by Everly Frost
“Princess,” Cassian orders. “You will come with me to retrieve the heartstone.”
The messenger seems surprised when I slide down the ladder at the side of the mineshaft. I’m pretty quick about it now, the thick gloves protecting my hands and the slides on the inner sides of my boots making fast work of the downward descent.
Reaching the fifth tunnel, Cassian wastes no time taking the messenger into the cave we discovered. A single wooden box rests on one of the crests.
Last night we removed the Queen’s heart with a very long pair of pliers wrapped in leather—just in case the touch of metal set off the heartstone—and placed it in a second wooden box, locking and burying it under rubble at the back of the cave. Even if Howl wins today, every miner has vowed that if they survive, they will return to this cave to collapse it, bury the Queen’s heart forever, and never tell anyone what we found.
Cassian slides the wooden box containing Prime’s heart into a leather satchel that he carries attached to the straps crisscrossing his armor. He slips it onto his back and we return to the Cavity where the miners and guards are all waiting.
“Fly out!” Cassian orders.
As a single, coordinated unit, the miners take to the air and the guards follow, leaving me to scramble into yet another crate. Cassian locks the hatch. Within moments we’re airborne and all I can see are the light changes—soft blue changing to bright yellow as we fly into the sun.
When we reach our destination, all my emotions are tucked away, honed into a pinpoint focus: Howl.
I roll out of the basket as soon as Cassian opens the hatch, move smoothly to my feet, and lift my head high. The gargoyles are lined up in five rows of five on the cliff’s edge. Llion, Roar, and Jasper are in the first row, while Welsian, Iago, and Badenoch join the last row. I need them in those positions to guide the others if things go bad.
I stride to the head of the group, giving them a single nod before turning in the direction of Crimson Court and the beating drums. Shadow panther flags flap in the wind, the breeze cooling us as the sun begins its descent. Sunset is still two hours away so we have plenty of light.
Cassian removes the wooden box from his satchel and places it on the wide, wooden tray that he asked one of the guards to bring. He balances it in his arms like an offering, walking ahead of us. In the distance, brilliant flashes of sapphire and emerald light from Howl’s heartstones tell me that he has chosen to wait inside the Court. He wants us to bring Prime’s heart to him.
I judge the number of guards lining the Court at about one hundred. There are more guards outside Harem Hall, another legion outside the palace itself, and even more within each mine. The number of guards I see here are just the beginning of what we’ll have to fight.
Another forty or so free gargoyles stand in rough rows on the right hand side inside the Court—each of the former clan elders plus some advisors. I recognize many of the faces from the last time we were here, including Lightsworn Liliana who waits next to the old High Priestess. Liliana is dressed in simple black pants and a shirt, but it’s overlaid with leather armor. I’m guessing that Howl’s announcement about marrying me has had a positive impact on her life. At the very least, it looks like he no longer controls what she wears.
She doesn’t take her eyes off Llion as he approaches and it’s easy to see why she chose him. Like Llion, she’s focused, intent. She doesn’t carry any visible weapons—none of us do—but I sense her quiet rage.
The other gargoyles are equally unyielding, silent, but their clan cultures are visible in their dress and manners. While the Lightsworn and Virtuous clans are regal, the leaders of the Denrock and Sunflight clans are dressed in functional, earthy colored clothing.
Sitting on the throne on the dais, Howl wears a grin that fades only slightly when he narrows his eyes at my armor. He won’t call me out on it because that would mean admitting that someone succeeded in stealing it from him, but the tick at the side of his jaw tells me he’s not happy. The two heartstones glow against his bare chest, but he wears a new molded metal harness with a third, empty circle ready to place the new stone into. He’s alone on the dais this time—no trophies in the form of Baelen or the Phoenix—but I guess the Prime Heartstone will be trophy enough.
“My King,” Cassian says, stopping at the foot of the dais as the drums stop beating. “I bring you Prime’s heart.”
Howl doesn’t make a move to take it yet. “Which gargoyle found it?”
