I Am Forever (What Kills Me) (38 page)

Her face twitched. I imagined a hairline fracture appearing in stone. She was gritting her teeth, and her eyes narrowed. But my anger swelled to engulf hers.

“Do you know how I saw you?” I asked her. “Because the Divine has powers that you’ve never dreamed of.”

She stepped against the balcony. “The Divine must be mistaken—”

“Don’t question me. I saw you.”

Her mouth went limp for a second before tightening up. When she spoke again, the points of her fangs protruded.

“This is what we feared the most. The enemy has brainwashed our Blessed,” she said. “The Divine has been compromised, set upon us to bring war.”

“I don’t want war, Empress.”

“Will the Divine submit herself willingly to the Monarchy to protect the nation?”

“Submit myself? You mean, will I let you lock me up?”

“Will the Divine submit herself for the safety of everyone in the race, including those she holds so dear?” She sounded like a hissing snake.

“You can’t threaten me, and you will regret threatening my loved ones.”

“General!” the Empress shouted. “Move to protect the Monarchy.”

I saw Taren grab a rod from his belt. He extended it so that it became a three-foot baton. All the soldiers mimicked him, simultaneously revealing their weapons, the ends of which sparked with electricity.

They had prepared for this.

The crowd ignited. As more soldiers rushed in from the entrance, Lucas unsheathed his swords and backed up toward me.

I shouted over the din. “You’re wrong, Empress. The Monarchy chose war once with the Ancients and look what it cost you. So many vampires died. So many that you cared about. I don’t want to fight—”

“Your Highness,” Uther cried as clerics pushed him back. “Don’t do this!”

“I am the Divine. I want to protect you all. But I will not tolerate any threat to my family. And I will not be contained.”

“The Divine has been corrupted.” The Empress had regained her composure. She was like cold steel. “The Divine has been tainted by the terrorists and confused by human connection. We can no longer trust our Blessed to be loyal to the Monarchy. We must safeguard the nation.”

It never mattered what I said. She wanted this all along. She wanted to use me for as long as it suited her and then confine me forever.

“Zee,” Lucas said. It was a warning. The soldiers behind him were poised to charge.

“Clear the way. We’re getting out of here,” I whispered.

The Empress must have read my lips because she smiled. “Take the Divine into custody.”

“If it’s war that you want,”—I yanked the sword from its scabbard and held it over my shoulder—“here it is.”

The vampires started screaming.

My body was ablaze. I gripped the handle of my sword and pressed my shoulders down. I slid my feet apart as I waited for the first rush of soldiers to reach me.

You’re not locking me up. Ever.

With a cry I lunged forward, and with a wide sweep of my sword decapitated three soldiers. The spray of blood speckled the faces of oncoming vampires. But before they could register the deaths of their compatriots, I ran in between them, my slices deliberate and calculated, and I took each one out with a single swing. My sword drew lines across their necks. But I didn’t see their heads fall. I was already attacking the next enemy.

“Get off me!” Lucas growled. I turned to see him kick an attacker away; he bent backward, beheading two soldiers behind him, and then stabbed his swords into the eyes of another vampire. In that second of distraction I was surrounded. The soldiers hesitated, measuring the distance between us.

“Come on!” I shouted at them.

The soldiers jabbed their batons at me. I leaped up and spun, whipping my sword like a helicopter blade. I landed on the floor before their headless bodies toppled around me.

As I rose from a crouched position, I saw Taren behind the next wave of soldiers, armed with a sword and a baton. I severed the heads of two vampires to clear a path to the general.

Taren rushed me, his sword raised over his head. He jumped up and swung the blade down toward me.
What are you doing? You’re going to kill us all.

As I blocked his hit, he thrust the baton at my heart. Gasping, I twisted to avoid getting shocked and stumbled back. Taren batted my sword from my hands and it flew into the crowd.

Crap.

He stabbed at me again with the baton. I grabbed his wrist with my right hand and used my left to chop his Adam’s apple. He fell back, clutching his throat and gagging. I ran backward from the oncoming soldiers, contorting my body to escape their batons.

“Lucas!”

Lucas clipped a vampire’s head from his neck as if it was a dandelion bloom and then tossed me one of his swords. I caught it and immediately cut an attacker diagonally across his torso.

