Steel Maiden (34 page)

Prince Landon cleared his throat and wiped
the sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist.

“I held my end of the bargain,” said the
prince.

I saw the muscles in his jaw tense. “Now
it’s your turn, priest. Swear to all here. Swear that you’ll give
back all our family’s lands, our titles, and our guards. Swear that
I will be crowned King of Anglia, and that you will restore the
monarchy as it was. Swear that the Empire will recognize my
family’s titles and the titles of those of noble birth. Acknowledge
my right to rule by the will of the Creator. It is what we
agreed.”

For a moment the high priest said nothing.
He held the golden cage with that same wicked glimmer in his eyes.
My chest tightened.

“I made no such agreement.”

Prince Landon frowned and took a step
towards the priest.

“But you said,” he complained. “You swore!
You vowed before the Creator! What kind of priest are you?”

The high priest gripped the cage and raised
his free hand. Black energy sparkled around his fingers. With a
flick of his wrist he sent out a blast of energy that hit the
prince square in the chest. The force threw the prince across the
room, and he crashed against the wall with a nauseating crunch. The
wall splintered under the force. Prince Landon slid to the ground
in a crumple of broken bones. His blue eyes stared into space
lifelessly.

With an earsplitting wail that stopped my
heart, Thea rushed across the chamber and fell next to her fallen
prince. She cradled him and kissed his face. Her mouth was wet with
tears, and she kissed him over and over, as though he was merely
asleep, and she could wake him with kisses.

“No, no, no, no,” she cried as she rocked
him gently. “You can’t be dead. You can’t be dead. Please don’t
leave me, please.”

I fought very hard not to cry. Although I
had hated, truly hated, the prince, he didn’t deserve to die like
this.

I looked at the high priest with a new sense
of fear. Only a witch could unleash such supernatural power. The
high priest must be a sorcerer.

The room had darkened, and the smell of
sulfur had increased tenfold. I could see the fear in the other
priests’ faces. They were just as shaken as I was.

The eerie silence that followed was broken
by the small voice of a mousy-looking priest.

“Your eminence, what have you done?”

His eyes darted to the dead prince and back
to the high priest.

“He was of noble birth. And you killed him.
Your actions have desecrated your vows to God, desecrated our holy
temple and broken our sacred oaths to the Creator. You are
no
priest. Only the devil could possess such skill. You are
an abomination. Are you in league with the Devil? Have you sided
with the occult? What was this magic? Answer us!”

The high priest grinned, took the cage with
the stone in it, and set it on top of his staff. With a twist of
his wrist, the golden cage clicked into place. It had been
specifically designed to fit the top of the staff.

He raised his staff with a wild look in his
eyes. A hum reverberated throughout the chamber, and then a pulsing
of power that I recognized from when I had held the stone. The
Heart of Arcania was beating. I could feel it resonating inside
me.

Suddenly, the stone flashed bright white,
and then it dulled to black. I could still feel the pulsing energy
in the walls, in the floor, and in the air, but this time it wasn’t
warm. It was as cold as death.

The high priest threw back his head in a
high-pitched laugh that sounded anything but human. A chill rattled
in my bones.

“Elena. What’s happening?” Jon pulled me to
my feet.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “But Ada was right.
The high priest is no mere man, but something much worse.”

“Well, if I had to take a guess, I’d say our
high priest is a sorcerer.”

While I felt noticeably sturdier than
before, and the tear on my back had healed, the wound on my neck
burned like hell. It was almost like it was warning me.
But
warning me of what?

If dark magic could wound a steel maiden
like me, who was supposedly immune to magic, I could only imagine
the effects it would have on a normal person, let alone on an
entire village.

Jon shook his head.
“This is bad. Really bad.”

“
And I
have a feeling it’s about to get worse.”

Brother
Edgar had managed to make his way
to just below the altar, but the familiar loathing
frown on his face was not directed at me this time.

He
pointed a finger at the
high priest. “The Temple of the Sun will not stand for
this! How dare you masquerade as a priest when you’re nothing but a
male
witch
.”

He spat.
“You put shame on the name of the Creator. You have shamed us! You
will hang for this. Imposter! Charlatan!”

Spit
flew from his mouth, and soon a handful of priests
who felt bold enough to
denounce the high priest joined him.

But
t
he high priest ignored
them. He stood on the altar with his arms spread out like he was
about to take a bow. He was waiting for something.

I
noticed that
the shadowy
creature was still cowering behind the priest’s gown. Again, no one
seemed troubled at the sight of it.

T
he red symbols
on the floor suddenly glowed green. The stone pulsed, and a wave of
black energy blasted into the priest. He staggered, and his face
contorted as though he was in pain. The chamber shook, small rocks
fell around me like a hailstorm, and the air moved with an
invisible wind. Then the room went silent again.

All eyes
were on the high priest. It was as though we were all watching a
performance on stage and waiting for the grand finale. The high
priest paled until he was nearly translucent. I could see black
veins pulse through his face, his neck, and his arms. He opened his
eyes, and they were completely black, like the bottomless pits of
hell.

“
We need
to leave,” said Jon. Both Will and Leo’s eyes were wide with alarm,
but they didn’t move.

“
It’s
too late to get the stone. We’ll have to come up with another plan.
There’s nothing else we can do right now.”

