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Kerik is walking towards Perl, reaching out for Iceheart. Perl realises too late that he must not let him have it.
Kerik’s fingers touch the blade.
Perl is too late to stop it.
The entire hall is instantly engulfed in a bright white light. Perl falls to the floor, blinded. All he can hear is a sound like the shattering of a thousand pieces of glass and the screaming of the fae all around him.
Perl opens his eyes against the light. It is still painfully bright, but fading. Exeinil, lies beside him, motionless on the floor. She had been lunging towards Kerik when he took the sword. The magical blast hit her hard. Perl looks at Kerik. Kerik looks horror-struck. Whatever has just happened, he did not expect it. He falls to the ground, crumpling into a heap.
Drained. Drained by…
Perl cries out, but he only looks at Kerik for a moment, because standing behind him — the source of the incredible light — is Jareleezi.
She looks at Perl and smiles, “Ah, there you are, dear one. I see you have found my sword.” Something flashes in the air and the guards, lining the edges of the hall, drop to the floor as one.
Perl sees Krem amongst them, lying unmoving on the white floor of the Ice Hall.
The fae start to scream.
Perl looks at Kerik. The sword. The sword filled him with power. Kerik and Jareleezi share blood. Not enough blood that he had even considered it could be enough. But with her power combined with Kerik’s and amplified by the power of Iceheart.
He can barely speak but he finds the words, “You created a blood door?”
A blood door through the wards of Vylenor.
Jareleezi replies only with laughter as she steps forward, snatching Iceheart from Kerik as he crumples, exhausted by the force of the blood door ripping magic out of him.
She has always laughed at him. Laughing at him when he told her she needed to stop amassing magic, laughing at him when he implored her to release her vessel. Laughing at him when he begged her to let him have the Books of Alios. Laughing when she told Perl she had destroyed them, as revenge for him taking Kerik from her.
And she’s laughing now. Laughing as she directs Iceheart and hits Perl in the chest with a bolt of magic that sends him hurtling back across the Ice Hall. He crashes into the dais, sprawled at Vane’s feet.
“This creature,” Jareleezi cries, “has been trying to resurrect the five fae princes. But he claims they have been reborn from the line of the filthy Dareks. The Dareks can never defeat the Bellator. They were charged through the line of Sarelik Darek to bring him back. That corrupted line has already enacted the first part of his plan. Ur-Durik, a Bellator demon, rules in Attar, the whole Azurian Empire kneels before him.”
Perl staggers to his feet. His legs feel weak as water. He looks at the suppressor cuff still wrapped around his wrist. What can he do?
Exeinil is lying on the floor at Jareleezi’s feet a heap of sparkling silk.
Jareleezi does not know this place. She doesn’t know the fae lying before her is the most powerful creature in this room. The most powerful creature south of Oria. Jareleezi is a mortal, from the mortal realm, and she thinks this place has mortal rules. She assumes that what she perceives as a man, a king, on the dais, is the ruler here. She is addressing her proclamations to Prince Vane.
Vane stands up. His wings erupt from his back, arcing black around him, gold tips glittering. His eyes are dark as jet. “You filthy mortal bitch,” he snaps, sounding like the fae king Jareleezi has taken him for. “We are the fae of Ulla and we care not for your mortal dealings with the Bellator. You betrayed us and made your pact with them. And you will endure its consequences. How dare you bring this here? We have long let it be known that we care not for the strife the Bellator bring to mortals.”
Jareleezi looks at Vane. For a moment she looks a little surprised at the way Vane has dismissed her, but then she raises Iceheart, glowing in her hands. “You will regret that, faerie,” she says and turns the blade towards him.
Magic crackles through the air from the point of Iceheart’s blade. Vane stands where he is, looking like he has no intention of diving away from its power. Perhaps he does not realise how strong Jareleezi is.
But before the power hits him, Seridil turns and grabs hold of Vane, pulling him down and holding him. Vane makes a spluttering noise of horror and the magical blow hits the wall behind him, bounces off and smashes into Diamanda as she rushes across the dais, also trying to protect Vane.
Diamanda screams. The magic from this blast is full of Jareleezi’s anger. It is so powerful, so vicious the top half of Diamanda’s body turns to dust. The rest of her — legs and half her torso, wrapped in her skirts of frothy lace — falls to the floor with a sickening thump.
Vane shoves Seridil off him and screams, “You’ll pay for that, witch.” He jumps down from the dais. He is rushing towards Jareleezi, but Seridil is behind him. He grabs hold of him and forces him down, just as Jareleezi sends another bolt of magic towards them both. This one hits Seridil as he shields Vane with his own body. And Seridil falls. Dead. His body tipping back onto Vane, knocking him to the floor, right beside where Perl stands.
There is a moment of absolute, stunned silence. And then Vane emerges, crawling out from under Seridil’s body and getting to his feet again, face bloodied. “That was my fucking thrall,” he snarls.
Perl grabs hold of Vane's thigh, trying to pull him back. “Vane, no. She’s too strong.”
“She’s a mortal,” Vane spits back at Perl. As if he isn’t truly aware that Jareleezi has just slain Diamanda and Seridil with her power.
Vane shakes Perl off, but before he can rush forward again, Exeinil reaches up from the floor at Jareleezi’s feet. She rises to her knees and puts her hand right on Jareleezi’s chest, sending a glowing golden ball of magic into her.
