The Destiny (Blood and Destiny Book 4) (22 page)

“Me?”

“My legacy. Your
destiny. Forgive me, my dear, but the
Anthonium
effects weaken the farther
one moves from the source. You have noticed a reduction in your healing ability,
have you not?” He reached into his pocket.

Larissa’s breath caught
in her throat. That explained why she struggled to heal anyone, including
herself, only she couldn’t figure out why he’d suddenly brought it up.

“And your Rifarin
creature—when was the last time you saw it?”

“I’ve not seen Imago
since we left Eptora.” She glanced down, looking around her ankles for any sign
of the cat.

Movement in front of
her caught her eye, and before she had a chance to react, Covelle launched
directly at her, a flash of wildness ghosting his eyes. He caught hold of her
shoulder, slamming her hard into the Machine. Her shoulder cried out in pain,
but the agony was quickly masked by another pain in her left arm.

She flailed and flung
him away, landing a punch across his jaw for good measure. He stumbled back, a
look of horror across his face as his hand trailed across his torso.

Larissa’s throat ran
dry when she saw the knife protruding from his chest. She’d struck him, without
even knowing, the act more of reflex than of cold intent. Her lower lip wobbled
as a pattern of dark red blood oozed across his white shirt. A tremble ran
through her body, beginning at her toes. As though an earthquake rocked her
core, she felt her skin crawling, bones creaking, blood boiling in her veins.
She tore her gaze from Covelle and looked down at her arm to find an unwelcome
addition. An empty syringe protruded from her upper arm. She plucked it out,
regarding it with detached interest as the strange sensations rolled around her,
as though she were standing in the ocean, wave upon wave crashing against her
body, slamming her against a rock.

Covelle grunted and
caught hold of the Machine as he tried to maintain balance.

“What did you do?” she
asked, black spots dancing around her vision.

“Your power is to
heal,” he spat as he clutched at his chest. “You will heal me…or I will burn
you.”

Her vision wobbled; the
sight of the Machine closed in around the edges, and she fell to her knees. “Holt.”
The intended scream came out as nothing more than a whisper as the threat of
unconsciousness claimed her mind.

Somewhere in the
distance, explosions echoed, and the smell of burning tickled her nose, but
nothing could rouse her body.

Kerrigan paced the General’s office. The
pointlessness of pacing didn’t deter him. In fact, he felt his mind worked
better during movement. If nothing else, he hated the sight of the chair behind
the desk and the image of the General’s rolls of fat sticking through the gaps
in the chair back. If that was what happened to a high-ranking officer after
spending too much time sitting behind a desk, he was going to avoid sitting at
all costs.

A knock at the door
stopped him in his tracks.

“Come,” he barked.

The door flung open,
and a nervous young man hurried in, clicking his heels together and smacking
himself in the head by way of a salute. It was sloppy—too sloppy for Kerrigan’s
liking—but he hardly had the time to worry about it.

“Report.”

“Sir, we’ve received a
response to your message.” The man thrust his arm forward and flapped a small
piece of paper at him.

He snatched it from the
soldier’s hand, considering an admonishment for the inappropriate delivery, but
his attention fell upon the message and all thoughts of protocol went tumbling
from his mind. How could he admonish a Private for such a minor error when he
himself had made possibly the stupidest move of his own career? Another knock
at the door sent the churning contents of his stomach into overdrive.

“Come,” he barked
again.

This time, Lieutenant
Saunders entered. Kerrigan dismissed the Private, who left the room with an
equally inept salute.

“Well?”

“They were not at the
tavern. They left a message with the barman for us to say they couldn’t wait.”

Kerrigan grimaced. He
had expected as much. After all, his displays of loyalty had been severely
lacking. He would have probably thought less of Larissa if she’d been hanging
around a tavern waiting for him to show up. No, that was not indicative of her
as a person. In any case, they’d both made a different choice. She hadn’t
waited, and he hadn’t gone to the tavern. It felt logical.

“Do you think they made
it in to the palace, Sir?”

“I don’t know. I don’t
think it matters either way.”

“Why?”

Kerrigan sighed and
passed the note to Saunders.

