The Offering (24 page)

Eventually Sabara stopped grappling against me. She had no choice. She became too weary to fight the truth. I was winning.

When at last I smiled my own triumphant smile, I watched Elena's face crumple.

“It can't be!” she shrieked into the sky. “It can't be!” I stood back and watched as the queen who was ten times the queen I was threw a tantrum to rival any child's. “I will have my eternity! I will!
I will
!
” Her face was mottled with rage as she shouted again. “This is your doing, isn't it? You won't let me have her.”

I didn't blink or move, just continued to smile that gloriously victorious smile. I had them right where I wanted them.

Elena's voice circled the rim of madness when she bellowed, “Bring the other one! Bring her now!”

It wasn't hard to decipher who she meant, and I felt the floor, which had felt only unsteady a moment before, drop out from under me.

When Eden was dragged in by two of Elena's henchmen, my jaw tightened, but I managed to keep my face expressionless even as my mind spun in a million different directions.

I thought of Xander's hand, entombed in a cardboard box, and acid rose in my throat, burning the back of my tongue.

“Give me the soul of Sabara,” Elena demanded from between gritted teeth. “Give her to me or I'll kill your associate here.”

I studied Eden. I could feel the fury coming off her—as I'm sure we all could—thick, like black smoke that burned our lungs and stung our eyes. She was everything I'd ever strived to be—loyal, passionate, tough, and sharp. Her face was still bruised from her fight with Brooklynn, and her jaw was set now in steely resolve. I wondered if she understood precisely what Elena was asking me to do. If she knew that Sabara was looking for a new host.

Either way, she knew enough to level her gaze on me.
“Don't you dare,” she commanded, as if she were the queen and I the guard. “This is a war, Your Majesty. You do this, and she wins. They all win.”

“Shut up,” Elena hissed.

But I knew she meant it. Eden could no more hide the veracity of her conviction than she could the color of her shockingly purple hair.

I also knew she was right. If I gave Elena Sabara's Essence now, we'd lose. Not just here, today, but the war. There'd be nothing to stop Sabara from killing me and then marching Elena's forces all the way to the Capitol and taking her place on the throne once more.

She'd have total control over both domains. She'd undo everything I'd worked for—all the freedoms I'd offered the people of Ludania, all the injustices I'd tried to set right.

All I could hope was that Elena was bluffing. That she was simply trying to fool me into giving up Sabara by threatening Eden's life.

Eden, I could sense, had no such delusions.

If she had been able to sense my feelings, however, she would have felt torment and despair. Elena might as well have asked me to kill Eden with my own two hands.

When I finally found the strength to speak, my voice was small and pitiful. “I'm sorry,” I whispered, knowing I might very well be issuing Eden's death sentence by refusing to give up Sabara. I almost couldn't finish, and then I managed, “I can't.”

Elena's lips thinned, pulling into a hard line that left no question as to whether she'd meant her threat or not. She directed her unfeeling gaze to me, and I wanted to shrink away from
it, to take back my refusal. But I couldn't, because that would mean setting Sabara free.

The queen didn't say anything. She only nodded, but that was enough. That single action was all the order she had to give.

I had to close my eyes when I saw the soldiers push Eden to her knees. She didn't resist them, and she didn't try to beg for her life. Around us the air went still and serene as Eden accepted her fate.

And then I heard her, right before the sound of gunfire split the silence: “You're doing the right thing, Charlie.”

I couldn't breathe.

My chest was heavy. Crushed with the weight of what I'd done.

I didn't remember being moved, or when I'd stopped wailing Eden's name, or when the night had come again. But all of these things had happened, and when at last I finally opened my eyes once more, they were swollen and sore from all the tears I'd wept, and all the ones that were still waiting to come.

I vowed never to eat or breathe or love again.

Love was too painful.

Life was too painful.

Air was too painful.

I curled as tightly as I could into a ball in the bed I'd been deposited on, only vaguely noting it wasn't the one I'd been in the night before. That didn't matter either.

The only thing that mattered now was that I hadn't given
Sabara or Niko or Elena what they wanted. I no longer cared if I'd done it for the right reasons, or the wrong ones. All I cared about was that they were being punished too.

My heart was hard and bitter, and I envisioned a thousand ways to hurt them, to kill them and those they loved. To flog, flay, and torture them in every conceivable way.

I wanted revenge. Pure and simple.

And Eden's words continued to replay in my head, over and over and over again,
You're doing the right thing. . . . You're doing the right thing.
 . . .

I wanted to take solace from her final declaration, but I couldn't. Not now. Not yet.

She might have been right, but it didn't matter because she was gone.

Forever.

Eden was gone.

brooklynn

She would've liked to have more troops, but this was all she had at her disposal. They were a sad excuse for an army—her band of 178 able-bodied soldiers. Plus Aron. He was fine to look at, she supposed, but he had zero experience when it came to things like killing.

She scoped the fields below and noted the impressive expanse of tents crawling with the ferocious bird-masked warriors from Astonia. She saw tanks and cannons, and even from her vantage point she could make out the imposing mounted grenade launchers that would have made her giddy had they been her own. The enemy's firepower was nearly as impressive as their ranks.

Her troops had weaponry as well, but they had to be cautious in utilizing it. They had Charlie to think of.

Charlie was in there, somewhere in that labyrinth of shelters. They couldn't just roll in, guns blazing, or they'd risk catching her in the cross fire.