Sparks suddenly lit in the corner of my eye. I jerked my head just in time, and Taren’s baton skimmed the top of my ear. He bore down on me, our blades locked against one another, and he tried to prod me again. I easily shoved him off.

A soldier got in between us and I sheared off the vampire’s scalp. Taren stepped over the fallen soldier and attacked again. I countered his strikes, grabbed his collar, and threw him to the ground.

“Back off, Taren,” I said.

“Is the Divine unwilling to hurt the general?” Taren asked, using his baton to push himself to his feet.

“I don’t want to fight you. And why the heck are you referring to us in third person?”

He answered with a charge. But someone pushed me aside and met Taren with a sword.

“I’m willing to hurt the general,” Lucas said. The clash of their swords reverberated down their blades.

“And I’m willing to kill the swordsmith who risks the safety of us all,” Taren snarled.

The Empress leaned over the balcony. “End this bloodshed,” she shouted.

I didn’t know if she was addressing Taren, the soldiers, or me, but I answered, “It ends when you call off the attack.”

The room had mostly cleared out except for a few dozen stragglers who watched in stunned silence, their hands muzzling their mouths. Uther was hysterical, begging from under a horde of clerics who held his arms and legs. Body parts lay around us in bloody heaps, and red footprints blotted the white marble.

I tried to count the Aramatta closing in on us. But I lost count at twenty-five when three of them worked up the courage to strike.

With Lucas’s short sword I had to get closer to my enemies to cut them. I had to be even faster. I felt frenzied. Their cold blood splattered on me and into my open mouth as I cried out with each attack. I chopped their outstretched hands off before taking their heads. I bisected their skulls before kicking their bodies free of my sword.

This is war.

Two vampires pinned my sword to the ground with their batons while two others flung themselves at me. I released my weapon to catch them, and together we rolled backward. I landed on one vampire and skidded my foot along his chest and under his chin, separating his head from his body. Then I jumped in between the shoulder blades of the other soldier and grabbed his forehead, snapping his head back.

I flipped my hair from my face, which had become wet with blood, and saw Lucas and Taren trading blows, the sparks from their swords as fast and frequent as a flickering light. Taren’s collar had come undone and a wound was healing on his exposed chest.

Lucas was right. He was better than his brother. The harder Taren fought, the more agitated he became and the more he lost control. It was as if each vibration down the shaft of his sword rendered him slightly weaker and more off balance. He was losing his stability. I could see it. San had taught me to recognize it.

Lucas is going to kill his own brother. I have to stop this.

I turned back to intervene but soldiers flooded the space between us. I turned my hand into a spade before driving it through someone’s chest; his insides felt like cold soil mixed with stones.

I heard a scraping sound on the balcony and I looked back to see the Empress gripping the railing. She bared her fangs and then leaped over the balcony. She hit the ground without a sound and began walking toward me.

Holy hell.

Through the crowd, I saw Lucas spin and slash his brother’s forearm. Taren dropped his sword. I whipped my head toward the other side of the room. Without breaking her stride the Empress picked up a baton and tested it, the electricity reflecting in her eyes. She’d reach me before I could stop Lucas. And more soldiers were closing in.

“Goodbye, brother,” I heard Lucas say to Taren.

I have to stop you all.

I pulled the knife from the holster on my thigh as the crackle of electricity approached me from behind. I looked over my shoulder and met the Empress’s eyes. I knew what I had to do.

She must have known too because her face froze in horror. “No,” she said and broke into a run.

Yes.

I plunged the knife into my chest.

The agony was explosive. It seemed to come from deep within and radiated out. It spread. It spread until every part of me hurt.

I curled around the pain. My heart screamed. I gasped. I was blind. There was nothing but white. The pain was brash white light.

I blinked the blurriness from my sight. I didn’t remember having fallen, but the marble floor under me was slick with blood, so that I slipped when I tried to push myself up. The jerk caused my chest to burst with new pain. It felt like my body was being torn in half.

OH GOD.

I tensed and slowly sat up. Then reality caught up to my brain.
You just stabbed yourself. Oh my God. You just stabbed yourself.

The entire room echoed with screams. Vampires were sprawled everywhere, writhing, moaning, grabbing at their chests for a weapon that wasn’t there. Grimacing, I scanned the bodies, those that were still and those that were gripped with spasms. I found Lucas lying next to his brother. His arm was slung over his chest, pressing his wound; his tortured groans sounded as if he was choking.