body. It slid in as if there was no resistance—no bones, no muscle. Like a knife through air or paper. It sank to the hilt and he found himself staring into her bloodshot scarlet eyes, barely an inch away.
Her lips drew back from her teeth in a hiss. But her eyes aren’t red. They’re Blackthorn blue.
He jerked back, dragging the sword with him. The hilt was dark with blackish ichor. The stench of demon was everywhere. Somewhere in the back of his head he could hear Emma calling to him, shouting that something was wrong.
“You’re not Annabel,” he said. You’re a demon.
Annabel began to change. Her features seemed to melt, to drip like candle wax. Beneath her pale skin and dark hair Julian could see the outlines of an unformed Eidolon demon—greasy and white, like a bar of dirty soap, pocked all over with gray craters. The glittering vial made of etched glass still dangled around its neck.
“You knew my brother,” the demon hissed. “Sabnock. Of Thule.”
Julian remembered blood. A church in Cornwall. Emma.
He reached for a seraph blade on his belt and named it quickly, “Sariel.”
The demon was grinning. It lunged at Julian, and he plunged the seraph blade into it.
Nothing happened.
This can’t be. Seraph blades slew demons. They always, always worked. The demon yanked the blade from its side as Julian stared in disbelief. It lunged for him, Sariel outstretched. Unprepared for the attack, Julian raised an arm to ward off the blow—
A dark shape slid between them. A kelpie, all razor-sharp, pawing hooves and fanged, glassy teeth. The faerie horse reared into the air between Julian and the Eidolon, and Julian recognized the kelpie: It was the one he had saved from Dane Larkspear.
It slammed a hoof into the Eidolon’s chest, and the demon flew backward, the seraph blade skidding from its hand. The kelpie glanced over its shoulder at Julian and winked, then gave chase as the Eidolon got to its feet and began to run.
Julian began to follow. He had gone only a few steps when pain went through him, sudden, searing.
He doubled over. The pain was all through him. His back, his chest. There was no reason for it except—
Emma.
He turned around.
It was all happening again.
Emma was on the ground, somehow, the front of her gear wet with blood. Zara knelt over her—it seemed as if they were struggling. Julian was already running, pushing past the pain, every stride a mile, every breath an hour. All that mattered was getting to Emma.
As he got closer, he saw that Zara was crouched beside Emma, trying to wrest Cortana from her red-streaked hand, but Emma’s grip was too fierce. Her throat, her hair, were wet with blood, but her fingers on Cortana’s hilt were unyielding.