I feel it carving through Roue, too.
I reach out, sending all my love down the bond. “Roue, hang on!”
“Trying, princess.”
“I don’t know how, but I’ll get us out of this.”
That’s when my other phone alarm goes off. 12:17. Exactly Midsummer.
The Great Convergence hits like a shockwave.
The throne room shudders, all the stained glass breaks inward in flying prismatic daggers. The world seems to tilt and everything is blasted in Winter snow and Summer heat. Castle Knockma’s walls warp and peel back, stone shearing apart like paper, the way you turn the pages of a book. At the same time, Castle Caernarvon soars in, slamming hard into UnderHollow.
The two throne rooms quake.
Then they merge.
A bone-juddering noise like two glass rods smashing each other strikes through the air, shrill and screaming. The impact rocks us off our feet.
Midair, I push all my power into firing up a shield over me and Roue. It comes, heavy and unwieldy, burning bitter black.
Turning, becoming Inimical. Like me.
Reinghûl cries, “Shield me,” and the Ebon Knights throw ice shields over him. Two of them collapse under flying stone and falling rock.
Steam and smog plume up from where the two Faerie dimensions slowly, slowly crash into each other, melding, fusing, freezing and burning each other with a massive hiss. The hearthstones pulse, Dark Faerie’s whorling open, black tendrils lashing around Fair Faerie’s, darkness snuffing out the light, devouring it.
Fresh waves of agony shoot through me. I try to stand, to fight through it, but I fall. I fail. The last bit of my white fire is fading to black.
Everything I am turning everything into Circuit Fae.
I am the last remaining royal of Fair Faerie. All my realm will suffer with me.
Even now, it begins to warp and change. The green grass wilts, blackening, becoming dark circuits, chittering, clackering together as they wave in a bitter breeze. The brooks run brackish, the trees thread with crimson veins. A flurry of birds breaks from the white copses, turning into circuitry as they go.
All of OverHill will become Moribund, Inimical under the control of the dark Fae king.
If he controls me, he will control all of Fair Faerie.
He could kill me and my realm with a thought.
Anger rushes into me, all Summer heat and fury. “I won’t let you!” I cry out.
Reinghûl laughs. “How will you stop me? How will you stop the Great Convergence?”
Even now, the hearthstones scream.
Their agony pierces me, all the pain of OverHill slamming into me just as UnderHollow’s slams into Roue, hot and cold, freezing and fiery all at once, ricocheting down the soul-bond. My scream echoes hers—Aureate Queen, Adamant Queen—then again as that feedback-agony loop boomerangs our suffering back and forth.
Her pain is mine. My pain is hers.
The pain of the hearthstones we’re tied to.
And then it hits me. That’s it! The solution to our Faerie equation.
“Roue!” I send. “The realms are bound to their hearthstones. But we’re tied to them, too. And we are soul-bound.”
Me and Roue. The Fair Fae hearthstone and the dark Fae hearthstone.
Soul-bound, all of us.
Roue puts down the final answer to our Faerie equation. “And if the realms are also tied to the hearthstones, then so are the thrones.”
On one end of the jigsaw chamber stands the Adamant Throne, dark and hulking, so black it seems to suck in all the light. On the other end, the Aureate Throne shines like a sun’s corona, so bright it hurts.
Light. Darkness. Mortal enemies but mirror images.
“Yes, that’s it!” A wild plan forms in my mind. I send it to Roue. “It has to work. It will!” Out of the corner of my eye, I see the Inimical circuits firing up my arm. I feel their burn. I take in a deep breath. Crazy, Syl. This is crazy.
“If it wasn’t 10% of a plan, it wouldn’t be us.” Roue sees it in my mind, desperate, reckless. Even so, she trusts me. Her sending gives me all the strength I need. “Ready, princess?”
“Born ready.”
Faster than fast, she pulls hard on her Winter power and sings her violet lightning to her hands.
I flame on, black fire rushing around me.
