Sorcery of Thorns (36 page)

“No,” Elisabeth said. “He would use me to reach Prendergast, and then he would kill me.”

Silk slithered against stone as Lorelei slid from the railing and emerged into the moonlight. She wore an obsidian dress that shone with jeweled
undertones, like a starling’s feathers. The flickering green of Nathaniel’s sorcery, intertwined with the gold of Ashcroft’s, reflected in the depths of her crimson eyes.

“Not now that he understands your value,” she breathed, her gaze fixed hungrily on Elisabeth’s face. “A girl who can resist magic—how special. Just imagine how useful you could be to him: able to see through any illusion, impervious
to the influence of demons. That will be an advantage in the coming days.” A smile curved her scarlet lips. “And if you stood at his side, he would reward you. I promise.”

“What do you mean, the coming days?” Elisabeth shifted her hold on Demonslayer, and felt sweat slicking the pommel. “What does Ashcroft want from Prendergast?”

“Oh, dear.” Lorelei’s lips curved in an enigmatic smile. “Did
I say too much?”

It was no use listening to demons, Elisabeth told herself. They were liars. Deceivers. Untrustworthy to the core.

Except when they weren’t.

A scraping sound came from behind her: Silas attempting, in vain, to rise. She adjusted her stance, putting herself between him and Lorelei.

“What are you doing?” Lorelei’s eyes narrowed, trying to puzzle out Elisabeth’s actions. Shock
registered on her face, followed by dawning delight. “You foolish girl! You care for him!”

Elisabeth answered not with words, but with her sword. Demonslayer’s edge whistled through the air, passing within a hairsbreadth of Lorelei’s stomach as she took a dancing step backward, her long black hair streaming around her.

“This is even better than I had imagined,” she said, alight
with glee. “Silas
doesn’t return your tender feelings, you know. You will understand that one day.”

Elisabeth swung again and again, relentlessly driving Lorelei back against the railing. The demon laughed, a tinkling, rapturous sound, as she dodged each strike. She was baiting Elisabeth, toying with her. But not for long. She underestimated the strength of Elisabeth’s resolve—and the next moment she gasped, her
hand flying to her cheek. She stood frozen, staring wide-eyed at Elisabeth. A single rivulet of blood trickled out from beneath her fingers. Demonslayer had cut her face.

And now, its point rested at the hollow of her throat.

From this angle, Elisabeth could see the other battle raging across the pavilion. Black streaks charred the marble where Nathaniel’s whip had scored the ground. Both men
were out of breath, but still standing. Relief flooded her. Although Nathaniel’s sleeve had been sliced open, and his collar clung to his neck with sweat, he didn’t appear injured. Above the unraveling cravat, his face was a mask: fixed with concentration, dark hair tangled, his eyes and the streak at his temple the same shade of lucent silver.

His whip snaked out again, the tongue of emerald
flame licking toward Ashcroft, who struck the spell aside, then cried out and fell to one knee, catching himself with his demonic hand.

The strike had been a feint. While Ashcroft had been focused on Nathaniel’s whip, the rose vines climbing across the balustrade had come to life and lashed themselves around his ankle. When he moved to tear through them with his claws, more vines snapped out,
binding his wrist. The thorns squeezed tighter, pulling his arm taut. Grimly, Nathaniel advanced.

Demonslayer rested at Lorelei’s throat, unfaltering. A heartbeat passed. And then, impossibly, Lorelei was no longer there.

Elisabeth stumbled forward. She whirled around. Lorelei
stood balanced on the railing several yards away, petals swirling in the breeze created by her preternatural speed.
As Elisabeth watched with a sense of dawning horror, Lorelei brought her fingers to her lips and whistled.

An answering growl echoed across the pavilion. Elisabeth ducked just in time. The arbor exploded as though struck by a cannon, spraying torn blossoms and slivers of painted wood in every direction. A fiend hurtled past her and skidded to a stop on the marble, shaking loose the leaves tangled
in its horns. Then it exhaled a steaming breath and fixed its red eyes on Elisabeth. Several more fiends loped up the stairs, bone and sinew rippling beneath their scales.

She spun, trying to anticipate which of the demons would attack first. She aimed Demonslayer first at one target, then another, the sword’s point wavering with desperation. She couldn’t face the fiends and Lorelei at the same
time.

