The ice cracked as I forced my eyes to look at Beira, finding that her blue lips flapped around soundlessly, like the convulsions of a dying person.
But she won’t last that long, will she? she shrieked in my head. She’s already half-dead, little wretch.
Still, I will make sure this hurts both of you.
39
Aenor
Even though he was encased in ice, even though the key was gone, I still had to get to Salem. When your mate is near, you crawl to them in your time of need.
I was so cold that I could hardly move. I must have frostbite over every inch of me. I didn’t know why Salem wasn’t using his heat to melt the ice, but there was obviously something stopping him.
I stole a glance down at my body, finding the dark magic spiraling under my skin, moving for my heart. Rotten… that’s what this was. I was rotten from the inside out. My father had been a psycho, and my mother had never trusted me, because I was rotten like an old fruit—
I gritted my teeth, furious at the realization that Beira was infecting my thoughts. She wanted me to die like she’d lived: pierced by self-hatred.
I craned my head to glance back at her. She was dangling the key from her bony finger. “Failure,” she croaked. “Punishment.”
Her large eye blinked, and she spoke in my mind. You could have healed yourself, if only the people loved you. A leader grows strong from the sacrifices of her people. No one would sacrifice to you, rotten one. Wretched one. You deserve nothing, corrupted as you are.
She tossed the key out the door, then rubbed her hands together with glee.
And why wouldn’t I hate myself? A violent streak a mile thick, my soul festering inside like a blighted potato—
Her spell over me was twisting my thoughts again. But that was it, wasn’t it? The reason Mama never trusted me… because I had my dad’s tainted blood—
A little sound stopped my thoughts. Then another. A rhythmic noise hammering the ice. Faint, so faint I could barely hear it over my breath. I looked down to see that one of Salem’s fingers had thawed the ice, and water dripped off it.
Even frozen, I sensed he was urging me closer.
So, something was stopping him from using his magic, but what if…
What if he could still channel it? All he needed was a tiny point of contact between us.
I shifted, just another inch, and his fingertip touched my thigh. And from that tiny touch, I felt his warmth pouring into me. It moved up my thigh, snaking up my hips, my stomach, and pouring into my chest like a warm drink.
And with it, all those thoughts Beira had instilled in me started to soften. I saw myself as Salem did—not as broken or rotten. Not as violent and warped. I was a survivor, a protector. I saw myself standing before a city, a crown on my head and my kingdom spread out behind me.
I tuned out Beira’s wild laughter, but I kept my awkward pose, the defeated slump of my shoulders. I couldn’t let her know anything was changing.
Salem’s magic was pouring faster into my chest now, and I breathed in the scent of pomegranates and smoke. Along with his magic, I had a few glimpses of some of his memories…
Walking barefoot from his cave, sitting on a beach to watch the rising sun with a hot cup of tea. The morning song of wrens and blackbirds.
I met his gaze, and fire flickered in his eyes.
I was the warmth of the sun now—and flames licked my ribs, filling me with his strength. I had enough power in me to explode.
I flashed him a small smile, and then loosed the inferno.
The ice melted off Salem, off me, turning to steam in the air. He was still bound by iron, but my hands were free, and I felt strong now. Beira was screaming, and I whirled to find her trying to beat out the flames on her hair and dress. A burst of icy magic from her body snuffed them out.
I snatched the old knife from one of the alcoves.
With strength pulsing through my muscles, I slammed Beira back against the stone wall, one elbow in her chest. I drew the blade so deep across her throat that I was sure I cut through to her spine.
There was no spray of blood, just a thin trickle of blue. With a gaping eye, she slid to the ground, clutching her neck.
I kept the knife on me and rushed out the door, into the cold air, searching the snowy earth for the key. Coming outside from the darkness, the snow seemed blinding, and it took my eyes a few moments to adjust. Then I saw it—the little indentation in the snow. I snatched the key.
