Please, Ru thought, the shadowy fingers of her mind reaching inward, drifting along the artifact’s coiled energy.Give me something. The golden light… show it to them. Not the darkness. I don’t know if I can hold it off this time.
The artifact seemed to hum in response, but that was all.
Ru closed her eyes, breathing slowly. She could not stop shaking.
I’m angry,she thought.Feed on that rage. You used to be so angry, too. You used to push me. Do it again but don’t overwhelm me.
Nothing happened.
“You’re not trying,” Lady Bellenet said.
“I am,” Ru bit out. Had her friends put up a fight before they met their end? Had Inda, Ranto, and Nell dragged them bodily from their rooms in the palace? Or had they come willingly,foolishly, in some vain attempt to save Ru? Out of some horribly misplaced loyalty?
The fire in Ru surged; her anger, her pain catching in her chest like a jagged piece of glass, clambering into her throat, choking her.
Taryel,she said the name silently, as if she could call him by thought alone, as if her desperation was acute enough to be felt through their shared tether to the artifact, as if he might know exactly where she was and how to save her.
“You continue to defy me,” said Lady Bellenet. “Hugon, send for the minstrel.”
Ru’s gaze shot to Lord D’Luc. He could still save her. He could prove himself brave instead of a coward.Hugon, she pleaded internally.You can stop her.
But he avoided her gaze, turning to the door.
“No,” Ru said, desperate. “Let me try again. One more time.”
Lady Bellenet said nothing, but Hugon paused by the door, waiting.
Ru’s fingertips scraped the table as she gripped it for dear life, as she pulled and pulled on the connection between herself and the artifact.Just enough, she thought.Just show them enough to be satisfied.
This time, the artifact seemed to jerk against the margins of her mind, a sharp acknowledgment, sudden and bright. It took almost everything Ru had to hold it within herself, to staunch the flood of destructive energy that was suddenly writhing, pressing at the edges of her mind, begging to be let out. If she gave way to the artifact for a moment, there was no telling what would happen. Lyr could be gone before he had a chance to knock her unconscious.
Blood dripped from her nose and into her mouth. She wiped it with the back of her hand, and the thick tang of iron cut through her thoughts.
Taryel, she pleaded again, wishing he could hear her, that the artifact would somehow warn him.
“Hugon,” said Lady Bellenet, her voice ringing. “Go and bring the minstrel. I wish to bless Simon Delara.”
Lady Bellenet’s words were no longer a threat. They were an execution order.
“If we push her too far, too soon…” Hugon’s words were distant, in the periphery, as Ru slipped further inside herself.
“You defy me even now?” Lady Bellenet’s words were shrill, maniacal.
Hugon said something in reply, but Ru didn’t understand it. She was worlds away. She closed her eyes and saw her friends’ faces, so beloved, the faces of two souls who had been like family to her. Closer to her than even Taryel, the brightest spots in a world that felt increasingly gray. But their lights had been snuffed out. Their faces drained of all familiarity, their souls devoured by Lady Bellenet.
And for what? To punish Ru? To push her to do this thing that even now, even at her most despairing, she couldn’t manage to accomplish? Anguish rolled in her like waves, marrow-deep, congealing and coiling along with her rage.
She had been teetering at the brink, fighting against the inevitable. But Lady Bellenet’s words cut through the haze: “Your brother will look charming in white, Delara.”
And so Ru tilted and fell over the edge, just as Lady Bellenet had wanted.
She plucked the artifact from the table, bare skin against cool stone. Lady Bellenet watched, eyes bright and wild, as if she had driven herself to some madness as well, both she and Ru in the grips of a mania.
Hugon faded into the shadows like a slinking vermin. And Ru held the artifact above her head and screamed, a guttural howl of anguish, ripping through her throat until it stung, until it bled.
And at last, the darkness came.
She looked up and saw it seeping outward from the stone, between her fingers. It filled her vision like a thick fog, and soon, she was blanketed in rage and death.
