Keepers of the Crown

by Lydia Redwine

  “And the last I’ll ever make with their kind.”

  Cam froze, the thought lost in the now very warm air. Light flickers. Firelight. But not blue. Warm and red. And flickering over a solitary figure, the one who held the torch.

  Cam couldn’t breathe but could only stare at the looming figure before her. At the open mouth and the eyes that held no life and the sagging bones without flesh.

  And then...more lights. Cam’s eyes darted to catch them, to count them as they appeared. Silence was falling, one which Cam knew to be due to the fact that everyone’s attention was directed at the only figure to be seen. And at the lights.

  A scream clawed up Cam’s throat as her heart tried to leap from her chest, but a hand slapped over her mouth. Hard. Hard enough that she could taste blood. But the hand was hardly bony and not at all scaly. Blistered and clammy maybe.

  And then a light on the figure’s face.

  Fiera’s eyes were wide under the torchlight which flickered amber sparkles into her black eyes. “Where is Silva?” she asked, her voice a loud whisper.

  Cam was shaking even as her sister moved her hand from her mouth. “Gone,” she gasped out. “But Fi,” she said as she grasped her sister’s arm. “Leviathan is here. Peter thought he died but…”

  Fiera’s brows rose in surprise or the opposite, Cam could not take time to tell. Fiera’s mouth opened as though she were going to say something when chaos erupted behind her.

  There was enough torchlight that Cam could now see the flashing blades. Something soft and leathery was being pressed into Cam’s palm. Andthen a heavier object. Both very familiar in Cam’s hands. Just holding them swept the tingling in her fingers away.

  “Come on. Do your worst.” Fiera grinned, and Cam clutched her slingshot and bag of rocks in her hands.

  Fiera lifted her bow and shot. Arrows whizzed. Cam whirled, looking for Caleb, expecting to find him with a similar weapon onlyto rememberhewasn’t here. Andneither was Peter.

  Lights flickered and so did the faces of the people Cam knew. Owen, his teeth gritted as he plunged a sword into a throat, black blood spurting. He turned, wrenching the weapon inside the throat as the creature’s blue flames died in its palms and it sank to the floor.

  Lia, Joel...and the others.

  With one hand braced against the wall, Cam pushed herself from it, grasping a stone, placing it in the slingshot and swinging it over her head. Hissing reached her ears as she plunged headlong into the chaos. Another stone in her fist. She swung her hand. Slamming the stone into skull just as a Shadow Bearer went to fold itself into nothing.

  The air seemed to splinter as the creature slumped to the ground, its hissing cry a blade in Cam’s ears.

  Her head was gradually clearing, her body feeling less like it was floating and more present and grounded as she twisted and turned. Cam slammed and swung, keeping one stone in her fist and the others flying across the room. The room was growing brighter now as more torches were ignited.

  She ceased only when she felt a sharp blade being drawn across her forearm, slicing her skin. Her furious eyes met Leviathan’s which were flashing beneath his own blue flames.

  The next instant his elongated fingers were pressing into her neck as he held her throat by one hand. His blade was pointed at her stomach. “I would kill you, Camaria if it weren’t for the fact that I am quite looking forward to seeing your face when my army arrives to crush your remaining people in Mirabelle,” he hissed. “When I scrape the flesh of your sisters from their bones and plaster it over your body as I plunge all my fury into you.” His breath was ice. “You and I are far from over.”

  With a strangled cry, Cam pushed all of her force into him. He stumbled back, his features rippling from surprise to fury. He nearly fell back.

  “Do. Your. Worst,” Cam dared him with hissing tongue.

  Leviathan only snarled and folded himself into the air and vanished. Cam stumbled back after his sudden release, air returning to her lungs. “Army...of course…”

  Cam stared at the spot where the Shadow Bearer had vanished, daring him to return. She wasn’t powerful, but shewas furious enough. She stared until her eye caught something else. Something rolling on the floor where Leviathan had been. It was a small glass bottle with a glowing, light blue liquid inside. Her instincts urged her to take it. Energy within her drew her towards it. She hesitated only a moment before reaching forward and grasping the object in her palm. It must have fallen from his pocket or something. It was glowing brightly enough that Cam would have noticed it before.

