Gilded Serpent by Danielle Jensen (top 10 novels txt) 📕

for his life, you know,” Rufina purred. “Did the mimics echo his pleas? Did you hear his sobs for mercy as I drained his life? Did you hear him piss himself in the end?”

“Shut up!” Lydia screamed. “You’re a liar.”

“I’m not.” Rufina laughed. “For all his skill with a blade, Derrek was a coward. That’s why he took weak, submissive Camilla for a wife. A woman with no family, no history, no name of importance so that nothing about her would ever challenge him.”

“Then it must have really ground your nerves to know she escaped you!”

“Except she didn’t escape, did she? Dead in a gutter on the far side of the world is still dead, Kitaryia.”

“Don’t call me that!”

Killian’s heart pounded with desperation, knowing Rufina was baiting her. Hearing Lydia’s hisses of pain when Rufina’s blade found its mark.

Hurry.

He fumbled bits of straw, then his fingers brushed against something cold and metal. Triumph flushed through him as he held up the pick, then he threw himself at the cell door, reaching around to insert the metal into the lock.

Focus.

But it was impossible when his eyes landed on Lydia, her stolen disguise sliced open in half a dozen places, blood slicking the leather. And Rufina with not a mark on her.

Help her.

His hands shook as he struggled to trip the mechanism, his breath coming in ragged little gasps.

Click.

The locked popped open, and Killian took a step back and then kicked the bars. They swung out with violent force, striking Rufina in the back. She stumbled, and he caught hold of her sword arm and yanked, sending her toppling head first into his cell, her skull cracking against the floor.

“Close it!” he shouted at Lydia. But instead of listening, she tried to go after Rufina.

Panic surged through Killian. He threw himself at Lydia, sending her flying across the aisle and into the bars of the cell opposite. Rolling on his back, he struck out with both feet, hitting the swinging door of his cell. It flew shut, the latch activating a heartbeat before Rufina slammed into it.

The corrupted queen screamed in fury, flinging herself over and over against the bars.

Then she went still, and it felt for all the world to Killian like the Corrupter himself stared out of the black pits of her eyes.

“It doesn’t matter if you escape this place, Lord Calorian. With every sacrifice Kitaryia made to my master, his hold on her grew. She’ll never be free. It’s only a matter of time until you’ll have to kill her. Or risk her turning on innocents.”

“The only life I want is yours,” Lydia hissed, then flung herself at the bars.

Rufina only stepped back, laughing. “Let me loose, then, Highness. Let’s see who comes out victorious.”

A dull thunder of boots filled the air, growing louder by the second. Dozens of men—likely with more corrupted among them—racing to the aid of their queen. Too many of them to fight, and Killian couldn’t risk Lydia taking more lives. Couldn’t risk her descending lower than she already had.

He had moments until the soldiers would be upon them. The water dripping from the ceiling splattered him in the face, falling to join the rivulets pouring down the corridor.

Which meant it was draining somewhere.

He dragged Lydia away from Rufina’s cell, it taking all of his strength to do so. “I need you to come with me.”

“I’m not leaving her alive!”

“We don’t have time, Lydia. We need to go.”

Gripping her hand, he dragged her down the corridor, handing off his lock pick to one of the men in the cells. Giving them a chance.

Cell doors slammed open behind them, the prisoners racing out and opening other doors, a horde of men and women running toward the stairs and the coming soldiers. Screams split the air, and Killian fought the urge to turn around and fight. But he needed to get Lydia free of this place before he lost her entirely.

They skidded in the slime, stopping at the grate over a drain in the floor. Just big enough for a person, though for him it would be a tight squeeze. “We need to get this open. It has to lead to the lake.”

But Lydia wasn’t, listening her gaze on the fleeing prisoners.

“Lydia!” he snapped. “Help me!”

Giving her head a shake, she bent her knees, gripping the grate even as he took hold himself, praying to all the gods their combined strength would be enough. Her hands were pale against the rusty steel, fingers and wrists slender, but as she jerked on the grate, it immediately began to give. The unnatural strength given to her by the consumption of gods-knew how many lives.

Please let her come back from this.

Killian clenched his teeth and pulled, and slowly, the grate ground out of its casement. Setting it aside, he bent to look in the hole, which angled downwards, but there was nothing to see but blackness.

“She’s free.”

Lydia’s breathy whisper caught his attention, and Killian looked back to see the soldier who’d opened Rufina’s cell withering in the corrupted queen’s grasp as she drained his life to bolster her strength. Lydia took a step in her direction, and sensing her intent, Killian kicked her feet out from under her. A snarl of fury tore from her lips as she fell into the drain, fingers slipping in the slime as she disappeared from sight.

He sensed a surge of motion rushing toward him, every instinct in his body screaming that he should turn and fight.

Killian jumped.

His shoulders were crushed inward by the walls of the drain tunnel, but the coating of slime and filth did their duty, and he picked up speed. Looking upward, he saw Rufina’s shadow crouched over the opening, but she didn’t follow.

She didn’t have to.

He shot out of the tunnel and flew through the air, barely sucking in a breath before he plunged beneath the tepid surface of the lake. Kicking hard, Killian swam upward, gasping in a mouthful of air.

All around him was mist and darkness, the lake