The Shadow Queen (23 page)

Lorelai whirled to find the ground behind them had disappeared as well. She stood with Kol and Gabril on a slender circle of dirt surrounded by swarms of spiders and beetles that chittered and clacked as they raced forward.

It was Irina’s favorite trick—dominating the hearts of multiple creatures so that there was no way Lorelai could overpower and subdue them all before being overcome.

Something crawled over Lorelai’s boot, and she shook her foot as Gabril cursed and began stomping the ground. Kol stomped as well, but for every bug they killed, another five took its place. Sasha screamed in fury and dove, but she couldn’t do more than sweep a few bugs away with the power of her wings, and more were already swarming to take their place.

A spider climbed over Lorelai’s boot and onto her leg, and she slapped at it, but her boots were already overrun with multilegged centipedes, spiders in every size, and those awful huge beetles who chopped other bugs in half as they advanced on the princess.

She needed something to fight with—the heart of a living creature capable of defeating an insect horde. She needed a stone to crush them. A flood of water to drown them. A ball of fire—

Use me.
Kol’s hand wrapped around hers, and his dragon heart—vicious, powerful, and begging for blood—slammed
against her magic and took hold
.

Can you stay in control if we use your dragon heart?
she asked, but she was already choosing her incantor as she used her free hand to shake off a centipede that was skittering over her bare arm. A sharp jab of pain pierced her heel as one of the monster beetles skewered her boot with its pinchers.

I’ll do my best. You can help me if I lose myself, but we’re going to be eaten alive or dragged into the depths of the ground if we don’t do something.

“Lorelai!” Gabril grabbed something off her back and threw it in the teeming mass that covered the field.

The ground beneath them heaved, sending them to their knees. Instantly, the bugs converged, swarming over them, biting, clawing and skittering over the top of each other until the three of them were covered.

Lorelai shuddered and lost her grip on Kol. Flinging her arms out, she swept at the creatures crawling toward her face and then fell forward as another wave of enormous beetles gushed from the ground and raced up her body.

Pain lit into her in tiny, jagged pieces as pinchers and fangs tore at her skin. Dimly, she heard Gabril cry out, but the whisper-hiss of hundreds of legs scrambling over the dirt, over her clothes, over
her
drowned out everything else.

They were tangled in her hair. Clawing at her stomach. Crawling up her neck toward her mouth.

She pressed her lips closed and struggled to find her footing amid the piles of slippery bodies that covered every inch of the trembling ground.

I’ve got you.
Kol’s hand found hers, and together they pulled
themselves to their feet. Gabril was doubled over at the waist beside them, frantically trying to dislodge centipedes from his neck and back.

The ground beneath them was disappearing rapidly. If Lorelai didn’t act
now
, they would be buried alive and then consumed.

Kol’s hand gripped hers, and magic stung her palm. “
Kaz`zhech
. Bring his fire into me and punish those who harm us.”

Violent heat surged through Kol’s veins and into hers. She screamed as it gathered in her chest, a molten ball of fury and destruction that felt like it was turning her blood to vapor and her bones to dust.

Burn them
, Kol shouted as he raised their joined hands where the white light of her magic had become a flame of orange and yellow that leaped toward the swarm at their feet. She raised her other hand, sucked in a breath that felt like razors against the heat inside her chest, and yelled, “
Kaz`zhech!
Punish them with fire.”

Flames shot from her palms and scorched the ground, latching on to the brittle grass and sweeping outward in a blaze of orange with brilliant white at the center. The heat seared her from the inside out, and she shook, desperately holding on to the terrible strength of Kol’s dragon heart as she turned to strafe the entire circle around them with fire.

Insects scrambled away from the flames but then curled up and turned to ash as the fire caught them. The scent of roasted bugs—bitter and pungent—hung heavy in the air, stinging Lorelai’s eyes.

Her legs trembled, her teeth chattered, and every part of her
body throbbed as the dragon’s fire scalded her. The heat was a monstrous presence pushing, pushing, pushing against her chest until she could barely breathe. Until she thought her skin would split, and her bones crumble. She tried to keep her hands raised, but spots were dancing at the edge of her vision, and her muscles had lost their strength.

Kol let go of her hand and gently lowered her to ground, though she could hear the collar whispering hurt, punish, kill while his dragon heart begged for more violence.

“You did it,” Gabril said quietly as he crushed one last twitching spider beneath his boot. The field surrounding them was a smoking pit of insect carcasses and burned grass, but the fire, once it had finished the task Lorelai set before it, had extinguished itself.