  Before she had pushed him.

  “What is this?” she wondered.

  But there was already a battle occurring.

  And there was blood. So much blood. On her own skin and dress and sprayed on the walls and floors. The torchlight was reflecting in the pool of it beneath her feet.

  Cam was seeing them now, all the Shadow Bearers twisting themselves into the air and vanishing, fleeing for their lives. “They’re outnumbered,” she realized as the light grew and the army Peter and Fiera had summoned were revealed. Hundreds upon hundreds…

  All creatures Silva had banished. Cam made the effort to keep the sickness rising in her chest at the sight of them down. Cam had cast another Shadow Bearer to the ground when her eyes caught sight of a ballroom doors. With towards the door. She broke into a full run. She knew what it was.

  A stone was still grasped in her clammy palm, and loose strands of hair clung to her sweaty brow. She broke into a room which was even more alight and dreadfully hot. Cam was momentarily blinded by a blazing fire built on a mountain of wood.

  Her scream ripped open her mouth and chest and even the smoldering air. The fire was not blue. But red and hissing.

  The wood leaned in a manner that became almost a pyramid. And atop lay a figure who was being licked and eaten by the flames. Tears tore through Cam’s eyes. Everything froze and then rushed on in a flurry of dangerous excitement within her body.

  A figure burned. A child. An innocent being.

  Mista.

  Silva’s words echoed in her mind. “You will burn first.” gray substance drifting through the curiosity piqued, she began walking

  All Cam could hear as she rushed forward was the sound of her own cries, her own heart threatening to burst from her chest. She felt fire numbing her legs as her hand reached up and grasped Mista’s. Mista’s sweating face turned towards her.

  Why was she here and not with the hostages?

  Mista’s lips parted, and her rasping voice formed only a small noise. Mista seemed to know she could no longer speak. A tear slipped down her cheek, and she smiled. She smiled.

  Everything inside of Cam plummeted and rose, a cacophony of panic and the realization that nothing could be done. Cam’s eyes lifted to look over the licking flames at the figure beyond. The figure wearing no expression but the silver tears gleaming in her eyes.

  Silva.

  Bitter, resentment, rage, and hatred tore through her. She leaped onto the wood, sprinting over the fire, to crash into Silva’s form.

  Silva fell with a thundering crash to the floor, her head colliding with the stone while Cam landed upon her. Her hands flew to Silva’s neck, grasping it in a firm grip. “I-I loved Mista most. Only her,” Silva choked out.

  Cam cried out and had no other thought besides driving a dagger found on the floor into the flesh of Silva’s thigh. She plunged it deep and withdrew it. She screamed in rage while Silva released sounds of agony and pain. Cam’s shaking hand lifted the dagger over Silva’s chest. Directly over where she knew her heart to be. She could barely see through her own tears.

  The dagger never pierced her skin.

  Cam screamed at the pain throbbing in her skull, at the crash of her own head against the stone and the warm body now pressed against her from where it had leaped upon her. She thrashed under Owen’s grip. The dagger fell from her hand. He pinned her to the ground even as Cam saw Silva still writhing beyond them. “Traitor!
” she screeched through sobs which caught her throat, causing her to cough. She struggled fiercely.

  “Cam! I amnot goingtohurt you!”Owen shouted. Bythis point, Cam was crying so hard that she could do nothing but fall into Owen’s arms and allow him to hold her. “She does not deserve a death so swift,” she heard him murmur. And she knew then, that he too, was crying. She peered through blurred eyes at Silva’s still breathing form. She was writhing in pain. A figure was at the queen’s side clutching her arms with bloodied hands. Lia and another dragging to the queen of poison away.

  Cam peered up through the flames, seeing the remains of her sister. Her eyes slipped shut, and she leaned into Owen, hearing only the shouting, Silva’s vain screams, and crackling flames.

  Cam saw the coffin then. The coffin with false sisters Silva had stuffed inside it. And now Mista was gone. The real Mista. And her coffin was flying embers and ash.

