The Last Queen Book Four

by Odette C. Bell

  Just as the floor regains an even tilt, I push into a roll and spring outside of the barrier spell. I lock a weak hand on the floor and shove into a standing position.

  The castle reacts, flinging himself at me.

  I don’t know anything about this barrier spell, other than what it felt like to be trapped inside it. That doesn’t matter. Now the stone floor has regained its original level, the symbols are almost whole again, only broken here and there where chips of stone have flaked off.

  As the castle flings himself toward me, he crosses into the barrier spell. As quick as a flash, I flick my hand to the side. I’ve experimented with the net spell twice now, but never at this speed. I don’t allow myself to pause; I throw my mind into the rock beneath me, allowing tendrils of my power to sink into it. They concentrate on the flakes of stone that have broken off. I collect them, and I pull them back into alignment.

  The castle just has time for his eyes to spring wide, then the barrier spell snaps back into place with a crackle.

  He slams against it and is thrown back, a massive charge of red-black energy powering into his chest and flinging him onto the floor. He lands with a crack that could be stone or could be his spine.

  He’s somehow still got a hold of his glass, but it’s weak.

  I tilt back, tip my head from side to side, and wait to hear footsteps – the first signs that Spencer has heard my battle.

  But there’s nothing. I pause a full minute then realize I’m fine.

  The castle doesn’t start to bellow, but just in case, I flick a hand to the side and pump more power into my next spell. This time I redirect it into the air, making it heavy, ensuring that if the castle were to scream, his shaking voice wouldn’t get further than this room.

  Finally, when my spell is in place, I get down on one knee just in front of the barrier. I stare at him. “What were you saying about being a more powerful piece than me?”

  Slowly, he lolls his head to the side and locks his gaze on me. It’s the first time I’ve managed to get a good look at his eyes. They are black flecked with red. They’re terrifying. But you know what? I’ve seen way worse in this world.

  I nod down at his drink. “I get the impression that that won’t work in there. What is it, anyway?”

  “It is my house.” I don’t expect him to answer, but he does.

  I arch an eyebrow, still down on my haunches as I lock my elbows on my knees. “Your house?”

  “A castle must have a building in which to reside. This is mine.”

  “That’s a glass of whiskey. It’s not a house.”

  “You have a small mind. One which is easily manipulable.”

  I spread my teeth and snort. “That’s quite humorous coming from you. You took my bait, after all.”

  “But you,” he lolls his head to the side and chooses to stare up at the ceiling, “are still the true fool.”

  “And why would you say that?”

  “Because with power like that, you should not be in this position.”

  I snort. “You’re the one who’s trapped, buddy.”

  “Not as trapped as you. You have the power to alter whole gameboards, but all you do is vacillate. You have the power to change the world, and all you care about is saving whoever you can see in front of you.”

  I know I should be taking the opportunity to get the hell out of here, but I don’t move. “What are you talking about?” My voice is sharp.

  “I was at large for two weeks. But your king kept you locked up in his tower, didn’t he? Too scared to use you. Too scared to take a risk.”

  I should be a hell of a lot more careful, considering this guy is trying to do to me what I just did to him. But his words hit home, and I curl my hands until my fingers indent my palms.

  He’s still looking at me out of the corner of his eye as his head is directed at the ceiling. “You can switch one king for another, but the equation will never change. They will always seek your power to hold onto it like a man clutches a jewel. They will never be willing to do what you can do.”

  “And what exactly is that? Tell me, castle,” my lips move hard around the word, “what would you do in my position?”

  He locks one eye on me. “I would change the game forever.”

  A thrill crosses down my back. “How?”

  “By dying.” He tips his glass all the way over, slamming the rim down onto the stone.

  The ceiling hails down. Unlike in the apartment, I don’t have time to react.

  It slams into me.

  I’m crushed against the floor. So is the castle. I hear the splatter of blood and bone. The bastard obviously committed suicide just to take me with him – that’s how loyal he was to the memory of Rogers.

  But my brain doesn’t splatter as my life flashes before my eyes one final time. Though I’m pinned to the ground by the rock, I still have a loose hold of my net spell. Maybe the castle didn’t realize that when he sacrificed himself, but it’s the difference between me living and dying. At the last moment, I pull hold of the air just in front of me, and I bolster it, making it thicker, not just so that no noise can pass through it, so that no particles can, either. It’s enough to stop the ceiling just a half a millimeter above my face and chest.

  I breathe in gut-punching shock as I stare up at the rock. I push it to the side, sinking my net spell further into it as I stand. I glance down at the blood leaking between the rock – the last remnants of the castle. I get down on my hands and knees, brush away some rubble, and find his glass. His broken hand is still wrapped around it. Carefully, I grasp it up from his shattered fingers. All of the liquid is gone. With my breath trapped in my chest, I experiment with tilting it this way and that, but it has no effect.

  ... I get the sudden impression that the castle was right – this glass was his house, and the liquid must’ve been his life within it. Now he’s died, the glass has lost all of its power.

