Fatality ━━ Matt vs Chris Sturniolo²

𝖝𝖝𝖎. Kingdom of the Rift

[ tw: violence ]

𝖝𝖝𝖎. Kingdom of the Rift

Valencia

HE'S LATE, and Valencia's heartbeat guns into overdrive. She fights the surge of fear, twisting it into fuel. Using the new energy, she shreds apart the gilded frames holding portraits all down the palace hallway. The flecks of the gold leaf twist into brutal, glinting shards. Gold is a weak metal. Soft. Malleable. Useless in a true fight. She lets them drop. She doesn't have the time or energy to waste on weak things.

The pearly rhodium plates along her arms and legs vibrate with adrenaline, their mirror-bright edges rippling like liquid mercury. Ready to become whatever she needs to stay alive. A sword, a shield, a bullet. She's not in direct danger, not right now. But if Damon isn't here in one minute, she's going out there after him, and then she certainly will be.

Maeve promised, Valencia tells herself. She promised. She promised. She promised.

It sounds idiotic, the wish of a particularly foolish child. She should know better. The only bond in her world is blood; the only promise is family. A Silver would smile and agree with another house and break their oath in the next heartbeat. Maeve Deuveux is not Silver ━ she should have less honor than any of them. And she owes Damon, owes Valencia, less than nothing. She would be justified in slaughtering them all. House Vesper has not been kind to the lightning girl, and Val knows it well.

"We have a schedule, Valencia," Kora mutters next to her. She cradles one hand against her chest, doing her best not to antagonize an already-ugly burn. The skin healer wasn't fast enough to avoid all of Maeve's returning ability. But she got the job done, and that's all that matters. Now the lightning girl is free to wreak as much havoc as she can.

"I'm giving him another minute."

The hallway seems to stretch before Valencia, growing larger with every second. On this side of the palace, they can barely hear the battle in the Square. The windows look out on a still courtyard, with only dark storm clouds above. If she wanted to, the Vesper could pretend this was another day of her usual torment. Everyone smiling with their fangs, circling an increasingly lethal throne. She thought the end of the queen would mean the end of danger. It's not like her to underestimate a person's evils, but she certainly underestimated Chris. He has more of his stepmother in him than anyone realized, as well as his own kind of monster.

A monster Valencia no longer has to suffer, to her eternal gratitude. Once she and her family are back home, she'll send the Lakelander princess a gift for taking her place at his side.

He'll be far away by now, ferried to safety by his train. The new bride and groom were already in the Treasury when Valencia left them. Unless Chris' disgusting obsession with Maeve won out. The boy is impossible to predict where she is involved. For all the Vesper knows, he could have turned around to find her. He could be dead. She hopes he's dead. It would make the next steps infinitely easier.