Chains of Silver (Alchemy Empire Book 1)

Chapter 32b

Too…late. The desire to struggle drained away from me. It didn’t seem to matter anymore. 

A calmness overtook me, almost a sense of euphoria. Everything seemed lit with a halo of silvery light. It was so beautiful. My heart fluttered in a rapid tremelo, even though I felt like I was floating on a sea of peace.

Creston shoved me back onto my feet. “Sheathe your boots,” he snarled at me.

The command was like a physical force slamming into me. I obeyed immediately. I couldn’t not obey. 

The men were breathing hard, glaring at me with hatred I should have found chilling. But nothing seemed to matter anymore. 

“I am going to kill Agnes when this is done,” Wallace said. “She was supposed to have neutralized her before the show started.” 

From the steel in his tone, I didn’t think he was exaggerating. But I didn’t care. 

Dimly, I heard Creston say they’d better hurry. 

I looked down on the teeming stage far below. So many little people. So much scurrying around. 

So meaningless. 

I saw Dietrich, struggling to make his way across the stage. Mechanical kraken arms slammed on the stage, nearly smashing him. It was all intricately choreographed, but he didn’t belong in the dance. He might get seriously hurt.

I didn’t know why he should be doing that. The plan was to send the rozzers up the fly gallery stairs to the catwalk. Not across the stage. 

But we had no rozzers. They were drugged or dead.

Pity.

The two men began chanting in a foreign language. Slow, rhythmic. Eerily beautiful. It sounded like Latin. At first, I was confused. 

Then I remembered—that’s right. 

They were going to kill me. 

And now that they’d succeeded in drugging me with the brugmansia, I wouldn’t be able to resist. 

I was going to die.

I felt no fear. Just a calm acceptance. Death suddenly seemed normal. Everyone was going to experience it someday. My turn was now. 

I watched Dietrich’s progress across the stage. A kraken arm slammed his head. He stumbled, nearly falling off the front of the stage. 

He pulled himself to his knees and crawled. There was blood on his face. Even though our mental connection was fuzzy now, I could still feel the traces of his desperation and determination to save me. 

Dietrich, it’s fine. Really. I will miss you, but everything will be all right. Don’t be upset. 

I will not let them do this! I swear it, cariad. 

My poor, brave Dietrich. He just didn’t understand—there was no need for so much struggle. It was better to be calm, and accept fate.

Wallace tied a rope to a batten in front of the catwalk. At the other end of the rope was a noose. 

More chanting. Creston flicked something wet over me in a pattern of three. It was all so strange. Like a religious rite.

A sacrifice.

My head ached. 

I heard the orchestra’s music, as if from a long distance. It was reaching the apex of the scene. It would have been fun to take my place in it all. I had been a good Julia Donovan. 

I would have made a fine actress.

But it wasn’t important anymore.

The chanting stopped. Wallace handed me the noose. “Take this noose in the name of the Sacred Master. Put it around your neck,” he commanded me.

The compulsion hit me hard again. I took the heavy, rough loop and lifted it over my head. Creston tightened it so it fit snugly against my skin. 

Then he took a red sash and wrapped it around my waist. He slid a beautiful, iridescent peacock tail feather into the sash.

Wallace lifted my hands and placed a small red bottle in them. 

He and Creston backed away now. 

I could barely hear Wallace’s voice over the other noise. “You will drink from the vial of death. You will stand on the rail and count to thirty. Then, you will jump. And so another piece of defilement will be purged from the empire.”

I didn’t really considered myself a defilement, but it wasn’t worth caring about. 

I recognized the music. It was my cue. I was supposed to scramble from below deck and climb my way to the ship’s rudder to take command of the ship and save it from the kracken.

Instead, I would drink. 

And die.

I lifted the bottle to my lips.

Goodbye, Dietrich.

*****************************

Everyone okay? Are you *HANGING* in there? *wink* 

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Next Thursday: 

Dietrich’s body glowed with anguish. I will do whatever I must to keep you alive.

(What do you think Dietrich is planning to do?)