Chapter 43 #2
Stop, stop, stop, the voices in my head shouted, because the people were looking at me like that! Like they were disgusted. Like they were enraged.
And there were children there, too. Toddlers, older ones—they were all watching this man lie through his teeth while I shook in place and came apart on the inside.
“I do not come to steal your throne, brothers and sisters. I come to offer my services to guard it. To raise it from the ashes and the ruin it has become and return it to its previous glory.”
Applause.
The people believed him.
“No,” I whispered, but my voice was too soft.
“I have already restored the true Unseelie heir to his throne. My vision is peace. I will bring it here like I have in my own home, and the homes of others.”
Are you fucking kidding me?
“Liar.” The word came out of me from the bottom of my heart.
Lyall turned and looked at me, as if he was surprised that I’d spoken. “You dare call a king a liar?”
Motherfucking prick. Had he really no soul? Had he no morals, no conscience?
I moved, and my legs weighed a thousand pounds each, but they carried me forward down the stairs, until Maera practically jumped in front of me to tell me that that was far enough.
“That’s what you are, Lyall—you’re a damn liar. I saved your life. You almost ruined mine. You tried to kill the Unseelie heir, tried to feed him to the dragons, and—”
Laughter.
It was ice-cold and it cut me off—and Lyall continued, “Do you really think anybody will believe a word you say, mortal?” He turned to me with his whole body.
“You don’t belong here. I am willing to let you leave, go back to Nerith, out of the kindness of my heart—but if you insist on spreading lies—”
“For fuck’s sake, do you even hear yourself?!” I shouted at the top of my voice. Because no way was this real. No way could this man, with his golden hair and golden eyes, with his smug smile and red velvets, come in front of me, in front of all these people, and lie about me in my very presence.
“You’re awful, Lyall! You are a bad man and a liar and a cheat!
” I screamed, and so what that the people looked at me like I’d lost my damned mind?
Maybe I had. I hoped I had, so that I may have a fucking break for once.
“Don’t you dare stand in front of me and spit your lies—I will not stand for it. Not while I’m still breathing.”
A pause.
Nobody in our big audience made a single sound.
“Then perhaps I should change that.”
Those golden eyes I’d thought were the eyes of my savior, of a fucking hero, for such a long time. Now, I saw what a truly rotten soul they masked.
A growl, and he looked down at Maera, but his smile only widened.
“I’ve come here to offer the good fae of the Frozen Court a solution.
A way out. The Bastard King can hardly contain his own kingdom, but while he lives, I cannot help them,” he said—and I just knew that years from now, maybe even months, he was going to use this very excuse to try to kill Rune and take over the Midnight Court with the blessing of the fucking people—if he succeeded here today.
If he killed me and took over the Frozen Court first. Backed by the Ice fae.
My God, this is really happening…
And that was why I had to put a stop to this one way or the other, no matter how much it cost me. I would die first before I allowed the likes of this fucking monster throw me out of this kingdom I’d been fighting with my everything to save. This very realm.
“…and that is why, with a heavy heart, I’ve come to speak directly to you, the people,” Lyall was saying.
My mouth opened and the scream was at the tip of my tongue—but someone else beat me to it.
“Nilah Dune is the chosen heir of the late Queen Veyra. She is the rightful queen that the Ice throne has chosen and accepted,” said the silver seer.
She’d come closer, had her arms to her sides, fingers pulled up in fists, and she was shaking, though she tried to keep her chin up and her eyes ahead.
“I’ve seen it. The stars have revealed it. She carries the late Ice Queen’s magic and her soul. She is—”
“An imposter.”
Lyall’s voice echoed even though we were outside.
His hand was on the handle of his sword, glowing golden from within, when he turned to the both of us. Maera growled in warning, but if he cared, he didn’t show it. He came closer anyway.
“You dare to claim you’ve been touched by the stars—well, the seer of the Seelies has seen through you. You are nothing but an imposter, too. A liar, deserving of a public beheading!”
The conviction with which he spoke sent goose bumps all over me.
He was certain of every single word, like he believed everything he said himself, and that’s when it occurred to me that this could actually, really happen.
My God, he could come here, and he could point fingers, and he could call us liars and imposters and convince an entire people of it because he had power.
He had an army, a kingdom. He had a reputation.
The truth didn’t really matter, did it? It hadn’t my entire life. Nobody had ever believed it when I told it back home—so why would anybody believe me now?
“No,” the seer said. “I am a seer. The stars have spoken to me. I have yet to complete my connection, but I see!”
The woman was shaking. I was sure she was going to collapse soon.
So, I stepped in front of her, put my hand on her arm, and gently pushed her back—she needed to put distance between herself and Lyall.
“Convenient, isn’t it? That a seer wouldn’t complete her connection to the visions she claims to have right away—and I’d have believed it if I hadn’t been raised with a seer by my side. If she hadn’t told me how fast everything moved.”
“Because the queen wasn’t here—the queen—” the seer tried again, but I already knew it was in vain.
“There is no queen here,” Lyall cut her off, and his loud voice rang in my ears. “Only a king…should the people choose him.” And he waved an arm at the crowd.
