The Essence (35 page)

I had feelings, sure. Anger. Outrage. A sudden new sense of boldness.
Did that count as a feeling?

It didn’t matter. Something had broken in me the moment I’d seen Angelina’s bed, empty and bloodied. Something inside of me had been liberated, and now I
was
a warrior.

Now I had a mission.

“Angelina!” I shouted.
“Angelina! Eden!”
I didn’t care about the others. I didn’t care who heard me. Only one thing mattered to me now.

I stepped in pools of blood and left footprints of my own. I no longer grimaced. I barely noticed.

Moving with determination, I followed my instincts.

“Angelina!” I shouted again and again and again, stepping over bodies and daring those responsible to show themselves.

The estate was large, nearly palatial, and they could have been hiding anywhere. I hadn’t come across Brook or Aron or anyone else who could have helped me. Instead, I turned corner after corner, and I reached one dead end and then another. I choked on my own frustration until it nearly replaced the fury that spurred me on.

Then I heard it. Just a mewl, really . . . the smallest, palest sound that seemed to materialize from out of nowhere.

But it hadn’t. It was my sister.

Hope extinguished all else, and I whirled toward the sound.

“I’m coming,” I breathed as my bare feet pounded against the floor in my effort to reach her.

When I saw her, I nearly buckled.

She was tiny and fragile, as any child should be, but her eyes were brimming with the same inner turmoil I felt. She saw me at the same moment I spied her, and reflexively, she lurched in my direction.

It was the knife, though, the one poised at her throat that stopped her from taking a single step toward me. The man holding it—holding
her
—was surrounded by three other men, all of them large, all of them imposing, and none of whom I recognized.

But I would have known Jonas Maier anywhere. I’d seen his face hundreds, maybe thousands of times before. He’d invited me into his home. He’d fed me and given me shelter.

Now he threatened my sister’s life.

“Please,” I whimpered, feeling the first fracture in my new armor. “Can’t we talk, Jonas? Can’t we do this peacefully?”

His eyes, so much like Brooklynn’s, yet so very, very different, appraised me, making me feel vulnerable and exposed. “Don’t you think we’re past peaceful here?” His eyes roved from the blood on my feet, to that on my knees and hands. His lips curled into a loathsome sneer. “Besides, you have no intention of listening to my demands, any more than I intend to leave here
peacefully.”
He jerked the knife he held, and its blade burrowed against the soft flesh of my sister’s neck.

My jaw tightened and I took another step toward him. “Let her go,” I insisted, the words failing to deliver the menace that raged within me as I gazed at Angelina. The look of panic in her clear blue eyes was my undoing.

Blood smeared the front of her nightdress, and I scoured the length of her, searching for signs that it might be her own, that Jonas and the others had hurt her. I held my breath, wondering what had happened to her. I wondered, too, where her guard was. Eden would sooner die than surrender her charge.

Jonas grinned back at me. It was an ugly grin that made my stomach flip. I could scarcely look at the men who stood at his back; their knowing leers and grunts of approval made my vision blur with rage. Each one of them was steeped in the blood of others.

“You’ve done this,”
Jonas shook his head, speaking to me in Parshon
. “You brought this on yourself. The Vendor
queen . . .”
He let out a derisive laugh, and the other men followed suit, chuckling and mocking me, as if they were in on some secret joke.

But all I could see, all I cared about, was the blade at Angelina’s throat.

“Let her go,” I repeated, my voice constricted now.

“What did you expect, Charlie?”
He spat my name at me.
“Did you think you could just take the throne and change everything at your whim? Did you think no one would care? That there would be no repercussions?”

Fire shot through me, a sensation both familiar and foreign. My skin began to tingle and my fingertips itched. “Don’t you dare harm her.”

One of the men sneered at my words, drawing a knife from the back of his waistband. Another pulled a handgun from inside his jacket, laughing at my attempt to stand firm.

“Let’s get out of here,”
the man with the gun said to one of his cohorts in a language that was neither Parshon or Termani—not Ludanian at all.
“Tell him to stop toying with the child and finish it.”

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t swallow, but somehow I knew what to do. What I
had
to do.