I
nodded
, but I couldn’t
tear my eyes away just yet. I had to see if my fears would come
true.

The
priests below the altar
had stood frozen in fear momentarily, but then they
scattered like a herd of frightened deer, pushing and shoving each
other.

“I’ve waited three hundred years for this
moment,” the high priest boasted.

He looked at the priests below him.

“You God-fearing, paranoid, delusional
fools. Your minds are weak, and your bodies are weaker. You never
understood the true purpose of the Temple of the Sun. You want to
fear a real God? Then fear me!”

The high priest surveyed the room again.
“I’ll give you the cleansing you’ve all been waiting for. I give
you the Black Blight.”

I
watched transfixed as he
lifted his staff and spoke an incantation in a language I’d
never heard before. The stone pulsed, and a black radiance spun
like the wind around the room. It wrapped around me, wrapped around
everything and everyone in the room, and tightened until I could
barely breathe. And then a surge of black tendrils blasted out from
the stone. Like
a fork of black lightning, it struck the
priests first, coiled around their bodies, and paralyzed them.

“Get back!”

Jon pulled me down against the far side of
the wall, next to Will and Leo. The energy shot out again and
connected with the temple guards this time. If we hadn’t moved when
we did, we would have been hit, too.

The guards opened their mouths in silent
screams as the black magic wormed its way into their souls. The
whites of their eyes dulled to black, and their skin paled and
thinned until they looked like corpses. Their emaciated faces
reminded me of the demons we had seen in the mist. I could see
black pulses through the veins on their necks and faces. Their skin
began to rot and blister. It looked like an infection of black
magic.

Every priest and guard inside the temple had
become an emaciated demon.

Brother Edgar’s black eyes flickered with an
eerie intelligence, but the man was gone. I wasn’t sorry about
that. Only the red monks appeared to be untouched by the black
magic. I wondered if they weren’t already creatures bent to the
will of hell.

It had all happened in under a minute. What
had once been a throng of pompous and vile priests and guards had
become an army of demons possessed by black magic.

The high priest turned to me.

“I have no more use for you, Steel Maiden.”
His voice sounded as though he was right next to me. His smiled
widened. “You’re far too dangerous to keep alive. You’ll die today.
Kill her. Kill them all!”

A hoard of black-eyed priests and guards
stormed towards us.

CHAPTER 35

I
N THE BLINK OF an eye the high
priest’s creatures had surrounded us and blocked our only exit.
There were at least a hundred of them, and we were only four. They
moved like a great swarm. Their teeth were chattering, and black
liquid trickled down the sides of their mouths. We were backed into
a corner.

“Whatever you do,” I said, “don’t let them
touch you.”

I wasn’t entirely sure, but I suspected that
the black magic that coursed through their veins could be
transferred by touch.

The three men nodded, and we held up our
swords and stood back to back. I couldn’t think of losing Jon in
this fight. There was no time for fear. There was only time to
act.

The temple guard that had assaulted me
before charged. There was no recognition in his black eyes, only an
evil fury to kill. Like puppets on a string, they were compelled to
obey. I shifted my grip on my sword and braced for a fight.

The creature lunged at me at exactly the
same time as the other creatures sprang at Jon. I dodged his
mangled fingers and kicked him as hard as I could, sending him
flying.

But just as I kicked one creature, four more
lunged at me. They were coming at me from every direction. I had
lost Jon and the others in the commotion. I hacked and sliced. My
sword connected with flesh and bone and sent arterial spurts of
black blood spraying my face. I couldn’t stop. Stopping meant
death.

A priest with blackened teeth leaped at me,
but my sword hit his chest, spurts of black blood showered the
ground, and the monster squealed and hissed, backing away.

He lunged again, but I blocked his thrust
and stabbed straight into his thorax. He crumpled to the ground.
But another wave of possessed guards and priests attacked me right
away. I swung my sword in a giant arc and managed to slice across
their navels. Their entrails and guts spilled to the ground in a
mess of black liquid.

I turned and saw Jon holding his own against
six of the demon creatures, but I couldn’t see Will or Leo. I could
only hope they were still alive.

Neither Jon nor I could go on like this for
much longer. The priests and guards were too strong, too fast, too
many. The savage magic had given the creatures enormous strength.
We needed to get out now.

A mass of flailing arms and guttural screams
came at me again. I swung my sword around, and the creatures jumped
back, afraid. I could see the fear of death on their gaunt
faces.

But one wasn’t afraid. Brother Edgar faced
me. I hated him. Whether he was a creature or man now didn’t
matter, my father was going to die. I raised my sword.

“Hello, Daddy.”

He hissed and ran towards me at a
frightening speed, and I charged towards him fearlessly. He went
for my throat with his teeth, but I pivoted and the creature only
tore into my cloak. I spun and parried a blow from the creature’s
left hand. I thrust my sword into its side and out its back.

The thing that was once my father howled. I
wrenched out my sword from its back, but the creature seemed
unaffected by its wound as we faced each other head-on again.

A flicker of recognition flashed in its
eyes.

“That’s right,” I said. “It’s me. Remember
me? Your daughter? Remember what you did to my mother? It’s time to
make things right.”

I could smell his decaying flesh, and I
suppressed the bile that rose in my throat. My mother’s terrified
face flashed before my eyes. Every muscle in my body tensed, and I
gripped my sword so hard it hurt.