“Oh,” Saunders said.
“How long?”

“A few hours.”

“Do you think it’s the
right thing to do?”

“Covelle will make his
move soon. I’d rather be prepared for it than be caught sitting in here with my
thumb up my ass.”

“But the President—”

“Doesn’t have a clue
what’s coming his way. If we win and he lives, he’ll condemn me for going over
his head. If we win and he dies, we might get lucky. If we lose…well, then
everything is screwed.”

Saunders spoke, but his
words were silenced by the dull clanging of an alarm bell at the opposite end
of the fort. Kerrigan bit down on his teeth and launched towards the door. As
he burst into the corridor, a second and third clanging bell joined the first.
Kerrigan barrelled past a soldier marching in the opposite direction. His hands
curled into fists. The additional bells were not needed; the first was
sufficient enough, but now he would have to waste time trying to figure out
which of them had started first to see where the threat was coming from.

His march turned into a
jog as voices in the courtyard shouted. His eyes locked onto the young Private
who’d delivered the message, who now stood in the open, loading a crossbow. The
sight sent Kerrigan’s heartrate through the roof. The jog turned into a full-speed
run as he reached the courtyard, watching the soldiers to see which direction they
were looking. As he suspected, most of the men were climbing the steps to reach
the walkway stretching around the wall of the fort, and most of them were
bunching up toward one spot. His feet thumped across the stony gravel ground of
the courtyard, and he grabbed a crossbow from yet another soldier struggling to
load the bolt. He took the steps two at a time, shoving past people on either
side until he finally turned his gaze skyward.

“Shit.”

He hoisted the crossbow
onto the wall and snapped the bolt into place as a dark shadow of a pirate
airship hull flew overhead. Gunshot rang out from the soldiers atop the walls
of the fort, splintering the wood above their heads and generally doing not
much good at all. Kerrigan raised the crossbow, the pain in his shoulder
screaming in complaint at the action. He ignored it and back-stepped along the
wall until the balloon of the airship came into view. He took aim and held his
breath.

A face popped into view
over the edge of the ship—a pirate taking aim directly at him with a rifle.
Without thinking, he lowered the crossbow slightly and released the trigger.
The bolt flew through the air, and the pirate’s head disappeared in a spray of
blood as the bolt shot straight through his face.

“Shit,” he said again
as he realized he had no other bolts. “Bring it down!” he yelled to the
gathering of soldiers still uselessly pelting the ship with gunfire.

Below, in the
courtyard, the familiar sound of a crossbow firing caught his attention. He
glanced over just in time to see the young Private had finally loaded the
weapon and shot directly through the canopy of the ship.

“They’re coming about,”
Kerrigan called as he spotted the Captain tugging on the wheel to try to steer
away from the fort as the hole in his canopy affected his course. “Take out the
rudder,” he yelled to the soldiers nearby. The men followed his instruction,
turning their weapons toward the rudder and tearing it apart. “Man the
turrets.” Kerrigan grabbed the nearest man and dragged him down the wall to a
nearby turret, shoving him in front of the aging weapon—a cumbersome, ancient
piece of machinery which hadn’t been updated for years. No one expected the
city to find itself under attack, so far inland and usually filled with
soldiers to defend.

Kerrigan grabbed
another soldier and shoved him beside the first, instructing him to provide
ammo and help reloading. More men filled the other turrets surrounding the fort,
and the heavy guns and cannons fired at the other ships flying over the city.
Ten ships in total, more than had escaped the battle at Sallarium, all pirates.
Kerrigan glanced over the cityscape, the cries of people below ringing out
between the sound of cannons and guns. The first airship dipped down below the
fort wall at the rear, and an almighty thud rocked the ground as the ship crashed.
He hoped to hear an explosion follow; the promise of a ship full of pirates
burning to a crisp would help their cause. The explosion didn’t happen.

“Damn. Cover the back
wall.”

A few soldiers followed
his command, but as he glanced at his forces, the situation looked grim. They
were outnumbered and outgunned. Even if they managed to bring down two thirds
of the ships, the remaining pirates could take the city, and as the other ships
turned in the skies heading directly toward the palace, away from the fort, he
knew the battle would be pointless.

