The Offering (The Pledge 3)

Besides, I thought, looking at my empty and helpless hands.

Where would I find such a weapon anyway?

All I was now was a prison for Sabara. She’d tried to use my misery against me, to take control once more, but I had somehow found just enough energy to suppress her. The revulsion I felt for her part in all this fueled my resolve to keep her down.

The earth beneath my feet continued to tremble and quake as boots rumbled past and voices roared in disharmony, shouting over one another—orders and instructions and directions, some at odds with others. And above them all the sounds of explosives continued to pierce the night sky.

It was utter madness.

When my tent flaps were flung wide apart, I didn’t so much as lift my head. It was as heavy as a boulder, and the effort would have been colossal.

Eden would have lifted her head, I told myself. But even that wasn’t enough to goad me into action. So I lay there, waiting for something to happen.

I didn’t have to wait long. I was hauled abruptly to my feet.

My legs refused to cooperate, however, and as soon as I was released, I withered limply to the floor.

I was useless. Helpless.

I was nothing.

“Get up. You’re being moved.”

I heard the voice, and understood the words, but did not comply.

He repeated them. “I said, get up!” This time his grip was ruthless, and he shook me, making my teeth rattle together. His efforts were in vain, though, and I collapsed the moment he let me go.

“Worthless,” he muttered.

That was when I heard the familiar scrape of metal, and a steel click. That was when something inside me clicked as well.

Lifting only my eyes at first, and then slowly, very slowly, inching my chin up just the scantest amount so I could confirm what my ears had told me, I searched him.

My eyes fell on the gun, the polished black gun he pointed right at my head, and I reawakened.

There was no way I could know if he was the soldier who’d executed Eden—they all looked the same in their raven masks. But I reacted to him as if he were.

I didn’t fear the weapon that threatened me, or the man who stood behind it.

“Get up, you stupid bitch,” he swore, kicking me. “Queen or no, I’ll shoot you right here, and no one’ll ever know the difference.”

I moved, but I didn’t do as he asked. I ignored his orders and instead got to my knees and dropped my chin to my chest. I invited him to shoot me in the head.

Above me I heard his breathy chuckle, and my entire body prepared for what was about to happen. “Suit yourself, you crazy—”

I lifted my head then, so I could look at his birdlike face.

Before he could process what was happening, I grabbed the barrel of the gun with one hand, forcing the nose away from my head so that it was pointing past my shoulder. With my other hand I reached around the back of it and secured it so I had a solid hold on it.

When he finally moved, he pulled on his weapon, which is exactly what I’d counted on. With my grip secure, he pulled me up, giving me the momentum I needed. And before he’d gained his balance all the way, I was already kicking. My first kick connected with his groin. I was prepared to kick again and again—the way Zafir had taught me, but it wasn’t necessary. That first kick was solid. I felt it, the way his body collapsed in on itself the moment my toe landed.

I’d found my mark.

In shock and in pain, the soldier released his hold on the gun and staggered backward, away from me.

His gun was my gun now, and I knew how to use it. Suddenly he became the object of my reprisal. He was the reason Eden was dead. He deserved to die, just as Niko and Elena and Sabara did.

I couldn’t see his face right before I pulled the trigger—it was covered by the mask—but I heard his last word, which was only a simpering, “Bitch.” And then he was quiet.

The gunshot blended into the sounds of the rest of the battle raging around us. I held my breath and waited, but no one came running to my tent to see what had gone wrong.

No one came to the dying soldier’s aid, or to recapture the queen who was now free and wearing a stolen bird mask. I was rolling the dead warrior over to steal his cloak, too, knowing it would be far too large on me, when I noticed the blade stashed in the back of his belt.

It was solid in my hand, and its blade was sawlike. It would be perfect for gutting the Astonian queen and her traitorous paramour.

I tucked it into the back of my trousers and reminded myself one last time of what Eden had said, letting it take on a whole new meaning. You’re doing the right thing, she’d said. Well, I would do the right thing, I decided. I would make Eden’s death mean something by refusing to surrender.

Refusing to be their victim again.

And by making them pay.

There were bodies and blasts and clouds of smoke everywhere. It reminded me of the day at the Academy, when it had been attacked during my visit there, and so many children had been murdered simply because they’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Simply because they’d been so close to me.

It was like that again today. This was all because of me. All because Ludania had a new queen.

But I refused to feel blame, especially not for these deaths.

The guilt was Elena’s to bear, if only she had the capacity to feel guilt. The truth was, this was because of her. Because of her lust, her jealousy, her vanity.

She shouldn’t be sitting on any throne, and I certainly wouldn’t let her have Ludania’s.

I suspected those were my men out there launching the assault against Elena’s camp, feeling much the same as I did about Ludania’s throne. I suspected that somehow the Ludanian armies had caught up with Elena’s forces and were waging war against her.