Baz could do more than guess. If Aziza’s illusion that veiled Velle’s face had fallen, likely so had the illusion that led the aristos to believe they were enjoying some safe revelry. Though Aziza was one of the strongest people he’d ever known, her hold over her power could falter if she forgot she was wielding it. She would be as enraged as Baz was at Lev and Moncho’s ill treatment, but that alone wouldn’t have been enough to cause her to lose grip on her power. It was seeing Crute discarded as if he were refuse that had distracted Zi from her illusory power.
A singular scream rose above the cacophony. For it to be this piercing rooms away, it had to be loud as a rapplecon’s call, and that would burst eardrums if the bird was too close. When the cry undulated in increased despair, frowning, Terencia shifted her weight into one leg.
“I will see to my drability.”
“Nobility” hadn’t been grand enough for the child-bride, not when drakes and drakesses made up much of her court. She’d coined the upgraded term herself, and then Baz had used it as inspiration to invent the moniker Drady Vee for Velle.
Terencia snapped her fingers. Her sänglure-servants blurred as they hastened to zoom over.
“Ready me. I will sleep only after my drability has seen its empress.”
Her tone was lofty, that of the magnanimous ruless who put the needs of others first.
Baz held back a snort, and had no doubt others among the Bazrians did as well. The face of one of her servants went carefully blank—too carefully.
In a flash of light so quick he would have missed it had he blinked, the empress’ body was cleaned, her skin left gleaming. Another flash, and she was dressed in a gown worthy of her station. Its skirt was belled out so as to make traversing doorways a challenge. Its bodice was cinched so tightly that her breasts all but spilled from it. The dress was the color of blood, with intricate black lace layered over it. A third flash, and the empress’ hair was swept off her back and pinned up, a few chosen curls positioned to frame her thin face. A fourth flash, and the room was cleaned, the spilled blood gone, the dead beneath the floor banished to whence they came. The pool and immense size of her quarters remained.
The servant with the carefully composed expressions stepped forward to pin—with another flash of faithum—a diadem to her empress’ head. The dual dragons of the Domdurro crest were carved into an enormous central diamond.
“There,” Terencia announced, without a single glance back at the dead humans—still there, still dead—or at the many warriors in the enclosed space who wanted to murder her. Even Lev and Moncho, still obviously spent with their curved spines and sagging shoulders, were casting furtive glances her way, and they weren’t the coy kind. If Lev and Moncho hadn’t done … whatever it is they’d had to do for Baz, they probably would have killed the woman, no matter the consequences. It’s what Baz would have done.
For long centuries, he’d dreamt of killing Junot, and he’d never wanted to end him more than he wanted to end Terencia right then. Before he died, he would kill them both. He wouldn’t leave the Opalese to deal with them without him.
“Now that you’ve finished playing your sly little game with me, Alobaz,” Terencia said, “you’ll accompany me.” She held out her arm for him to take—as if they hadn’t caught her doing anything untoward, and depravity were simply her right.
Gritting his teeth into a tight smile, he made himself walk the last few steps to her side. He wove his arm through hers while considering how easy it would be to pull one of his swords from the harness at his back and separate her head from her shoulders. It would only take seconds.
Because of the Rillis rope, Velle would have to come with them. But his temptress was smart. She would recognize Terencia for the predator she was. Velle wouldn’t draw any unnecessary attention to herself.
Baz tugged his free hand, and thus the rope, to his side farthest from the empress. It wasn’t much in the way of hiding, but it was something. When Velle slid behind him, he relaxed by a fraction.
“Games, Empress Mother?” Baz said, pretending he wasn’t in that precise moment imagining her head rolling along the floor and into the pool. “I’m not playing any games.”
She laughed and sashayed toward the door in a swish of multi-layered skirts, leading him—and ergo Velle. “Well, no, not anymore you aren’t. But you were, you most certainly were. You were trying to hide your surprise from me.”
“Surprise, Empress Mother?”
Single file, she led them through the threshold. On its other side, the iron door was once more bloodless.
“I shall be the one to tell the crown prince the news.”
“What news?”
“Why, that his first act as the interim emperor will be to execute the Rubor’s greatest enemy, of course. Until my husband returns to us, I shall be our son’s regent. Though I do, of course, hope our emperor hastens to rejoin my side. I will miss him so very deeply.”
Velle snorted softly then pretended to cough. Terencia turned in a whirl of crinkling skirt. She smiled her I’m going to eat you smile at Velle.
“Now that I’ve had some time to think, thanks to my son’s thoughtful delays”—she batted auburn lashes at Baz—“I have deduced exactly who you are.”
She faced forward and resumed walking, which meant that so did Baz and Velle. Ed and Félix followed. The two servant women silently trailed the group.
“I know your father quite well,” Terencia said, allowing the statement, clearly intended to provoke her, to travel back to Velle. “Now that you’re returned from the dead, you should ask him about me. He knows quite a lot about me as well.”
Baz wanted to elbow Terencia in the jaw, whirl toward Velle, pin her against the wall, and keep her from whatever Terencia was in the midst of unleashing.
“I’m certain our dear Alonso will have much to tell you.”
Baz willed Velle to keep quiet, and for once, she did as he wished.
