Bloodguard

chapter 60

Maeve

The sword hidden in my skirts—the one I’m planning to switch out for Grandfather’s—isn’t real. It’s a mere replica that Lita located in Vitor’s former apartment. It’s slightly shorter and about as sharp as a spoon. It’s made well enough that the real one won’t be missed if someone journeys down after us, but the blade is definitively not enough to bring an ogre down.

I let out a breath when Tut turns to continue through the maze. Ordinarily, I would never go unarmed like this, but Soro stripped my room of anything I could use against him, going as far as removing anything glass, including the bottle of belladom. I can’t imagine how he guessed my many fantasies about smashing it over his head and shoving the broken shards up his nose, but here we are.

I keep my eye on Tut’s dominant hand as he lumbers ahead of me. If I don’t reach Grandmother’s statue in time, my speed and agility will be my only protection.

Tut’s meaty shoulders droop with relief as we reach the end of the maze. The incline lies just ahead, ripples of heat pulsating from Aurora’s nest and creating small waves in the soil.

He motions me forward. “After you,” he says.

Ah, no. I don’t think so. No way am I putting this ogre at my back.

I pretend to cough. With all this dust and surging heat, it’s not that hard. I wave him ahead, my sweaty fingers so slippery, I fling off one of the emerald rings I’m wearing. It bounces off Tut’s hard chest and to the ground. He doesn’t pick it up.

“You first. You’re the one who must figure out the dynamics of the gate to set the great phoenix free,” I say, snatching the ring from the dirt.

He cocks his head, the muscles along his bulldog-like features tightening with distrust. Fine. I don’t trust him, either.

“Tut, go on. My job is easy.”

He grunts and stomps toward Aurora’s cage, kicking up dirt and ash with every step, his fingers gripping the handle of his double-headed axe the size of my torso.

I untie the replacement sword and slip out of my skirt, revealing the breeches I wear underneath. Stars, it’s wretched in here. I hoped losing a layer would help, but Aurora is far too powerful, her body generating heat like a burning star. At least if my fears are realized and Tut is not true, I won’t be hindered by heavy fabric as I make my escape.

I strike out again when Tut is far enough ahead of me. Aurora isn’t out, but her nest has grown in the days since I was down here last. I can already see it, and I’m not yet to the top of the incline.

Thankfully, the nest is still. Good. My biggest fear was that we’d find her preening herself and then she’d pelt us with fireballs and swallow us whole.

I’m not exaggerating, based on our last encounter.

Tut, being Tut, is making a lot of noise as he scurries from side to side, trying to locate an unlocking mechanism. I look up at the stalactites stained to a dark, dull purple. Mercifully, they’re not currently dripping blood onto the composite of ashen soil and long-decaying bones upon which I stand.

But the same won’t be said tomorrow.

“There’s no lock,” Tut grunts. He glares at me accusingly, as if I’m somehow responsible. “There’s only one way to get her through.”

I feel my body tense as Tut bellows a cloud of steam from his nose, speckling his face with condensation. He looks at the heap of ash covering Aurora, far out of his reach beyond the bars, and then back to me, eyes narrowing. Oh, and he looks pissed about it.

Chills race down my spine despite the heat. “You plan to kill her, don’t you?”

Tut straightens, his full attention on me now—just how a murderer might look at his next victim. The moment he does, I leap onto Queen Avianna of Iamond, and I climb.

I pretend not to notice Tut pushing away from the gate, trying to keep my voice light so he does not suspect me of suspecting him . “It’d be easier to get her out, and yes, she’ll be more portable, but that won’t make you any better than my grandmother.”

My full attention stays on Tut as I swap out the swords. But Tut is a general—stronger than me—without a speck of reason left behind those beady black eyes. I was right. He never planned to set her free.

He was a sniveling traitor all along.

“You’re the one who’s no better than your damn grandmother,” he says.

Ah. It’s going to be like that…

Tut marches toward me, raising his axe. “Like her, you ruin everything for everyone.”

Fuck this.

I hold my grandfather’s sword in my right hand, snatch my grandmother’s in my left, and flip, landing in a crouch with both blades out.

Tut stops dead.

As he should.

Slowly, his leathery features tighten, and his eyes latch onto mine and stay there. “I’m getting her out tonight. Whatever it takes, I’m doing it.”

“You said you were only coming down here to prepare for Aurora’s release. You never said anything about taking her tonight,” I say to keep him talking until I can come up with a way out of this.

“Killing her is the only way,” he snarls, his thick tongue sliding over his tusks. “But I need fresh meat to call her forth.”

Fresh meat meaning me. That’s why he agreed to bring me here.

The damn nerve.

I twirl my swords to loosen my wrists. “Then I suggest you cut off a leg and toss it into her nest, because you will not be touching me.”

The bottom lip of his protruding mouth slaps up and down like he’s tasting me on Aurora’s behalf. I don’t know what it is about this bird, but it seems like everyone obsessed with her eventually goes mad.

“Say you succeed in killing me.” I narrow my eyes. “Not that you will, as I will kindly feed you your right testicle the moment you think to try.”

