Chapter 22 #2
His jaws clenched. “I’ve seen my kingdom thrive,” he then said, again, like he was trying to hurt me with his words physically. Like they were weapons leaving his mouth.
“You haven’t, but your kingdom is the least hurt by the curse—so far.
Because of you, the legitimate heir to the throne.
You were always there, always preparing to becoming king and take over.
But you’ve heard about the Frozen Court.
I’m sure you’ve seen the ruined walls and the morvekai soldiers in front of the Unseelie Court.
And if you’ve been to the Midnight Court at all, you’d have heard about the temperatures and the dim lights, at the very least.”
I had no doubt in my mind that he knew all of this—he was the Seelie king, but more than that. He was the guy who wanted to rule all four kingdoms. Of course, he knew.
And the look in his eyes said so.
He leaned back, opened his mouth to speak but didn’t know what to say quite yet. He looked…confused, more so than surprised about all I said. Or maybe simply because I knew these things?
“I’m sure you can arrange a meeting with the Council yourself if you doubt me. I was in Virlorn, Lyall. The deadness of it has spread beyond what it used to be. It’s in Mysthaven as well. I saw it with my own eyes.”
Yes, he was most definitely shocked that I knew these things.
“Why would the likes of you be in the Quiet?” he spit, but I pretended he hadn’t said anything.
“The heirs—all the heirs must remain alive. You, and Rune, and the Unseelie heir, the only one who is still alive from the royal bloodline. Without heirs, the power loses balance. Without balance, Verenthia cannot survive. The ley lines are acting up, Lyall. The werewolves can barely contain the gates.”
Another step back. He was now disgusted by me all of the sudden. “You throw all those words to me like you have any idea—”
“Stop,” I spit. “For fuck’s sake, stop. You know I’m not lying. You know it! Ask around—your uncle knew about the curse. I’m sure you have books on it. You can ask your seer—you can find out. But you cannot attack me, Lyall. I cannot die.”
These words weren’t bitter, but they were so strange against my tongue. If Vair were here, I’d have suspected he spoke with my voice, but he wasn’t.
Slowly, Lyall’s lips stretched into another smile, only now with his bloodshot eyes and pale face, he looked possessed. He looked pure evil.
My God, could you even blame me for not wanting to believe my own eyes? This was the boy who’d saved my life. The boy I thought as my savior my whole life.
Look at us now.
“Why ever not?” he whispered, and his soldiers all moved a little bit closer. The sound of metal on metal filled my ears as more drew their swords, and my magic reacted as if it wanted out of its sheath, too.
“Because half the soul of the Ice Queen is in me. I am her heir.”
I said those words. I said them with my own mouth.
I am her heir.
But I said it to save myself.
I said it to save Verenthia.
I said it because of Rune!
I said it because Maera ordered me—all these justifications crashed into my skull within the second, but none of them stuck.
For the longest moment, Lyall analyzed my face like he was seeing me for the first time.
“You—an heir?” he finally spit. “You’re nothing but a useless mortal that I made with these very hands.”
“Lyall—”
“Did you know that you were never bitten by a snake? Did you know that it was a bug that bit you, and my magic that paralyzed you—did you know?”
What the actual fuck.
“I made you, Nilah Dune! You were nothing but a tool in my arsenal, one that served me better than I’d hoped, I’ll admit. But your time is over. You die now.”
He raised both hands toward me, his palms lit with that golden light I knew well. That same golden light that I’d had inside me while we were bound.
Fuck, I’d thought him my savior all my life, and all this time he really was the fucking villain.
Too late, said the voice in my head. The light was too bright, and he was too fast. My magic reacted, but it would be too late because the shock got in the way.
The pure shock of learning yet another hidden truth—and it was almost funny because I’d foreseen it!
I’d thought about this very thing many times, yet I hadn’t had the heart to believe it.
Not when I thought of the face of the boy Lyall had been.
That’s when the ground exploded and threw me back like an invisible hand had grabbed me and pulled me from behind.
The next moment, all hell broke loose, and it took me a good long while to understand what was happening: the sorcerers of Mysthaven were attacking Lyall and his soldiers right before my eyes.
A million blinks and the view in front of me didn’t change.