Zzzorch! Her violet lightning slams into the Ebon Knights.
Fwoosh! My flames hurtle into the Xi.
It’s just enough to distract them.
Whoosh! I windwarp to the Aureate Throne.
Swoosh! Roue windwarps to the Adamant.
I meet her gaze as King Reinghûl realizes what we mean to do, as he windwarps in, wintersteel swords gleaming, as the Ebon Knights charge and the Xi lunges—
“I love you, Rouen Rivoche.” And with that, I take my throne.
42
ROUEN
Darkness cannot stand
Before the light
Darkness craves
The light
The light in you
“The Light in You,” Euphoria
* * *
I stand before the Adamant Throne, my body, my heart, my very soul in turmoil.
I never wanted to be queen.
Not since I learned what it really entails—being responsible for every single life in my realm and domain, balancing mercy with justice. Putting myself aside for my people.
But that last part’s exactly what I need to do.
My father’s windwarping in to stop me, rage on his face and in his heart. He thinks I mean to steal his throne, to be king in his place.
Once, I wanted so much to be like him in his halcyon days.
In the moment before his strike lands, I look him dead in the eye. “You can call me ‘Your Majesty.’”
I take my throne at the same time Syl takes hers.
Just like in our shared nightmares.
Instantly, all the power of Winter slams into me, stealing my breath, the Adamant Throne freezing me to it, an icy seat of frost and pluming cold crystallizing my skin. My hands clench on the clawed arms of the dragon, so frigid they feel slick and wet.
The Ebon Knights lunge to stab me.
I take in a breath and all of Dark Faerie fills me up, darkness, ice, Winter burgeoning inside me, cranking my chest open wider and wider until I feel like I will burst from the power.
The agony is exquisite, excruciating.
The pain of the Inimical is nothing compared to this.
My father’s blade curves in to pierce my heart.
I don’t sing.
I scream.
My voice shimmers—violet lightning and icy daggers shearing the air, scorching and shattering Father’s wintersteel swords, smashing him, the Xi, and his cronies back. He hits the wall, leaving a spiderweb of cracks. His Ebon Knights fall around him, pikes clattering to the floor.
My triumph is short-lived, though, because Syl and I were right. The hearthstones, the thrones, the realms—they’re all tied together.
But with the Great Convergence, they’re all battling for dominance.
The thrones are no different.
Dark Faerie, UnderHollow, the Winter Court—it all burgeons and blasts and slams into me, barraging my body with power. Gusts of wintry wind buffet me, icicles frost over my skin, howling snow swirls around me.
I am caught in my own snow globe of white death.
Dimly, I wonder what will take me first—the glowing crimson Inimical infection or the power of Dark Faerie.
Place your bets, people!
Opposite me in the jammed-together half Fair/half-Dark chamber, Syl fares no better on the Aureate Throne.
A golden queen on a golden chair.
She’s bathed in Summer heat and sunfire, white flames wreathing her as she writhes. Her eyes flash open, blazing white-hot, and meet mine. In a wave of heat, her pain crashes into me, and I feel every stinging breath, the searing, burning heat forging her into the queen t
hat Fair Faerie so desperately needs.
The Aureate Throne forges her even as the Adamant Throne forges me.
Into a Queen who will kill for her realm.
In a breath of Winter, an ice-bitten dagger appears in my hand, pluming with frost and death. Panic seeps into my mind.
I know this dagger.
Every night, I see it in my nightmares.
No! I try to drop it, panic seizing my heart, but it’s frozen in my grip. Winter sweeps into me, its cold fury taking me, driving me.
Somewhere, I hear my father laughing. He adds his control to the mix. I feel the crushing weight of his will as his brings it to bear on me. “Take her, Rouen, kill her.”
Fear freezes in my veins. Before I know what’s happening I’m standing.
Syl stands, too.
In her hand, a burning sunfire blade warps the air with heat.