The awful heat of Kol’s dragon’s fire seeped out of her, and she drew a breath of the pungent, smoky air. The pain was gone. She was still awake. Kol was still in control. And Irina had once again weakened herself without winning the fight.

Are you okay?
Kol asked as he knelt beside her.

She was better than okay. Triumph was a radiant light blazing within her. She threw her arms around Kol and laughed.

We did it. She lost again. And now she’s weaker, the road is destroyed, and we’re one step closer to finishing this.

His arms came around her and pulled her close for a moment, his heartbeat a wild cadence beneath her ear.
We make a good team.

The warmth behind his words made Lorelai suddenly, excruciatingly aware that she’d thrown herself against him. That she was still holding him. That her heart was beating as wildly as his.

She dropped her arms and got to her feet on legs that still shook.
I’m . . . sorry? Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . That was great. Really great.

What was she doing? Had she lost her mind? She looked at Gabril’s face, his brow raised at the two of them as Kol climbed to his feet. Thank heavens the starlight didn’t show the blush that was heating her cheeks.

I’ll pretend I don’t know about it, then.
Kol sounded amused.

It was just . . . You know what? I don’t want to talk about it.

He grinned at her, the stars gilding his red-brown hair with silver.
Why not? It’s kind of . . . fetching.

She rolled her eyes.
Come on. Let’s get out of here in case Irina recovers fast enough to send something else after us.
She hurried to catch up to Gabril, who was nearly at the edge of the Hinderlinde Forest, feeling the warmth of Kol’s affectionate amusement behind her and the heat that still lingered in her cheeks.

T
HE TINY VOICE
of doubt that had whispered relentlessly in Irina’s ear since the night of Lorelai’s betrayal had become an deafening roar.

How had Lorelai stopped the collar from torturing the Eldrian king? How had she taken control of the mountains, the water, and the land and defeated every spell Irina threw at her?

How had Lorelai thwarted Irina’s will? Irina’s
heart
?

Either she’d had training—unlikely since Irina had kept an eye on every semipowerful
mardushka
in all Morcant in case the princess tried to return to her mother’s roots—or she somehow had more raw power in her fingertips than Irina had ever realized.

More power than she should possibly have.

Her deepest fear had become a reality: Lorelai was stronger than she was. There was no explanation for it. No reason that Irina could find, though she tried.

Had her birth been unusual? Had one of the fae from the
realm of Llorenyae fled its home kingdom and found succor in Ravenspire in exchange for gifting the princess with extraordinary power?

Irina’s skin grew cold, and a finger of ice slid down her spine.

She needed answers about Lorelai’s birth—about the magic that ran through the princess’s veins—and there was only one person who could give them to her.

Her stomach roiled, and her heart beat in sharp, uneven bursts.

It was time to face what lay beneath the garden’s monolith.

She swept through the hushed hallways of the castle, Raz clinging to her neck, and kept her expression cold and forbidding as her pulse tapped a frantic rhythm against her skin. She ignored the maids who ducked out of her path, the nobility who turned as if to speak to her, and the pages who scrambled to open doors before their queen reached them, and ignored as well the thread of fear that trembled along her spine. Her guards walked behind her, their hands on the hilts of their swords.

She burst into the castle’s entrance hall, barely sparing a glance for gleaming floor that had once been covered in blood and destruction.

She had no time for sentimentality. No room for the ache of loss and betrayal.

A page threw open the castle’s front entrance, and Irina strode through, her spine straight and her head held high, though she shook as the chill of the early morning air settled against her exposed skin.

“Your Highness, perhaps a coat would be in order?” her guard asked.

She ignored him.

The path to the garden lead down the front drive and then cut to the left and wrapped around the western turret. The monolith glowed beneath the morning sun, and the starpetals that blossomed around it reminded Irina of blood against snow.

Tatiyana’s blood.

Tatiyana, who no longer had a voice to speak or a will to overcome, but whose heart still lingered in her bones and would give Irina the answers she sought.

If she could stand to see what else her sister’s heart contained.

“Leave me,” she said to her guards as she forced her steps toward the monolith.

Her steps slowed as she left the crushed stone path to walk on the circle of midnight black dirt that surrounded the monolith. The starpetals seemed to reach for her, their sharp edges eager for a taste of her blood. She bent to allow Raz to slither onto the ground, and then parted the starpetals with her hands, heedless of the tiny thorns that left cuts scattered across her skin.

