Page 118 of Destroyer

Inda swept back to Lord D’Luc, handing him the bundled artifact. He took it, never removing his sapphire-hard gaze from Ru’s.

“How did you know we were here?” Ru said finally, her voice woefully small in that great dark city, in the face of the whipping wind.

Lord D’Luc put on a pitying look as if talking down to a child. “We tracked you, of course. It was exceedingly easy; you may as well have left a trail of breadcrumbs in your wake. Come now, let’s return to the Cornelian Tower where it’s safe and warm; away from this accursed place. I dare not think what madness drove you here.” He held a hand out to Ru, an offer of peace. “You may ride with me, Miss Delara, if you wish.”

She turned to Fen on instinct. Nell’s unrelenting fingers bit into her arms painfully, even through her overcoat.

“Fen?” she said, a plea, a prayer.

“Ru,” he said, and she thought she saw the hint of a smile tug at the corner of his pale lips. Then he closed his eyes for a breath, and the image of the city of Ordellun-by-the-Sea, its ghostly towers and squares, wavered and vanished, curling into the night like smoke until nothing was left but the barren waste. Black earth spread out on all sides, reaching onward for miles.

In the heartbeat of confusion that erupted as they were plunged into the darkness of that empty crater, Fen lifted a hand, tracing shapes in the air.

In the next moment, he was gone.

A sphere of crackling black lightning, of charged energy, and Ru’s breaking heart were the only evidence that he had been there at all.

“Interesting,” said Lord D’Luc, his voice ringing hollow in the vastness. And Ru heard something else in his voice, something coiling serpentine, something greedy.

* * *

Midday sun beatdown on Ru’s bare head. The sound of low voices and chatter surrounded her. A hot wind picked up, rustling the eaves of the forest as they rode toward it, the road becoming narrower and shaded. Her dark hair hung loose, lank around her shoulders. She was sweating now, too hot, body aching. She hadn’t bothered to remove her coat since the night before, since Fen had gone.

Archie and Gwyn were quiet, their horses trailing after Ru’s, all three of them flanked on every side by the Children. As if they would bolt at any moment, as if they had anywhere to go. It was an insult, an affront. Ru noted each movement of the Children, each stern command, each warning —stay near us. Don’t wander.

But these sensations were a distant hum, a distraction.

She knew now what she had to do.

“Chin up,” Lord D’Luc said, slowing his horse’s pace until he was alongside Ru. His profile was chiseled as if carved from marble, his golden hair pulled back and fastened at his nape. Bejeweled hands gripped his reins. He flashed a grin, and Ru wondered how she had ever thought him handsome or charming.

“We have so much to discuss,” Lord D’Luc continued, undeterred by Ru’s silence. They passed into the forest then, under shade at last. The smell of moss and earth, a cool stillness, filled Ru’s senses. “ We have so many experiments to try. So many questions to answer. I believe we will take our studies in an entirely new direction, an exciting and progressive one. You will be celebrated, Miss Delara. A pinnacle of discovery, an icon in your own time. At last, magic will find its place in the lexicon of science.”

“Magic,” she echoed, her voice rough from disuse and exhaustion. “Is that why you poisoned the professors? Pushed me to the point of breaking? Why you worship Festra? Don’t condescend to me, Hugon.” She spat the name.

His blue eyes flashed, his grin predatory. “Poison? You think me so vulgar as to use poison? Though I suppose… not long ago, it might have crossed my mind.” He turned away from Ru, watching the road ahead, his expression thoughtful. “Subterfuge, betrayal. Useful tools when wielded deftly. But I learned my lesson when the attack on your carriage failed. I learned how clumsy I’d been. I needed a guiding hand, a keener mind.”

She felt the blood drain from her face as cold realization seeped in. Lord D’Luc had proven himself to be coercive, power-hungry, perhaps even mad, but this… Ru grasped for more meaning in his words, for a clear answer. Whose hand was guiding the Children, if not his?

He softened his expression and shook his head, smiling. A mask of congeniality. “You do like to keep me on my toes, Miss Delara. I relish it. But if you work with me, if you fight that stubborn impulse of yours, we could accomplish so much.”

Ru glanced back and saw that the rest of the party had slowed, giving Lord D’Luc space to speak to her alone. Gwyneth and Archie glared. They would have ridden to support her, but the Children held them back. Ru imagined leaping from the saddle, rolling, dashing into the forest. Fleeing this monster, freeing herself. But she couldn’t leave her friends. Or Taryel’s heart.

“And what of Fen?” she asked, the words slipping out thoughtlessly before she could stop them. She had been turning the question over and over in her mind until it had become a sickness, invading her nerves, making her stomach churn. Because in Lord D’Luc’s eyes she had seen that he knew, he had understood in an instant that Fen wielded magic. She was desperate to know how he would inevitably twist that knowledge to serve himself.

Hugon laughed, a lovely empty sound. “What of Fen,” he said. “An interesting question. One I’d put to you. Whatofhim? Will he come for you?”

“I don’t know.”

It was an honest answer, but a painful one. Ru stared out at the forest, the steadying green of life, of earth, and the passage of seasons. Sunlight cut through the shadows here and there, illuminating gold-flecked motes in the air. A soft wind rustled through the trees, the ferns.

I don’t know.

Lord D’Luc shrugged, his mouth curled in a self-satisfied smile. “We’ll see,” he said.

But his words passed over Ru like vapor, disappearing into nothing as quickly as they came. She had no use for Lord D’Luc, his goals and his plans. He sought power, Festra’s cleansing fire. And she now knew that he would stop at nothing to get what he sought.

Ru would follow him back to the Cornelian Tower. She would study the artifact in whatever way he liked, pretending as she always had; all the while she would be planning, learning, seeking an escape, or a way to fight back. It didn’t matter how, or when — all that mattered was that his plans, his twisted ambitions, came to nothing.

Because no matter how he pushed her, no matter the demands he made on her body and mind, Ru promised herself one thing above all else: Lord D’Luc would not gain control of the artifact. She would not let him. Because it had called to her, and she had answered.

Taryel’s heart belonged to her.

And she was Ruellian Delara, Destroyer.