Heir to the Throne (The Wardbreaker Book 4)

by Katerina Martinez

  Adrenaline surged within him, and Axel flipped her around and pinned her against the wall. “Izzy, if you can hear me, you need to fight her.”

  “Silly human, she can’t hear you,” Izzy said, “She’s far, far away from here.”

  She tucked her knees into her chest, then kicked Axel away from her, freeing herself from his grip. Instead of attacking this time, she bolted down the hallway, making a bee-line for the stairs. Axel sprinted after her, joined quickly by Becket and RJ, who’d managed to pick himself up.

  Izzy went racing down the stairs, stomping, it sounded like, as if her feet were made of concrete. If she got out, if she somehow managed to leave Becket’s place, then what? How would they find her? Izzy and the Queen would be gone, probably for good. Axel couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t let that lunatic take away the only woman he had ever truly loved.

  He was about to turn the corner to head down the stairs when he heard Izzy scream, not in pain, but in frustration.

  “What is this?” she roared.

  Axel reached the living room to find Izzy standing still between the stairs and the front door. Danvers and Karim stood nearby; Danvers with the spyglass in her hands, Karim with a big jar of table salt in his. Axel looked down, and saw Izzy was standing in a big ring of salt that had been crudely, but effectively, poured onto the floor.

  “Take that,” Karim yelled, pointing at her. “Who said salt circles don’t work?”

  “Not now,” Danvers said.

  “You said they didn’t work.”

  “Release me, right now!” Izzy roared. Her voice made the entire house tremble. “Release me, or I swear I will pull your eyes out through your throat and feed them to your next of kin.”

  “Ew… gross,” Danvers said, “But no. We’re not doing that.”

  Izzy approached the edge of the ring of salt and tried to put her hand through it, but it struck an invisible forcefield that was keeping her inside. RJ and Becket moved into the living room, going around the circle of salt to put themselves between the door and the way out. Just in case.

  “Good work, Karim,” Becket said.

  She snapped a sharp look at Becket. “Yes, very clever,” Izzy said, “But you’ve only prolonged the inevitable. You can’t keep me here forever.”

  “Probably not, but we can keep you here for now, and for now will do.”

  “Let me go right now!” Izzy screamed, her shrill, high-pitched voice making the walls shake again.

  “Why did this work?” Axel asked, confused. “How did a salt circle work?”

  “Karim’s trick worked pretty easily because she has no Guardian,” Danvers said, “Full disclosure, I fully expected to have been turned into mince-meat by now, but we’re still standing.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Karim said.

  “Alright, well, now we need to get her out of Izzy.”

  “Fools!” Izzy hissed. “There is no Izzy—there’s only me. Your efforts will be in vain. Your plan will fail.”

  “Then you won’t mind if we try,” Becket said, approaching the edge of the circle.

  Izzy snarled and lunged at him, her eyes wide and wild, but she bounced off the edge of the forcefield and cursed. “This magic is pathetic, and already beginning to fail. When it does, who of you will dare try and keep me in this place?”

  “I will,” RJ said, stepping toward her.

  “Ah, yes, RJ. Fierce, loyal, protective RJ. How much of a beating can a Vivimancer withstand, I wonder? How long until your bones break in a way they can never recover from?”

  “Why don’t you try it and we can find out?”

  “With pleasure. Release me.”

  “How are we gonna get it out of Izzy?” RJ asked.

  “That’s gonna take all of us,” Danvers said. “The Queen isn’t a Tempest creature, but she’s also not a ghost, or a demon, or even alive—she’s a bit of everything.”

  “A group ritual,” Becket echoed.

  Danvers nodded, then raised the spyglass. “With this.” She looked at Axel. “We’re gonna draw the Queen out of Izzy, but you’re gonna have to try and reach Izzy while we do that. Find her in there, make sure she comes out to reclaim her body, or we could lose her forever.”

  “You have already lost her!” Izzy yelled. “I killed her in the Tempest. If you try to pull me out of this body, all you’ll be left with is a broken, empty husk. Is that what you want?”