We face each other across a throne room smashed together from both our worlds. All around us, Dark Faerie and Fair Faerie collide, fusing, melding, Winter snow and storm warring with Summer heat and sunfire as the two castle crash together.
It’s like forcing two powerful magnets together. Both realms try their hardest to resist. Sunfire flares from Fair Faerie, and Winter gusts and blows, ice and snow warring it out with sunlight and summer.
Steam gusts all around us, fog covering the floor in icky dampness.
The stench of autumn leaves burning and winter set on fire, ash and snow, bitter wind and summer breezes.
Dark Faerie versus Fair Faerie.
But which will win out?
“Kill her,” my father commands, and his will crashes down, obliterating my own.
“Syl!” With all my might, I will my body to stop, but like an automaton, I pitch forward, crossing the floor step by step.
The power of Winter combined with my father’s Inimical drives me forward.
I can’t stop, can’t even slow down.
Syl’s the same, Summer and Inimicals stealing her will, bringing her toward me. “Roue!” her sending is bright with panic. Her body won’t obey her, either.
We’re set on a collision course. Just like Dark Faerie and Fair Faerie.
Gods above and below, I love this girl. I can’t hurt her!
Her anguish rockets down the bond, the freezing agony of ice, the searing pain of fire. She feels mine too.
It’s like we are one.
That thought beats at my brain as my father’s voice rings out, “Kill her!”
His command is for both of us.
Syl and I square off. We fight against his will, but his Inimicals have already finished infecting us. There is no fighting his control.
I grit my fangs. Only two more steps till I’m within striking distance.
“Syl, I…”
One step.
“Roue!”
I’m there. “Forgive me.”
“I’m so sorry, Roue.”
My hand drives down with the blade. Hers drives up with the dagger.
In a blast of Winter and flare of Summer, our nightmare comes true.
43
SYL
The fate of one
Is the fate of the other
- Glamma’s Grimm
* * *
I’ve done the unthinkable. I’ve murdered my beautiful Winter girl. Burning Summer and freezing Winter wave over me all at once, shooting agony through every nerve ending.
My body is ravaged—by Summer, by Inimicals—but my heart…
My heart is shattered.
“Roue…Roue!”
She slumps over me, my sunfire blade sunk deep into her chest. Her wintersteel dagger presses into mine. Every breath is a jagged, glassy pain.
But she smiles through the agony.
She smiles at me.
All her love for me soars down the soul-bond. I send all mine back. “Roue. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!”
Icy pain radiates from my wound and runs in sheets up my body.
I am being frozen solid.
Just as Roue is being burned to her core.
All around us, the two throne rooms converge, Dark over Fair, as if one image is being laid over the other, like a book with see-through pages. Both realms tremble and shudder, golden marble crumbling against black adamant, shuddering, shivering, shaking apart.
And Roue and I are caught in the middle, both puppets to thrones we never really wanted. Even now, I feel her agony as Summer burns through her like a forest fire. I can’t tell the difference between her fiery, searing pain and mine—Winter blasting me to the bones, freezing me solid.
Reinghûl watches, drinking in our pain.
“Syl.” Her bloody fingers come up to touch my cheek. “What a pair we are.”
“I love you.” I sob. “I’m with you. Together.”
She sends back. “No matter what. You and me.”
Her words bring tears to my eyes. They freeze on my cheeks. With a shaking hand, I fish the Aureate Queen from my pocket. She lifts the Adamant Queen, and we clink them like wineglasses.
Me and Roue, together. No matter what.
Soul-bound. Connected. The hearthstones, the thrones, the realms.
If Roue dies, I die. If she lives, I live. What she feels, I feel.
Her bloody fingers fall from my cheek, leaving a smear of coppery scent.
The smell of it makes me woozy. My blood.
The Inimicals are made of my blood, I think nonsensically, and then it clicks.
My blood. My mind whirls wildly, remembering, Blood calls to blood. One of the oldest rules of Faerie.
What if… Could this be the answer?
I glance at Reinghûl. He wants to infect us with Inimical circuits made from sleeper-princess blood? Good.
