But then one removes his helm, and I find myself looking at Renault—who is here, breathing, perfectlyalive. His usually immaculate auburn hair is tousled, plastered to his forehead by sweat. He is not a corpse rotting on the floor of the Devorarium, half-consumed by the High Ecclesia.
Which means he must be here to take me home.
My body tenses, mind white with panic. Renault’s fingers on the hilt of his drawn sword tighten. Two of the knights point bows at us, arrows nocked.
“Foul beast,” Renault spits. “Release my betrothed, or I shall slaughter you like the swine you are.”
Nyatrix doesn’t hesitate. Within a split second, maybe less, she scoops me into her arms like I am a child and sprints into the darkness of the chamber. An arrow ricochets off the marble floor a hair’s breadth from her feet, but we’re gone before anyone can bend another bowstring.
In the dim light, I can just make out an alcove in the wall. Nyatrix runs toward it, her legs devouring the distance acrossthe vast hall, dodging broken pieces of wrought iron and the carcass of an old statue. When she reaches the alcove, I realize it is one of the Saint’s grottos—much like what lines the Spine back home. My heart trips in my chest as she sets me down gently inside.
“Get behind the statue,” Nyatrix whispers, so low I almost don’t catch it.
My body moves to obey her, my cane already reaching out to prepare for my next step. But my eyes catch on the engraving at the feet of the statue first.
SAINTESS LUCIA, the chiseled words read. Next, I see flowing, embroidered robes, more familiar to me than my own face, and a thousand feelings overtake me at once. But Nyatrix’s powerful arms guide me into the slim, shadowed space behind the statue, where I lean against the dusty wall. I hear the harsh sound of an arrow striking the marble outside the grotto and meet the Sepulchyre knight’s eyes for the briefest of seconds.
Her dark gaze is gleaming, half-mad and feral, as she turns and leaps toward the approaching knights. I clench my jaw, hands curling into fists, as I peer around Saintess Lucia. The wan light of the moon catches on their armor, rippling like molten bronze in this tomb of death and memory.
Nyatrix goes for the archers first, cutting through them as though they are nothing. I catch a glimpse of her behind one just before he drops his bow with a startling clatter, his hands going to his throat. His mouth opens, eyes wide, fingers desperately trying to staunch the flow of blood from the wound she soundlessly sliced open in his neck. When he collapses, I hear another clatter and turn to see the other archer has met a similar fate.
They both lie on the marble, heaps of shining armor and flowing blood. The remaining knights close rank, swords drawn, Renault’s barked commands ringing out in the corridor. I crouchlower behind the statue but cannot bear to take my eyes off Nyatrix. For a heartbeat, I lose her in the sweep of sand and shadow—then there’s a gleam of blackened silver in the distance.
Something rolls on the marble floor, tracking a dark trail as it goes, and I realize with a burst of nausea that it’s a severed head. I let out a shaky breath, looking for Renault. I find him a moment later, taller than the rest, the silvered light catching on his auburn hair.
The clash of swords draws my attention as one of his brothers-in-arms exchanges blows with the Lupa Nox. She lures him away from the remaining two knights and then drives him back, half-heartedly dodging strikes. She’stoyingwith the knight, I realize, like I’ve seen a cat play with a mouse. Of all things, heat blooms low in my stomach, curling around the nausea in a way that makes my entire body tremble. If she loses, I will have no choice but to return home, to face the High Ecclesia, come what may. I’m unsure if that’s any worse than accepting the supposed truth the Lupa Nox offers. Any better.
The soft rustle of feathers, amplified by the empty space, ripples through the corridor. Nyatrix’s black wings spread, wide and terrible and lovely. My breath catches. One beat of her powerful muscles sends sand and dust flying into the knights’ eyes. They draw back, coughing and sputtering, and try to close rank again. But they are only men, foolish enough to request an audience with Death Herself.
Nyatrix descends on them like a plague, moonlight turning her sword to pure silver and haloing her dark, silky hair with a pewter crown. My knees go weak beneath me, heat sinking its teeth into my skin. She is the most terrible and beautiful thing I have ever seen. And yet the knights—my betrothed at the center—seem oblivious to her unearthly splendor, advancing toward the Lupa Nox in what looks like a calculated, rehearsed attack.
She takes on all three of them at once, fending off blows with deadly grace, as though this is mere child’s play.
“You thieving bitch,” Renault spits, his voice carrying. “Cease this foolishness.”
I find myself half-rising from my hidden crouch, one hand clawing at the side of the Saintess’s statue, the other curling into a tight fist. That deep, dark pit in me—anger, supposedly, not sadness—rattles viciously, like it’s trying to tear itself out from under my skin and into the world. The thrum ofsomething—not Mysterium—slips through the air, tinny in my ears after the deep silence of the buried city.
Instead of answering my betrothed’s vile words, Nyatrix finds a gap in the plate armor and skewers one of the knights on the point of her blade. All at once, it’s chillingly clear she could’ve done that from the very beginning. Even after the fight with the Hexen, even after carrying me for bells and bells across the Sundered Lands.
“I am Renault of House Amadeus,” my betrothed shouts, but the tremble in his voice—something I’ve never heard before—betrays him. “And I command you tostop.”
For a moment, all is painfully still. There is little more than the hoarse rasp of my breathing and a faraway trickle of water. But then the space fills with the melodic sound of Nyatrix’s laugh—a dark petal falling to the earth, the velvet of a bat’s wings spread against a midnight sky.
Heat pools between my legs. I need to pray. I long to sin.
The final knight at Renault’s right chokes suddenly and falls to his knees, armor clanging against the marble. It takes me too long to see the point of Nyatrix’s stolen blade sticking through his throat. She withdraws the sword, and he collapses, just another corpse among his brethren.
The Lupa Nox returns to the ground and folds her wings, standing before Renault. He pants, sweat dripping down hisbrow, as he stares at her in terror. She cocks her head at him, the side of her mouth lifting, but there is no kindness in her near-black eyes. She is, yet again, more wolf than woman, and my pulse is violent in my veins.
I watch, every muscle in my body contracted into knots, as she takes a long, lazy step toward my betrothed. Toward the man who asked me to serve as his assistant in the Sanctum despite the disapproval of the head scribes. The man who risked the reputation of his Noble House to save me. The man whom I know I could never trust again but to whom I certainly still owe some degree of allegiance.
So when the sharp edge of Nyatrix’s blade comes to rest at his neck, I have no other choice. In a clumsy stumble, I burst out from behind the statue, my breathing ragged.
“Stop!” I shout, fear cascading down my spine. “Nyatrix,stop!”
Chapter 28
Only her eyes turn to me, her body a motionless column of lithe muscle and endless violence, her sword biting into Renault’s soft flesh. It is not lost on me that she so willfully disregarded his Noble commands and yet now yields to three scant words from my foundling lips.
