“What I want?” He smiled sadly, moved as if to touch her, then drew back. “Of course not. But it’s what we must do, Rielle.”
He has the eyes of a cow, Corien sneered. Soft and unthinking.
Rielle’s wrath rose swift and hot. And you have the tongue of a serpent. Cruel and repellent.
Corien retreated, a sulky bend to his presence.
“Rielle, I’m sorry,” Ludivine murmured, rising from her chair. “But I think Audric’s right. This is the wisest—”
“Lu, I’m thankful for your selflessness and for your friendship,” Rielle said tightly, a terrible pain lodged in her throat, “but I think I need to be alone.”
Then she tore herself away from Audric and left the room.
34
Eliana
“Because of your generosity and teaching, my lord, it will take more than a fall from a tower to kill me. One more day, and I will have them.”
—Message written by the Invictus assassin Rahzavel to His Holy Majesty, the Emperor of the Undying
Eliana staggered back to avoid Rahzavel’s flying sword, stumbled over a chair, and fell hard into Navi’s arms.
Simon lunged in front of them, his own sword raised to strike. The two blades crashed together and caught.
“Navi, get her out of here!” Simon bellowed over his shoulder, just before Rahzavel let out a harsh scream and swung his sword around to free himself. Simon stumbled against a pillar, kicked a chair into Rahzavel’s path.
Navi grabbed Eliana’s wrist, and together they raced into the crowd. Bystanders had noticed the fight and hovered nearby. Navi wove through them, shoving at bodies twice her size when they didn’t move fast enough.
“Eliana!” Rahzavel called after them, his words punctuated by grunts and the clashes of blades. “You can’t run from me! I’m like you, don’t you see? I can’t be killed!”
Fear was a fantastic energizer; Eliana’s head cleared with every step. Soon she was the one dragging Navi after her.
“In here,” she gasped, turning Navi into the maze of the fighting pits. Narrow paths separated each cage from the next; a turn past one cage, then another, and they were in the thick of the brawls. A bare-chested fighter threw his opponent against the wire wall to Eliana’s right. The noise was tremendous, the crowd a seething mass on all sides.
“Back to the apartments,” Navi cried. “We’ll be safe there!”
“If a fall wouldn’t kill him,” Eliana replied, “then we’ll never be safe from him again, not until he’s dead.”
I’m like you! I can’t be killed!
But he was wrong, wasn’t he? She could be killed. She wasn’t completely invincible. If he stuck her through the heart with a sword, she would die just like any beast that bleeds.
And him… His fall off the maidensfold tower in Orline must have been a lucky one. He’d hit the water at just the right angle, avoided the rocks scattering the river. The Emperor had fed him a regimen of drugs, conditioned his mind and body over the years to withstand impossible abuse.
“Could he be an angel?” Navi shouted over the din.
Eliana grimaced. “Knowing our luck?”
They emerged from the pits onto the open floor. Eliana ran for a set of twisting iron stairs nearby. As she reached for the railing, a body flew out of the crowd and slammed into her side, knocking both her and Navi to the floor.
Eliana pushed herself up, head spinning. “Navi?”
She lay unconscious two feet away, beside the inert body that had hit them. She must have hit her head against the bottom stair. Eliana crawled toward her.
A sword struck her across her back once, then twice. Blazing pain ripped through her body. She screamed, tightened her grip on Arabeth, turned, caught Rahzavel’s sword with her dagger.
He leered down at her, pressing hard against their joined blades until she was nearly flat on the floor. Her bleeding back was a twisting plane of fire.
“Hello again.” His voice rattled; his ravaged face stretched into a madman’s grin. He stomped down hard on her thigh, then on her ribs. As she screamed, blinking away starbursts of pain, he raised his sword with wild eyes. She plunged Arabeth into the top of his foot, then rolled out from under him right as his sword slammed into the ground.
Navi shook herself awake, then looked in horror at something past Eliana’s shoulder. “Watch out!”
Eliana turned, ducked in time to avoid Rahzavel’s sword. The tip of the blade caught her cheek. Blood spurted hot across her face and arms. She thrust out with Arabeth; he bashed it out of her hand with his sword. She spun out a hard kick at his chest; he grabbed her leg, twisted, slammed her to the ground.