Chapter 20 Zarev #2
Beside us, I swear, the clouds shift apart.
“Did you see that?” she hisses.
“Yup.” I reach into the shadows again, drawing out my scythe, and ignore her disapproving look. “Let’s tread cautiously.”
“Think it’s the giant?” she snaps. “Come on, Zarev. Clouds aren’t a threat.”
“That we know of.”
She brushes past me, and I follow in her wake. The dreary gray clouds continue as we start heading what I think is west, the haziness around us making it impossible to see ahead.
Glancing back, I find that we aren’t in the loop like we were near the beanstalk. We’re moving away from the beaten path, which might be a very, very bad idea.
“Zarev.”
I almost crash into Odette. She’s stopped moving, one hand stretched out behind her like she knew she needed to stall me.
Ahead of us, there’s a puddle. It seems to be the endpoint for a stream, and I’m still stuck on the fact that there’s pooling water up here when she grips my wrist tightly.
Snapping my gaze up, I see what she does. “A lake.”
“A pool,” she whispers, turning back to grin at me. “A Pool of Truth.”
“Let’s not be hasty–”
Odette takes off, and I have half a mind to throw the shadows at her and force her to stop. Instead, I rush after her, keeping my attention on the water around us.
A pool. Of course there’s a goddamn pool up here. What else would make sense?
“We found it,” she whispers, kneeling by the edge. There’s a gentle ripple, but nothing else. Not even her reflection as I peer down. “The Pool of Truth.”
“We don’t know this is it,” I say, studying the water. The closer I get, the more things get strange. While Odette doesn’t have a reflection, I do.
If anything, it’s usually the other way around. I can hide in the shadows and avoid my reflection, but Odette should be seen in the clear surface of the pool. It’s not a terribly large body of water, but big enough that we should both be able to see each other with the way we’re standing.
She glances up at me, an array of emotions dancing over her face. “Why can’t I see myself?”
“That I don’t know,” I tell her, stabbing the base of my scythe into the ground. The clouds give, but slowly, like they’re made of mud. The base sticks enough that I can gently lean against it. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Let me have that book back.”
I don’t hesitate, and she starts flipping through pages as I study the water. I can’t figure out what the reason would be that she can’t see herself, but maybe that’s a good thing. If this does in any way connect to the Mad Queen, it would be good for her to only be able to see one of us.
“Why is there so little in the pool?” Odette grumbles. “There’s more in the Fountain of Youth, but didn’t you say that it had been destroyed?”
“Yeah. Midas took care of it.”
Odette huffs, looking down once more. As she does I feel a pang in my chest, and I reach up to rub over the spot. It’s a strange ache, almost like the stab when Midas struck me with his gold.
It must be a phantom pain brought on by the mention of his name. Midas may have been the only thing that’s been able to hurt me in a long time but he’s dead.
Just as the thought travels through my mind, the ache intensifies. I gasp as a blister of searing pain rocks across my chest, like someone shoved a hot coal straight through my sternum.
“Zarev?”
Gasping, I drop the scythe and barely manage to kick it into the shadows before I kneel. Squeezing my eyes shut for a moment, I feel the shadows inside me dancing, like they’re fighting over something.
With my eyes closed, something flickers across my vision. Agony, despair, like they are my own thoughts, roll through me, and I see fragments of something that doesn’t make much sense.
Blood. Bones. Something frozen that holds my hand, and dark hair against the red-stained ground.
Hands lock on my arm, and I think Odette’s trying to shake me. “Zarev!”
Ice. Cold, unforgiving, it rolls through me. Or I think it does. It’s hard to tell, but my breath catches all the same.
“Control your shadows!”
My eyes tear open at Odette’s words, but I’m looking into the water instead of at her. Staring back at me is an image that matches what I felt.
Ban and a woman I’ve never seen. She appears to be dead, wide eyes peering up at him from a pool of blood. He has one hand banded behind her head, the other holding a red, bleeding–
“Oh my Gods,” Odette hisses. “Is that a…a spine?”
There’s a rumble around us, but I can barely focus on it. I’ve never felt such an intrusion before, like my mind is fighting against something I can’t see.
But Odette’s right. Whatever Ban is holding, it definitely looks like a severed spine.
As we watch, his eyes turn into a mix of blue and black. One darkens, the other glows bright; I think his magic is at war with itself. Like the powers can’t decide which should take over.
Then he roars, the sound profound as it carries through the water and makes us jump back. It’s heavy with pain, grief, and from the circle forming around him the shadows rise and nearly swallow him.
“Ban,” I whisper, Odette’s hand gripping my wrist. “I need to get to my Hell Brother.”
“Okay, we’ll figure it out–”
She stops talking when the water in the pool begins to swirl, and I glance her way before she snaps the book shut.
