Page 114 of The Half King
“You didn’t fool me about the black flame, and you won’t fool me abouther, either.” He turned a glare on Nina that could melt iron. “She will confess to seducing me, and then I will deliver her punishment.”
Cerise glanced at Cole’s body, bruised and bloodied from the torture chamber wall. She had witnessed Father Padron’s idea of justice, and she wouldn’t allow him to punish an insect, let alone her sister. Or her mother. Whatever Nina was to her didn’t matter, because nothing had changed. She loved Nina more than life, more than any purpose or doctrine or prophecy, and infinitely more than the man who had fathered her.
Without hesitating, Cerise unsheathed the Petros Blade and lunged at him. But with a flick of his wrist, Father Padron sent the blade flying across the room. She attacked him again, this time with a burst of energy that knocked him backward twenty paces. He struck the floor and skidded until he hit the rear wall. When he righted himself, he was too stunned to retaliate. He inhaled through his mouth, no doubt tasting her residual energy and questioning how it was possible for a woman to wield magic.
She saw no reason not to tell him.
“I’m not a heretic or a sorceress,” she said and lifted her chin. “But Iammy father’s daughter.”
He blinked once, twice, three times before he pieced together the truth. It gave her a perverse sense of satisfaction to watch the color drain from his face. He had kept so many secrets from her, but just this once, when it really mattered, he was the last to know.
“Impossible,” he murmured, even as he scanned her face exactly the way she had searched his only moments earlier.
“I’m not pleased about it, either,” she told him.
“Impossible,” he repeated. “It’s a lie. It has to be. I never lay with another woman. If you were my child, you would be a firstborn. You would bear your mother’s curse.”
Nina spoke in a trembling voice. “She was a twin. The first baby was born sleeping.” She looked to Cerise. “You were the second.”
“Impossible,” Father Padron murmured again.
Cerise repeated something Daerick had told her once, when she had used her faith like a blindfold to block out what frightened her. “It’s not faith to ignore common sense. It’s foolishness.”
In the span of half a breath, his face hardened with rage. Nina shouted a warning that came too late. His energy struck Cerise in the chest before she could brace herself, but instead of knocking her backward, the charge lingered on her ribcage, buzzing like a swarm of bees. An odd pressure moved across her skin, as if the magic was trying to penetrate her. Because it was. With a gasp, she looked to Father Padron. He was trying to stop her heart. That shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did. He knew that she was his daughter, and still, he despised her.
Heat bloomed from the pendant resting against her dress. In one final act of protection, it dispersed the static and cracked in half. As the metal pieces clinked to the floor, they drained a surge of magic from their power source, and Father Padron slouched against the wall, weakened by the force of his own attack.
Cerise didn’t give him a chance to recover. He was beyond saving. The only way to protect herself and the people she loved was to kill him—now, while he was weak. She stretched out her arms and imagined her energy closing around his chest, crushing his heart, like he had tried to do to her. Energy flowed from her in torrents, gushing out faster than she could control it. She wasn’t prepared for how quickly her energy drained. Soon her hands trembled and sweat beaded on her upper lip. She tried to give more, but he blocked her magic and used the wall to push himself to his feet.
As he stood, she collapsed.
The room spun around her. She had enough strength to conjure a shield before his next attack, but she struggled to hold it through a haze of dizziness and nausea. She heard running footsteps and glanced up to find Nina on the other side of the sanctuary, picking up the Petros Blade.
Nina charged Father Padron with a battle cry that echoed through the high ceilings. She only made it a few steps before he cast her aside, and she fell to the floor with a grunt of pain, gripping her distended belly.
Cerise launched to her feet, and in doing so, she dropped her shield. Father Padron took advantage of the slip and cast a ring of fire around her. The flames closed in so quickly that they singed her skirts before she could shield herself again. He held the inferno in place. Through the shield, she caught glimpses of his face as the flames flickered and danced. He wore an arrogant smile that tightened her stomach. It was the look of someone who knew he had won.
“Let’s end this, Cerise,” he said. “I have an offer for you.” He parted the flames wide enough to give her a view of Nina, who now clutched her throat as if choked by an invisible fist. “Give yourself up. Confess your sins of heresy and sorcery. Accept your punishment, and I’ll let her live. Fight me, and she’ll die where she stands.”
Cerise pressed both palms to the shield wall and locked eyes with Nina. The answer came at once.Yes. A thousand times yes. She knew the cost, and she would pay it. To trade her life for Nina’s and the baby’s was a bargain. But when she opened her mouth to speak, no sound came out. She tried again to shout,Yes!but her lips wouldn’t so much as form the word.
The king’s command to preserve her life—it wouldn’t let her surrender. She knew full well that Father Padron would kill her if she gave herself up to him, and so she was physically unable to do it.
She shoved a trembling hand through her hair, pins tearing at her scalp. She had to find a way around the compulsion. Closing her eyes, she willed the shield to lower, but she couldn’t control her own magic. It flowed from her in a steady stream to feed the protective barrier. A sob rose from her throat. When she opened her eyes, Nina’s face had turned red.
“I can’t let down my shield!” Cerise shouted. “The king’s compulsion won’t let me.”
Padron scoffed. “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true!” she said. “He ordered me to preserve my life by any means. I’m a priestess. I’m bound to obey him as much as—”
“You dare call yourself a priestess?” Padron hissed. “I don’t know what manner of abomination you are, but you won’t live to darken another day. Either surrender now and save your mother, or resist and join her in hell. Make your choice.”
Nina shook her head and mouthedno. She didn’t want Cerise to give up her life. But that choice didn’t belong to Nina or to the king. It belonged to Cerise, and she didn’t want to live in a world without Nina in it.
“I swear I’m telling the truth,” Cerise promised. “Just let her breathe! She’s with child. If you kill her, the baby will die, too.”
Father Padron lifted a shoulder. “One fewer heretic to root out later.”