“They all did, my King.”
Howl scoffs, his thick fingers thrumming against his armrests. “All of them?”
“Yes. The Princess found a way through the flames in the fifth tunnel. That gargoyle there—Iago—determined where to puncture the rock wall behind it. Those two—Roar and Llion—weakened the wall, and that one—Welsian—finally broke the wall apart. Then this one here—Badenoch—identified the heart as Prime’s. That one over there devised a way to pick up the heart without triggering it and—”
Howl cuts him off. “I get your point, General Cassian.” His narrowed eyes slide over to me. “We’ll deal with who can claim the prize soon enough. Bring me the stone.”
Cassian turns to Roar and orders him to take the tray, removing the wooden box from it and ascending the steps.
I thrum with tension as he places the box on a waiting pedestal. He draws himself off to the side, wings partially spread, tips forward. It’s a defensive pose, but Howl is too pleased about his new prize to notice. He lifts himself from his throne and gleams at the box, running his hands over the top of it in a caress. “Finally. The trio of heartstones.”
Howl lifts the lid with a wide grin. I hold my breath. My heart begins to pound but I accept it, the slam of adrenaline, the need to fight.
Howl blinks down at the box. Anger follows confusion and it’s all the reaction I need.
“Positions!” I scream.
The front line of gargoyles, including Roar and Llion drops to their knees. Roar uses the same movement to slam the tray into the floor. It splits into twenty straight pieces that had been held together with the same gum that Roar plastered over my eye after my fight with Arlo. At the same time, the other lines of gargoyles drop to their boots, retrieve the pickaxe heads hidden in them in one hand and deftly catch the handles that Roar and the front line throw back with their other. Suddenly they’re all armed with the weapon of their trade. In the next breath, they form a semi-circle around Llion and me, pushing outward as the guards push in, reacting to my scream.
Roar takes the lead and shouts at the clan leaders to get to the back of the Court. They don’t waste time, hurrying out of the way of the guards. The old Priestess runs with them, but Liliana jumps into line with the miners, taking position beside Welsian. We’re left with two rings: guards on the outside, miners on the inside, Llion and me in the center.
Howl is still fixated on the empty box. His angry fist closes around it so tightly that the wooden structure cracks and splinters, strewing shards across the dais.
He roars at Cassian, “Where is the heartstone?”
Cassian points. “There.”
Llion spreads his wings. He rips off his shirt to reveal his own molded metal straps crossing his chest. The Prime Heartstone rests inside them.
Howl screams, “That’s not possible!”
“Believe it,” Llion says as he takes flight, his strong wings lifting him up into the space over our heads. “You want it? Come and get it.”
Howl’s corded muscles bulge. Powerful green light pulses through the veins in his wings as he speeds into the air, flying faster than normal with the power of the heartstones behind him.
The two gargoyles collide mid-air. The collision is all it takes to send the guards into action, but we’re ready for them.
“Lady Storm!” Roar throws me a pickaxe as several guards target me. It doesn’t take me long to get the hang of using it as a weapon. After all, I’ve used one of these every day for the last month. When I don’t use it for i
ts sharp end, I use its handle in the way my Storm Command taught me to fight with a wooden rod. I duck under the sword swing of the nearest guard and drive the blunt end of the pickaxe once into his chest and again under his chin, knocking him backward.
Nearby Welsian disarms a guard and Liliana snaps up his sword. When Welsian loses his own weapon in the chest of another guard, his fists become his weapons until he pulls out the rope belt he’s wearing, which happens to have a small chisel attached to the end of it. It’s not quite a bone lash, but it does enough damage when swung around and let loose on his opponent.
The fight continues around me and so far we haven’t lost any miners. But up above us, Llion appears to be tiring—and getting sloppy because of it.
“You can’t control Prime’s heart,” Howl jeers at him. “You don’t know how.”
Slamming both of Llion’s arms outward, he exposes Llion’s chest and snatches at the heartstone. “Now it’s mine.”
