Chapter 36 #2
“Holy fucking fuck,” I gasp, stumbling backwards several steps.
A great serpent of fire soars over us now, coiling its flaming body before rearing back and striking at my dome of ice.
It holds, thank the Makers, but I force my power into it, reinforcing the walls until they’re a foot thick.
I can hardly take my eyes from the display, the power of it staggering, but I hear Tesni panting.
I cut my gaze away from the snake and narrow my eyes at her.
She’s sweating and pale, teeth gritted as she keeps the fiery serpent coiling and striking above us.
“The extra Gifts are fighting you, aren't they?” She all but snarls at me, the look dark and killing, and I know that I’m right. “They are! They know that they don’t belong to you, they know that you stole them like a fucking coward!”
“They are MINE! They are ALL MINE! The power. The Gifts. This entire empire!! They will all kneel before me. I am a queen!” she shrieks.
That serpent slithers from the top of the dome, rearing up behind Tesni before bounding over her shoulder for me.
Ice explodes from my palms, but the snake attacks with so much force that I’m shoved backwards, boots sliding over the slick stone.
I grit my teeth as the fire pushes, harder and harder, the heat of it unreal.
-Thea!- Killian roars in my mind.
This is it.
I reach deep down within myself, pulling up as much of my power as I can. I can feel her fire burning outward now too, pushing against the dome. If it falters, if that fire breaks free, it will destroy everyone outside the walls of the castle. The people that I love.
No. I will not fail them.
-Daska,- Soren warns, knowing my mind better than anyone else, so much a part of me, and I can feel him clawing at the ice behind me, desperate to make his way inside the dome. -Daska, you will not!-
I put everything I have into the ice, stepping forward, the cold over taking the flames inch by inch, step by step.
Sweat pours down my face and neck, my muscles trembling from the strain, but I don’t stop.
I will never fucking stop. Tesni grits her teeth, screaming in defiance as she tries to overtake me, her flames burning hotter and brighter, but she can’t.
She might have stolen power in her veins, but I have the power given to me by the Makers, a familiar chosen for me by fate, a love bigger than the endless sky.
I pull on all of it now, pushing back those fucking flames, inching closer and closer to my sister.
“So. Am. I,” I grit. Another inch. Another step.
“What?” she hisses, eyes wide but hard as stone.
“I am Thea Blackheart, Queen of Duskthorne.” I press my shoulders back, proud and sure.
A crown of ice appears, the sharp edges looking like the Obsidians that have always been home.
Our beloved dragon’s head is carved in the center, cold eyes staring at Tesni as if daring her to try to refute it.
“I am a queen of this empire and I will not let you continue to hurt my people.”
I keep pushing, willing the ice to overtake the flames.
“You…you married that monster, Dorian?? Even I wouldn’t be that desperate,” she spits.
“No,” I say easily and tilt my head towards the battle outside, towards Killian and Isolde laying waste to the Alliance’s forces.
“I married Dorian Killian Elvania—the second,” I add, my lips curling remembering how hastily Killian had added that bit in when Frederick had first introduced him in the throne room, when I’d first learned the whole truth.
“King of Duskthorne, High Commander, and my husband.”
Tesni stares, brow furrowing as she looks from Killian to me, as realization sinks in. Pure fury fills her face, all traces of confusion gone in an instant.
“No!” she screams. “No! You cannot be! You don’t deserve to be a queen, you don’t deserve a familiar, you don’t deserve any of it!
” A surge of power flares with her rage, pushing back against my ice, sending me sliding backwards again.
I can hear the others screaming down the pathway between us, but I don’t let them in.
I can’t let them in. “You were the weak one, the pathetic excuse for a Gifted. You didn’t see it for the truth that it was: we should be worshipped for what we are, Thea.
We are the real Makers. They should all kneel before us in fear. ”
“No,” I tell her, looking at her with nothing but pity now. “No one should kneel in fear.”
I open the pathway long enough to tell them one more thing before the end:
-I love you all.-
-THEA!!- Killian roars and I can feel Isolde’s fire trying to burn through my dome to get to me. I won’t let that happen. I feel Soren’s frantic clawing at the ice, feel him putting as much of his strength into our bond as he possibly can.
I can see the Brink in my mind, a dark abyss on the horizon, but I keep pushing against my sister, her fanatical belief and anger making her power surge even higher. I push harder.
Another inch.
Another step.
Closer.
Closer.
I’m close enough now that I can see the fear in Tesni’s eyes, only a foot of fire standing between her and my ice.
“No,” she whispers. “No...”
“Goodbye, Tess,” I say, tears in my eyes.
I will not shed any for Tesni, but I will let them fall for the sister I lost, the one that I think might still be buried somewhere inside this monster before me, so deep that I’ll never find her again.
I reach the Brink and careen over it, tumbling into oblivion as the cold explodes from my body, dousing every fire within the dome, the fire within Tesni’s veins.
She screams in agony and defiance, and I think perhaps a tiny shred of sorrow, and then I’m falling into nothingness.