  I take a step forward, and I let the glass fall from my hands. It smashes against the rubble. In the distance, I hear footsteps. Voices, too. And they’re screaming. But they’re not coming in this direction.

  I jerk toward one of the windows high up the wall, my heart stopping in my chest as I hear someone’s voice from outside.

  “John,” I say in a strangled breath as I push myself over the rubble.

  I reach the door out of the room and wrench it open just as I hear footsteps.

  Something in the building starts to twist. I feel magic gathering, sinking down from the ceiling and seeping up from the floors.

  It rushes around me, collecting into a point through a doorway several meters ahead.

  I don’t pause. I don’t care what kind of danger I’ll face in there – I run forward, reach the door, and wrench it open.

  It leads into a chamber – one that is currently building itself.

  I lurch backward, bring up a hand, and gasp into my palm. The walls are dragging themselves out over the stone floor, carving themselves in real time. The sound is like listening to a mountain growing in fast forward.

  On the opposite side of the room is a long stairwell that leads to a door. There, I see Spencer.

  His eyes blast wide as he sees me. “How did you escape?”

  He doesn’t have the time to say anything more. There’s another door into the room, and it blasts open. I know who it is long before I see his face.

  John sprints in, skids to a stop, and stares at me.

  I almost reach a hand out to him, almost throw myself across the floor to be at his side.

  I stop myself, because I can’t get the castle’s last words out of my head. Not that I should die. That in my position, I can change everything.

  John doesn’t scream my name. He turns hard on his foot, glances briefly at the floor, then up at Spencer. “Let the game begin,” he spits.

  “You bastard,” Spencer screams. He remains at the top of the stairs.

  Though I’m used to a game starting when a king calls on his throne
, this time neither man does that. Though there’s a glowing gameboard superimposed over the floor, they fight autonomously.

  John has brought some pieces with him, and as Spencer steps out of the way of the upstairs door, his pieces rush in, jump over the railing of the stairs, and sail down until they slam onto the gameboard.

  The fight starts. And me? I stand there.

  John doesn’t call on me – he’s too busy.

  Spencer doesn’t call on me – I have no loyalty to him.

  So I just stand there and watch, and all the while, I’m drawn in by the futility of this.

  No matter who wins, the abomination that is the game will continue.

  I find myself taking several steps back, dodging one of Spencer’s men. I don’t fight the bastard. There’s no point. This sense of hopelessness and desperation has descended on me. It’s not just coming from my crushed heart. I swear it’s coming from nature. Ironic, isn’t it? John has been pushing me to align myself with the natural world, and now I think I finally have, it doesn’t want me to protect John. It wants me to....

  I tick my head up and stare at the top of the railing. Spencer is keeping as far away from John as he can. He’s standing in the doorway that leads out of the chamber.

  I make my way to the stairs. I place a hand on the railing, and I begin to climb them.

  John’s eyes are on me. So are Spencer’s.

  After all, if I pick a side, the side I pick will win.

  There’s only one thing I should do, but it’s not what I’m going to do.

  Slowly, I climb the stairs. I reach the top of them. I face Spencer.

  “What are you doing? Are you picking me?” He stutters through his words.

  I turn from him and face the game.

  I watch the futility and waste. It’s not just people’s lives – it’s all that energy and power. Rather than being recycled into nature, it’s concentrated into destruction. It’s like taking all the combined potential of humanity and burning it up in the center of the sun.

  It’s a worthless, useless waste....

  Spencer doesn’t make a move for me – not without his pieces. His eyes are on the back of my head as I watch John. Though he’s busy fighting, whenever he can, he stares up at me.

  This will never change. The game. It will continue to play itself as long as it has players.

  That fact strikes me. There’s no way to get away from it. It feels like it slams into my shoulders and pins me to the ground, as if it grinds me against the gameboard until I’m nothing more than dust.

  It doesn’t matter how powerful you are in this sick, twisted game, all that matters is that you are chained to it. From the kings, to the queens, to the mere pawns, there is no escape.

  Unless the game is destroyed.

  I stare down at John as he continues to fight, commanding his remaining pieces. He’s getting weak, but I know he won’t give up and retreat as long as there is a hope of regaining me.

  No one in this game will ever retreat as long as there is a hope of more power.

  Spencer is still behind me, standing in the open doorway, his hand clutched against the wood. Though he could make a move to capture me again, he’s not that stupid. He knows he won’t win against me. So instead he watches me as he continues to command his remaining pieces.

  I lock a hand on the railing. I get ready to jump down and defend John. I stop.

  If I defend John and flee with him, nothing will change. He will continue to play exactly as he has in the past, never risking more than he can gain.

  When I finally joined him, he told me the greatest difference I will ever be able to make is in destroying gameboards. But as long as he tries to protect me, he will never allow me to do that.

  And the game will continue.

  Just as the game continues now. Spencer and John control their pieces, never giving up as the gameboard glows beneath John’s feet.

  John needs this gameboard. With it, he’ll have more power. Spencer needs this gameboard too.

  I know what I should do.

  But it’s not what I do.

  I control my breath, pressing it through my lips as I bring a single hand up.