No, this would have to be an operation built on tactics. She
and Max had been trying to formulate a plan in which they could pinpoint Charlie's location and infiltrate the camp to rescue her.

Which meant taking their time. Studying the comings and goings of the soldiers down there. Figuring out where Charlie might be.

She only hoped they didn't have to wait too long. And she hoped, for all their sakes, that Charlie was still alive.

“Anything yet?” Max eased down beside her where she was crouched in the darkness, his voice soft and low, and filled with that same note of fear she heard every time he spoke.

Brooklynn sighed, giving him the same answer she'd given the last time he'd asked, and the time before that. “Nothing. There was some movement about an hour ago, centered right about there.” She passed him the binoculars and pointed to a tent near the middle, near what they suspected was the command tent—the nerve center of Elena's operation. “But it was dark, and it all happened so quickly, I couldn't see what they were moving. Whatever it was, I doubt it was a person, because it didn't move at all.” She paused, and then added pensively, “Unless . . .”

Max stiffened. “Don't do that,” he insisted, almost as much to himself as to her. “She's fine. I know she is.”

Brook nodded, shaking off the thought. “You're right,” she agreed.

He handed back the binoculars, his voice heavy. “How much longer do you think we can wait?”

Brook reflected on that as she took the binoculars and surveyed the camp again, stopping here and there. She didn't
say anything, and Max didn't press her. It was a good question, one that they'd asked each other too many times already. And one that neither of them had an answer for.

Too soon, and they risked putting Charlie in harm's way.

Too long, and they risked that Elena would kill her.

It was a fine line they walked.

Brook inhaled, and was just about to lower the binoculars, when she saw something at the far end of the encampment. A flicker of something, or a flash. Like an explosion.

Exactly
like an explosion.

It was followed almost immediately by another. And then another.

The sounds were muffled, because they were so far away, but they were undeniable.

She lowered the binoculars when she realized she didn't need them. The detonations were clear, briefly banishing the darkness. They continued, one after the other, blasting the outer perimeter of the tents, which caught on fire, one by one, on the opposite side of camp from them. “You're seeing this, right?” she asked Max, who was already getting to his feet.

She stood now too, her eyes wide as she tried to make sense of it.

The entire camp seemed to come awake then, sleeping giants prodded by an invisible attacker in the night. Soldiers emerged from their tents half-dressed and carrying lit torches. Fires ignited and weapons detonated as Elena's soldiers returned fire.

Within a matter of seconds the field before them was ablaze in flames and flashes and flares. There were shouts and shrieks
and bellowed commands that managed to reach all the way into the hills.

“Who is that?” Brook asked, knowing that Max didn't have an answer for her. She lifted the binoculars again, straining to see who had beat them to the punch and started a battle against Elena's troops. Another battalion of her own soldiers? Civilian militia?

She had no idea. It was too dark to make out the attackers from here.

But Max was already heading back toward their own, much smaller and much less impressive encampment. “It doesn't really matter, I guess. We need to get down there and save Charlie. Now.”

xvi

Somewhere in my well of despair, the vacuum in which I existed—just me and the nothingness that tried to engulf me, sucking and pulling at me until I was raw and hopeless and ravaged—a sound emerged.

It was loud, and it shook the ground beneath me, which was already shaky at best. The sound was crisp and clear, however, and penetrated my misery, reminding me I was still alive. Still breathing. Still whole.

I blinked, but it was dark inside my tent, and despite the fact that I'd been glowing every day for months since Sabara had taken up residence with me, I didn't now. At least not enough to crack the blackness of the night.

But something did.

Something beyond the thick canvas walls of my enclosure.

And one sound became another, became another, as the bangs and blasts grew louder and closer and brighter.

There's fire out there,
I thought absently. Fire and bombs. Still, I didn't rouse, because my heart was too heavy with ache.

My hands were no longer bound, I realized in that moment, the first real moment of lucid thought I'd had about my surroundings. Apparently, a queen with no will to live was no threat.

They were right, of course. I hadn't even considered trying to flee.

If there was the slightest chance I could actually reach them—either Niko or Elena—with some sort of weapon. If I could find a way to eviscerate them with my bare hands . . .

Well, that might give me some reason to try,
I thought, the sliver of a smile finding my lips. Also, my skin shone just the tiniest bit at the idea of the two of them disemboweled.

But since that idea seemed improbable, what with the constant contingent of guards following them wherever they went, there was no point attempting it.

Besides,
I thought, looking at my empty and helpless hands.
Where would I find such a weapon anyway?

All I was now was a prison for Sabara. She'd tried to use my misery against me, to take control once more, but I had somehow found just enough energy to suppress her. The revulsion I felt for her part in all this fueled my resolve to keep her down.

The earth beneath my feet continued to tremble and quake as boots rumbled past and voices roared in disharmony, shouting over one another—orders and instructions and directions, some at odds with others. And above them all the sounds of explosives continued to pierce the night sky.

It was utter madness.

When my tent flaps were flung wide apart, I didn't so much
as lift my head. It was as heavy as a boulder, and the effort would have been colossal.

Eden would have lifted her head
, I told myself. But even that wasn't enough to goad me into action. So I lay there, waiting for something to happen.

I didn't have to wait long. I was hauled abruptly to my feet. My legs refused to cooperate, however, and as soon as I was released, I withered limply to the floor.