The space we occupy between rows of stalagmites and piles of bones isn’t large, but it’s enough for us to circle each other. One foot over the other—that’s how we start. “You can’t leave this castle without getting caught,” I say.

I continue to sidestep, my blades at the ready.

“Watch me,” Tut growls. He angles closer, his gnarly toenails digging into the dirt.

“No,” I growl in return. “It’s a mistake to free her now.” Or kill and steal her, as he plans.

“Aurora needs to be freed. The Erth depends on it!” he screeches. “My people depend on it. On me. And I will have her!”

My back is to the golden gate. Not exactly the best place to be. But I have the swords now, and I can certainly run faster than an ogre. I just need to get past him.

“If I die, and I won’t,” I promise, “Soro will know it was you. He’ll come after you and everyone you’ve ever spoken to, knowing you robbed him of the throne.”

“No body, no blame,” he snarls.

He charges.

And I meet him halfway.

He raises his weapon.

I raise both of mine.

Cling, clang, cling .

He swings one way, I the other, blocking him with Grandmother’s sword, whirling and slicing open his gut with Grandfather’s.

I spin away from his next blow and cut a new hole in his face.

Tut raises his axe in both hands and brings it down. I hop back and whirl out of reach, and he…explodes.

Chunky bits of Tut slide across the expanse, battle axe spinning through the air until it hits the golden bars of Aurora’s cage with a massive clang .

That was unexpected.

As if summoned by the dinner bell, the ground trembles as the great phoenix wakes. And who should saunter toward me, sparks of the lavender magic she used to ignite Tut dancing across her skin, but Aisling.

She points accusingly at me. “You dare plot against Soro…”

A terrible heat builds at my back, crawling its way up my spine.

Aisling’s jaw slackens as her gaze lifts and lifts and lifts. Her finger lowers, flames reflecting in her lavender irises.

Fire builds behind me as Aurora continues to rise, lengthening our shadows across the sweltering terrain.

My body overheats as I race past Aisling and dive over a high section of bones.

Flames of red and gold burst forth as Aurora spreads her wings and flaps, causing a wind so fierce that bones scatter like leaves, and I have to shield my face from the debris. Aisling screams when Aurora’s serpentine tongue snakes out from behind the bars of her cage, lapping at the bloody chunks that once were Tut.

Another heat source builds, this time to my far right. I scramble up and over the next mess of bones as a sphere of lavender fire barrels down the row I just abandoned.

I don’t have to wait for Aisling to build more magic. Her screams of terror and fury manifest more power in record time.

“You took him from me!” she says, somewhere to my left beyond a maze wall. “And now you seek to steal the phoenix from us, too!”

Yes, Aisling, that was my intent all along. All I was thinking about was you. I roll my eyes and hunker down, trying to pinpoint her location as her voice draws closer.

Aisling didn’t know about the phoenix. Soro never shared that little secret. She knows it now, and she’s taking it out on me.

“He’s mine! Do you hear me, Maeve?” Aisling shrieks over the slurps and gulps of the phoenix. “All of this was always supposed to be mine!”

Shards of bones burst from the wall inches from me. I grip my swords and take off, leaping over pile after pile of dead gladiators as Aisling sends funnels of flame after me.

Her hands rise, fall, and turn as she manipulates her fire power to chase me down. Walls of bones explode into shards, embedding in the dirt and walls.

A skull slams into my back. I lose Grandfather’s sword when a piece of stalagmite strikes my wrist and knocks it free.

I double back to the opening of the maze as Aurora spits out Tut’s moist bones. She watches Aisling manipulate a fireball of magic, her head tilting side to side with interest. She elongates her neck and tastes Aisling’s flames.

Aisling’s fire, powerful enough to burn down a manor, does nothing to Aurora, who simply shudders, unharmed and evidently unimpressed.

“Yes, great phoenix,” Aisling says, her voice as disturbing as Tut’s glistening remains. “Feed from me. You are my sister, as I am yours.”

I fall to the ground, covering my head when another sphere of flame crashes into the maze. I crawl away, but not before finally catching sight of Aisling hidden behind a section of demolished bone.

She thinks that by ducking and shooting she’s safe. Mages are like that. They tend to believe that nothing can touch them.

But I’m an elf and a warrior.

Fast.

Agile.

Strong.

I close in.

Aisling turns around, a sphere of white-hot lavender flame building in her palm as I cut her from her shoulder to her groin.

I use the momentum to roll behind the statue of my grandmother.

Aurora, still hungry and crazed for fresh death, ribbons her tongue around the two body parts that were once Aisling.

I turn and rest my back on the base of Avianna’s statue.

Aisling was wrong. She and Aurora weren’t sisters. Aisling was just a woman who bullied my Giselle to tears, cut me down every time we met, and destroyed my home. I do not even pity her.

My lungs draw air in painful gasps. I lean over, hands on my knees, catching my breath and waiting for my heart to slow. After a few moments, I poke my head around the statue in time to see Aurora spit out Aisling’s bones.

“No body, no blame,” I whisper.