The Pyramid Waltz (44 page)

That wouldn’t matter. In her current form, she could make Starbride do anything she wished. Her inner voice rebelled, echoed by something deep inside her. Injuring Starbride was not permitted. Roland meant their death, all of them, even her family, even his blood. And he wouldn’t save them for last. He’d kill them all as if they were wholly human.

Da leapt. Roland and Katya’s arms shot out as one and knocked Da to the ground, though Katya did it to save him. She stared at her uncle and snarled. “I’m above you.”

He looked at her, genuine surprise lighting his eyes. “Join me, and we’ll have an entire kingdom to play with. We’ll make it perfect.”

“Play with someone else’s. This is mine.”

His handsome face frowned, its icy haughtiness calling to her own. “You forget who your elders are, niece.”

“Yanchasa is my elder, same as yours.” She hit him then, a quick punch that he barely scraped out of. She whipped her rapier from its sheath.

Roland tried to dance away. He brought up his arm to block and called for aid. Katya snorted. Any human moving against her might as well have been moving in thick soup. Roland’s son and lover might have possessed the Aspect, but they’d never Waltzed. Katya felt their caged Fiends, pale shadows of what she had, and laughed at them.

Roland cried out as Katya stabbed him in the leg and brought him to his knees. He grabbed her ankles and yanked her feet out from under her. She twisted as she landed and pushed the pain aside. Roland tried to clamber on top of her, but she pushed off the floor with one shoulder and rammed the guard of her rapier against his face.

The guard dented and crumpled, breaking against Roland’s Aspect. He snarled, and she knew she’d hurt him a little. She hit him again and again, and the twisted shards of metal dug tiny holes in his skin.

He grabbed her wrist and squeezed. She felt the bones begin to buckle; their grinding filled her head, and she knew she couldn’t defeat him with pure force. She gathered her feet between them and shoved. He flew to his feet to stagger backward. She cast her rapier aside, ran for the pyramid, and threw her hands against it. She didn’t need the shackles. With her mind awake to guide the Fiend inside her, she’d beat Roland using his own game.

Light blinded her, and her Fiend recognized the experience, remembered it in a way her human mind never could. Down through the capstone her mind traveled, into the ancient pyramid to where a great mind slumbered.

Katya thought that the earthquakes must have been Roland’s doing, but not so. There had been too much time, too much diluting of Yanchasa’s Aspect. Time had come back to the Fiend, and with it, an awakening mind. Roland had been right. They should have tried to siphon more off, to take some more of the Fiend into themselves, but that might have meant madness, the same as it meant for one of those who’d originally bound Yanchasa, Vestra’s own husband.

Well, was that not duty? It would be a sacrifice that Vestra herself would have made, were she given another chance. Katya opened herself to Yanchasa’s presence, giving in fully, the Fiend in her wanting the power and the human part fighting to care about the outcome.

The world went white. There was no other word for it. One moment, Starbride was in Katya’s arms, the next she was lowered quickly to the floor. Then Katya moved to join the fight between Roland and King Einrich. Seconds passed between the three of them, and Starbride lost hope. Without King Einrich in his shackles, the plan to complete the Waltz using Brom couldn’t work.

Katya and Roland became a blur together, and when a single blur streaked for the pyramid, Starbride’s heart sank further When the streak stopped, and she saw it was Katya, Starbride rejoiced until the world went white.

Beside her in the cold white void, Roland said, “The little fool.”

Katya had tried to help, and something had gone wrong. Starbride didn’t know whether Katya was a fool for trying or if Roland thought Katya a fool for not helping him. She supposed it didn’t matter if the world had become a void.

A ripple shook the room as Starbride’s sight faded back to normal. Queen Catirin and Prince Reinholt lay on their backs at the pyramid’s base, their Aspects gone, faces slack, though she noted with relief that they still breathed. In front of the pyramid, Katya turned.

