Bloodleaf (Bloodleaf 1)

It was dark, but there was still enough light to see that the entire left wall was made of ruched velvet curtains. I could hear voices on the other side.

“The crown jewel of the whole place, where a lovely, pious woman can come to rest and restore her spirit, basking in the light of the great Empyrea. This is the part of the house I’ll miss the most.”

“You saved the best of the tour for last, I see,” I heard Kate reply. “Your home is very impressive. I can hardly believe you’ve sold it when you seem to love it so much.”

“I wanted to collect the proceeds of my investment before property value declines within the city.” A soft chuckle. “I have reason to believe that such a downturn is imminent.”

“Always one step ahead, predicting the future,” Kate said with a polite laugh. “Do you also happen to know when my mother will arrive?”

I peeked through a break in two panels to see Kate and Corvalis alone in the enormous inner sanctuary. It was at least six times larger than the one back home in Renalt. He took her hand and pressed it to his lips as her smile froze on her face.

“Now that we’re in the confessional, I have a confession to make, dear Katherine. Your mother isn’t coming today. I’m sorry. Something came up for her, and she wasn’t able to make it.”

“Oh,” Kate said, visibly deflating. “Well, thank you for the tour of your lovely home. I’d probably better go.”

“Back to a husband who mistreats you?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve seen it, Katherine. Firsthand. The irreverent way he speaks to you, the way he lords himself over you. Not to mention how he’s forced you into subservience, working for others when it should be you going to balls, so the rest of the world can marvel at your beauty.” He stroked her cheek. “It is my greatest folly, letting you get away.”

“I’m sorry, Dedrick,” Kate said, “if I’ve given you the wrong impression—?”

“It would be easy to undo,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “The marriage, so obviously performed under duress, can be annulled. And as for the whelp, no one of importance even knows about it. Once it has been delivered, it can be given to a decent, Empyrea-fearing family somewhere, or to an orphanage—?”

Kate hit him, her hand whipping so fast across his face that it knocked his head to the side, revealing a series of scratches under his hair, by his ear. The ones I’d given him just after he’d killed Molly.

He touched a hand to his lip, and it came away with blood. “Don’t be stupid, Katherine. I’m trying to save you. To give you a chance. A lesser man wouldn’t even consider taking up with you now.”

She raised her hand to strike him again, but he grabbed it before she could land the blow. His handsome face was drawn into a sullen pout. “Oh, Katherine. You’re breaking my heart.”

He pulled her against his chest and took out his luneocite knife, nicking his own hand with it before pressing it against her neck. I grabbed the object nearest me—?a vase—?and dashed from my hiding place. But I was fast enough only to hear him say, “Know that I never wanted this for you. Nihil nunc salvet te.”

I slammed the vase full-force against the back of his skull. Crystalline shards fell with Dedrick to the ground. My hand hurt; the force of the blow had reopened some of my cuts. Kate was holding her hand against her neck, eyes terrified.

Dedrick was on all fours, trying to crawl over to us. His eyes were blazing with a malevolent fire. He grabbed at my skirt, and I brought my foot down hard on his left arm, the one I’d cut the last time I’d faced him. He cried out, but I’d already moved to his other side, laying him out flat with a kick to the back he’d bruised on the terrace stones.

“Come on!” I shouted, pulling Kate to the door and slamming it tight behind us.

Kate was shaking, but she brought a candelabra to me and I drove the metal shafts into the handle to jam it.

Behind the door, Dedrick was laughing softly. Almost politely. “You don’t know what’s coming,” he said. “You don’t know what will happen when I get out of here.”

Kate shrank away, and I slammed my hands against the wood. “You aren’t getting out of here, you dog. The next time you leave this room it will be in chains.”

The words surged from me, and with them, magic. What had Simon said back in Renalt, hidden away in the sanctuary? Over time, and with practice, the more instinctual and accessible magic becomes.

When I stepped back, my bloody handprint remained on the door like a promise.

25

“The baby,” Kate said. “I think she’s coming now.” Tears were streaming down her face.

“We’re almost home,” I said. “Can you make it?”

She took a long, deep breath. “I don’t know. I think so.”

“Do you have a midwife I can fetch?”