  The crater before her held bits of ice, shards of a broken castle,

  a dream plunged into the deep. The wind scattered everything. She breathed.

  Home.

  But home was nothing but ash and smoke and roses. The

  air was biting. It whispered of her sins.

  “Murderer.”

  “Coward.”

  “Traitor.”

  “Sister.”

  Cam stirred.

  A hand was at her shoulder and then brushing hair back

  from her face. Her eyes opened, and she saw Fiera bending over her. Her sister was still caked in blood, cuts streaked across her face. But she smiled. How? “How long have I been out?” Cam tried to rasp, but the words could not push through her throat. Fiera read the question. She did not answer. It didn’t matter.

  “When this is all over,” she started, “when we leave this valley we are going to talk for a long time. Over many nights if we have to. We’ll do it alone. And you’ll tell me everything.” Fiera’s tone was soft yet firm. And Cam knew that her sister had seen the smashed bottle. Knew where its contents had gone. “How long?” Fiera whispered, her words choking. Her eyes were glistening.

  Tears press ed into Cam’s eyes, and her body was trembling, from the alcohol or from everything else she couldn't separate. “A long time,” was her whispered reply. “Far too long.” The ache in her chest flowed into her shoulder, down her arm into her fingers. It left her legs numb.

  Fiera nodded. “I know.” And then Cam was in her sister’s arms, the smell of blood on her skin driven away by the scent of her hair which still managed to smell like chestnuts and pine and thefeelingofher strongembrace. Fiera didn’t like this much, but when she held Cam, it was with a strength that could not wane. And the color of that feeling glowed. It was warm. It could last forever. They broke apart after an eternity that passed in an instant.

  “Let’s go find her,” Fiera said at last. She rose, a single short blade in hand. “Let’s finish this.” Cam rose to follow her sister.

  Silva was nowhere to be found. Not by the smoldered pile of wood nor in the throne room or the hall. “The King’s Chamber,” Cam said at last. “We should check there.”

  Cam led the way with Fiera’s hand in hers. It wasn’t until she reached the passage she had first seen the crows within that she realized the rest of the company was following. Even Peter with his bad leg. Joel and Owen and Lia as well. And the others. Their number seemed so large now that they were roaming the fortress freely. Cam halted at the end of the passage, her heart thundering against her chest as her head still throbbed and her fingers still tingled. The tapestry…

  Cam fell to her knees, gathering the torn and fallen bloodied fabric in her hands. So Silva had come this way. Cam scrambled to wobbling legs, the sounds of her allies’ speaking blending behind her. She pushed open the door and…

  Stumbled over a coffin.

  Her hand moved to stifle the cry that split her lips apart. Her eyes widening, Cam stumbled back into those spilling in behind her. Gasps filled the room, echoing in the soft light. Hands clamped over mouths, all eyes fastened on the coffin before them.

  Inside the coffin of iron lay Silva Andel, Queen of Poison in her dress of chains.

  Dead.

  Her skin like ash and eyes open and lifeless. Purple veins, pumping no blood, trickled through her skin. She lay in the coffin upon a bed of dying roses. Roses crumbling like the bones of the queen herself. Whoever had put her here hadn't bothered to clean the wound Cam had caused. Blood had long since ceased seeping from her thigh and stained the dress covering it.

  The queen’s lips were painted ruby red but from the corners of her mouth emerged black stains. Not old. But fresh. Still dripping from her mouth.

  Poison. The kind that kills quickly. And her crown...the crown of intricate iron which had shone like starlight had been broken, the shards scattered over her still form. And resting upon her head was a new crown, a crown of roses and briars.

  “Andella.”

  “Briar.”

  So, the killer knew the story.

  The question clung to the air.

  At first, Cam had one thought. “They did it while I was out. Good. Better for me to not watch her be killed. I would have wished her worse. Like banishment in the dungeons forever.” But as Cam turned to meet the eyes of those around her, she found that the agast dispositions meant one thing. Someone had killed the Queen of Poison and only that person had known.

  Cam felt the question. It smoldered her and those around her. “Who is the murderer of Silva Andel?” Another question burned brighter. “Why does it matter? It matters because she would have killed us before everyone. It was the death she would have given me.”

