Queen of Light

by Meg Anne

  “Helena!” he roared, his voice frantic.

  The feeling of transition was disorientating. She was no longer full Talyrian, but not quite human either. Her golden wings had retracted, and her massive paws were already turning back into pale hands with glinting black claws. Her beautiful fur was gone, replaced by her fighting gear. While in the feline form, some of her senses had sharpened, almost like when she tapped into the sensory enhancement provided by her power, although not quite as potent. Her ability to tap into her rippling pool of power was also impossible in the Talyrian form. As a being made of magic, she supposed it made a certain kind of sense that she couldn’t also manipulate it past the abilities already accessible in that form.

  In a last-ditch effort, Helena tried to call her power up, but the partial shift was still cutting off her access. She sucked in a breath, at a loss for what to do. For it to end now… like this. The Mother couldn’t possibly intend for it to end this way. She opened her mouth to vent her impotent rage the only way she could.

  Instead of screaming, she gasped as her body was caught and then… bounced. Stunned, Helena froze, her hands splayed on something malleable and cool. She slowly twisted her neck, looking around her in wonder. A bubble of Air and Water held her suspended in the sky, slowing her descent as she floated the final feet to the ground.

  “Mother keep you, Stormbringer,” she groaned, dizzy with the relief she felt at Anduin’s quick thinking.

  She landed, and the bubble burst, releasing some of the wild power that was unique to the Vale. She was back on her feet only a heartbeat before Von reached her. His arms were around her, pulling her trembling, fully human body against him.

  “I thought…” he stopped, unable to even utter the words. She didn’t need them, the thundering beat of his heart and the icy terror blasting through their bond said more than enough.

  “Me too,” she whispered.

  That was all there was time to say. This was still a battlefield, and Rowena was still very much alive. Fortunately for them all, so was she.

  Helena stepped away from her Mate, feeling mostly centered, although a part of her still felt like it was trapped in an endless free fall. She turned her attention to Rowena, whose malicious smile slipped slightly at the sight of an uninjured Helena.

  “Why won’t you die?” she screeched, pulling back her arm, ready to release another bolt.

  Helena felt a sinister smile of her own stretch across her face. “The feeling is entirely mutual.”

  The sounds of battle raged on. The earth shook and Rowena doubled over with an inhuman wail. “No!” she cried.

  There were only a few feet separating them now, and Helena could read every flicker of emotion that crossed Rowena’s face. Helena knew there was only one thing that had the ability to cause the heartless bitch’s eyes to widen like that. The last General had fallen. For the first time, Rowena looked truly afraid.

  Perfect, the feral part of Helena purred.

  Rowena licked her lips, her eyes wide as she cast them about her. “You can’t beat me.” Helena knew that she meant for the words to sound threatening, but her quavering voice did little to pull it off.

  Helena lifted a brow. “Watch me.”

  With the last of the Generals gone, only the Shadows and a handful of the most loyal Endoshans remained. As each General fell, more and more of the Shadows seemed to be breaking free from Rowena’s mental hold. The loss of power was affecting her ability to contain them. Even now, more packs of the monsters fled from the battle.

  Let them run, Ronan thought with a snarl. He would hunt every last one of them down until Elysia was freed from their taint.

  He gently pushed Reyna back, his eyes scanning the field for any sign of his friends. His eyes found Serena’s blonde head first. She was hacking away at one of the ambling Shadows, while her mate blasted another beast with Fire. Kragen and the Storm Forged were just past them on the left, using swirling waves of Water to topple Shadows and slowly drown them. Timmins and Joquil were working together to help get the fallen off of the field and out of harm’s way. That only left Von and Helena unaccounted for.

  The last time he saw her, Helena had been flapping massive golden wings and flying through the air between Starshine and Midnight. He looked toward the sky but did not see her. Ronan frowned.

  “What is it?” Reyna asked, her husky voice coming out on a hiss of pain.

  Ronan shook his head. It was too soon to say.