Seeing Elisabeth cornered, Nathaniel paled. He hesitated midincantation. This was the reaction Ashcroft had been waiting for.

Time seemed to slow as a seam of golden light appeared in the air in front of Ashcroft, and as he thrust himself into it, through it, vanishing from the place he had knelt to appear behind Nathaniel instead. The vines that had bound him unraveled to the ground like
cut ropes.

Nathaniel turned. Elisabeth screamed. Ashcroft’s clawed hand swept through the air, each talon as long as a knife. The blow struck with enough force to knock Nathaniel a step backward.

At first Nathaniel appeared unharmed, and Elisabeth entertained the mad hope that the blow had somehow missed him. He wore an expression of surprise, almost puzzlement. Then he stumbled back another
step. He looked down, where spots had
appeared here and there on his shirt, small at first, but spreading, blooming like poppies, soaking through the fabric until his entire chest was slick and red. The whip in his hand fizzled out. He dropped to his knees.

Elisabeth’s vision blurred. She threw herself forward, striking blindly at the fiend that crouched between her and Ashcroft.

Iron bit into
scales. The fiend howled as she yanked Demonslayer from its shoulder and struck again, and again, barely conscious of her body, the wild strength that filled her at the sight of Nathaniel stupefied and bleeding. With one last yelp, the fiend collapsed. Elisabeth leaped forward, using its toppling body as a springboard even before it struck the ground. For a moment, she seemed capable of flight.
Demonslayer shone like liquid moonlight, wreathed in steam; Nathaniel’s coat billowed out behind her, and the wind whistled in her ears.

But she never finished the leap. A weight slammed against her in midair, bowling her back to the ground. Her world dissolved into a jumble of rank breath, obsidian scales, a splatter of hot saliva across her neck. Demonslayer spun from her hand, striking sparks
on the marble as it skittered out of sight. Just as she began to make sense of the second fiend’s attack, a clawed foot pressed against her ribs, pinning her to the ground. Spots swam before her eyes as its weight crushed the air from her lungs.

At a ninety-degree angle, she watched Ashcroft draw his sword. Nathaniel was bent forward now, one hand braced on the ground, the other gripping his
chest. Blood twisted in a stream down his wrist.

Hopelessness grayed her thoughts. She saw no way they could survive this. No, not
they
—for
she
would survive, stolen back to Ashcroft Manor as the Chancellor’s prize. She realized, in despair, that she would rather die at Nathaniel’s side.

“I must admit,” Ashcroft said, “it’s a shame to see you go. The final heir of the great House Thorn, cut
down before his prime.” He considered Nathaniel as he ran his thumb down the sword’s edge, testing its sharpness. “Then again, you always were determined to be the last, weren’t you? You would do anything to prevent another Baltasar—another Alistair.”

Nathaniel’s shoulders hitched. His other hand struck the ground, catching his weight, leaving a gory imprint as his fingers shifted. Ashcroft watched
him pityingly.

“So I suppose,” he said, raising his sword, “that in a way, I’m merely giving you what you’ve always wanted.”

Nathaniel looked up, his eyes clear and cold. On the marble, using his blood, he had drawn an Enochian sigil. And it was beginning to glow with emerald light.

Ashcroft’s expression went blank.
So that’s what he looks like when he is truly taken by surprise
, Elisabeth
thought. The sigil blazed brighter and brighter, and he fell back with a shout of pain, throwing an arm over his eyes. She squeezed her own shut, feeling the magical shock wave ripple over her as a rush of tingling sparks.

The ground heaved. Marble cracked and crumbled. When she opened her watering eyes, it was to the sight of the rose vines, now as thick around as tree trunks, shedding fragments
of the balustrade. The pavilion had been imprisoned in a tangle of thorns, unearthly in the moonlight, like something from an old tale. The colossal spines pierced stone and demons alike. As she watched, the vines continued growing, curving and twining, wrapping the bodies of the fiends as their gleaming points stretched toward the starry sky.

She didn’t smell blood, or charred flesh, or anything
else foul. Only the sweet, wistful scent of the roses. The pressure on her
chest had lifted, and when she looked over her shoulder, she saw the fiend that had attacked her being enveloped by vegetation. The light faded from its eyes as buds unfurled into leaves, hiding it from view.

Ashcroft staggered, disoriented and blinking. He bumped into the interlocking thorns that had grown around him
like a cage. Elisabeth had eyes only for Nathaniel. As she watched, he swayed and passed out, collapsing in a pool of blood.