I take in a deep breath, meet Roue’s eyes. “Help me?”
“Always, princess.” Roue grasps my meaning immediately.
She throws all her remaining resolve and strength my way, down the soul-bond. It surges into me, icy and confident, giving me the power to break Reinghûl’s control.
The smug grin fades from his face when he feels it break. “No, you don’t!” Instantly, his will crashes over mine and Roue’s, trying to force his control.
I only have seconds.
I reach and reach, digging deep inside my soul for the power in my corrupted blood. There! The bitter perversion of my power. I see it rising up from me in dark waves.
I tap into it like tapping into a radio signal.
And I call to the Inimical circuits.
It’s like calling a pack of attack dogs trained by another master. The Inimicals fight against me, their programming driving them to infect us, to corrupt, and obey the holder of the master-key circuit buried in Reinghûl’s cheek.
Perfect!
I seize that programming—inside me, inside Rouen—and flare over it with all the Summer power of Fair Faerie, burning new commands into its DNA, willing it to stop corrupting us.
Willing it instead to transform. Roue pours on the power, bringing clarity and precision and discipline to my wild, creative energy. Together, we coax the Inimicals, rewriting them, transforming them…
Slowly, slowly, they answer. I run my mind along each crimson circuit, calling on the purifying power of sleeper-princess blood locked inside.
Come to me. Come to Fair Faerie.
“No!” Reinghûl screams as his control over the Inimicals burns away. He digs at his cheek, clawing at the master-key circuit. “Obey me. Obey!”
No one and nothing does.
The Inimicals surge toward me, blood calling to blood. In a flush of heat, they give me their power. Tingles rush along my body, all the Inimical circuitry in me flushing red, then burning so hot they blaze as white as my flame.
I hold all that power inside me, building, building…
Then I let it go.
I’m being killed by Winter, so I make the Inimicals transform my powers to Winter. Roue’s being killed by Summer, so I transform hers into Summe
r.
With all the power of Fair Faerie behind it, the Inimicals rewrite us easily, tapping into our DNA, making us each our polar opposite, our antitheses.
From across the chamber, I meet Roue’s gaze. “Hit me with your lightning.”
Her fear rockets down the bond. “Syl, no, I could kill you!”
“We’re killing each other anyway. Besides, there’s no time. The throne rooms are almost overlapping.”
Sunlight and darkness, Summer and Winter explode into the chamber. Everything is a pitching, shuddering mess, the two throne rooms pulling against each other to get closer, to get away.
It’s now or never.
“Syl, no!” Panic bleeds down the bond.
I shake my head. “It’ll be all right. I was born ready, remember?”
I feel the moment she lets go of her fear. “I remember, princess.” Roue summons her lightning, but when she sings, it’s not violet electricity that pours from her hands.
It’s violet sunfire.
Her eyes widen. “What in the hoary hells?”
“Now, Roue!”
She flames on at me. Sunfire and Summer heat pour over the Winter racking and ravaging me. My world lights up in violet and amazing agony, heat blazing across my body, zinging across the ice and melting it.
Every nerve ending is on fire, tingling with the sense of Summer, of her.
It’s pure, liquid pain, but excitement swells inside me, too.
I can feel her with me.
Through the burning blaze, I gaze at her. “Now for you.”
She smiles. “Do it.”
I fire at her, but just like hers, my power is changed.
White lightning sears from my hands and zorches across her. She grits her fangs, screaming in pain, in pleasure. I pour all I’ve got, all I am into her.
She pours herself into me.
The Inimicals and the soul-bond do the rest.
She shines like a beacon of white flame. My Winter girl. Her sapphire blue eyes are open, a sky-blue. “I see everything. I see the Summer. It’s so warm. Syl, Syl…” There are tears streaming down her face.
“I know.” I feel the power and glory of Winter filling me up, its chill strength and surety. I reach out through the bond and show her what we must do.
Inimical Page 31