  The silence of the Spirit Followers was stiff as if a blade was poised over it to slice at any given second.

  The first accusation came as sharply as the blade Cam felt. “You!”

  Cam turned slowly to face Owen. He was pointing a shaking finger in Fiera’s direction. Fiera’s expression was already grim and harried, tracks of tears under her cheeks. Owen was shaking with fury, his eyes ablaze. “You. Had. No. Right. To kill her. It was for all of us to witness”

  “I didn’t do it!” Fiera screamed. The sound penetrated the air around them. Everyone stilled. Everyone silenced. Fiera stalked towards Owen, trembling in anger. “And I had every right to kill her. I had every right to end the life of my own mother who did everything she could to make sure I would suffer the rest of my life. But. I. Didn’t. Do. It.”

  “She’s right,” the next, softer voice said. Peter’s head was in his hands. He was sitting against the wall, his wounded leg extendedbeforehim. “ButyouandIbothknowthat Silva’s death wouldn't have been brought about by Fiera or by Cam so quickly. She was poisoned, Owen. And Fiera would have done worse.”

  Cam couldn't agree more. She was trembling, the ache in her chest expanding as she watched her sister’s eyes stream with tears. Fiera’s voice was choked. “How dare you? What gives you the right to say that to me, Owen?” Fiera shook her head, his expression filled with disgust and disappointment.

  Owen’s expression was fashioned from steel, his eyes glowing green.

  “Well, then who did it?”

  This voice echoed from across the room, a voice that trembled but resonated clearly. Cam did not need to turn to see who had spoken. Her eyes slipped shut as if she could drive all of this away. Lia was nearing them, her face contorted into something accusatory. “No one wanted Silva dead more than you, Fiera. More than you and Cam.”

  Fiera was turning on Lia, her fist flying. It collided with the woman’s jaw. Cam heard a cracking sound and her eyes flew open. Lia was gritting her teeth as she stumbled back. But she didn't act surprised. “Fiera!” Owen shouted. The others were banding around them, gathering in a circle around the three standing in the middle of the throne room.

  Cam’s gaze fell on the shafts of light falling over the throne room. The blood was still everywhere among the sacks of bones. And it was just them here. Just humans. Even the casta
ways had vanished. To where Cam did not want to know. They were free. That was enough dread to stomach for now.

  Cam was crying. She could feel the tears streaming down her cheeks, her heart pounding achingly in her chest. Her head still throbbing. “And what if it was me? I don’t remember anything since…”

  Since seeing Mista one last time.

  “It wasn’t Cam!” Fiera was screaming. “She was passed out! You all saw her!”

  “I didn’t see her the whole time. What if she woke up?” Owen was shouting back as he shouldered past Lia to hiss in Fiera’s face.

  “I was with her the entire time!”

  “Oh, yes, that makes it better!” Owen crossed his arms over his chest. “And what if when she awoke, you went together to murder the queen? Cam certainly found her quite quickly, didn’t she?”

  “Cam didn’t do it!”

  Cam’s eyes fluttered from the group in the center of the blood-bathed throne room to Peter who had now stood and was hobbling towards them. Joel was behind him, his own eyes tearfilled and expression worn and harried. Joel was silent, however, as he and Peter neared them.

  Peter held Cam’s gaze, his own voice raspy and choking. “Cam didn’t do it because she just saw her own sister being burned alive, and the grief was too much for her to bear to properly poison the queen. The murderer knew exactly what they were doing when they did it.” Peter’s own face contorted as tears dripped over his lashes.

  A sob escaped Cam’s throat. Her hand went to cover her mouth. She sank to her knees, her body weakening under the fatigue which was finally settling in. Peter’s gaze was still on her, waveringwith a thousandemotions. “Why thehell does it matter who did it?” her mind screamed. “What is happening to you, Owen?” He was acting out in ways he had never seen him do before.

  Peter seemed to be thinking the same as he glared at the man. “What is more important is finding our people. Silva is gone. That is all that matters.” Everyone was silent. “Owen and Lia, you’re leading us.”