With a cry, she started forward. And in doing so, she stumbled straight into Lorelei’s waiting arms.

The demon folded her in a cold, hard embrace. A glamour’s numbing calm enveloped Elisabeth, forcing her thoughts to slow and her muscles to relax. She became an insect,
caught in a spider’s web.

“Relax now, darling,” Lorelei murmured into her ear. “It’s almost over. Once my master frees himself, he’ll make short work of the Thorn boy. Do you hear his heartbeat fading? I do.” Claws skimmed down the side of her face, over her ear, stroking her hair. The hands turned her around. “Watch him die.”

That was a mistake. At the sight of Ashcroft smashing through the
thorns to reach Nathaniel, Elisabeth felt everything at once: the sting of her cuts and bruises, the blood pumping through her veins, the night air filling her lungs, the breeze cooling her wet cheeks. Her surroundings grew sharp-edged and crystal clear as Lorelei’s influence faded to cobwebs.

And there was Silas. At some point during the battle, he had managed to drag himself up into a crouch.
Though agony fogged his yellow eyes, he watched her calmly, with meaningful intent. Demonslayer lay beside him, almost touching his bound hands. He looked at the sword and then back at her. He was waiting for her signal.

Elisabeth couldn’t nod. Lorelei would see. Slowly, like a cat, she blinked.

Demonslayer slid across the marble. When it came within reach, Elisabeth stomped on the hilt, flipping
the sword into the air. She ignored the bright slice of pain as she caught the naked blade in one hand and thrust it backward, deep into Lorelei’s body.

There was less resistance than she expected. Lorelei choked, coughed. Her claws tightened convulsively on Elisabeth’s arms. “You,” she gritted out. “How dare you—”

And then she was gone. The death of a highborn demon was not like that of a fiend.
No body remained, just tendrils of steam that wisped around Elisabeth, entangling her in a final embrace, smelling faintly of brimstone.

Without thinking, she staggered to Silas. She thrust Demonslayer through a link in the chains and twisted, levering the sword with all her might. Metal groaned. The link warped and split open.

Too late. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ashcroft raise his
sword above Nathaniel’s chest. She couldn’t get there in time. And Silas, weakened—

The chains clattered to the ground, coiled empty on the flagstones.

Ashcroft’s sword flashed in the moonlight, inscribing a downward arc.

And the point emerged red, protruding from Silas’s back, where the weapon had speared him through the heart. In the span of a breath he had appeared between Ashcroft and Nathaniel,
using his own body as a shield.

The world went still. Silence descended like frost. Silas’s loose hair hung down, hiding his face. After a moment his pale hand
rose to touch the length of iron that entered his chest, almost curiously, though in doing so, his claws sent up wisps of steam.

“I don’t understand.” Ashcroft spoke haltingly. “He didn’t command you to do that.”

Silas looked up at him.
Their expressions could not have been more different. Silas was a carven saint, his marble countenance beautiful, impassive, untouched by emotion or pain. And Ashcroft was a mortal confronted, for the first time in his life, by something he couldn’t comprehend.

“Had you let him die,” Ashcroft said, “your bargain would have been fulfilled. The life he promised you—you would have received it. But
now you’ve lost everything.”

“Yes,” whispered Silas. “I feel it. It is gone.”

Ashcroft’s eyes were wide. “Tell me why, demon! Tell me what you stood to gain—”

A trickle of blood ran from the corner of Silas’s mouth, shockingly red against his white skin. He closed his eyes, seemingly in relief. Then, he vanished.

The moment Ashcroft’s sword came free, Elisabeth was there to meet it. Iron clashed
against iron as she forced the Chancellor back, sparing none of her strength. He managed a series of clumsy parries; then Demonslayer locked with his sword’s hilt and wrenched the weapon from his grasp, sending it flying out of reach.

Panic flashed across his face. With a jolt, Elisabeth realized that both of his eyes were blue. Not only had his demonic mark vanished, his right sleeve hung in
tatters over a normal arm. In Lorelei’s absence, he was no longer a sorcerer, just an ordinary man.

Slowly, he lifted his empty hands in surrender.

“Are you going to kill me, Miss Scrivener?” he asked, his
face uncharacteristically solemn. “If you do, it will change you forever. It will set you down a path from which you cannot turn back. Believe me—I know.”