I STUMBLED BACK, as blood gushed from my throat and spilled down my front. My breath came in rapid wheezes, and it felt as if toxic demon air had filled the chamber again.
I looked up into the face of one of the high priest’s concubines.
“I know you can’t die from a mere gut job,” the concubine smiled.
“But…” she picked up another sword from a fallen guard. “I know you can’t grow back a head either.”
She waved the tip of the sword in front of my face.
“Helen?” Blood sprayed out of my mouth as I sputtered her name.
This was all wrong, wrong. It was too ludicrous to believe, but it was happening right in front of me. Helen was trying to kill me.
She was right, of course. I couldn’t grow a new head.
My blood magic was nearly spent. I shivered and trembled, feeling hot and cold all at once. It was all I could do to keep from falling over. I winced as I pulled the hilt of the sword out of my abdomen. Golden light glowed from inside my body and spilled through the bloody gash, but Helen didn’t seem surprised to see it.
“Why?” I gasped, “Why would you do this?”
I couldn’t understand the hate I saw in her. I barely knew her and had hardly even spoken with her, and yet her hatred for me was palpable. She looked sick. Her once pretty face had become gaunt. Her eyes bugged out, and her cheekbones protruded and made her look skeletal.
“Why?” she repeated. “Because you ruined everything. You ruined our plans. It’s all your fault.”
I spat more blood from my mouth and tried hard not to retch.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
I felt my blood magic begin to heal my wound, but it was slow. Too slow. If she swung that sword at my neck, I wouldn’t survive. I had to keep her talking.
“Why couldn’t you just stop?” asked Helen.
She whined like a child and grazed my neck with her sword as she waved it around dramatically.
“Why did you have to poke your nose where it didn’t belong? Why? Wasn’t Rose’s death enough? Why didn’t you break? Any normal person would have given up. What is it about you that makes you keep going?”
I heard the words, but I didn’t recognize their implications right away. Then I began to cry. I felt as though she’d gutted me again. My skin went cold, and bile rose in my throat.
“You killed Rose?” All this time I’d thought it had been the witch king. I’d been a fool.
Helen sighed. “Yes. Who cares? She was going to die anyway…I just helped her along, that stupid old bag.”
“You murdered her, you sick bitch!” I yelled. “You tortured her. She was a defenseless old woman and you gutted her like an animal! How could you? Why would you do this?”
“Because it was necessary,” said Helen.
“Necessary to kill an innocent woman who never hurt anyone?”
“Yes,” said the concubine without emotion. “She had to die.”
“Why?”
Helen slowly nodded her head.
“We knew you were trouble,” she said coldly. “You were the only one who was a real threat to our plans. No mere female could have ruined them.”
Dizzy, I drew in a breath. “What did Rose have to do with your sick plans?”
“We needed to break your spirit so that it would be easier to get you out of the way, you brat. She died because of you. We needed to make you unbalanced, to shake your core. We had tried to kill you before, but we failed. We thought up something that would have shattered an ordinary female. But it obviously didn’t work.”
An anger deep within me woke. “Who’s we?” But I already knew.
Helen cocked her head. “Come on, Elena. Do I have to spell it out for you? I can see it in your face, but I’ll tell you all the same.”
She paused.
“The priests, of course.”
She smiled, but then it faded and was replaced with an ugly snarl. “But now you’ve gone and killed them!”
She waved her sword at me again, and I barely avoided it.
There was no way a concubine like her should have been able to handle a large sword like that. Although her face was drawn and thin, her forearms were rippled with muscle, and her wrists were thick and strong. There were even small white scars on her hands and arms that I’d never noticed before, evidence of training. Helen had been trained in swordsmanship. There was no doubt about that. The confidence on her face argued that she was much better than me, and she knew it.
I trembled. I was too slow and weak. Helen’s smile told me that she knew that, too.
“Rose was a means to an end,” said Helen. “I knew you loved her like a mother. So of course, she had to go.”
I staggered and spat more blood. I was furious that I had been betrayed by a woman who had once helped to bathe me.
“How can you have any love for those bastards?” I hissed through gritted teeth. “After everything they’ve done to us…to our families? To you? How could you?”
“My family left me for dead in the streets. I was born a girl you see, and girls were regarded as weak and useless in the Pit. I was just another useless mouth to feed…another burden for my parents. I was three years old when they dumped me by the side of the road to starve and die. The high priest of Anglia found me, fed me, and clothed me. I owe him everything.”
I scowled. “That can’t be it? You don’t look like the kind of person who would kill innocent people out of some displaced sense of loyalty. You lived with them for years. You became their sex pet. It couldn’t have been all roses and rainbows for you.”
I watched her face carefully, but her expression was calm.
“What did he promise you? What did he promise you for Rose’s death?”
The concubine smiled. “Power. More power than you can imagine.”
“So you lusted for power instead of helping your own people find hope for a new and better life. Your heart is cold.”
As Helen considered, her face brightened. “Power is everything. Without it, we are nothing.”
“Lies,” I hissed, and I almost laughed at her stupidity.
“You think he would have kept his promise to you? You think he would have shared with you the power that he most craved? His power? You stupid, stupid bitch.”
The calm expression on the concubine’s face contorted with anger. And before I could react, she darted forward and plunged her sword deep into my abdomen again.
She yanked out her sword abruptly, and I couldn’t feel my legs. I fell back and crashed to the ground. My head slammed against something hard, and as I struggled for consciousness so much blood gushed into my mouth that I felt I was drowning in it. I couldn’t breathe. I was dying.
Helen loomed over me with her feet apart, and then she raised her sword above her head.
“And now the legacy of the steel maidens dies with you, Elena.”
I tried to move, but my body won’t obey. Jon’s face flashed in my mind’s eye as Helen brought down her sword. My heart broke, and I closed my eyes.
The air moved next to me, and then I heard a thud as something warm brushed against my side. But I didn’t feel the pain of the sword. Perhaps I was dead.
I opened my eyes. Helen was lying next to me, her eyes wide and lifeless. Blood spilled from around the hilt of a dagger that had pierced deep into her forehead.
“Elena!”
The voice of angels, I thought. Just this once I wanted to see him again. Just one more time.
I looked up into the face of the most beautiful man in the world. The Goddess had answered my prayers.
Jon kneeled next to me.
“By the creator! There’s so much blood, Elena. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to protect you.”
I saw his tears, and I couldn’t control my own. I gasped as his hand wrapped around mine and made it warm.
I smiled despite the dizziness and pain. He was alive. I was alive. I looked again into his handsome face. His eyes shone with a grief and a sympathy that I could almost taste.
I heard other voices and footsteps. At first their faces were blurred, but then my vision sharpened enough to recognized one. Prince Aurion looked down at me with the same love I had seen in Jon’s face.
“She’s bleeding out,” said the prince. “We need to stop the bleeding.”
None of that mattered. If I died now, if it was the Goddess’ will, then so be it. I had done my duty as a soldier of light. I had made things right again.
I took comfort in knowing that for once in my life I’d done the right thing.
Rose would have been proud of me.
I smiled one last time and let the darkness take me.