The crowd that cheered and clapped, louder than before.
This is it. He was doing this, and it was going to fucking work because I was a mortal. I was not one of them. And I was alone against a man with a kingdom and an army.
But I’d be fucking damned if I went down without a fight. I either died or I won—there was no third option. That was a decision I’d made even before I realized it. No third option.
Taking in a deep breath, I prayed with all my heart for Rune to survive Lyall, and the curse, and whatever else this place had yet to throw at him.
“Move, Maera,” I whispered because I wanted to get closer.
She did so reluctantly but stayed right next to me while I approached Lyall, until I saw every feature of his face in detail. His flushed cheeks and the gold specks in his eyes, and the malice hidden in them.
The smile on my face was forced at first, but then it came naturally. “I’m not afraid of you, Lyall.”
God, he hated that. I saw it in the way his eyes suddenly darkened, and his smile froze—he was trying very hard not to give me the pleasure, but he already had.
“You don’t scare me with your lies and your soldiers.
” I spoke each word clearly, loudly—I wanted them all to hear, to remember how this went when I was gone.
I wouldn’t die a coward, not in any way.
And at least someone would remember it, I hoped.
“I was five years old when you took over my life completely. I went through hell to get to you when you needed me to save your life. I was your friend. Rune was your friend, and you wanted to get rid of him because you knew he was a better man than you. He would be a better king than you any day.”
The look in his eyes turned murderous now, but I wasn’t done. Because fuck this.
“Careful, mortal,” he had the audacity to tell me.
And I said, “I am not a mortal, asshole. I’m the Ice Queen.”
Words I never thought I’d ever say in my whole entire life—proudly.
Words I had yet to understand the true meaning of, but I said them loudly.
He heard. Everyone heard. And my magic must have heard, too, because suddenly my hands were burning with cold, and there was no pain to accompany it whatsoever.
Suddenly, something flashed before my eyes—a face looking back at me in a mirror.
Me, but not me.
It took me only a second to realize it was Queen Veyra of the Frozen Court staring at her own reflection in a time that was long gone.
Her hands had been burning bright with light then, and mine did the exact same now. Her eyes had been wide and her lips parted then, as were mine now. Her heart had skipped a beat or three then, I was sure, because mine did the same now.
But the pain was completely gone as the frostfire gathered in the palms of my hands.
Except Lyall had been at this for so much longer than I had, and so the golden light came at me almost sneakily, such a small ball of fire that was in front of me before I could blink.
He’d already attacked, and I somehow saw it. I saw his magic, though the way he moved should have been a blur to me, and I stepped to the side just in time for the magic to fly right past me, end up slamming onto one of the pillars of the palace.
Whispers, shouts, screams.
Then came an arrow.
It was all so very sudden that I was having trouble keeping up with what my own eyes were telling me. An arrow came out of nowhere and it almost hit Lyall on the fucking shoulder. It grazed him, cut the velvet of his jacket as he moved away—but it hit him.
And it came from somewhere ahead, toward the gates.
It came from a woman who was standing on top of a large shard that made the wall of the palace, with a bow in her hands and a smile on her face.
Hessa.
My God, I’d forgotten all about here, but she was here!
And I knew that all hell was about to break loose.
The people began to run, and golden lights took over the sky, and Seelie soldiers were already rushing through the crowd, pushing people to the ground, pushing children to the ground to get to Hessa, who was no longer standing on the shard. She’d disappeared.
Lyall’s hands were burning golden again, his eyes on me.
“Enough.”
The word left my lips in a calm voice, just a little over a whisper, but with it I willed everything to stop with my whole being. My magic heard the intent clearly, and it obeyed.
My skin burned as it released into the world, spread all around me, all around us, stopping everything and everyone, the good and the bad, the soldiers and the people and the magic that had yet to land on its target.
My legs must have let go of me, because I was on the ground just in front of the stairs, and there was shimmer in the air, white-colored magic that looked almost like snow floating about everywhere. There was no more noise, no more footsteps, no more sounds of weapons being drawn.
Get up, get up, get up, I told myself, and I did. By some miracle, I got up and I looked around at the people who were moving so, so slowly. Even the birds in the sky seemed to be stuck mid-flight, their wings barely moving.
I saw Maera’s open jaws, her wide yellow eyes focused on Lyall as she was about to jump at him; saw the seer, who’d brought her hands over her ears as she looked at him, too; saw Hessa, too—easy enough to make her out with her golden hair among a sea of whites, as she made her way through the panicked crowd with two of those curved-blade knives in her hands.
Finally, I saw Lyall standing not six feet away from me, preparing to launch the light from his palms toward me.
Wrong. It was all so wrong that my heart wanted to beat right out of my chest. I’d just needed a moment to gather my thoughts, to breathe, but I’d gone too far. These people—these children weren’t to blame for anything. They should never be under the influence of my magic like this.
The panic settled under my skin like flames against the ice that made me. Taking in a deep breath, I sucked back the magic I’d released with every ounce of strength I could spare, no longer doubting whether it would work.
It would.
The magic snapped back into me like a rubber band, and I passed out standing.