Watching from the ground, I grin. Iago designed the harness well.
Llion says, “I was waiting for you to do that.”
As Howl’s bare hand closes over the front of the heartstone, his muscles bulge, his eyes widen. There’s a pause as he realizes his mistake. “You didn’t wake it yet…”
The blast slams Howl backward, all the way across the Court into the side of the mountain against which it’s built. Every creature in the room that ever controlled deep magic, including the Priestess, flies backward in the blast. It hits me too, but I’m ready for it this time. I allow the wave to carry me up and over the stunned guards, preparing to drop and roll on the way back down. The awakening hurts—I can’t deny that it hurts—but I welcome it, because now Llion can use the stone. He can fight Howl for real. Now the fight will be fair.
“Princess!” Cassian flies through the air and catches me before I fall, carrying me safely back to the ground.
Howl tumbles to the dais, stunned. His concussion won’t last long, but Llion uses the seconds wisely, taking hold of the heartstone for real this time, ripping off the protective covering at the back of the harness that stopped the stone from making contact with his skin. It was the same method I used in Erawind so I could handle metal without causing a lightning storm.
The change is instant. Golden light streams through his veins, visible in his wings, lighting up his eyes even more golden than they were before. Nearby, Liliana has frozen in shock. As a guard cuts the air beside her with his sword, Llion reacts in her defense, his palm shooting outward, the guard flung backward in the force. She barely notices, racing to her husband. “Llion!”
He scoops her up, kisses her fiercely, and then puts her down again. “Be safe, my love.”
He flies up again and swoops toward Howl. The King rises from the ground, clawing at the side of the mountain to regain his feet before leaping toward the front of the dais, his wings spread.
Beside me, Cassian suddenly stiffens. “Princess! Watch out!”
It takes me a split second to realize that Howl isn’t coming for Llion. He’s coming for us, or more particularly, his pinpoint focus is Cassian.
“Traitor!” Howl feints around Llion’s right wing, barely evading his wing dagger, and in the time it takes for Llion to spin, reach out, snatch hold of Howl’s wing, wrench him backward…
“Death.” Howl’s palm shoots out. A bolt of green light the size of my arm spears at Cassian. I sense its power the moment it leaves Howl’s hand. The memory of deep magic inside me screams at me in warning. He’s injected his cruelest thoughts into the heartstone and forced it to give life to savage pain and slow death. Nothing will be able to stop it once it reaches its target.
I don’t think.
I react.
Both my arms shoot out, palms flat. I take one step forward for the strength I’ll need for my smaller body to have the impact I want. I shove Cassian hard in the side, pushing him out of the way, registering the shock sparking from every angle of his falling body, his eyes shooting to mine.
The step I took positions me directly in the bolt’s path and even with my quickest reflex, it’s too late to move out of it. The bolt’s explosive light fills my view and I brace for the pain that will come first and the death that will follow.
Beyond it, obscured, barely visible, Howl’s expression morphs from rage to fear, the deepest fear he’s ever shown. It stretches his skin and drains his face pale.
If there’s such a thing as a moment within a moment, I use it for my last thought.
Baelen will kill you when I’m dead.
40. Marbella Mercy
A gray curtain shoots up in front of me, thick webbing lighting up green as the bolt strikes it from the other side. Another protective curtain shoots up behind me. Wings… wings…
Cassian let them unfold as he fell, using the strength of my push to trigger his reflex to extend his wings at the exact moment that I pushed him away.
No! Cassian!
The death bolt strikes Cassian’s wing and shrieks through his wing bones, lighting them up green, sizzling through them to his shoulders, chest, arms, legs, and up into his head. He hits the floor with a crack, his back arched over his satchel, the smash of breaking wood filling my ears.
The light vanishes. The bolt met its mark.
“Cassian!” Damn his massive wings. No other gargoyle could have done what he did, using his wings to shield me and take the bolt himself.