But when I turned back toward the house, the door had sealed over with stone. My legs shook, and I ran for it. I pressed my hands against the frigid walls, looking for an opening, a door.
Just rock. Fucking rock sealed shut. It was just a cobbled expanse, already covered with frost and snow.
My breath caught in my lungs, and panic rang in my mind like a demented bell. This world seemed to respond to Beira’s needs—just like Mag Mell responded to Salem’s. Her world, her rules.
When I pressed my ear to the stone, I could hear a high-pitched groaning noise. Beira’s voice. Not dead yet.
I tucked the key into my dress pocket.
So, she’d survived that. She was something beyond a normal fae now, turned into a frightful goddess by eons of misery. I needed to get in there before she started torturing Salem, or ripping him into tiny pieces, or whatever the hells she had planned.
My mind was ablaze. This was his wife. This monster who spoke in people’s minds.
Poor choice, Salem.
I pressed my hands against the stone and let the flames pour from my chest, down my arms and fingertips. It was exhilarating, holding his magic in my body. I was a temporary keeper of this warmth.
The rocks started to glow red, melting a little bit, and I heard Beira’s screams from inside. I’d bake her alive, melt the rock, and get to Salem.
I felt something shift in the stone and thought maybe it was melting. But no—when my eyes flicked to the right, I saw the door gape open in the stone wall. I braced myself, knife in hand again. With a blast of icy air, the Queen of Misery stomped outside with nothing to show of my attack besides a nasty scar. Fury twisted her face.
I threw the knife for her throat. It hit its mark, jutting out of her neck—but it hardly slowed her down this time. She pulled it out and tossed it into the whiteness far beyond me.
I cocked my head. I’d be using Salem’s magic to fight her, then.
My fingers twitched, blazing with fire. Beira lunged for me, and I loosed a burst of flames. Her clothes lit up the air, and she screamed, but the fire was out within moments.
Ice spread over my skin. Gods, the cold was eating at my flesh again. Before my muscles seized up completely, I shifted and landed a punch in her stomach. Ideally, I would have gone for the neck or the head, but she was so freaking tall that the stomach was all I could manage.
Doubling over, she roared, then shot up again. Another burst of fire from me. For a moment, I smelled singed flesh and hair, her skin blistering—but then her icy hands were around my throat, squeezing. She lifted me into the air, tilting her head while I choked.
I heard her voice again as she grinned up at me. But Salem needs to watch you die. You stole my husband. My one true love. We made his head nod; he agreed. It was legal. I followed the rules; you did not. There’s a name for women like you.
Her bloodshot eye blinked at me. She was crushing my windpipe, the pain so blinding that I struggled to summon more fire.
My legs flailed, and I kicked her hard in the chest. Then I loosed the flames.
My heat scorched her, and she dropped me into the snow. I gasped for breath, my throat making a deep rasping sound. As I scrambled to stand again, her foot came down on the back of my head, and pain shot through my skull. My face slammed into the snow—I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move with her foot pressing me down.
She was crushing my skull…
Her laughter rang out, muffled. With my face was smashed down, I dimly heard her speak in her halting
, grating voice. “I gave you… a fake… key.” She was literally cackling.
Oh, you absolute bitch.
Reaching behind my head, I gripped her icy calf, roasting her skin with my hands. She yelped, stumbling away. I only managed to roll over again, gasping for breath, before she was on me again like a freaking avalanche. Her claws wrapped around my throat, and her screeching voice was enough to shake the snow from the trees.
My throat closed up, frost spreading over my skin and freezing my muscles until I couldn’t call up the fire.
My vision was darkening, the world cast in shadow—
A long shadow over us, looming over us. A deep voice…
Beira’s hair fell in my face, but when her head jerked to the side, I saw the silhouette of someone standing over her. Pale hair caught in the wind, blue eyes like shards of winter ice.
Lyr.
He raised his sword, the blade gleaming in the bright light.
My heart skipped a beat. I scrambled to call forth more flames, but Beira’s ice was eating through my body, and she still had the tight grip on my throat.
