Lips Like Ice

XXXVI

Lydia springs up, clambers up the bed and, swift, sure, aims the dagger for the back of The Indigo Queen's neck.

Pain rattles against her skull, and the world explodes into darkness and star-bursts. Lydia opens her eyes and finds herself tossed into the corner of the room, sprawled like a dolly and sucking futilely on air that doesn't seem to want to oblige.

On the bed, the Indigo Queen is turned to glare murder at her, her arm up and curved and... oh, Lydia had been smacked aside. Like a mosquito. Small, annoying, easy to squish.

But, Lydia thinks. Mosquitoes are also relentless. And not dead yet. She balls her fists and tries not to let the surprise show on her face when she realizes she still has hold of the shard.

The Queen clambers off the bed and stalks over to Lydia, her hulking size casting shadows across Lydia's face long before she is within striking range. She stops with either foot on the outside of Lydia's legs, and shifts all her weight to the left, lifts her right foot, clearly aiming to bring it down on Lydia's knee and Lydia, using the Queen's momentary lack of balance, lunges.

She swings both her arms up, palm under her other hand to offer extra strength and momentum to the stab of the shard. A judder, a microsecond of resistance and then, yes, the vulgar gush of hot fluid, the give of torn muscle, an inhale and a scream. Lydia gets her feet under her, pushes forward, relentless, follows as the Indigo Queen stumbles back. She opens her mouth to scream and the Prince is suddenly there, his own sash tight across the Indigo Queen's neck, hauling her back, bending her hulking great body across the foot of the bed. Lydia pushes harder, twists, feels something in the Indigo Queen's soft belly tear and give.

The air vibrates with her rage. Like the Prince's mother had done, in the throne room with Elder Brother, the Indigo Queen makes a noiseless sound, a skin-shivering blast of fury and command. Release! the sound says, and Lydia takes great delight in baring her teeth to the gums and shouting back.

"No! I defy you!" Lydia hisses. "You like killing the young and useless so much, you stupid bitch? Without the ability to spawn you're nothing, and I've taken it from you! Me!"

The Prince dutifully translates for Lydia, purple blood painting his teeth as he grins. Then he lunges to do to her as she had tried to do to him.

The Indigo Queen tries to scream, tries to bat Lydia away, tries to heave the Prince off her neck, her body bucking, desperate, shuddering. Her face turns livid puce. Her purple tongue flops, foam flecks her cheeks, her chin. Lydia and the Prince grin, eyes meeting over their mutual tormentor, and each of them bear down, one last time, giving all their strength to this last task, this last barrier between them and freedom.

The Indigo Queen shivers, melts downwards, goes still. Lydia lets go. The glass dagger has, indeed, broken. The handle goes to pieces when she releases it. Her palms are riddled with small, insignificant red spots. Nothing so big that they hurt, or are a danger. She brushes the glitter of glass off on her skirts.

Above her, the Prince, hands still holding the sash against the Indigo Queen's neck, pinning her to the foot of the mattress with hands on either side of her throat, leans forward and kisses Lydia soft, and slow, and triumphant.

"Get the bag," Lydia says as they part.

The only thing left after that is to take his hand and run.

***

In the end it's almost comical. The Prince changes into clean clothing, face hastily wiped free of blood. He simply strolls into the transportation bay, demands one of the interstellar transports, waves away the captain and all crew, and flies it out of the hold. News of what they did in his cell hasn't reached the lowest of the lowly groundlings, so Lydia and the Prince are sailing up into the atmosphere before The Indigo Queen's body is probably even cold.