“Then you can’t bleed me,” I point out, my voice raspy.
“Aaaagghhh,” she screams and slaps me so hard, bells ring in my ears.
But they don’t block out the sound of a door flying open and crashing against the stone wall.
Ferelith puts one hand on my throat to hold me in place, and I renew my efforts to tear free of her, but she’s too strong. She looks over her shoulder, and I see one of her soldiers standing there.
“How dare you interrupt me!” she yells.
The guard throws himself prostrate on the floor and quickly exclaims, “My apologies, Empress. We’re under attack.”
Ferelith’s hand falls away, and she rises off me, turning to the guard. “Get up, you idiot.”
The man scrambles to his feet, bobbing his head. I roll to the side, gasping for air but keeping my eye on the man who looks absolutely petrified.
“Empress… troops are at the south side of the city, led by Commandant Dunne. Thousands upon thousands. They’ve started breaching the walls.” The guard’s voice is trembling. “We’re outnumbered.”
“Nonsense,” Ferelith sneers with a careless wave of her hand. “Employ our Hell-Fire.”
“We have, Empress. It doesn’t work against them.”
I can’t help but smile at that news. While I’m ecstatic to hear Bastien is outside the city walls, I’m more relieved to know all the protection charms and amulets seem to be holding up against Ferelith’s magic.
“Impossible,” she scoffs.
“I swear it’s true. And they’re sending spells toward us such as we have never seen before.”
Tamping down another smile, I watch Ferelith as she frantically paces again. She chews on her lip in consternation before turning my way, walking back over.
I flinch as she drops to her knees beside me, grabs my hair, and jerks my head up to look at her. “Did you use that spell book to protect your people? Create spells? Tell me, you wretched girl.”
“You need to surrender, Ferelith,” I say softly.
Her lips peel back over her teeth, and she hisses, “Never.”
Yet, I still try to reason. “Our troops have you outnumbered five to one. We have learned much about blood magic and have neutralized your spells. You cannot hope to win.”
Ferelith smiles wickedly. “But I still have you, Thalia. As long as you are in my possession, I control the game.”
She turns to the guard and points at him. “You… release the demons. That should keep their soldiers occupied.”
“Demons?” I push up a bit and wipe hair out of my face. Blood comes away, and I grimace not at its presence, but that it’s red and useless.
Ferelith’s smile is nasty. “You may have figured a way to repel my blood magic for now, but you won’t be able to repel the thousand demons I’ve summoned from the Underworld. I’ve been stockpiling them for just such an attempt you might make to retake the city.”
Gods damn it. Amell should’ve warned me we’d face this. And he can’t claim ignorance since he knew Ferelith had summoned erchras before. He should’ve told me so I could have prepared different repellent charms and spells.
So many of my people will be slaughtered.
“Send word under white smoke to their commandant that as long as they return to whatever hovel they crawled from, I shall not harm their beloved princess.”
“Lie,” I mutter.
“Yes, a lie,” she agrees and snaps her finger at the guard who spins and runs to do her bidding. She then looks back at me. “Now… where were we?”
“Inflicting pain and torture to get me to tell you about the book,” I say sweetly, knowing that whatever I say, I’ll make it worse on myself. But at this point, I’m committed to dying rather than telling her a damn thing about that book. I can’t afford for her to get inside it and increase her power. “But let me tell you… you’re wasting your time. You should be fleeing, for your demons won’t put a dent in our forces.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” she says with a shrug. “But you’re wrong about the torture. Time might be running short, so I will bleed you now. The book can wait, but sadly, the bleeding will be painful.”
And so this is it. Where my life ends.
But I have to believe Bastien will find a way to defeat Ferelith and save Vyronas. The Clairmont line will be finished, but another of the remaining families will take over and restore peace.
I have to believe that because I don’t want my last thoughts to be of my failures to my people.
CHAPTER 32
Bastien
He wasn’t the type of commander to sit up on a hill, issuing orders from a safe vantage point. While his soldiers used a ram and magic to batter the city gates to facilitate entry for the majority of their forces, Bastien and a large contingent bent distance past protection barriers, thanks to Thalia’s magic-filled amulets they all wore, and entered the palace through the eastern courtyard.