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

cobbles. She tried again, and this time, it sank into the legs of one of the corpse-soldiers. He screamed and fell, the Corrupter keeping up the pretense they were living even now.

She nocked her last arrow, knowing that if she didn’t aim true that she’d have to go out there and try to kill Serrick with a blade.

If she could.

Her bow twanged sharply, and Tremon himself must have guided her hand, for it flew directly toward the King’s throat.

Only to be plucked out of the air.

Lydia’s eyes widened at the sight of Cyntha, dressed in black leather, a sword belted at her waist. “Silence!” she commanded, and the blighter army went entirely still, the only noise Serrick’s moans of pain.

“Such a shame Killian isn’t here,” the healer purred. “Though to be fair, even he’s never had much luck with this particular challenge.”

Confusion twisted through Lydia. That Cyntha, who’d fought so hard to see the blighters killed, now stood among them like she was in command of them. Then realization slapped her in the face, her fists clenching as so very, very much became clear.

“How?” The word tore from her throat. But the real question in her mind was why.

“You know how, Lydia,” Cyntha answered, the breeze pulling a strand of grey hair loose from her braid and sending it trailing out in the wind. “Hegeria might have granted you your mark, but it’s your choice how to use it. And the Corrupter rewards those who use their mark to achieve his ends. Strength. Power. Eternal youth.” She snapped her fingers.

A moment later, two men appeared, dragging a young man in a Royal Army uniform. With total nonchalance, Cyntha caressed the man’s cheek, and Lydia could do nothing as she stole his life, decade after decade marring the man’s face until he fell to the ground with a brittle crunch.

And Cyntha was no longer a woman in her fifties, but young and lovely, her hair dark, skin smoothed of wrinkles, and her body lithe and strong. The only thing that remained the same was the faded half-moon inked on her forehead. Hegeria’s mark.

Except this creature belonged to the Corrupter.

Cyntha gave a slow clap of her hands. “Age is a nearly infallible disguise, but one I’ll be glad to never use again.” Retrieving a leather mask, she fastened it over her face, concealing the tattoo on her forehead, as she had when Lydia had seen her the night of Malahi’s ball.

“Rufina.” The name came out of Lydia’s mouth as a croak.

“Named by my master the day I turned my back on the Six,” the corrupted Queen of Derin answered. Her attention moved to Serrick, who was writhing at her feet, the blight consuming more of his life with every passing second.

“I had to kill him because of you.” Rufina met Lydia’s gaze, her eyes burning with the Corrupter’s flames. “Had to kill all of them because of you and your … cure.”

Bile burned up Lydia’s throat, fueled by her grief and guilt and fury.

“He broke when the High Lady delivered your revelation. Not because of all those he ordered killed that might have been saved, but because he wished death upon Mudamora’s last living tender.”

Kneeling next to Serrick, she pulled him upright so that he was looking her in the eye. “Do you remember how you cursed your daughter’s name? How you told me she was blasphemous for wanting to rule when her mark demanded that she serve? How you said that if the Six still stood with Mudamora, they’d see her dead?” She laughed wildly. “By condemning her, you destroyed Mudamora’s only hope. And gave my master what he needed for victory, for once she breaks, Malahi will turn all that she once loved to blight.”

Malahi was a tender. But that wasn’t the revelation that drained the blood from Lydia’s face. It was that the ill-fated queen was still alive. Alive, and Rufina intended to force her to expand the reach of the blight.

“You are a demon.” Serrick spat in Rufina’s face. “A product of the Seventh’s evil.”

The Queen of Derin only smiled. “So are you, Your Grace. The only difference between us is that I know which god I serve.”

Serrick stared at her, lines of black blight crawling up his face, ripping a final scream from his lips. Then he fell to the ground and went still.

The King of Mudamora was dead.

And Lydia would soon join him if she didn’t find a way to flee. But the path before her was filled with an army of blighters, and behind her, the soldiers dying from the blight would soon rise as the Seventh’s puppets. There was nowhere to run.

As the direness of her own circumstances became clear, Serrick’s corpse rose smoothly to his feet, his face possessed of a cool calmness. Rufina dropped to her knee in front of him. “Master.”

“My child.” Serrick spoke, but the voice that exited his lips made Lydia’s skull ache with the vastness of it. She clamped her hands over her ears, but it was like he spoke inside her head as he turned to level a finger at her. “Capture the Marked One. Do what you will with the rest.”

“I live to serve,” Rufina said. And as one, the horde of dead soldiers surged through the entrance.

Run.

Terror galloped through Lydia’s veins as she sprinted up the stairs, the sound of heavy footfalls close behind her. “The temple is under attack!” she screamed, hoping that any alive who heard would have the wherewithal to hide, for there was nothing she could do for them.

Faster.

Except there was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide where they wouldn’t eventually find her.

Keep going.

She rose higher and higher in the tower, a cramp pinching her side, but she ignored it.

The library.

She hit the floor the library was on, shoving open the door and then slamming it behind her and twisting the bolt.

Except she knew it wouldn’t hold for long.

She shoved a table up against the door right as the first blighters reached