  Axel stared at her, determined to find any trace of Izzy that he could within those mad eyes… but he couldn’t. Part of him wondered if the mad Queen was telling the truth. If she had completely obliterated the Izzy he knew when she escaped the Tempest.

  “Hands,” he said in a low voice, and he stretched his arms out—one for Danvers, and one for RJ.

  The group joined together, forming a circle around Izzy’s ring of salt. “We’re only gonna get one shot,” Danvers said, “Let’s not fuck it up.”

  “I’ll reach for my demon,” Becket said, “I will pull it out with her.”

  “I’ma make sure her vitals stay green,” RJ said.

  “I’m gonna hold onto the Queen’s ghostly essence,” Karim said.

  “And I’ll grab that bitch and drag her out by her hair,” Danvers added.

  “Are we ready?” Axel asked.

  Izzy approached the edge of the circle closest to him. “I killed her, you know,” Izzy said. “I wrapped my hands around her neck and I pushed her under the water until she stopped squirming and the life went out of her. You know it’s true because you’ve seen it, haven’t you?”

  Axel paused, hesitation pinching his throat shut, if only for an instant. He took a deep breath and shut his eyes, then he reached into the Tempest to draw his power into the world… and he searched Izzy’s mind for any trace of her consciousness. He could only hope the Queen was lying to him.

  “Izzy,” he thought, “Can you hear me?”

  He didn’t get a reply. Swallowing hard, he tried again, reaching deeper with his psychic tendrils. The Queen was fighting him. He could feel her essence, her energy, acting as a barrier. Forcing his will through, he tore the barrier down… and found himself underwater.

  It was dark. He couldn’t see the surface, and the water kept sloshing around eyes. He tried swimming through it, but the currents were thick and fought back, keeping him from moving too far ahead—but he could sense her. Izzy, the real Izzy, was in here somewhere.

  He could almost feel her; her distress, her panic, her fear. Axel anchored a silver tether to his mind, and then dove into the darkness after her, using her panic to help guide him to her, to narrow his senses to a fine point.

  Despite the darkness, he had a compass, a way to get to her, a way to reach her soul if not her mind; because she wasn’t in her own body anymore. She was in the Tempest, and somehow, he’d been given a chance to dive in and pull her out.

  While Axel tried to reach Izzy, a battle was raging around him. The Queen wasn’t going down quietly, or without a fight. A phantom storm had invaded Becket’s living room, a storm so powerful it was peeling paint off the walls and moving furniture around. Karim had grabbed hold of the part of the Queen that most felt ghostly, but it was slippery and unlike anything he’d ever had to handle before.

  “Can somebody tell me how we’re supposed to get this thing out of Izzy?” Karim asked. “I don’t know how long I can hold on!”

  “Just a little longer,” Danvers said, gritting her teeth. “I’ve only done this once, remember?”

  “That’s not an excuse!”

  The Queen cackled. “You idiots truly think you can remove me from this body?” she yelled, even her eyes were starting to bulge from the strain of having to hold onto Izzy’s skin. “You’re going to fail, and then I’m going to flay you all and hang you from the Magistrate’s precious Athenaeum!”

  “You guys better hurry,” RJ said, raising his voice above the howling of the wind, “This whole thing is putting Izzy’s body through hell.”
>
  “Alright, on three,” Danvers yelled, “That means you too, Becket.”

  “I’m going to flay you all, do you hear me?” the Queen screamed. “This world belongs to me!”

  In the Tempest, Axel spotted a shimmering patch of light in the water that looked like the surface. He had no way of knowing which way was up or down in here, so he swam for it as hard as he could. She was there, on the other side of that light—he could sense her, and she could sense him.

  Axel stretched his hand as far as he could, reaching for the edge of the water. He couldn’t go wholly through it, the hole wasn’t big enough, but he could stick his hand inside and without hesitation, that was exactly what he did.