“Sir, are we to abandon
the fort and protect the palace?” Saunders shouted to him from nearby.

“Yes,” he called back,
still not convinced that doing so would be such a good idea. If he took his
group of men and came across Larissa and the others, how could he stop them
from attacking one group of misplaced people in favour of another? “Hurry up,”
he whispered up to the heavens.

Cid grunted out loud as he reached the top
of the staircase and found yet another door. He leaned forward and stuck his
ear against it, straining to listen to anyone speaking on the other side. He
knew it would be too much to hope to hear Larissa and Holt having a jolly
chitchat nearby, but he longed for it regardless. After listening for a moment
and hearing nothing, he pushed slightly on the door. It didn’t budge. For
perhaps the hundredth time in the last half hour, he looked behind him and
considered going back; the voice at the back of his head sounded warier than
usual, but he dismissed it. He’d survived this far. What difference did yet
another stuck door and dangerous path make now?

An unusual smell
tickled the inside of his nose, and he scrunched it in circles to try to
prevent a sneeze. It smelled similar to the smoky air he’d left behind in the
basement of the citadel, only less
normal
.

He crouched down and
plucked a tool from his belt, jamming it into the lock.

“Fucking criminal
lockpicking…bugger.” The tool proved ineffective, and as he glanced at the
small hole, he saw why. It was not locked.

He stood and tried the
door again, giving it a shove with his shoulder. The heavy door shifted
slightly, and he found the problem; something on the other side was blocking
it. Two more shoves revealed the blockage—a dead body—but the open door
revealed something far more shocking.

Cid faltered as he came
face to face with a Machine. His jaw popped open. He didn’t swear or invoke the
Gods. His entire mind fell blank upon seeing the colossal structure. His
perusal of it lasted only a moment before movement below caught his eye. He
crouched down, one knee perched oddly atop the dead man’s chest, though he had
neither the time nor the inclination to care for the dead. He saw Larissa lying
on the floor and worried he might be too late. Was she already dead? Pacing
around her, walking in a slow circle, he saw the outline of Imago, the ghost
Rifarin. The cat paused once and nuzzled its nose into Larissa’s neck, but it
seemed the animal’s efforts couldn’t rouse her.

Cid reached out to grip
the edge of the metal walkway as another figure came into view. Solomon Covelle
leaned against the Machine, clutching at his chest with one hand as blood
spilled from a wound. Smoke rose up from the contact between Covelle’s other hand
and the Machine; the metal structure seemed to be melting under his touch. Covelle
turned and placed both hands upon one of the large copper domes, and the
surface lit up in reaction as though it had been placed inside a furnace. Cid couldn’t
process the image before him—it was impossible, unnatural. He considered
lurching forwards to capture the man, but his feet wouldn’t launch into action.
He groped around inside his tool belt and found one of the heavy spanners Elena
had given as a gift.

Cid let out a puffed
laugh, kissed the spanner, then flung it down. It turned end over end and
finally clocked Covelle on the back of the head.

Time seemed to freeze
for a moment as Cid waited for a reaction. He had expected the man to fall
forwards, preferably face-first into the melting dome. Instead, Covelle fell
backwards slowly, arms dropped to his sides, and he crashed into the floor, out
cold.

Imago turned and
crouched down, growling first at Covelle and then towards Cid.

“Bloody cat,” he said
as he leaned back, away from the dead body.

The Machine continued
to melt, a line of white-hot fire steadily spreading in all directions along
the dome. Steam and smoke fizzled up towards the gas lamps in the ceiling.
Those same lamps rocked side to side as the dull thud of explosions outside the
room became apparent. Before the nightmarish journey, Cid wouldn’t have been
able to tell the sound of a firecracker from that of gunfire. Now he could
place the sound even deep underground. Cannon fire.

He stood and made for
the staircase. Imago placed his paw over Larissa’s body, protecting her as he
had always done.

