Villainous [Wattys 2021 Shortlist]

7: Hers To Burn

Delilah choked, her throat thick with the disintegrated remains of her ancestors. She tripped over and pushed through the cascade of bones coming out of the walls as the wooden structures holding them in place cracked and fell away.

"Come on!" Dante snarled, his voice hoarse.

The tunnel suddenly sloped up and Delilah felt a heavy weight slam onto her back. She toppled against Dante as skeletons – countless skeletons – dropped from the ceiling, burying them.

"No!" Her voice was a strangled scream of fury.

Dante grunted beside her. There was no light. "We're close. We have to climb out."

He clawed his way up, fighting like a drowning man heading for the surface, and Delilah struggled to follow. She shoved bones out of her way, pushing them beneath her and using them to step on, choosing not to think about how they were disrespecting the dead.

Finally, sweet air kissed her face. Delilah groaned as she climbed out, realising they were outside the library in one of the palace courtyards – which was now rubble around them. She wondered if the palace itself had sunk into the collapsed catacombs.

She got to her feet shakily to see Dante watching her with a feral light in his eyes.

He lunged for the bag. Delilah dived out of the way, every instinct launching into overdrive, her entire body humming with the determination to not let the Valian king anywhere near her Opal.

"Give it to me," he rasped.

"It's mine," she snarled back.

Dante unsheathed his sword, letting the sound ring through the disrupted night. Delilah eyed it and knew that Dante was better than her. Stronger. She would lose.

But she had to try. She pulled her sword from her belt and wielded it while clutching the Opal's pouch tightly in her other hand. She could feel waves of unnatural power surging from it, and was almost afraid to open the strings to look inside.

Dante lunged for her, sword flashing, and Delilah parried his blow without even thinking. The clash of metal on metal was a new symphony.

Doors burst open around the courtyard, and Delilah and Dante froze as a swarm of soldiers flooded out, the Pelenan crest of the salamander emblazoned across their chests. In moments they were surrounded.

Dante laughed as thunder rumbled and a few drops of rain hit Delilah on the nose. The sky was dark, the air heavy, and a vicious wind whipped the Valian king's hair back as he unsheathed a second sword. In that moment, he looked like the true embodiment of everything the stories painted him to be. Night made flesh.

"You thought a few bones and long-dead corpses would stop me?" he crowed, eyes glittering as he surveyed the soldiers. "Me? I am the Valian king, and I am here to wreak my revenge."

Delilah barely had time to lift her sword before the soldiers were upon them. Suddenly she and Dante were back-to-back, slicing and whirling to dodge blades. The Opal swung uselessly in its sack, but she didn't dare lift her focus from blocking, parrying, and stabbing to see if she could use it. One second of distraction would be her downfall.

Blood sprayed through the air as thunder growled again. Delilah spun and danced, cutting through skin and muscle, piercing the vulnerable spots that armour could not conceal. In these moments, when the world narrowed to herself and the weapon which was just an extension of her, when she was nothing but a bundle of fizzing, sparking nerves and the adrenalin that set them alight... She knew she was not a girl. She was something more.

"Coppin!" Dante barked, and she turned to see him scaling one of the lowest buildings. He'd cut a path through the soldiers and Delilah began to back towards him, fending off as many attacks as she could. When her spine hit the wall she looked up to see Dante stretching out his hand.