  Someone grabbed it, and Axel pulled as hard as he could. The opening started to widen, slowly at first, then all at once, and Izzy swam through it, shock and relief in her eyes. Axel grabbed her and held her tightly, watching as, across from her, the hole started to shrink again. On the other side of it, he thought he saw someone waving—a dark creature, with huge black wings.

  Izzy waved back as the hole of light became a fine, dark point, then she turned to Axel and kissed him deeply, holding him as tightly as she could. Swim with me, he said into her mind, and Izzy nodded and followed him back the way he had come, along the silver chord that anchored him to his own mind.

  When Axel opened his eyes, he was on his knees and holding onto Izzy’s limp body. She’d fallen over, and he’d somehow managed to catch her, stopping her from hitting the floor. Around him, the world was in chaos. A storm roared inside the house, wind violently rushing around them like they’d opened all the windows in the middle of a category five hurricane.

  And above him, floating like a phantom, was the Queen. She was screaming, twisting, and contorting in the air, her ethereal body flashing and pulsing with rapidly glowing light. It looked like she was about to explode! Axel shielded his eyes just as the Queen’s body imploded, turning into itself and collapsing like a star.

  Her final shriek shattered all the windows in the house and blasted open all the doors, but she took the storm with her, leaving the room in stunned silence. A portrait fell, the last piece of glass in the nearby area shattering.

  “Did we… win?” Karim asked, after a moment.

  “I don’t know,” Danvers said. “I think so?”

  Izzy stirred, and Axel tucked his arm under her neck to help lift her head up. Her eyes suddenly sprang open, and she sucked in a deep breath of air. She started coughing, hacking like she’d swallowed eight lungsful of water, but the cough was dry and wheezing. Her throat was in pain, her chest, her mind. He could tell just by looking at her.

  He could also tell, it was her in there, and not the Queen.

  “Hey…” he said, taking her hand. She jerked to look at him, startled. “It’s okay, it’s alright.”

  “She’s gone?” Izzy asked. “The Queen’s gone?”

  Axel nodded. “For good, this time.”

  “Are you sure that’s our Izzy in there?” Karim asked, adding a wicked grin, “Because I’m happy to keep throwing magic at her.”

  “Trust me, it’s me,” Izzy said.

  “Oh yeah? How do I know that?”

  “Because I only dislike you, while she hated you.”

  Karim’s eyes narrowed. “That checks out, I suppose. How do you feel?”

  She shook her head, wincing from the pain. “I feel like shit.”

  “Queen psycho bitch probably feels a lot worse,” Danvers said.

  Axel frowned. “Where is she?”

  Becket pointed to a spot next to him, on the floor. Axel looked, and immediately shuddered at the sight of the creepy doll sitting next to him. “What the fuck?” he cried out.

  The doll flopped to its side, limp and lifeless, hitting the floor with a thud too loud for its size or weight.

  “Don’t worry, it’s perfectly harmless,” Becket said. “The important part is, she’s contained.”

  “Yeah, but for how long?” Izzy asked.

  “Forever.”

  Izzy stared at the doll. “That’s what the Tempest thought, too.”

  “The Tempest was also the only thing giving her any kind of power, or even life,” Becket said. “Having been deprived of that connection now, and confined to that doll, her abilities are gone.”

  Izzy nodded and stood up with Axel, who led her to her bedroom, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the doll. Axel didn’t think she’d ever rest easy again, not after what she’d been through—not after all the things she’d seen. For now, at least, the world had returned to some kind of calm.

  That was something he could be grateful for.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The sun shone brilliantly on the boat. The skies were clear and blue, the ocean around me perfectly calm. This was nothing like the Tempest, and yet anxiety still had something of a hold around my throat. I’d been hesitant to come out here, but at the same time, I’d been desperate to find the real Ashelor… if it was even down there.

  I walked up to the edge of the boat and looked at the glittering ocean surface.

  “Are you sure you’re up for this?” Karim asked. He was lounging on the side of the boat, with a Pina Colada in his hand. He had a straw hat on, shorts that emphasized his gangly legs, and shades. A layer of thick, white sunscreen covered just about every inch of exposed flesh.

  “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. You look ridiculous.”