“We’re going through,” I hiss, and she barely nods before throwing the book at me. I catch it with the shadows, letting it disappear, as the ground trembles again.
This is probably a really bad idea. Still, Odette stands with me, even as the strange imagery in my head threatens to send me to my knees again.
As I watch, the swirling darkness envelops Ban, like it’s sucking him into nothing, and I jump into the pool of water. I barely register Odette leaping in behind me, the sound of her splash nearly lost as I sink into the water.
And slam into the floor.
Gasping, all the air is knocked out of me. It's almost like someone picked us up in one place and dropped us on the ground again. Beside me, a few seconds delayed, I hear Odette groaning.
It takes a moment to focus; my vision blurred between the shift, the dark, ink-black magic swirling around us, and the absolute freezing temperature of the room we’re in.
When my gaze finally stops blurring, my eyes lock on the Mad Queen. For once, instead of looking manic, there’s confusion in her eyes. Anger, even.
“What are you doing here?”
The question barely leaves her lips before a pained scream echoes through the room. I struggle to my feet, mindful of Odette behind me, and call out my scythe again.
“What are you doing here?” I mimic, trying to make sense of where we are. It’s frigid, and the entire structure looks to be made of ice. The Mad Queen’s deep black and red dress contrasts with the surroundings, and there’s a man lingering at her back that I don’t recognize.
The scream seems to come from someone at the other end of the room. A blur of white shoots and crashes into the opposite wall with a boom that rocks the building.
“My queen,” the man hisses, and it only takes a moment to notice the emblem on his jacket. Camelot. “This is getting out of hand. Let Sned fall to her own demise.”
She sneers, stretching her arms wide as she ignores him.
I can sense Odette behind me, trying to get shoulder to shoulder with me, and I really hope she stays back.
Fighting the Mad Queen last time, when I was with Rapunzel, who at least had rage on her side, was difficult.
I don’t know if Odette will last more than a moment or two.
Maybe she can duel with the guy who’s back-to-back with the Mad Queen.
A roar shakes the room, and I can’t help but look away.
Ban’s standing at the other end of the room, the dying woman still in his arms. I’m amazed she isn’t dead yet with the amount of blood surrounding them, but I don’t see her spirit. I don’t see any spirits, despite the stink of death lingering in the room.
As I stare, he takes a step forward, carrying the body. The shadows coil around him, but the snow and ice magic I’ve rarely ever seen him rely on shoots away from them. They lock on a different woman, and he launches across the room, the snow building a tower that drags her body higher and higher.
The ice in the walls seems to bow to his command, spires of icicles sticking out from the column, turning and twisting to aim at the body he’s holding up with his magic. As I watch, he forces the icicles through her body.
She screams, the icy whirlwind between the two of them exploding out. I spin in time to grab Odette’s arm, dragging her into the shadows with me. She stands paralyzed, eyes wide, terrified as she takes in the scene.
The magic passes harmlessly by us, and I snap my head around to eye the Mad Queen. She holds up her hands in time to block the wave of magic, much to my disappointment, and the explosion misses her and the man standing with her.
Odette digs her nails into my arm, but I don’t step out of the shadows to attack. Ban’s still radiating power, and when I glance up at the icy ceiling, I see cracks in the building. As I watch, a large portion of the roof caves in.
We need to get the fuck out of here. Ban included. I eye the Mad Queen once more, who gives a sinister grin before reaching back to grab the man’s arm, and together, they take off toward the exit.
Even if I stepped out of the shadows now, I’m not certain I’m strong enough alone to kill the Queen. And I definitely can’t if I need to dodge this building as it falls apart.
As they run, I hop with Odette to a spot on the floor that appears less likely to cave in. We slip free of the darkness, and I take several steps toward my friend. “Ban!”
He doesn’t even glance my way, his eyes locked on the woman pinned to the wall. This place has vaulted ceilings that are ridiculously high, and I have to assume this is the palace in the Frostlands. It’s the only place I can think of that would be this ostentatious.
Ban’s still cradling the woman in his grip, cushioning her head and holding the severed spine in place with what looks like his ice magic. I can tell he’s using magic to keep her intact, but when I peer around I still don’t see a soul.
That can’t be good.
He stops in front of the woman he struck, her body pressed to the wall by a large icy pole roughly ten feet in the air. There’s blood all over the place, and her body is as white as the snow around us when I get a good look at her.
Odette follows behind me, her steps almost matching mine. The whirlwind Ban has created is hard to stand against, but she doesn’t seem to be getting blown over as we get closer.
Ban’s voice is cold, almost lifeless, when he speaks. “This time, when she hates me for killing one of her parents, at least it will be justified.”