  A familiar mop of hair caught his eyes at the bottom of a hill. Ronan breathed a sigh of relief. If Von was there, Helena must be nearby. There is no way he’d let her out of his sight once she was grounded.

  He lifted his eyes up just in time to watch Helena slap away Rowena’s arm.

  It felt like the world stopped spinning, the moment suspended in time. At first there was nothing, and then a giant pulse of power knocked him off of his feet. He hit the ground with a grunt, Reyna landing in a sprawl beside him. Ronan shielded his eyes as blinding light shot from Helena’s body, making it impossible for him to see what was happening.

  “Mother’s tits!” he shouted, surprise ripping the words from his chest without conscious thought.

  Once the light faded, Ronan pushed himself up, holding out a hand to help pull Reyna back up. The Night Stalker eyed his hand as if debating whether she was going to accept the help.

  “Take it,” he growled.

  For once she didn’t argue. Her mismatched eyes blinked up at him, her thick lashes tangling at the tips. “Thank you,” she murmured.

  “You’re welcome,” he said more curtly than he intended. Ronan was torn between wanting to pick her up and take her somewhere safe, and wanting to run over to see if Helena was okay.

  In the end, the choice was made for him. By the time he pulled his eyes away from Reyna, all that was left to do was watch in awe as one by one Shadows that had been frozen mid attack began to fall. As they hit the floor, their bodies exploded in a shower of dust until nothing but the floating black powder remained.

  The Chosen had won.

  Rowena’s glacial blue eyes continued to flicker from side to side, her lips bracketing when she didn’t find what she was looking for.

  “You have something that belongs to me. I want it back,” Helena snarled.

  “No,” Rowena hissed. “The power is mine. ELYSIA IS MINE!”

  Helena borrowed a trick from Von and blinked until she was standing just behind the disheveled blonde. “You’ll have to kill me first,” she whispered in Rowena’s ear.

  Rowena’s breath hitched, and she spun around, a bolt of power fizzling out as Helena slammed a palm into her arm to knock it away. Rowena’s skin began to sizzle where Helena’s hand pressed into it, and Rowena began to shriek in rage and pain.

  Instinct guiding her, Helena wrapped her hand around the other woman’s arm and held tighter. It was the first time they’d ever made any kind of physical contact, and Helena didn’t think it was a coincidence. The longer she held on, the more disorientated she became. Rowena struggled against her, but Helena refused to let go even when she felt her own palm begin to blister from the searing heat.

  Helena’s eyes rolled back in her head, and she let out her own gasp of pain. All see could see was a yawning black chasm. There was nothing but endless darkness; a void that wanted her to sink beneath its weight. It pressed against her, making it hard to breathe. Her chest felt like it was being crushed in a vise, and her lungs were soon starving for air. She sucked in a breath that felt more like swallowing living flame.

  Distantly, she thought she heard someone bellow her name, but she was frozen, poised on the edge of a cliff. If she let go, she would fall. Not just down on her knees in the dirt, but down into a never-ending pit. All she could do was hold on, hold tighter, as she clung to life. It was the only way to fight against the feeling of nothingness and despair.

  For that’s what the darkness was, Helena realized. It was the culmination of every terrible moment
of her life played on an eternal loop. This was what it meant to be truly hopeless. It was then that Helena knew she was looking into Rowena’s soul. Or rather, her lack of a soul. Whatever twisted things she’d done with her magic had taken the worst kind of toll. No wonder she needed so many Shadows and the Generals to empower her. She had nothing left. She was empty; a husk. There was only a void where what had made her human once resided. It made her more of a monster than her Shadows could ever be.

  Helena grit her teeth, unwilling to ever go back to that place. The illusion of corruption had been more than enough for her. She had no intention of ever experiencing that again. Helena focused on Von. It was her love for him that brought her back from the brink once, she knew that he would be the one to help her break the spell again. She couldn’t access their bond from this place, but the harder she focused, the easier it was to breathe. Soon she could feel him, like a warm and steady presence that surrounded her. Helena took her first full breath just as a speck of golden light found its way into the darkness.