  I was born to make a difference as the Last Queen, and it’s time to come into that destiny. Spencer has been pushing me to open my arms up to fate, and it’s time I comply. But he won’t like what I’m about to embrace.

  I concentrate as I send a charge of pure magic seeping into my hand. I spread my fingers as wide as they will go, listening to the knuckles crackle and grind.

  Sparks and flames start to erupt over my skin as I concentrate more and more power into it.

  “What are you doing?” Spencer demands from behind me.

  John pauses and stares up at me, too. My eyes may be half closed, but I blink one eye open to stare at him.

  “No, we need this board—”

  I attack. I’ve gathered so much magic in my palm that as I let go of it, it sails down and looks like a thousand strikes of lightning all rolled up into a ball. It slams into the gameboard.

  John is thrown backward, and he rolls several meters. The whole room shakes, and behind me, even though he’s far away from the board, Spencer is thrown to his knees.

  I remain exactly where I am as an earsplitting crack powers through the chamber. It’s not the crack of stone – it is the crack of a board breaking.

  It shatters, the magic that was overlain over the top of the sandstone floor breaking apart like a mirror cracking into a million pieces.

  Instantly magic leaps up high like flames that have escaped a house fire, only to ebb back down and start to sink through the cracks in the stone, finally returning to the earth.

  The energy in the building shifts, and I swear it sighs.

  The fight is over.

  A new one, however, is about to begin.

  It’s time for me to make a decision.

  Chapter 11

  I STAND THERE AT THE top of the stairs, hands clasped around the rails, and I stare at John. The distance between us doesn’t matter. We could be as far away as two planets, split apart by continents, and I’d still feel as if he was right in front of me and as if there was nowhere I could go to get away from his gaze.

  I come to my decision. It’s the only decision I can make. It’s time to go alone. Again. John has helped me, sheltered me and protected me when I needed it most. He’s also shared every lesson he knows, and I’m grateful for that.

  I haven’t forgotten how I feel for him, either.

  But that’s the point. I’ve finally embraced my heart, and I understand what I could not before. In order to win, I need to do this alone.

  Any king will try to keep me safe, holding me in reserve and never using my full power for the fear it will attract too much danger. The only person who can use me to my full advantage is myself.

  I unclasp my hands from the railing and take a step back.

  John jolts toward me, allowing his hand to spring wide as his eyes open all the wider. “No, don’t do this. You promised—”

  “I’m sorry, John, but I’ve changed my mind.”

  I hear Spencer gasp from the doorway.

  “No, you can’t—” John screams.

  His gaze is full of disappointment. I’ve never seen an expression purer with sorrow and despair. It feels like it reaches in, clutches hold of my heart, and squeezes it dry of every last drop of blood until I’m nothing more than a cold husk. It allows me to take another determined step backward.

  I never blink, not once, because I need to face John one last time before I turn from him forever. “I’m sorry, John,” I say again, “but it’s time to leave you behind. Thank you for everything you did for me.” I pivot on my foot, and I turn my back to him.

  “No!”

  “Get out while you still can,” I say, allowing my voice to carry through the echoing chamber.

  I finally draw my gaze up and lock it on Spencer. He’s still in the doorway. He pulls him
self up to his full height. He stares at me with a penetrating gaze designed to strip you back not just of your clothes, but your flesh and bones until your bare soul is laid naked before him.

  John screams one last time. Spencer reaches a hand forward and twists his fingers to the side, commanding his pieces once more.

  I pause in front of him, my gut clenching as I listen. I wait to hear what John will do next. Will he fight me, or will he flee?

  I don’t have to wait long, my body on tenterhooks. I hear the sound of his shoes grating against the sandstone.

  He turns, and he runs.

  He abandons me to Spencer.

  No, not abandons. This is my choice. My gamble.

  I haven’t fallen for Spencer, and I tell myself in this moment that I never will. I have just finally understood that if I ever hope to destroy this game, I can’t play it like everyone else does. I can’t attach myself to some king and hope that he will protect me from the horrors of this world. I must forge my own path forward. Which is exactly what I do as I press onto the balls of my feet and take another solid step toward Spencer.

  Spencer’s eyes open wide. “You finally came to your senses and chose me.”

  I press my lips together but don’t answer.

  Around me, I feel nature. The chaos that is born from the wretched reality of this game. It takes the natural world, and it destroys. It never gives back; it never creates. It takes the energy of life, twists it into magic, and uses it to extinguish all that lies in its path.

  So I take another step forward.

  I will gamble my freedom. I will gamble my life. I will gamble my future.

  All for this.

  I take one final step toward Spencer, and I angle my head up and look into his eyes. “I came to my senses,” I repeat his exact words. I pause. “I’ve chosen you,” I add.

  As quick as a flash, he reaches forward, grasps my hand, and pulls me out of the doorway. The door closes of its own accord, and behind me, I feel the chamber wither up and die.

  If John hadn’t already fled, he would’ve been crushed as the walls crumble and the house realigns.

  Spencer let’s go of my wrist as he takes several steps back into a plain, empty room.