Running under the prince’s words was the message he and Mychael wanted the people to not only hear, but believe: Chigaru would fight to his last breath to prevent even one of his people—any and all of his people—from being sacrificed.
Chigaru Mal’Salin looked like a king, but even more important, he was acting like one. He was a warrior focused on the target he had chosen, the one who had stolen his woman, his throne, and his people. Mirabai was thrilled. I had to admit I was enjoying the sight myself. I enjoyed the other thing I saw even more. Mychael in the rafters. I looked away, but not so fast as to draw attention. Though I think I could have jumped up and down and waved my one free arm at him and no one would have turned from the drama unfolding right in front of them.
I couldn’t help but notice that Chigaru didn’t mention the Saghred. Not once. It was an impressive display of political acumen. The goblin people had missed their legendary stone of power, but it’d been over a thousand years since their ancestors lived and died under the rock’s influence and insatiable hunger. If he survived this, Chigaru would have to remind them that the Saghred hadn’t been finicky about whose souls it took—and many of their rulers had used the stone to rid themselves of people who had become personally or politically inconvenient. For now the prince had his attention squarely where it needed to be—bringing down the true monster.
“The boy’s got potential,” Kesyn murmured in approval.
Sarad Nukpana was in danger of losing them before he officially had them—and he knew it. His hand shot out toward Chigaru, what looked like blue lightning crackling at the tips of his fingers. No shield could stand against that, especially one that had been under constant assault and had to have been weakened.
It happened too fast. The prince didn’t stand a chance.
A pair of armored hands snatched the prince back and off of the balcony at the instant Sarad Nukpana released that spell. Armored hands that were attached to Tam Nathrach. Now it was Deidre, Nath, and Barrett’s turn to be happy.
No one’s happy lasted for long. The lightning that had shot from Nukpana’s fingers closed like a massive fist around the gallery, instantly reducing the wood to charred remains. A temple guard had the supreme misfortune to be standing directly beneath the gallery. The lightning engulfed him as well—but it didn’t engulf his screams or block the sight of him being roasted alive inside the blue crackling sphere. The lightning vanished, revealing a charred corpse that crumpled to the ground in a pile of blackened bone and ash.
Utter silence filled the temple. You could have heard a charred tooth drop.
I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to stay after seeing a man burned alive, but these were goblin nobles and military—and the goblin who’d dealt the death was Sarad Nukpana. There were a few screams here and there, but they were quickly cut off by either the screamer themselves or muffled by their neighbor. No one wanted to be openly horrified. Self-preservation could justify almost anything. To scream would be to disapprove, and disapproval could earn you a one-way trip to the Saghred’s altar.
Right there was a really big difference between goblins and elves—at least my kind of elves. The first cooked corpse we saw and we’d be the hell out of there.
“Find them,” Sarad Nukpana snarled, “and bring them to me.”
The surviving temple guards on the dais rushed to obey, or to get out of Nukpana’s range.
Nukpana stalked over to Princess Mirabai, seized her by the wrist, and jerked her in the direction of the Khrynsani high priest. “A momentary interruption, my love,” he said, voice tight. “Let us be married.”
Mirabai got her feet solidly under her, and attacked Sarad Nukpana.
It was apparent that at some point Mirabai had been taught to fight, or at least to defend herself. Emboldened by Chigaru’s gallant speech, the little princess began screaming and punching Nukpana with admirable gusto, showing everyone that she felt she didn’t have anything left to lose and had decided to go out in a way that would at least let her keep her self-respect intact, even if she was going to be reduced to a pile of charred ashes.
That was what she wanted them to think.
I knew differently.
Sarad Nukpana pulled the girl close, one arm locked around her waist, the other hand tightly griping her throat. “Patience, Your Highness. We will play soon enough.”
Mirabai stopped struggling, her chained hands clenched together at her waist.
I took a deep breath and held it, and kept my eyes on her hands.
At that moment, a dead Khrynsani guard dropped out of thin air, landing wetly on the goblin nobles in the fifth row, immediately followed by another falling into the section occupied by Mirabai’s parents.
Now, that got the screams started and kept them going. Still others decided that dead bodies falling on them gave them the best excuse they’d had all night to be both openly horrified and get the hell out.
Kesyn was chuckling from the altar. “Disrupt, disgust, and disperse—excellent tactics. Clears out the people you don’t really want to kill to make room to do a better job of killing the ones you really need dead. Our boys and girls are professionals.”