“It’s me, you stupid
animal. Let me help her,” Cid said, the smoke from the fire tickling his throat
and inducing a cough. The copper turned to liquid and pooled on the floor,
melting through the wooden floor panels to reveal an iron underlay. The wooden
flooring caught fire, flames spreading out in all directions and threatening
Larissa’s prone form. He reached the ground as the heat and smoke intensified,
caring little for Covelle, who lay unconscious on his back, blood soaking his
shirt.

Finally, he reached
Larissa, pulled the needle from her arm, suppressing the string of expletives
that wanted to emerge. He grabbed her hands and bent down to throw her light
form over his shoulders, just as he’d done before, a physical embodiment of the
Professor’s greatest dream burning to ash around them.

His lungs filled with
smoke. Tears sprang from his eyes, running in streaks down his face as he
lifted Larissa into the air. She woke then, kicking out so hard he dropped her
instantly.

“Cid!” she said as she
scrambled to her feet, backing away from the fire, gripping his hand and
tugging him along. “How did you get here? I thought you’d been caught.”

“No, that bloody guard
just wanted to know the name of my employer so he could write it in his report.
I had to make something up on the spot. Then he started asking me advice on how
to fix his sodding oven.” Cid coughed through the explanation as they both
backed away to the nearest door, watching with horror as the Machine succumbed
to the flames. Imago continued to pace up and down beside Covelle’s body.

“Imago,” Larissa
shouted. The cat turned and headed towards them. “Narry and Sandy?”

“The Friar couldn’t
handle the smoke, so I left him behind. Sandy stayed with him.”

“Let’s hope they don’t
try to follow.”

More explosions rocked
the cavernous room from above, and they both turned to run, leaving the burning
mess behind and heading towards a door with a large tool chest beside it.

“Holt?” Cid asked.

“He went on alone,”
Larissa said as they reached a door and pulled it open. “I think our plan has
fallen apart.”

“Shall we try to get
out of here?” Cid asked, hopeful she would finally see sense and give up her
quest.

“Will this fire burn
the whole palace down?” she asked, looking behind them again. The flames and
smoke masked the entire Machine, and Imago was nowhere to be seen.

“Copper melts at one
thousand nine hundred and eighty-three degrees Fahrenheit, but it seems this
place has been built with safety in mind.” He gestured towards the door Larissa
held and the layer of steel between wooden panels on either side. “If we shut
that tightly, it should form a seal and the fire will run out of oxygen and
burn itself out before threatening the rest of the building.”

“Good. Cid…”

“Yes?”

“I’m glad you’re with
me,” she said with a smile as she turned to exit the room.

An almighty yowl
emerged from within the flames. Larissa stopped and turned back, calling for
Imago.

Cid turned too,
expecting to see the cat running to catch up to them. Instead, he saw Covelle.
The clothes on his body had burned to ash, his naked skin mottled with black
marks, but he seemed utterly undeterred by the burns. A curious smile played on
his lips, and he raised both hands up as though he were a priest invoking the
gods at a ceremony. The flames of the fire seemed to respond to his gesture,
growing and rising up toward the ceiling, filling the expansive space in a
matter of seconds. Behind Covelle, Imago emerged from the flame and pounced,
pushing Covelle to the floor.

“Bloody hell,” Cid said
as a strange sensation ran over his body. He should have felt shocked at the
sight; instead, he felt calm and peaceful. The heat from the fire singed his
bare arms. It reminded him of the impossible heat in Eptora. Elena’s face
flashed through his mind just as he saw Larissa move to race forwards. She was
screaming. Whether for her father or for her cat, he didn’t know. Perhaps she
was screaming for them both. It didn’t seem to matter either way. Cid grabbed
Larissa, using his entire body to pick her off her feet, and threw her through
the doorway onto the staircase beyond.

The flames singed his
back as he returned to the room. He grabbed the door and slammed it shut. The
ground beneath his feet shook, but the sound of cannon fire was drowned out by
the roaring inferno. With one heave, he pulled the heavy tool chest, the metal
already too hot to touch, burning his hands. He dragged it across the path of
the door, blocking himself inside.

Thick black smoke
billowed around him in swaths, as though he had fallen into an ocean of flame.
He fell to his knees, a final prayer echoing through his mind, and an apology
to Elena for breaking his word.