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Benito casually strolled across the room, casually pushed the door shut as he passed it. “New members reading old texts. Wondering about the will of the god. Realizing the world was never meant to hold this shape.”
Madeleine felt suddenly, unaccountably nervous. Why had he closed the door? Why was he still approaching her, eying her so intently? “It’s the shape the god chose.”
“Cordelan called himself a deity. But there were goddesses here long before he arrived, and they were never happy with this patched-together land.”
He was closing in on her. She backed away, but the grim furniture was badly placed to offer her any protection. “Stay away from me,” she ordered, trying to make her tone peremptory. “No—get out of here.”
Something gleamed in his hand. “Everything will go back to the way it is supposed to be,” he said, “once you’re dead.”
Madeleine screamed. Benito lunged. She managed to put one of the black chairs between them, then thought to snatch it up in her hands as a weapon to hold him off. Benito dodged her wild thrusts, wrapped his free hand around one of the chair legs, and tried to wrench it out of her hands. She hung on, but the motion propelled her forward, her shoulder practically next to his, the chair canted off uselessly to the side.
She screamed again, rearing back as his knife hand came down, slicing along her upper arm with a line of brutal fire. She flung the chair down and tried to twist away, but her ankles caught in the stiff wooden legs and she tripped, falling awkwardly to the floor. Benito had to leap backward as the chair skidded in his direction, but a second later he was diving over it, falling on her from above. She shrieked and rolled to one side as the blade came down, biting heavily into her shoulder.
There was a loud crash and shouts and hard booted footfalls. Madeleine was curled in a protective ball, her arms over her face, so she didn’t see who hurtled through the room, bringing Benito down with a horrific sound of rending wood and snapping bone. She heard a terrible gurgling sound of pain and fury, then a repeated wet thudding, then a gasp, then stillness.
“Dona! Dona! Are you all right? Dona!”
An insistent voice at her ear, urgent hands on her arm, and she recognized the deep bass tones of Reese’s senior guard. She felt light-headed and dizzy, but she allowed him to help her rise shakily to her feet. She could sense brisk activity in the room, people moving, calling out to each other, asking sharp questions, but she could only focus on one spot, one unmoving form.
Benito sprawled faceup on the floor, red blotches staining his ivory robe, his mouth slack, his sightless eyes trained on the harsh white ceiling.
Jayla kneeling beside him, watching him, clearly ready to kill him again if he even thought about coming back to life. Her hands were covered in blood; there was blood on her trousers and tunic, on the wicked silver blade she still held at the ready.
“Jayla,” Madeleine whispered.
Jayla’s eyes never wavered from the priest’s face. “How badly are you hurt?”
“Cuts in both arms, one pretty deep, but no worse damage,” Reese’s captain answered for her.
Jayla nodded. “Do you think the high divine sent him?”
“No,” Madeleine burst out, the word almost a wail. “I am absolutely certain Harlo wants me alive.”
Jayla nodded again. “Then he was one of those—whatever that fancy name was.”
“Sit down, dona, and let me bind your wounds until we can get a physician here,” the captain said, urging her to a chair.
Madeleine would have resisted, but she thought she might fall over at any minute. She dropped onto the stiff seat and said, “I wonder if that was always his goal. If he became Harlo’s lover just to have a chance at me.”
Jayla gave her the briefest glance and returned her attention to Benito. “Maybe. Or maybe someone recruited him once he was close to the source of power.”
Madeleine momentarily closed her eyes. She wondered how much blood she’d lost. She didn’t have that much to spare after her recent offering. “Then I’m still not safe.”
“Maybe not,” Jayla said in a hard voice, “but Benito’s death will make any other fanatic think twice about attempting assassination.”
Someone rushed into the room, and Madeleine heard a woman say, “Let me see her. Ella, go fetch my medical kit.” The housekeeper, sounding calmer than Madeleine thoughtshewould have if she’d walked in on such a scene. The woman bustled over, all authority and purpose, and even Reese’s captain stepped out of her way.
“The physician’s been sent for, but we’ll wrap these cuts till he arrives. Can you make it up to your room or should I have someone carry you?”
“Someone might have to carry me.”
The captain stepped forward again. “I can do it.”
Madeleine nodded and he took her in a careful lift. The movement jostled her arms and she couldn’t bite back a cry of pain. “I’m sorry, dona,” he said, and turned for the door.
“Wait,” she said, twisting in his hold to look behind her. “Jayla.”
Jayla looked up. Her face was so still, her pose so calm, that it took Madeleine this long to realize she was blazingly furious. “Thank you.”