Closing my eyes, my fists followed suit, clenching into angry balls. Energy sizzled through me now, and I was no longer confused about what it meant. “I warned you,” I hissed.

“Well, here are your repercussions!”
Jonas shouted, still unaware that he was in danger at all. He drew his blade right up against Angelina’s throat and I heard her gasp. If I’d had misgivings, they’d have been silenced in that moment.

But I had none.

I didn’t need Sabara now. I could do this on my own.

Behind me, in the distance, I heard the sound of footsteps closing in on us. I didn’t know who might be coming—if it was my men, or more of Jonas’s, but I couldn’t take the chance. If I waited any longer I might be overrun, outnumbered by an army I was unable to stop. I had to act fast. I had to save Angelina now, or we could both end up dead.

I lifted both of my hands, raising my fists in front of me. The sensation that ripped through me was welcome, and I had no intention of stopping it. Not this time. In fact, this time, I summoned it.

I targeted Jonas first, concentrating on his airway, imagining it, willing his windpipe to slam shut. Intentionally fueling his death.

Jonas shrieked, but not for long. I didn’t blink. I didn’t even hesitate. I concentrated instead on Angelina, on the terror I could see in her wide eyes. I concentrated on what these men had done, not just to her, but to the others as well. I thought about what they were willing to do. In my mind, and with my fist, I squeezed, even after he released her, as he tried to tear an opening through his own throat so he could breathe once more.

And when one of the other men, the one with the handgun, reached for Angelina’s arm, barely even acknowledging the fact that Jonas was dying right in front of him, I turned my attention to him also. It was easier this time, and he gasped at first, and then dropped to his knees, writhing and clutching his neck, until he stopped. Falling still. And silent.

Angelina blinked, staring back at me, and I wanted to rush to her. To take her in my arms and whisper assurances that everything would be fine. That I was going to make everything okay.

The other man, the one with the knife, moved then, lunging
toward her, while the other man stood watching, dumbfounded . . .
but no less guilty. No less willing to murder. I took them both at once, ignoring their gasps as I tightened my fists, focusing with my mind. Electricity filled my body, coursing through me until every nerve sang. I held them all like that—all four of them—in my invisible grasp, suffocating them.

Watching them die.

Saving my sister with power I’d stolen from Sabara.

“Angelina,” I rasped, not moving from where I stood, not releasing any of them. . . . Even when the footsteps were right at my back.

Even when I heard Brook gasp, “Charlie? What are you doing? What have you done?”

I looked down then, at the men who littered the floor at my sister’s feet. None of them moved. None of them breathed—they were all dead. And I was the one who’d killed them.

I turned to Brooklynn, and saw that she wasn’t alone. With her were Aron and Niko and Zafir. Max was there too. All of them staring back at me with the same wary expressions, and I couldn’t blame them. I knew what they were looking at: a murderer.

“I told you she was in here,” I said to Zafir. “I told you Sabara wasn’t dead.”

But it didn’t matter, I told myself. Nothing else mattered except that Angelina was safe.

I spun around again, my eyes raking over the little girl in the bloodied nightgown. She just stood there, looking as dazed as the others. “Angelina,” I whispered again, taking a step closer to her.

She ran then . . . but not to me.

She veered as far from me as she could in the confined space of the hallway, running to Brooklynn instead. She wrapped her arms around my best friend’s waist, refusing to even glance my way.

Max stepped forward then. Max, who I was sure hated me after seeing Niko’s lips on mine. Max, who I had to find a way to explain things to, to make things right again. He reached for my hands, first one and then the other. I allowed a moment of hope to swell in my chest as relief flooded through me, and then I realized what he was really doing. That I’d still been holding them outstretched, like the weapons they’d become. He pushed my arms down, his eyes finding mine and searching them.

I blinked back tears that stung, not wanting him to see how ravaged I felt inside. “I’m still here too,” I offered, hoping he’d believe me. Hoping that might be enough.

His fingers closed over mine, even though they didn’t lace through them. “I know.” But it didn’t sound like an assurance, just a simple statement.
He knew.
Like he knew the sky was blue or the grass was green.