Her heart beat faster, and her breath came in sharp, unsteady bursts as she sank to her knees on the rich, black dirt, crimson flowers latching on to her hair and the sleeves of her dress. Facing the glittering white edifice that marked her sister’s grave, she gathered her remaining strength, ignoring the weariness that was already pulling at her, and plunged her hands into the soil.

The ground was the same Ravenspire ground that had been grudgingly bending its heart to hers since the moment she’d set foot in the kingdom over nine years ago. She’d mined its power and bent it to her will countless times, ignoring the drain she’d put on it for the sake of ensuring her reign.

This time, there was no ignoring the resistance she met. The depletion of the land’s power that had once surged to the surface every time her bare skin grazed the ground.

She focused her power, her will, and magic exploded down her veins, out of her palms, and into the ground. “
Kaz`prin
. Bring me what I seek.”

The soil bubbled and heaved. Irina held on to the soil’s heart, exerted her will, and refused to falter even as she felt Tatiyana’s heart slowly rise to the surface.

With one last shudder, the ebony casket ascended from its resting place, split in two with a tremendous crack, and then Irina was holding the bones of her sister.

Irina tried to speak, but her voice was caught in the suffocating thickness of the panic that closed her throat. The bones in her hand were from her sister’s rib cage, the shelter of Tatiyana’s heart, and the place where the strongest residue of what had once been a living being would still reside.

Murderer.

The thought was a whisper in the back of Irina’s mind, and she nearly dropped the bones in shock.

It wasn’t her sister’s voice. It couldn’t be. The dead were dead. Nothing could bring them back to life to speak new thoughts, new words. It wasn’t her sister’s voice.

It was Irina’s own.

Her eyes stung, and she glared down at the bones she held. She wouldn’t have had to kill Tatiyana if her sister had been less desirable, less lovable, just . . . less. Instead, she’d taken their father’s love, their uncle’s favor, and the kingdom that should’ve been Irina’s—and she’d done it all without once acknowledging
that she was leaving her older sister out in the cold.

That she was a thief. A selfish thief who deserved her fate.

Irina clung to the knowledge that she’d done what had to be done to right the wrongs stacked against her, but her throat didn’t ease. Her eyes still stung.

And her heart ached in a way that had nothing to do with the toll of magic.

The bones seemed to burn her palms as she forced herself to say, “
Zna`uch.
Reveal to me the secret of Lorelai’s power.”

For a moment, it seemed her sister’s heart would fight hers, but Irina was desperate, and Tatiyana had no will to exert. The queen blinked the tears from her eyes and raised her voice. “
Zna`uch
. Reveal the secret of Lorelai’s power.”

Images struck, faded and blurry at the edges. The ebony carriage entering Morcant. The evergreen crashing into Tatiyana and slicing her to pieces. Blood pouring into the pristine snow and carrying splinters of the carriage with it.

Tatiyana, lying on the ground and looking into the forest, where she locked eyes with her sister.

An understanding of what Irina was now capable of. Of what Irina would do.

A handful of ebony cradled in her sister’s blood. A whispered incantor.

The heart of the carriage’s ebony bowing before the power in Tatiyana’s blood and sending that power, that magic, into the ground, where it raced away from Morcant like a streak of light that pulsed brighter and brighter as her sister struggled for air.

The light reaching Ravenspire’s castle, burrowing into the stone, and searching for the one with lips as red as blood, hair as
black as ebony, and skin as white as snow.

Lorelai, asleep and unaware. The light leaping from the stone, pouring over Lorelai’s skin like a blanket, and then sinking into the princess’s blood as Tatiyana breathed her last.

Irina dropped the bones, her hands shaking as rage obliterated the thickness in her throat and dried the last of her tears.

Even in death, her sister had managed to steal what Irina most wanted. Even in death, Tatiyana had corrupted Irina’s chance at a happily ever after.

Lorelai, the untrained half-Morcantian girl, possessed her own magic and every last drop of her mother’s as well.

Irina couldn’t fight that. Not with the Ravenspire ground turning against her. Not when her heart stumbled and burned every time she did the simplest spell.

Lorelai was coming for her, the Eldrian king by her side, and there was nothing Irina could do about it unless she found another source of power to bolster her own.

Another heart to bend to hers and give her its strength, its will.

A heart that wouldn’t poison her blood as the hearts of those in Ravenspire all seemed to do.

She climbed to her feet and left her sister’s bones lying scattered on her open grave. Tatiyana may have thought she could finish Irina by giving her daughter more power than any
mardushka
had a right to own, but Irina had a weapon her sister could never have foreseen.

She had the human heart of a Draconi warrior just waiting for a new chest to call home.