  Rowena continued to scream and thrash as the ground rolled beneath their feet. The sky broke in two as lightning snaked across the sky. A blinding white light burst from Helena as Rowena fell to her knees, her screams of pain drowned out by the roar of thunder.

  The golden light grew brighter. The darkness began to roll back, repelled by the light. It slunk away, fading until it was less than the size of a pin, before vanishing completely.

  Helena sagged, her hand falling away from Rowena’s charred skin.

  Rowena was curling into a ball, her body shaking. “What did you do? What did you do to me?” she screamed.

  What was left of Rowena was ancient and ghastly. She was utterly ravaged. Her hair had fallen almost completely out, only a few stringy clumps remaining on her bloody scalp. Her body had sunken in on itself, making her look more corpse than living being, and her skin, where it still remained, was oozing. Even her eyes had changed, the colorless orbs crying tears of blood.

  “Mother’s tits!” The cry sounded behind her, but Helena didn’t dare look away from Rowena.

  “Nothing less than you deserve.” Helena’s voice was quiet, but there was no missing the menace in it. There would be no mercy here. The Mother’s justice was upon them.

  All that was left of the color in Rowena’s face drained away. There was no way out of this, and she knew it. Helena didn’t let the sight of Rowena’s frail and shaking body sway her. She bent down until her nose was a mere breath away from Rowena’s.

  “This is what happens when you try and take what is mine.” The words reverberated with the harmonious voice of her power.

  Helena punched her Talyrian claw-tipped hand through Rowena’s chest, listening to the wet crunch of her bones with satisfaction. She fisted it around the thumping muscle and jerked back until Rowena’s still beating heart was laying in the palm of her hand.

  There was a gurgle and bright red blood began to drip from Rowena’s mouth.

  “Elysia will never be yours,” Helena spat, watching the rest of the life drain from Rowena’s eyes. Her fist closed around Rowena’s heart, crushing it into a fine red dust.

  There was a final whistle of breath, but any words she wanted to say died with her.

  The Corruptor was dead.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “Long live the Vessel!”

  “Mother bless the Kiri!”

  Helena smiled as she lifted her chalice to yet another toast. Beneath the table, Von wove his fingers between hers.

  “That smile is as fake as the purple flames in the hearth.”

  Helena shuddered at the reminder. The Chosen had wanted to throw a feast to formally commemorate their victory over the Corruptor. It was a mandatory holiday, all able bodied people joining in the celebration at the Palace or holding their own, smaller parties at home. To that end, the ballroom had been decorated in shades of purple in her honor, but the smoldering purple flames left her tensing in her seat every time they caught her eye. She couldn’t help but be reminded of the insidious shadow flames.

  She loosed a breath before giving Von a smile that was more a baring of teeth than anything. “It’s not their fault.”

  “Eleven hours of celebrating is taxing on the best of us.”

  Helena smirked. “You’d never know it by looking at them.”

  Von’s eyes darkened as his expression grew somber. He brushed his thumb along the back of her hand. “How are you feeling, Mira?”

  “Do you really need to ask?” Helena asked with a wry lift of her brow.

  “You know I don’t, but I figured it was politer to let you deny it if you weren’t ready to talk.”

  Helena sighed. It wasn’t the time or the place to get into the tangle of emotions she’d been wading through since the battle at Endoshan. “I will be,” she answered, negating the need to lie.

  It was hard to relax or dance when a part of her was terrified that Rowena would walk through the door at any moment. She’d literally ripped the bitch’s heart out, and yet she was afraid it was too good to be true. The woman had haunted her for months, it wasn’t something she could let go of easily.

  The excited cheers of her people drew her attention back to the dance floor. For the last hour, they’d been competing with demonstrations of their talents, each act a tribute to Helena’s first year of reign. Of course, the only moment they seemed to want to recreate was that final bloody battle. It was… too soon.

  Helena gripped Von’s hand as another shudder wracked her body.

