It was enough.
Ru ran, dashing for the stairs, stumbling, not knowing where she would go or how she would get there, half-blind. Her focus was on escaping, on getting out, on finding safety. Gwyneth and Archie were gone now. Taryel would find her. She would seek out Simon. He’d know where to hide her, how to keep her safe, how to…
“Stop.”
She had just made it to the stairs when Lady Bellenet’s voice cut through the din of her thoughts. The words caught Ru like a fish on a hook, and she froze. She turned slowly, and the sight that met her deflated her utterly.
Her vision was clearing with every moment, and while the tower room was still shadowed, every detail a smear or a blur, she could see enough.
Taryel stood unarmed, his back to Lady Bellenet. He seemed to be leaning back, and in a moment, Ru realized why — Lady Bellenet gripped his hair, wrenching his head back. Her other hand was curved around his front, pressing a shining thing to his throat. A dagger.
Perhaps it was her rage, or her fear, or her self-preservation instinct. Whatever it was, Ru’s vision finally cleared, the shadowed forms resolving sharply. Her throat constricted with terror.
Lady Bellenet’s gaze briefly flickered to Lord D’Luc, and then her gaze fell to Ru like a hammer slamming down.
“One more step,” the lady said sweetly, “and Taryel dies.”
“You won’t kill him.” Ru’s voice was hoarse and cracked, hardly a voice at all. But her certainty was clear.
He’s your god.
“Maybe not,” said Lady Bellenet, tilting her head. Slowly, she dropped the hand holding the knife. But her other hand remained in his hair, pulling so his chin tilted up to the ceiling.His chest heaved with quick breaths, and Ru knew it must be tormenting him — this helplessness. “But I canblesshim,” the lady continued, a smile creeping across her face. “I have so much power in me and so many souls to touch.”
“You won’t,” Ru bit out.
Lady Bellenet’s eyes flashed. “Won’t I?”
Ru had fought and fought. She had kicked and screamed and clawed and bloodied herself in the process. And even after all that, she hadn’t been able to stop Lady Bellenet. She hadn’t even saved her friends. What had her resistance accomplished? Taryel couldn’t save her now, but Ru had the power to save him. She would not say goodbye to anyone else today.
Ru held up her hands in surrender.
“There we are,” Lady Bellenet cooed, as if this was all a game and Ru was but a stubborn child. “Was that so hard?”
Lady Bellenet let Taryel’s dagger clatter to the floor. Then she rummaged in his pockets, ignoring his grumbles of protest until she unearthed the artifact. Wordlessly, she held it out, and Lord D’Luc came to fetch it.
Like a pretty little lapdog, Ru thought, watching him return it to its place on the half-ruined table. He was too weak to truly defy his mistress. He had tossed Ru a ragged lifeline that would never be offered again.
At last, Lady Bellenet released Taryel, shoving him toward Ru. Her expression was carved in ice. “The Solstice approaches,” she said. “I expect you to be ready.”
Ru could not have said how she had made it back to her rooms without shattering, her atoms falling to ash and nothingness. Taryel held her as best he could, but she was weak, her legs like jelly.
When, at last, Ru was undressed, bathed, and carried to sit by the fire by a murmuring Taryel, his hands so caring and his kisses sweet against her hair, she closed her eyes and found thatshe saw nothing but the blank faces of her friends staring back. There would be no peace for her, not even in sleep.
As she lay there, staring vacantly at the fire as Taryel stroked her hair, she wished she could remember… were her friends’ hands still twined together when she left Lady Bellenet’s rooms?
Or had they lost even that?
CHAPTER 40
Taryel held Ru late into the night.
Held her tightly as she screamed, sobbing, lost in grief. He pressed soft kisses to her head as she cursed herself, over and over. And when she threw the teapot against the wall and it shattered in a hail of porcelain shards, he took her hands in his and kissed her fingers.
When she howled and swore at him, cursed his name, told him that she hated him, that she never wanted to see him again, he listened silently. It washisfault the artifact existed, she screamed. His fault that Gwyneth and Archie were gone. His fault that Lyr was, too. It was his fault that Ru was hurting. His fault. His fault.
She hated him.
And when Ru had finally worn herself out, when she lay staring numbly out at the snowy night, he settled behind her and wrapped her in his arms. His quiet tenderness, his steadfastness in the face of Ru’s darkest moment, his persistence in loving her — it was the only thing that kept Ru sane. At last, for a while, she was able to sleep.