“I’m sorry,” she said, burying her face in his shirt.
He reached up, lifting her face until she met his gaze. “No,” he said, an edge to his words. “I’m sorry. I gave you a reason to fear me, and I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you. I swear it by the goddess.”
She brushed away the tears that threatened, then said, “I like the sound of that.”
Moments later, she pressed her hands to the door. She waited, double-checking to be sure there were no more traps. She exhaled loudly, then turned to her friends. “Here goes everything.”
She twisted the diamond handle and the door swung open. As the edge of the door passed before her face, she saw a flare of light, an instant before she felt the nerve-tingling wave of mage work. She gasped and tried to shove the door closed, but it opened of its own volition.
Gemma waited for the pain, for fire and poison and death, but none came. Only the almost nauseating shiver of magic rushing against her skin. She turned to look at the group, but her gaze fell on Devery, whose blue eyes had gone wide with fear.
He took a step toward her, and the sound of his footfall echoed in the corridor.
As quickly as the magic had come, it passed. The waves of magery disappeared into nothingness and Devery stood before Gemma with strands of silver at his temples.
She opened her mouth to speak, but he interrupted her. “The mark of unmaking,” he said. He reached up to touch her face, and all the sinuous grace he’d possessed slipped away. He was just a man. His mouth curved up in a wry smile. “A gift from my mother.”
Her heart hammered in her chest. This man—her man—had just lost a piece of himself. Aspects of him had disappeared, yet he was making jokes. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“I will be,” he said calmly. “Let’s go get our daughter.” She knew there was something he wasn’t telling her. Something he wouldn’t say in front of the others.
Her tongue grew thick with emotion, and she nodded, unable to speak. Would all of his years catch up with him now? What kind of mother could do that to her son?
Her gaze drifted to Isbit who stood still with hard eyes and the air of a caged beast. Looking at the Queen of Above, Gemma made a promise to herself. I’m going to be a better mother than Brinna or Isbit.
She reached up and ran her fingers through Devery’s suddenly silvering hair. “Let’s go.” She kissed him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE PALACE
Tollan was confused. Something had happened between Gemma and Devery. Some change had come over the assassin that he couldn’t quite understand, but Elam was clearly distraught. As they shuffled into the palace, Tollan took hold of Elam’s arm. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure, but … Devery’s not right.”
It was clear to everyone that the strangely gifted assassin had disappeared, and in his place was an average, somewhat older man.
“What’s happened?” Tollan asked, louder this time.
But Gemma wasn’t in the mood for conversation. She flung open the door to the hallway. “If you would be so kind, Your Grace?”
As Isbit pushed past him to take her place at the front of the group, she grabbed Tollan and embraced him awkwardly. “Keep yourself alive,” she whispered into his hair. “No one else matters but us.”
Tollan opened his mouth to argue with her, but she was already gone. He turned to his friends and saw that both Elam and Wince had heard. He shook his head, hoping that they would see his thoughts. Hoping beyond reason that they had even a spark of the connection that Elam had with his friends from Under.
Tollan’s sword trembled in his hand as they followed Isbit through the vacant corridors of the southern wing of the palace. He wished, at the very least, that he had his good sword. The last he’d seen of his sword, it had been dripping with his father’s blood, and he’d thought that this was all just a misunderstanding. How stupid and naive he’d been, then. How innocent.
Without warning, Elam reached out and caught his hand. Their eyes met, and Elam winked. How does he always know just what I need? Tollan drew a deep breath. Time to be strong. Time to be brave. Time to be a man. He squeezed Elam’s hand back. He could do this. He could do anything with Elam by his side.
Suddenly, Gemma stopped. Halfway across the hallway, she turned and looked to the right. She held up a hand, motioning them to follow her, then headed quietly down the hall. Tollan caught his mother’s tunic in his fingers and she arched an eyebrow before following after Gemma. Her blade quivered in her hand, and the glint of mania in her eyes made Tollan’s heart hurt. Promising his mother Above was a mistake—he didn’t know why he hadn’t realized it before.
They were twenty feet down the hall when Tollan heard the crying, but Gemma was already racing toward the door of the library. Devery drew his sword and followed her. Wince went charging after them.
When Tollan entered, he found Gemma standing over a dark-haired woman in dirty palace livery. Her hair was in tangles, and she leaned protectively over a person lying prone on a chaise. The woman looked up, her eyes wide and terrified.
“Oh, no,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “If they find you here, they’ll kill you for sure. You need to go. You need to get the king out, or …” Her eyes drifted and landed on Tollan. She stiffened. “You’re dead,” she said. “They … they said you were dead. They put the mark on …” She looked down, and it was only then that Tollan looked at the chaise.
Madness broke out in the library as Tollan recognized his brother at the same time that Isbit laid eyes on her youngest son. Iven’s eyes were open but unseeing, and he wasn’t breathing. Every inch of his skin appeared to be mage marked, and many of the marks festered and oozed. He was naked and covered in layers of blood and his own filth. Isbit’s howl of grief quickly took on the tone of an angry bear, and she grabbed hold of the maid. “Where are they?” She gripped the maid’s chin in her hand. “Where are those bitches?”
A pain that he could not name clenched Tollan’s insides—guilt mixed with grief and rage to create a swirling, nauseating hole that threatened to swallow him. At the same time, he suddenly acknowledged his own feelings of terror. He suddenly realized how well and truly pricked they were. If the mage women could do this, he and his companions didn’t stand a chance, and their best weapon was starting to look more and more like a middle-aged shopkeeper. He tried not to glance at his brother, tried to ignore the bitter truth. I should have come sooner. I should have died trying. I should have known …
“They’re in the throne room,” the maid whimpered. “I’ve been hiding in here for days, and then they brought him in and dumped him here. I heard them say that they’d wait for the dregs in the throne room.”
Wince reached up and gently but firmly removed Isbit’s hands from the maid’s face. “Where is everyone else?” he asked. “Where are the guards and the servants? Where are the …”
“Dead,” the maid croaked. “They’re all dead. They don’t know I’m here, I … I was too afraid and I hid.”
Tollan couldn’t understand the guilt that he heard in her voice. Of course she had hidden. What sane person wouldn’t? But then his gaze drifted back to his brother and he understood. Guilt didn’t live in the same house as reason and there was a hole in Tollan’s mind where logic and reason were supposed to live. He had failed so completely that his brother lay bloodied and maimed by magic, his entire house had been massacred. Everyone he had ever lived with was gone, and the blame lay at his feet. “Dead?” he murmured, confused. “But I … I wanted to save him …” Tears were starting to well in his eyes and he feared that he would collapse into a pile of his own despair.