The Silenced Tale, стр. 109
“It was never his blade to begin with!” Kintyre snarls. “It wasn’t mine, either.”
“Details, details,” the Viceroy dismisses.
“Or you could just not,” Pip offers. “Come on, Vicey-wiessy. There are so many other raging lunatics in the world. MRAs, internet trolls, people who don’t believe in feminism, alt-right Nazis. Why use her?”
“Why?” the Viceroy laughs. “Because she asked me to. Because dear sweet Maddie knew her from an online forum, and I could taste the anger in her words. Because she gave me refuge from your police in Detroit. Because I knew she could make you love her. Because she reminded me of you.” He pauses, cocking his head in a theatrical show of thoughtfulness, one finger pressed to his lips. “You know, Reader, I think she reminds me entirely too much of you. And do you know what I’ve always wanted to do to you?”
Pip takes a shaking step backward, hands up to cover her face, to fend him off. “No,” she grunts, guttural, primeval.
Ahbni is, as far as I can tell, still unconscious from the blow I delivered to her head. It’s been so long now that it’s possible her brain is even swelling, that I dealt her irreparable damage. At the time, it didn’t seem like a concern, but seeing her limp and gray-faced now, her chest rising jerkily, with the Viceroy’s blade poised by her jugular, a flash of guilt pierces my heart, swift and deep.
Oh, Writer’s balls, what have I done? She cannot get up and run. She cannot even protect herself.
A flash of something slim and metallic green and small in the Viceroy’s hand catches my attention—the glint off a blade. An arc of motion too fast to really see, and far too fast to stop. A splatter of red on the concrete.
“No!” Pip screams, lunging for Ahbni, hands out to stopper up the gaping smile ripped in her throat. But the Viceroy’s blade is raised again, and I tackle Pip to the side, out of the way. The blade comes down on the back of my boot, nicks the heel, and I roll Pip and I over and over until we are far enough away, out of the reach of the blade, before yanking us both upright.
“Come back here!” the Viceroy shouts. “Do as I say! Obey me!”
“Never,” Pip snarls.
“You are mine,” the Viceroy roars. “You never stopped being mine. And I will turn everything you touch to ash. I will take it all from you until the only person you can rely on is me. You and I will be the only ones who know what really happened, who know the truth!”
Dread punches me like an icy fist in the solar plexus, and I gasp for air as Pip’s face drains of all color. I want to tell her to run, to flee, but where would she go, that the Viceroy would not follow? Where could I send her that he could not find? The only way to protect Pip and Alis now is to end the Viceroy.
“I’m not . . . but I’m not important to the narrative!” Pip shouts. Her eyes are glued to Ahbni, though, sucking on air, eyes open and rolling wildly, blood frothing on her lips.
“Don’t look, bao bei,” I urge her. “Don’t watch.”
“We need to—”
“There’s not enough—”
Before I can even say it, Ahbni’s convulsions cease. Her body drops flat against the cement, limbs flopping. Her eyes stare upward, blank.
Dead.
“Oh god,” Pip sobs, her voice a harsh and rasping thing. “Oh god, no. Why would you—you didn’t need—I thought . . . I thought you just wanted Elgar,” Pip says, and her whole body is shaking now. She swallows, heavily, over and over again, and I am too filled with grief for her sorrow to feel much else.
“I wanted my revenge on him, yes, but I had that the moment I first had you in my grasp. The woman who knows more than he? The woman with power? Ha!” The Viceroy laughs, gleeful at her horror.
“I thought . . . I don’t . . .” Pip whines.
“What use have I for a fat old man? You think I couldn’t have killed him the moment I found him?” the Viceroy sneers. “For months, I knew where he was! He slept safe and unaware, oblivious as a pig to the slaughter knife above his head. He lazed about in ignorant luxury like the fat king he was. And I watched, and I knew.”
“Then . . . I don’t . . .” Pip gasps. She is inching away from him, and I step between them, between her and this man who wants to steal my wife, my best friend, the mother of my daughter, this man who wants to rip her away from us. This man who wants to steal Bevel from my brother, who seeks to take Kintyre’s power and fame, who hates the House of Turn with all he has. “Why wait?”
“It was not enough to simply kill him,” the Viceroy says. His eyes have begun to take on a hint of acid green, his hair and clothing lifting in the beginnings of a cyclone of air that swirls around him alone. His mother was a weather witch, and in his manic fury, the elements struggle to bend to his whiplash will. “Not enough to kill you all! I want you humiliated. Defeated in the way that you forced on me! Unmanned and frustrated at every turn. Cornered! I wanted him running scared, and I