He raised his sword. Murder blazed in his eyes. I jumped back to avoid the first swing of his sword and bumped against the Commander’s bed. I leaped onto the bed to avoid Brazell’s next swing. I glanced down. The Commander’s gaze was still fixed on the ceiling. Brazell’s third swing severed one of the bedposts.
As I dived from the end of the bed to avoid another blow, I seized the post from the floor.
Now I was armed. The post wasn’t balanced properly for a bow, but it was thick. Better than nothing.
Brazell was a powerful opponent. Each swing of his sword hacked chunks out of my weapon.
At first, he scoffed at my attempts to fight him. “What do you think you’re doing? You’re a skinny nothing. I’ll gut you in two moves.”
When I found my mental zone of power, he stopped wasting his breath. Even sensing his next attack, I still scrambled to stay one step ahead of him. My wooden post was no match for his sword.
Reyad’s ghost materialized in the room. He cheered his father on, trying to distract me. His tactics worked. My back hit the wall. Brazell’s sword split my post in half.
“You’re dead.” With gleeful satisfaction, Brazell pulled his sword back to slash at my neck. But I still held a part of the wood. As his sword swung close, I deflected the weapon downward with my broken post. The tip cut across my waist. The sound of ripping fabric accompanied a line of fire across my stomach. Blood soaked the ripped ends of my uniform shirt.
Then Brazell made his first error. Thinking I was finished, he relaxed his guard. But I was still on my feet. I raised my weapon. With desperate strength, I struck him across the temple. We crumpled to the floor together.
I gazed at the ceiling, trying to regain my breath. Valek hovered over me. I shooed him away. “Find Mogkan.” He disappeared from my view.
Once strength returned to my limbs, I examined my wound. Running a finger along the gash, I thought all I needed was some of Rand’s glue.
Reyad’s ghost floated over me, sneering. I couldn’t bear lying on the ground with him in the room. Cursing and bleeding, I stood.
“You.” I stabbed a bloody finger at him. “Go away.”
“Make me,” he challenged.
How could I fight a ghost? I moved into a defensive stance. He scoffed. No, not a physical fight, a mental one.
I thought about what I had accomplished in the year and a half since I had slit Reyad’s throat. Overcoming my fears to make friends. Confronting my enemies. Finding love. How I felt about myself. Who I was. I looked into the gilded floor-length mirror of the Commander’s room. My hair was wild. My shirt soaked with blood. My face streaked with dirt. Almost the same reflection when I first became the food taster. But this time there was something different. The shadows of doubt were gone.
I peered deeper and found my soul. A little tattered and with some holes, but there all the same. It had always been there, I realized with a shock. If Reyad and Mogkan had truly driven it from me, I would be chained to a floor right now and not standing over Brazell’s unconscious form.
I was in control. This new person in the mirror was free. Free of all poisons. I glanced at Brazell. He was still breathing, but I was in charge of him and of myself. In command. No longer a victim. No longer the rat caught in the metal jaws of a trap.
“Be gone,” I ordered Reyad’s ghost. His shocked expression gave me great joy as he vanished.
But joy was like a butterfly alighting on a hand; a brief rest before flying away.
“Janco’s hurt.” Irys’s alarmed voice resounded in my skull. “We need a medic. Come now.”
Using manacles from a dead guard’s belt, I handcuffed Brazell to the heavy bed. Then I bolted from the room. I raced through the corridors. He can’t die, I thought. Not Janco. I wouldn’t be able to bear his death. Horrible scenarios played in my mind. I was so preoccupied that I rushed right toward Valek and Mogkan without even recognizing them.
They dueled with swords. The reason the scene had taken a while to clarify in my mind was because Mogkan had the upper hand. Valek’s pale face was haggard. He swung his sword as if it was a dead weight. His natural grace had fled, and what remained were sporadic, jerky movements. Mogkan, on the other hand, was quick and competent, technically accurate, but lacking style.
My disbelief and concern grew as I watched the match. What was wrong with Valek? Was it Mogkan’s magic? No, Valek was immune to it, I thought. Then realization dawned. Valek had said being close to a magician felt like wading in thick syrup. And Valek had fought seven guards in the Commander’s room after spending the last two days in the dungeon without food or sleep. Exhaustion had finally caught up to him.
Mogkan’s grin widened when he spotted me hovering nearby. He executed a lightning-quick feint, and then lunged. Valek’s sword clattered to the floor as a crimson slash snaked up his arm.
“What an incredible day!” Mogkan exclaimed. “I get to kill the famous Valek and the infamous Yelena at the same time.”
I triggered my switchblade. Mogkan laughed. He sent me a magical command to drop my weapon.
Just as my hand released the blade, I heard Irys’s voice in my head. “Yelena, what’s wrong? Did you find the medic?”
“I need help!” I cried in my mind. Power swelled inside me, pushing to break free. I aimed a finger of power toward Mogkan. His sword dropped from his hand. Terror gripped his face as the magic swaddled him like a baby, then tightened like a noose. He was paralyzed, rooted to the floor.
“You rat-spawned daughter of a demon!” Mogkan cursed. “You’re a blight on this earth. An incarnation of hell. You’re just like the rest of them. The Zaltana bloodline should be burned out, erased, exterminated…”
Mogkan raged on, but I ceased to listen. Valek picked up my switchblade. Mogkan’s curses grew louder and more frantic as Valek approached him. A blur of movement, a shriek of pain, then Mogkan was finally silent. His body sank into a heap on the ground.
Valek handed me the bloody knife. With an exhausted bow, he said, “My love, for you.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
I gasped, remembering. “Janco!” Grabbing Valek’s arm, I dragged him with me, explaining between huffs of breath. Still wearing Brazell’s colors, although torn and bloodstained, we roused the medic, who, with peevish annoyance, fussed about protocol and proper authority until Valek drew his knife.
My stomach heaved when we entered Reyad’s wing. The hallway leading to the captives’ room was gruesome. Soldiers littered the floor, pieces of arms and legs were scattered about as if someone had hacked their way through them. The walls were splattered with blood and pools of scarlet dotted the floor.
The medic wanted to stop at the first man, but Valek yanked him to his feet. Stepping carefully around the bodies, we reached the doorway. Just inside, I saw Janco lying on his side with his head in Ari’s lap. He was unconscious, which was a good thing since a sword had skewered his stomach, the bloody tip poking from his back. Ari’s gore-splashed face held a grim expression. A crimson-coated ax, the weapon responsible for the carnage in the hallway, rested next to him. Irys sat cross-legged in the center of the circle of emaciated people. Her brow glistened with sweat. Her expression was distant. The chained women and men viewed the scene with dispassionate eyes.
The trip to the infirmary was a chaotic nightmare. Everything blurred together like a whirlwind until I found myself lying in a bed next to Janco, holding his hand. The medic did his best, but if the sword had pierced any vital organs or if there was internal bleeding, Janco wouldn’t survive. Twice during the night Ari and I despaired that we would lose him.