He pulled me then, trying to draw me away from the ghastly scene on the floor before us. But before I’d taken a single step, I froze. “Wait,” I said, breaking away from him.

I crept closer to the man with the handgun, the man whose dead gaze stared blankly at the ceiling now. I dropped down, kneeling beside his body. Max was there too, hovering right above my shoulder. “What is it?” he asked.

I frowned as I reached for the slip of red material sticking out from the man’s front pocket. I unfolded it, smoothing the edges down until I was looking at a square of fabric.

I glanced to his cohorts, each lying equally motionless. Another of the men had a similar square tied around his upper arm, and the third had one stuffed in his back pocket.
I searched Jonas too, digging through his pockets and sliding my hand inside the front of his shirt, feeling his lifeless chest beneath my fingertips. He didn’t have the same red fabric the others did, not that I could find.

That same simple fabric. Plain, yet familiar.

Red bandanas.

My stomach dropped as I remembered where I’d seen a bandana like them before. “Sebastian,” I breathed, looking from Max to Zafir, from Brook to Aron. “It was Sebastian. He must’ve overheard us, maybe while he was readying the horses. He must’ve told them where to find us.”

Brook turned away, holding Angelina even closer, and I wondered if it was hard for her to see her father like this. I wondered if, even after everything, she blamed me for killing him.

“Let me see that,” Max said, reaching for the fabric I clutched. He ran his finger along the edges, where there was a darker red ink—a pattern, some sort of leaves or ivy. He looked up at me. “Did you hear them say anything?” he asked.

I glanced uncomfortably at Angelina, and I answered quietly, “They said to stop toying with the girl and finish it.”

He stepped closer, gripping my hands in his. “But
how
did they say it, Charlie? What language did they speak?”

“I—I don’t know,” I answered, shaking my head. “I’d never heard it before. Why? What do you know?”

He turned to Zafir, lifting the square of fabric. “This is Queen Elena’s insignia—the crimson laurel. It’s the basis for her country’s flag. These men were Astonian, and Sebastian must be too if he’s working with them.”

I glanced at the fabric, and recalled the flags I’d seen at Vannova, the night of the ball. I hadn’t stopped to study them individually, I’d only taken in the splendor of them as a whole. But now that he said it, there had been a red one . . . one with a crimson laurel.

“They must’ve been speaking Gaullish, just like the writing on the map. I’ve never heard it aloud before; I didn’t recognize its sound.” I tried to imagine why these men, these Astonians, would want me dead. Why they would ally with Jonas Maier against me. And then I remembered that Queen Elena had tried to invade our country once before. “You don’t think . . . Elena wouldn’t dare. . . .”

Zafir stiffened. But it was Brook, her jaw tightening, who said the words aloud. “If she’s behind this, then this is war.”

brooklynn

Brooklynn stared into the water at the edge of the pond, watching as the morning sun reflected off the surface and trying to decide what the hell was the matter with her. It wasn’t as if she’d miss him, as if he’d been the kind of father who’d commanded love and respect. He’d done nothing but treat her as a servant from the moment her mother had died. And when she’d joined Charlie at the palace, he’d all but disowned her. She should be rejoicing his death.

So why did she ache? Why did she feel a hollow space where her heart had once been?

She squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to shed a single tear. She had no use for tears. Not now. Not over him.

“Brook?”

She spun without thinking, without needing to see who was approaching. She’d recognized the voice clearly enough. It was Charlie—her queen.

“Brook, I’m sorry,” Charlie said in a voice filled with sincerity. She still wore the bloodied nightgown, covered only by a thin robe. “I—I didn’t want to . . .” She didn’t finish her sentence.

“Don’t apologize,” Brook said, her own voice flat, emotionless. She turned back toward the water that rippled with bursts of orange and pink and gold. “He doesn’t deserve your apologies.”

She could hear the footsteps behind her, as Charlie came closer, until they were standing shoulder-to-shoulder at the pond’s edge. “No,” Charlie agreed. “He doesn’t. But you do. You’re my friend, and I wouldn’t hurt you for anything.”