Page 57 of Unbroken
How convenient it had come so soon. The man had driven past in a coach, with only ordinary, untainted humans to guard him. She’d killed them easily enough.
Why they’d tied him up, she couldn’t imagine and didn’t care. This was her chance—her only chance—to undo the havoc the sap wreaked on her body. His blood, the power in it, would obliterate the tree’s magic once and for all.
She would be purified, made anew. Even if it meant draining every last drop from his veins.
CHAPTER 26
In the interest of speed, Ves carried his mother on his back through the city. He ran when the streets went in the direction he wanted, took to the rooftops or the trees when they didn’t.
Fuller’s mansion lay at the very end of High Street, where it met Front Street at a sharp angle overlooking the ocean. The waves grumbled against the strand below, then roared as they rolled into a small inlet where an offshoot of the Cranch River met the sea. The estate itself seemed deserted, though whether any staff slept inside the big house, Ves couldn’t guess.
He set Mother down when they reached the garden. As with the other WHS members, Fuller’s garden sported massive flowers and enormous leaves. They’d been left untended, spilling out of their beds and engulfing benches and statuary.
“They’re all poisonous,” Mother said, eyeing the flowers with interest. “White snakeroot, belladonna, monkshood, hemlock, lily-of-the-valley, foxglove…”
“Like Rappacini’s garden.”
“Father always did like his stories.” She moved toward a towering hedge. “There—the tree is within that maze, and I suspect this is where Victoria brought Sebastian. She wouldn’t expect to be disturbed here, and I imagine it will satisfy her artistic sensibilities.”
Ves strode to the maze entrance. “Oleander,” Mother said from behind him. “It isn’t supposed to grow outside of a greenhouse in this climate. Fuller used his Dark Young’s magic long before he got the idea of taking its sap. Oleander is poisonous, naturally.”
Of course it was. “A good thing I can’t be poisoned, then,” he said, and swung up and onto the top of the hedge.
From this vantage, he could see across the maze, all the way to the middle. The hedge blocked most of what lay there, but the uppermost branches of a tree were visible, along with a golden wash of lantern light.
The tree twitched and shivered, seeming to lean away from something. Even from across the maze, its song came to him—a murmur of shifting leaves and sliding bark, of wind and water and earth.
Another Dark Young—and it was afraid.
Ves didn’t waste a second. He dashed across the top of the maze hedge, springing from row to row, using his tentacles and feet to keep from crashing down into the dense foliage.
In the center of the maze stood the Dark Young, branches writhing in distress. Victoria, uncloaked, bent over a motionless figure tied to one of four stone benches ringing the clearing.
Sebastian.
His skin was horribly pale, the color of a marble statue. His head had tilted to one side, eyes closed, lips tinged blue.
He was dying.
A mix of terror and rage slammed through Ves. Without hesitation, he sprang onto Victoria’s back, bearing her to the ground and tearing her free of Sebastian’s throat. A tome that must be the Book of Blood went flying away to land on the ground nearby.
Victoria kicked him hard in the stomach with a foot like a goat’s hoof. All the wind left his lungs, and he skidded away from her to crash into the nearest bench. The kerosene lantern toppled, a line of fire and fuel pouring out over the ground to lick at the base of the oleander hedge.
Victoria flipped over, hooves on the earth, one hand balancing on the ground. The skin of her face had flushed pink, the bark receding, woody horn shrinking. Some doing of the Book’s?
If so, it was receding quickly, the effects of the sap reasserting themselves even as he watched. A screech of frustration escaped her, and she raked her clawed hand across the ground. “No! It was working! How dare you interrupt?”
“You were killing him!” Ves managed to get to his feet, tentacles outstretched. He shifted, putting himself between her and Sebastian.
“So? My life, the life I had, the life I wanted, was taken from me.” Her eyes narrowed with hate. “You’re just like this awful tree. You want me to be a monster like you, so you won’t be so alone.”
“I’m not alone, and you don’t have to be either.”
She leapt at him, murder in her eyes. He struck her with a tentacle, knocking her back, but she was on her feet again in a blink. Behind her, flames licked eagerly up the hedge, sparks beginning to drift free. Lightning danced across the sky, a boom of thunder close enough to feel in his bones, but not near enough to bring rain.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow move—Mother, slicing away Sebastian’s bindings with her knife. Sebastian lifted a weak hand, and relief poured through Ves. He still lived.
The movement attracted Victoria’s attention as well. Her lips peeled back, revealing a mouth full of sharp teeth. “He’s mine,” she growled, gathering herself to lunge.