The horns arcing over Katya’s head had grown by a foot, joined by another pair that started at her temples and continued around the sides of her head. Her pupil-less eyes were enormous in a face that had stretched downward, as if someone had shoved a horseshoe where her chin would be. Her too-wide mouth was filled with sharp teeth, and her ears curved up to points high above hair the color of blood. Ice formed under her feet as she examined her hands; the long, birdlike fingers ended in claws. She grunted, and the back of her coat burst open as four feathered wings unfurled in a splash of blood, spattering the pyramid with drops that froze and rolled down in little red beads.

“So, little K,” Roland said from Starbride’s side. “With me to guide you, we will be unstoppable. You desire slaughter. I can feel it.”

Katya stared at him, her head cocked as if he were an interesting new toy. Starbride’s insides shriveled in fear, and she cursed Roland for drawing the monster’s attention anywhere near her. She couldn’t think of this thing as her lover. Ancient parts deep inside of her knew this creature was the embodiment of fear, and she could no more fight that fear than she could her own heartbeat.

Katya’s too-large eyes roamed over Roland before she spat something in a language that grated on Starbride’s ears and blasted her with wind so cold it made her ache.

“Even more beneath you?” Roland sneered. “We’re kin in more ways than one, both blood, both Fiend. Why fight one another? We should be fighting them!” His finger stabbed at Starbride where she lay on the ground.

The creature said something else.

“Prove it,” Roland answered. He stooped with a speed like the wind, picked Starbride up by the back of her gown, and hauled her to her feet. She cried out and tried to pull away; her wounded side cried with her. Roland grabbed her throat. She clutched at his wrist but knew she couldn’t move him. He shook her lightly at the monster that used to be Katya. “Kill this one, and I’ll believe you.”

The Katya-Fiend stepped away from the pyramid, each of its steps making Starbride shiver. It stared into her face with no recognition, not even of one human to another. With one of its icy talons, it traced a line down her cheek, a cold that burned. Starbride gasped, but Roland’s pressure around her throat wouldn’t let her scream. Terror howled inside her, but she couldn’t close her eyes.

Something pricked at her senses, and she turned her gaze to the Fiend’s throat. The pyramid necklace still hung there, intact. But how could it be intact with the Aspect full upon Katya, with so much of Yanchasa’s essence? Starbride fought to swallow some of her fear. If even a little of Katya remained, there was hope.

Starbride forced herself to look the Fiend in the eye, to fight against the cold. She willed herself to see Katya standing there, but inside, she screamed and screamed. She couldn’t do it. How could she possibly? This monster was going to kill her and everyone else in the world! She bit her lip until blood trickled down her chin, a bit of warmth before it froze. She let the numbness seeping into her bones fill her emotions, let her stomach become a black pit.

“Kill her!” Roland said.

The remains of Katya’s coat still held the butterfly pin. Katya—lover, friend—was somewhere inside, hiding just behind that pyramid necklace. Starbride spoke to her, not to the monstrous face in front of her. “I love you.” She put a finger to the pyramid necklace and fell into it, speaking to the soul inside.

The Fiend drew back, surprise lighting its awful face. The
Fiend
was surprised, but Katya wouldn’t be. Inside the necklace, Starbride felt her fight.

“Do it,” Roland insisted, shaking Starbride again. The Katya-Fiend turned its murderous gaze on him.

Starbride nearly laughed. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“No one asked you, peasant.” He made as if to fling her to the ground. Katya’s hand appeared between Starbride and the floor, quicker even than Roland, and the clawed hands settled her more gently.

Roland backed away, his features twisted by disgust. “All that power and you’re still just a human at heart, niece. All that mayhem in you and you waste it being tender. You’ve learned nothing. You’re not capable, and you’re not worthy to be my kin.”

Katya was in front of him then, no blur, just a rush of cold as if she’d disappeared and reappeared. Roland even blinked before she bashed him, hitting him so hard that he flew against the far wall and left a trail of fast-freezing blood in his wake. He bounced off the stone and landed in a heap but rose again. Darren jogged to Roland’s side and held his sword in front of both of them. All other activity in the room had stopped. It was quiet as Roland pressed his hand over the bloody gash in his clothes.