I squinted into the dark beyond the lights, trying to see without really wanting to. Though from what I could see, I had to admit the Resistance’s mages were doing a fine job inciting a panicked stampede. As gruesome as it was, corpses raining down from above did the trick for court goblins who had probably seen it all and done most of it themselves. Falling dead bodies definitely made them want to leave. I didn’t dwell on how our mages had gotten the Khrynsani bodies up in the air in the first place.
I snapped my attention back to Mirabai. The princess was still clutched in Sarad Nukpana’s arms.
Sarad Nukpana looked pleased, and it had nothing to do with his bride-to-be. His black eyes scanned the temple floor, assessing the situation. I didn’t need to look to know; I’d already seen it. All of Nukpana’s enemies gathered in one place, and his allies fleeing for safety. I felt the goblin gathering his will. The son of a bitch was giving his bootlickers a little more time to get clear of the temple before he opened up on the Resistance.
Sarad Nukpana viciously flung Mirabai aside. The princess hit the stone floor hard, rolled twice, and lay unmoving.
Dammit!
Nukpana encased himself in the same ball of blue lightning that had incinerated the guard. Unfortunately, it didn’t torch him; the thing protected him. Both hands blazed with blue flame, which he launched into the darkness toward the left side of the temple. Men and women were illuminated and engulfed in the lightning, burning them alive, their screams turning to shrieks that should have been impossible for a throat to make. They weren’t in Khrynsani uniforms or court dress.
Resistance fighters.
Destroyed in half a minute of the worst agony imaginable.
I screamed in rage and pulled against the Saghred, damned near ripping the skin from my hand. Now I screamed in white-hot pain. I panted to catch my breath. Think, Raine! Think!
Nukpana had left me barefooted. This was going to hurt, but perpetual torture would hurt a hell of a lot worse and for as long as Nukpana could keep me alive. At that point, a broken foot would be the least of my problems. A broken foot would heal. My sanity wouldn’t.
I pounded the base of the Saghred’s pedestal with my heel, and ignored the pain that shot up my leg. Once. Again. And again.
Nothing.
I roared in rage at the pedestal and the smug-ass rock it held.
A deep rumbling shook the marble slab floor beneath my feet, and it wasn’t from me kicking a pedestal.
It wasn’t coming from Sarad Nukpana, but I had a sinking feeling he had everything to do with it. It wasn’t magic. I didn’t feel it in the way that magic could be felt. I felt it in my bones, shaking me from my feet on up. Now would be a hell of a time to find out that the bastard could summon an earthquake on command.
Kesyn went pale. “Oh, hell.”
“What is it?”
“Something we don’t want up here with us.”
“That doesn’t tell me—” I froze.
A crack appeared in the center of the temple floor, quickly spreading in both directions at once, toward the doors and toward the dais—and us.
“Oh, hell” was right.
A monstrous scaled claw reached up through the crack, grasping a chunk of marble the size of the altar Kesyn was chained to, flinging it aside like a chair in a barroom brawl. A pair of familiar scaled heads broke through with roars that made my knees go weak. The fleeing goblin allies screamed in terror as if from a single ragged throat.
The sea dragons liked that.
Sarad Nukpana shouted over the screams and roars, making himself heard—by the dragons. Their heads turned and faced him, like dogs waiting for a command.
He could control them.
This was worse than earthquakes on command.
If those things managed to claw their way into the temple, they’d bring the walls down on us all, and Sarad Nukpana wouldn’t have to lift a finger to do anything else. The Saghred would survive. I was certain Sarad Nukpana would find a way to survive, but no one else would.
I saw a movement of white on the edge of my vision. Mirabai was slowly getting to her feet, bleeding from a cut on her forehead. She raised one hand to her head; the other held something glittering of silver.
Oh, good girl!
The Scythe of Nen. The fruit of her labor for attacking Sarad Nukpana.
The only thing that could have made me happier was the Saghred letting my hand go. But if everything went according to Plan B, that would happen soon enough.
Never come up with only one plan when you’ll probably need two. I’d hoped I could get Carnades to give me the Scythe, then immediately stab the Saghred and screw the consequences. I’d rather have had Reapers to suck up the escaping souls, but Kesyn was chained with magic-sapping manacles, so I’d just have to work with what I had. If that plan had failed (it had), and Sarad Nukpana had taken the Scythe (he did), Princess Mirabai was my Plan B—get that dagger by any means possible. She went with a straightforward, and probably intensely satisfying, attack.