Lyr was going to deliver the final blow. Kill me.
His deep voice pierced the haze in my mind. “You lied to me.”
Was he talking to me?
Beira unclenched her fingers from my neck just long enough that I could broil her skin with fire. Her hair and skin lit up with flames, and she leapt off me, extinguishing my attack. I scrambled to stand, my hands at my throat. I gasped for breath, my windpipe like a crushed straw.
Lyr’s attention was entirely on Beira, his sword drawn. His voice was low, controlled. “You lied to me, Beira. You said you would cure her.”
Beira stood tall, her hair whipping around her head. “The gods have spoken!” she squawked, her voice making the ground tremble. She shifted from foot to foot, the snow crunching. “She must die.”
“She’s Salem’s wife,” I rasped, stumbling back to the house. “She wants revenge.”
“You lied to me!” Lyr said again, no longer as controlled. No, this time, his voice cracked. He sounded heartbroken.
Apparently, he was shocked, shocked that the demented monster with human bones in her house wasn’t entirely on the up-and-up. Note to self—never trust Lyr’s judgment of people again.
While Lyr had her at the end of his sword, I turned back to the house, finding it sealed again with frozen rock. But I pressed my hands against it, and the heat came faster this time. After a moment, I realized that the magic wasn’t only coming from me… but from Salem, too.
“Stop!” Beira shrieked.
Lyr seemed to be doing a good job of keeping her at bay. When I cast a quick look back at him, I found that he still had his blade trained on her throat.
As I heated the rock, I could feel that Salem and I were working together. The stone glowed red like molten lava. Between the two of us, we had the full force of his magic. As I felt his energy melding with mine, I stood tall.
In the next moments, the rocks were melting, steam rising from the snow. As the stones melted and cracked, heat blasted over my skin. Magma burst from the house, flowing into the snow—
And Salem rose from the melted ruins.
Molten stone coated his body, sliding off his skin. The clothes he’d been wearing had burned away, and his wings spread out behind him, magma dripping off the feathers. Smoke and steam coiled into the air around us.
For a moment, his smoldering eyes were on me, like two black coals with cracks of lava. Then his gaze darted to Beira.
Lyr was still holding his sword to her throat, but her body glowed with a crystalline sheen. An arctic blast of frosted air burst from her.
Salem was undeterred. He stalked closer, like an animal homing in on its prey. He spread his arms wide and pulled her shimmering magic into him. It twirled through the air, winding into his body. He stood tall, his feet melting the snow beneath him. Curls of steam rose into the air.
Lyr kept his sword at Beira’s neck, and she started to shrivel. Her screams sounded tortured, animal. Her skin withered, growing paler and leathery; her eye bulged; her body shrank. As she shrank, bones began to protrude from her body, until she fell to the ground.
Salem and Lyr stood over the husk of her body. Her single eye blinked once, and Lyr drove his sword through it, impaling her head.
Slowly, she began to flake into little crystals of white that blew away in the wind, whirling into the snow.
The last thing to drift away was her eye.
As the snow started to melt around us, the faint smell of spring filled the air.
The Queen of Misery was no more.
40
Salem
I closed my eyes, feeling the wind over my skin.
Now, I wore nothing but my sheathed sword around my waist. I still held the little piece of blue sea glass between my fingers.
Silence… It was gone—the crackling hum of the curse, the fire in my blood. I cracked my neck, feeling lighter, more at peace than I had in eons.
It was done. Over.
At least for me. When I opened my eyes, I saw Aenor studying me carefully. She pointed at my forehead. “It’s gone. The glowing star on your forehead is gone. The curse is gone.”
It was. But the divine hex still flowed beneath the surface of Aenor’s skin. It was hard to feel too much elation when my mate was still dying.
Lyr pulled his sword from the snowy earth, then shot a glance at me. “I could have done without seeing you naked.”