Roland drew himself up as if he might fight, but quicker than Starbride had seen, he grabbed Darren and raced for the doorway. Maia stepped into his path, bringing him up short. Starbride thought Maia wanted to stop him, but she cried, “Father, don’t leave me!” and leapt for him, her arms out.

“No!” Starbride reached for them, but Roland gathered Maia in his other arm and dashed through the doorway. “Katya, stop them!”

Katya blinked and knelt. She didn’t understand, was fixated on Starbride somehow. She lifted Starbride in ice-cold arms and cuddled her close. Starbride pushed back as the cold burned her, but Katya’s arms were like steel. Starbride clutched the back of Katya’s neck and fought not to squirm. Pennynail’s face loomed over Katya’s shoulder, and he pressed something into Starbride’s palm.

Starbride gripped the smooth sides of a pyramid as Katya’s wings began to flap. The monster wanted to take her somewhere, and Darkstrong knew what would happen when they arrived. They lifted from the ground, and Starbride fell into the pyramid, knowing suddenly what it was for. Crowe had once pressed it to Katya’s heart to make the Fiend retreat, but that wouldn’t be enough this time. It needed blood. “I’m sorry.” She ran her free hand down the icy cheek.

She rammed the pyramid into Katya’s back and pushed all her spirit into it. She focused, and saw what the pyramid was meant to do as if it were a gigantic switch. She pulled, but it fought her. The Fiend wanted to stay. Starbride ground her teeth and used her desperation as leverage. She would get Katya back, or they’d both die in the effort.

The switch flipped. The Katya-Fiend screamed, and everything went white again as Starbride crashed to the ground.

This time, as everything faded to normal, Starbride heard shouting. Someone was calling her name. “Here,” Starbride said, and Dawnmother struggled through a gray haze to her side. The royal family was still splayed about the room. King Einrich had returned to normal. Brutal, Brom, Cassius, and Layra were unmoving heaps. Averie held her bloody arm, and Pennynail carried a bleeding Crowe over to Katya’s sprawled body.

Starbride put a hand over her own bloody side and struggled to turn. Dawnmother helped her, and they crouched close to Katya.

Crowe glanced at them with tears in his eyes and agony on his face. Pennynail pressed both hands to Crowe’s free-bleeding stomach. “You had to stop her,” Crowe said. “If she’d gotten out of the cavern, who knows how we would have gotten her back?”

Starbride shook her head. She couldn’t think about that now. “Will she be all right?”

Dawnmother rolled Katya over once they’d removed the pyramid and covered her wound. Her face had returned to normal, but she slept, haggard lines on her face and silver hairs at her temples. Lines of blood left streaks down her forehead and cheeks.

“I don’t know,” he whispered.

Starbride clutched the pyramid she’d used. “Is Yanchasa’s essence in here?”

He shook his head, his face pained, bewildered, and sad, too many hurts piled on top of one another. “I don’t know.” He took the pyramid. “Pennynail, put this under Katya’s coat. It should keep the Fiend at bay for a time. She can’t carry that much of the Aspect in her forever, though. We have to find a way to bleed it out.”

“We need to get everyone some help,” Dawnmother said, always the practical one. She nodded at Crowe’s stomach. “You most of all.”

“I’m gut-shot. I don’t have long, but I need to instruct Starbride before I die.” He grabbed one of Starbride’s hands with his blood-slicked ones. “You have to put what she took from Yanchasa back into the capstone.”

Starbride blinked. He spoke of death and monumental tasks so casually. “Surely there must be something we can do for you?”

“Nothing.”

Dawnmother clucked her tongue. “Don’t give up so easily.”

“Listen to sense—”

“No.” Dawnmother put her fists on her hips, a posture even Starbride didn’t argue with. “People like us have a duty to each other much like the duty to those we serve.” Crowe’s jaw dropped. Dawnmother nodded as if that meant an end to the discussion. “Everyone here is wearing plenty of clothing. Let’s start making bandages.”

Starbride nodded, and Dawnmother cut her skirt off just above her knees, using the fabric and petticoat to bandage Crowe even as he protested.

“Help me hold him down?” she asked Pennynail. He nodded.