Hands on my arm, real hands now, pulling me back; Maera’s voice whispering in my ear, but I couldn’t hear a thing she said because what the hell is going on?!
The ground had broken in half just there. It had cracked right between mine and Lyall’s feet, and a gaping hole the size of a fucking truck went on forever on either side of the forest, pushing trees to the sides, pulling out their roots to the surface as they tried to hold on but couldn’t.
Magic in the air. Things were being thrown from the trees toward the Seelie soldiers, not just from this side of the crack, but from the other, too. Vials. Fruit. Bones. Small animal carcasses.
Sorcerers had surrounded the small army of Seelie soldiers from all sides. Some were hanging on trees, but most were on the ground, and they were chanting, whispering, raising their hands, throwing their things—my God, it was madness!
“Nilah, we need to run!”
Maera was trying to pull me back, and she did. I moved because I had no control over my legs just yet and I let her drag me away while I watched in horror as more and more sorcerers gathered, pushing us away. It was chaos. People screamed and people laughed—it was fucking nuts.
“Maera, let go!” I shouted with all my strength because there was a fire burning right where Lyall had been, and my heart about burst right out of my ribcage.
By some miracle, Maera let me go, cursing loudly as sorcerers pushed her back—and I ran. I elbowed my way forward, barely breathing. My hands were lit up, the light so bright they looked like fucking crystals, my skin damn near transparent as I grabbed sorcerers and pulled them aside.
Until I was in front of the crack on the ground, and I saw.
Magic in the air. Weapons. Potions spilling. Men and women screaming, some still laughing.
And Lyall had a sorcerer on each side pulling at his arms, while a third was trying to push the ball of fire in his hands onto his face.
Invisible magic stopped him, of course. And there was a part of me that insisted that Lyall could handle himself, that his soldiers would come to his aid any second now, that sorcerers could never beat a Seelie king.
There was a very good chance that that was the truth, too, except I was afraid. I was enraged. I was not thinking—I was only feeling.
“STOP!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, and I didn’t think I’d ever produced more voice in my entire life.
With the sound came the magic, and it exploded from my hands with such strength that it pushed me back.
The light, the silver-colored shimmer, fell right into that crack on the ground that the sorcerers must have somehow created when Lyall was about to attack me.
The light spread. It filled the crack like I’d never seen it do before, as if it were liquid, as if it was coming from underneath the ground now, too.
It spilled out of it, spreading like frost that wasn’t really frost onto the ground in ribbons, crawling like a living thing on both sides, making everything and everyone move back.
The air was thick with magic. The screaming stopped, and the fire that had been burning on the ground near Lyall’s feet was consumed by the frostfire that was white, and it wasn’t a fucking fire at all!
No more sorcerers on Lyall. No more sorcerers on the soldiers. They were moving back on both sides of the hole, slowly, watching the magic as it continued to spread onto the ground like a wave of water that wasn’t quite water, either.
Somehow I found my voice again. “That’s enough! Don’t you dare attack anybody—I will kill each and every one of you!”
Lies.
I couldn’t kill them if I tried. This burst of magic was the best I had, and it wasn’t going to kill anyone. Vair said frostfire didn’t kill—it merely cleansed.
No, I couldn’t kill them—but I could maybe knock them out. Not exactly sure how I would go about it, since I wasn’t exactly in control of my mind or my emotions or my body right now, but I was going to try. God help me, I wouldn’t stop.
But…they did.
The sorcerers had stopped, and the soldiers had stopped, and Lyall was looking at me with his crown in his hand—it must have fallen off his head when the sorcerers attacked him. He was looking at me and shaking his head, and he was pissed off. Just as pissed off as I was, until…
A choking sound came from somewhere behind me.
Lyall’s eyes went to it instantly.
The next second, every single Seelie soldier standing behind him looked behind me.
Impossible not to turn.
When I did, it was almost impossible to believe my own eyes, too.
Because Vair said that frostfire didn’t kill, but there was a sorceress on her knees on the ground, her body almost completely covered by the silvery white magic.
Tendrils of it slipped inside her open mouth while she shook and tried to breathe in, eyes wide open and on the sky—and she most definitely look like she was dying.