I looked down at myself. My chest still dripped molten rock into the snow, and murderous intent dripped off me in much the same way, sizzling on the earth. “The only reason you’re alive now is that you were holding a blade to Beira’s throat when I first saw you here. Did you really think it was a good idea to throw Aenor right into realm of the woman who wanted her dead?”
“The only reason you’re still alive,” growled Lyr, “is that you are Aenor’s mate and I don’t want to ruin her life. But you killed my queen once, and I’d really like to send you to the sea hell.”
“No one threw me anywhere,” Aenor cut in. “I wanted my magic back so I could heal Gina. She was stabbed with an Ollephest tooth.”
“No, and Beira’s power died with her,” I said, my mind ablaze. “We need another witch. Someone who’s not insane. Someone powerful—”
“No.” Aenor had started pacing. “No more witches. They’re not helping us. They’re just trying to extract what they want. All of them have a price.” She glared at me. “Which generally seems to be marriage to you. Could you try to be less appealing?”
“Gods save me,” Lyr muttered, turning away from us and sheathing his sword with a violent thrust.
“What is your other idea?” I asked impatiently.
“Beira said there was a way to heal myself,” Aenor said.
She was still pacing over the rapidly melting snow. The entire landscape was changing around us. No longer frozen, it had quickly shifted from spring into a sort of rot.
Aenor’s feet squelched in the mud. “She said, ‘You could have healed yourself, if only the people loved you. A leader grows strong from the sacrifices of her people.’ It was the same thing that Richelle said, about sacrificing for a leader. Richelle was completely obsessed with the idea that a sovereign’s health feeds the land. But she also said powerful magic works both ways. A sovereign can draw power from her kingdom. The problem is, I’m not a leader, and my people revile me.”
Lyr had whirled around, his gaze intent on Aenor. “Beira was right.”
My eyebrows crept up, the idea taking root in my mind. “It’s an ancient fae tradition. The king or queen can draw strength from their people. It’s a sacrifice of sorts. When I was king, the gladiatorial tournaments I held helped to turn me into the magnificent creature you see before you today.”
Aenor blew out a gust of air. “So, the arrogance thing wasn’t from the curse, I guess.”
“No, that’s just me,” I replied. “
Anyway, if Beira said that a sacrifice of your people would work to cure a divine hex, I have no doubt she was telling the truth. She thought you were about to die a very painful and final death, and would have no reason to lie at that point.”
The breeze rippled over my bare skin. Honestly, I was desperate to get some clothes on, but there were no wardrobes in this godforsaken swamp world. The stench of sulfur and decay was starting to rise around us.
Aenor’s eyes gleamed with a sort of feverish light that made me wonder if she was losing her mind. “Yes, good. I don’t need Richelle, or Beira, or another witch. I just need to become Queen of Nova Ys, and for the people to love me enough to want to…” She bit her lip. “What would they have to do, exactly?”
I shrugged. “A few deaths would be a good start. Bit of torture. Feed them to a centaur. I could always light them on fire.”
“What is wrong with you?” said Lyr.
She stared at me. “This really is what you’re like without the curse.”
I frowned. “Your life is more important than those faceless fucks.”
“Taking power from the people is what my mother was doing that day, when she had me slaughter that poor man. The one she’d called a traitor. She was extracting a sacrifice from her people to gain power. But I can’t do that again, obviously—not that way. And I don’t have the loyalty of the people.”
Anger scorched my throat, and it took me a moment to realize that I was angry at myself for ripping her crown away from her. “Just reclaim the throne of Nova Ys and celebrate the crowning with a sacrifice.”
Lyr held up his hand. “Ease back on the slaughter fantasy for a moment. This is a brilliant idea, and thankfully, there is another way to do it. I remember how Queen Malgven drew strength at one time, before she started the executions. It was a ceremony, at night, under the moon. The people of Ys would give her strength from their bodies. Everyone spent the next day sleeping, but no one had to die.”
I wanted this to happen now. “Good, let’s go. We will kill anyone who protests.”
Rising Queen Page 21