  No one knew what Helena had experienced while facing down Rowena’s darkness, or even when she came face-to-face with her own during the illusion. Helena didn’t have the words to describe it, and the Circle had been too kind to ask more than once. She didn’t doubt they had filled in the blanks on their own. That would have to be good enough. No one else needed the nightmares.

  Kragen and Joquil were the de facto judges of the competition, Helena adamantly refused to participate, although only the Circle knew that. She watched as the two men crowned the trio who had done an interpretive dance of Helena taking down the Shadow Talyrians. She clapped politely alongside her Mate until the music resumed and the floor filled with dancing bodies.

  “Care to dance?”

  Helena was about to refuse, but resisted the urge. At least if she was pressed against him, she wouldn’t have to be pretending to enjoy herself.

  Von stood, pulling her behind him as they joined the others. There were cheers when the Chosen noticed their Kiri dancing alongside them. Von spun her in a slow circle before pulling her body close to his. They swayed slowly, completely ignoring the music’s fast-paced tempo. Helena rested her head on Von’s shoulder, her mind emptying of everything except the heat of his hands against the small of her back.

  “I’m proud of you, Helena.”

  She pulled her head back to look up at him, her brows scrunching together.

  “There are very few people that could face the darkest parts of themselves and walk away whole.”

  “Who says I did?”

  “Me.”

  The unwavering conviction in his voice did her in. Her lower lip quavered.

  Von dipped his head, stealing a kiss and her breath in one fell swoop. “None of that, beautiful.”

  The raucous cheering at their display of affection had Helena pulling back with a laugh, her cheeks tinged pink. Von winked, letting her know that had been his intention. Helena shook her head, before snuggling close once more.

  “If I am unscathed, it is only because of you.” Helena paused, taking a steadying breath before allowing herself to admit, “There was a moment on that balcony when I couldn’t have cared less what happened below, and then I saw those two Talyrians barreling toward you and it was like I snapped back. Not all of me, not right away, but the pieces that knew you were Mine.”

  Von ran a hand along her back, his heart beating steadily beneath her ear. “It was enough.”

  “You w
ere enough. You are what keeps me whole. They might be cheering my name, but none of this would have been possible without you.”

  Von’s eyes glittered suspiciously, and he bent down for another kiss. His teeth grazed her lip as he went to deepen the kiss, but a not-so-discreet cough at her shoulder had them pulling away.

  “I believe this dance belongs to me,” Ronan said with a smug smile.

  Von grunted, his arms tightening around her.

  Ronan rolled his eyes. “You have your whole life to fondle my Kiri. Back off and let me dance with her.”

  Von flashed his teeth in a grin, giving Helena one last kiss before stepping away.

  “Are you sure baiting him is a good idea? He’s got a lot of free time on his hands these days,” Helena asked, stepping into Ronan’s arms.

  Ronan snickered. “It’s how he knows that I love him. Besides, the fucker bit me. He can deal with it.”

  Helena’s head fell back as she laughed, a deep rolling belly laugh. By the time she caught her breath, Ronan was smiling at her.

  “It’s good to see you laughing again, Hellion.”

  The nickname had a breath catch in her throat.

  “Since he isn’t here to tell you, let me say it on his behalf. Your Shield—past, present, and future—are incredibly proud of you.”

  Helena swallowed back her emotion, opting for a more light-hearted response. “Speaking on behalf of my future Shield as well? Are you planning on being replaced?”

  Ronan sputtered. “Replaced? Not even death can rip the title from me, Helena. This life and the next, you’re stuck with me.”

  The tear fell down her cheek before she could try to blink it away. “Well, fuck Ronan. You had to go and make me cry, didn’t you?”

  Ronan’s smile was soft as he pulled her close, shielding her teary eyes from the rest of the room. He dropped his head to whisper in her ear, “It’s how you know I love you too.”

  Helena stood at her window watching the festivities wage on. It had been two weeks since they returned to Tigaera victorious, and the jubilant cries of the Chosen had not stopped since.