  He sipped his drink. “Whatever. I’m treating this as a holiday, and I’m enjoying myself. Actually, could I get another one of these?”

  “You really think it’s down there?” Danvers asked. She was standing next to me wearing a simple black bikini, her hair held up in a wet ponytail. Unlike the rest of us, she had chosen not to sit around on the boat while I worked up the courage to do what I needed to do.

  “I know it is. It has to be. You felt it start making its way through to this world that night, didn’t you?”

  “I felt a lot of things that night,” she said, “I think I’d have known if a whole city had punched a hole between dimensions.”

  “not necessarily,” Becket said, “In fact, I doubt if anyone else felt half of the things you did. You’ve been exposed to the Queen’s magic. I believe that made you sensitive to it.”

  “You also think it’s out here, then?”

  “I believe in Izzy.”

  I nodded. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said, “Otherwise I’ve dragged you all out here for nothing.”

  “We ain’t gonna know until we go down there,” RJ said. “I’m ready when you are.”

  “Me too,” Axel said, squeezing my hand. He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of black swim shorts. “I’m with you.”

  I took a deep breath. “No time like the present, then,” I said, looking down at the water again, only this time I didn’t hesitate. This time, the water looked welcoming, inviting.

  I jumped off the back of the boat and into the water, creating a bubble of air around mine and Axel’s shoulders. RJ threw himself into the water behind us, only he decided to grow gills and start speeding down into the deep. I followed, propelled by magic like it was some kind of childish race between the three of us.

  The skeptic in me didn’t think we’d find anything so far out into the Atlantic Ocean.

  The skeptic was wrong.

  The darkness below us quickly gave way to a series of gorgeous, iridescent structures. Towers, walls, a huge dome so bright I thought on a clear day you’d be able to see it from the surface of the water; it was here, Ashelor, the drowned city. Somehow, it had punched a hole through the Tempest and come back to Earth.

  Or maybe the Tempest had finally decided to spit it out and be done with it.

  Either way, my heart surged when I saw it, and I swam harder toward it. I had spent a long time preparing for this moment, training my mind to be ready to face that place that had haunted my nightmares ever since I’d set foot inside it. But this
didn’t feel anything like that place. It was a ruin, calm, and cold, and quiet.

  Deathly quiet, but not in the haunted graveyard kind of way; the kind with crooked trees, low hanging mist, and time-ravaged headstones that looked like they were home to zombies. It was more like a peaceful graveyard; the kind covered in bright, fresh flowers and offerings to the dearly departed.

  I swam with Axel and RJ by my side, moving through the ruin not like an explorer seeing this place for the first time, but almost like a native. I felt connected to the city, somehow. Like I was a part of it. Like it had, at one point a long time ago, been a childhood home.

  Moving through the city like I knew where I was going, I noticed none of the images of Kamos I remembered from my time in the Tempest were present. It was like as if they’d been erased and then replaced with carvings and statues of mighty dragons, instead. The Tempest clearly didn’t want anyone to know what had truly happened here—what had happened to the Queen.

  I led Axel and RJ through the main streets and toward the throne room. It was pretty much as I remembered it—ruined. The throne wasn’t there anymore, but instead of being covered in deep, gross, green algae, it was filled with color and light. Fishes of all shapes, colors, and sizes zipped in and out of beautiful corals growing on the broken marble. The entire room was filled with life, and vibrant. I’d never seen anything like it.

  But I hadn’t come to look at the corals and the fish.

  The longer I spent down there, the stronger my connection to Ashelor grew, and the more intimately I begun to know the city. There, behind the throne room, lay a broken door that had once led an ancient vault.

  My heart had started hammering as I arrived. With RJ’s help, I’d managed to clear the way into the vault. Then all it took was a little light, and there they were, glittering in the darkness. From golds, to silvers, to jewels as varied in color and size as the fish in the throne room. It was all here, and it was all real, and pulsating with magic.

  The drowned Queen’s treasures were all real.

  Danvers stared at me once I’d made it back to the surface. “Well?” she asked.