Endless Knight (The Arcana Chronicles) by Cole Kresley

Author:Cole, Kresley [Cole, Kresley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published: 2013-09-30T22:00:00+00:00

21

I turned to them, my face a mask of blood, my reddening hair whipping in the wind.

Death’s eyes glowed behind his helmet grille just before he twisted around, drawing his swords.

A wall of murderous green towered above him like a tidal wave. He craned his head up and up.

I commanded the swell to break over this embankment, to swamp them all. With a yell, Death flashed out his swords. But he was not yet my focus—I had a plan for him. I tried to ignore the pain as he slashed through my battalion.

Lark sicced her wolves on me. If they caught me, they’d rip me to shreds, as they had those Bagmen. It would be my legs cracking beneath their fangs. Before they could reach me, vines snatched their paws, trapping the beasts upside down. Whimpers, howls. They couldn’t be killed until I took out Lark.

All in good time.

Ogen bellowed, leaping for me; a cypress crashed down on him. Pinned, he punched the trunk with fists like anvils. Agony racked my body. So I punished him with a larger toppling tree. His yell was cut short. Another tree, and another. To combat his strength, I sent poisoned thorn stalks to bind and kill him. Just to be safe, I ordered roots to suck him into the earth, wrenching him down.

Other plants were at work on a more insidious task. . . .

Eyes wide with horror, Lark abandoned her wolves, sprinting a retreat. My vines seized her, suspending her upside down as well, like the Hanging Man. As she dangled and screeched, I waved for her to be brought closer, until our faces were inches apart. “You’re worse than they are,” I murmured, canting my head at her. “We trusted you.”

“Wait, Evie! Please!” Her eyes were terrified. As Joules’s had been.

I enjoyed it just as much. “You’re going to die extra bad.”

I sensed there was little of that retention pond left, the surface replaced with a bed of writhing plants. Vines and slimy water strands. I waved my hand, and Lark was sent airborne, screaming as she sailed directly into that squirming green morass.

Trapped there. A nest of serpents. A nightmare.

One vine reared above her like a viper, plummeting down to gore her. She twisted and rolled, dodging it. Again the vine struck. She eluded it, but she was getting slower.

“There is no shame in surrender,” I told her, as a past Empress had once assured her victims.

Death had cut through the battalion I’d sent his way, and now was coming for me. All according to plan.

I watched him nearing, readying to take my head. Hatred, hatred, boiling. In the midst of this frenzy, another memory of my grandmother’s voice floated into my head: You take after Demeter, a goddess who was not to be crossed. When someone stole her daughter, she was so enraged, she refused to let crops grow, starving the entire world. Evie, there’s a viciousness in you that I must nurture. . . .

Flanked by protective thorns, I screamed with a godlike rage, and the whole world seemed to tremble.

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