I drop to his side, grasping at his torso, sliding my hands behind his back, trying to pull him up. He’s heavy, all bulky muscle. He shudders against me. He’s hurting. Badly. His eyes are shut, but he’s still breathing. Gasping for breath.
“Cassian… no….” I have to get him out of here. Tears of fright replace my shock. I don’t know what I can do to stop the death that’s coming, but I have to try. “Somebody help me!”
Jasper is closest to me, but as soon as he tries to get to me, three big guards step into his path, jeering at him and me. They heard my cry. They know what they’re doing, blocking Jasper from helping me. I memorize their faces, because I’ll be coming for them soon.
For now, I’m on my own. With a scream of effort, I pull Cassian’s bulky torso into my arms, his wings flopping to the ground behind him, a dead weight pulling him backward. It takes me too long to snatch and grab them forward, using their weight to keep him leaning against me and in the meantime, he’s trying to speak.
“Satch…el.”
“Cassian?”
His eyelashes flicker against my cheek. “Satchel.”
Finally managing to slide his wings to either side of me, I lean his head against my shoulder and pat the floor, unable to really see the satchel, finally feeling its strap so I can pull it up from the floor. Shards of wood poke out from it and I don’t want to drag it into the space between us.
Cassian seems to understand my dilemma. His hands rattle against mine, weak, but he takes the satchel, splinters and all, and reaches into it.
He pulls a smaller leather bag out of it and lets the rest of the satchel and shards drop back to the floor. He breathes heavily with the effort but drags the little bag into my lap. “I brought this… for you.”
“Cassian, I need to get you out of here. Llion can hold Howl for now. You’re hurt. You’re…” Dying. My voice chokes up as blood drips onto my hands, dropping onto the little bag resting in them. It’s falling from his mouth, telling me he has internal injuries. “You’re badly hurt.”
“I’m not going to make it. We both know that.” He tilts his head up a little, his forehead against my cheek, his shoulder against mine. “Please… open it.”
What could be so important that he would rather give it to me than get help? As he slumps against my shoulder, I pull apart the cords holding the leather bag closed.
He says, “Now, tip it… into my hands.” He pushes his shaking palms together, cupping them above my lap, ready to receive whatever is in the bag.
I don’t question him. I stopped questioning him a
long time ago. He saved my life, my dignity, and didn’t take anything from me. I trust him. But as I tip the bag… I realize that I shouldn’t.
He lied to me.
He lied to me because he thinks he can help me, because he thinks that he can help his people and make up for what he did in the past. He lied to me because he believes something that can’t be true. He lied to me and he’s about to accept death into his hands and I don’t want that.
I don’t want him to die.
My muscles fire. My hand flexes upward, intent on reversing what I’ve done—to stop the object falling from the bag into his waiting hands, but he anticipates my move. One of his hands flies upward, grasping mine in an iron, determined grip, and by then it’s too late.
The brilliant white diamond—the Queen’s heart—drops into his other palm.
There’s a moment of silence, a heartbeat in which he pulls the Queen’s Heartstone to his chest, covers it with his fist, and says, “Hold on to me.”
I throw my arms and legs around him, he wraps his wings around me, and the cocoon he creates fills with a blast so pure it rips through every part of me, lifting us both upward, suspending us in the quiet eye of a different storm.
He told me that his wings were just like his ancestor’s. That they can form a barrier against deep magic. Now he’s sealing the stone’s awakening inside his wings with us so that nobody else will feel it.
“Cassian…”
His blue eyes blaze at me. His free arm wraps around me, stroking my back and tangling in my hair as we remain suspended. I don’t know how long it lasts. It could be seconds or a lifetime as he says, “I need to tell you what you smell like.”
He presses his cheek against mine, inhaling deeply before he draws back to cup the cheek he just pressed against. “You smell like the Queen whose home I grew up in. You smell like her daughter who died when we were young. I don’t know how but you carry the blood of the Supreme Incorruptible.”
The fist he holds between us containing the Queen’s heart pushes at me. “Take it. Her heart is awake now and it belongs to you.”
