Chapter 2 #2
A flurry of movement, and they were on their feet, including the woman in the dark gray…
I would not call it a gown. While it clung to her every curve, and the neckline was a deep plunge, other than that it was almost modest. The sleeves were long and ended in a wide cuff that hid her hands, the skirt was long and trailed across the floor, and the dress seemed to be attached to the hood that rose over the back of her head, hiding her hair and most of her face from view.
Rufus turned to me. “Kneel, Gabriel, and wear the crown of your lineage.”
Of course, that was a problem because there was a crown for each—one for the male line and one for the female line. Rufus held them out to me.
I took them—both were made of gold, the metal thin and soft. One was black, the other was a pure shimmering white. I held them for a moment to the light, then did the unthinkable.
I pulled them apart, piece by piece. The Fallen in attendance didn’t move, not so much as a rustle of cloth from a skirt, or the shush of a hard soled boot on the granite floor.
For the plan I had in mind, I had to make them mine, both the crown and the Fallen royals if I was going to succeed.
“For too long, we have been forced to choose one path or another.” I snapped off a quarter of the black crown and dropped it to the ground at my feet, the metal singing as it bounced three times then lay still.
“For too long, we have been seen as lesser than by many of the others in the territories.” I snapped off a quarter of the white crown and dropped, letting the sound of it ringing through the air quiet before I broke the next portion.
“The reasons no longer matter. We have a new path ahead, one that would see us stronger,” I let the second chunk of black crown slide through my fingers to the floor.
“A path that would see us no longer the last to the table,” a piece of the white crown.
I held up the final two halves of the crowns and made as if to drop them. But instead of falling, they held in the air, floating. Crooking my fingers, weaving my inborn power through the pieces I’d dropped, I drew them upward, spinning them around in front of me.
“I would know, here and now; who among you is with me? Who would see us thrive, who would see us no longer hide below, but take our place above?”
The spinning increased as I flicked my fingers, letting my connection to the metal flow, until the crowns were nothing but droplets of liquid—black and white—circling around one another.
I never looked up from my task, but instead wove the metal into not one, but two crowns.
Two crowns, both made of the light and the dark, the materials blending into one another through the shapes I imagined.
As the crowns reformed, I held out my hands, and they dropped into my open palms. “I will seek a queen to rule at my side. A balance to my violence, a balance to the nature of a Fallen. A light…burning in the darkness.”
Gods, I fucking hated this. But both Diana and Sienna had agreed this would be the fastest way to find the next key—to put myself up as bait. I all but tossed the larger of the two crowns on top of my head, barely registering the shapes that had been evoked out of my mind. Fire. Wings. Lightning.
And the other…the other was softer, more of the white gold, and less of the black, the waves and curls of water roses creating a feminine and petite crown. Water, an element that was so very precious within a desert realm–life saving.
I held that crown up and slowly turned. “Who will help me bring our people from Fallen to Chosen?”
The silence was long enough that I thought I’d misjudged, that my words would cause a rebellion, a coup against me for the crown. My head on a pike would not help save the world.
I locked eyes with the one Fallen that had been pointed out to me, a demon who I knew from my childhood…the gamble was simple. Was he still the soul that I remembered? Or had he been lost to the same darkness that’d taken Malach?
“Lord Luc, what say you?”
His grin was immediate, and the tension across my shoulders eased. “Fucking rights, Gabe. Pardon me.” He swept into a bow then dropped to one knee. “Your most amazing, majestic, majesty. Bloody fucking brilliant.”
The Fallen erupted into clapping and then cheering. Cheering. Laughing, lifting glasses, and in moments, they were pressing their females toward me.
“Tonight, we drink, we dine, and tomorrow…tomorrow we plan.” I did a slow sweep with a glass raised—someone had pressed it into my hand. “To the future. And my future queen!”
Music started up, and the dancing began in earnest, leaving me free to…to what? I couldn’t fucking wander the room, not as I would have done before, slinking through the shadows and spying.
Fuck.
I tipped the glass back, draining it in a single gulp, not caring if it was majestic or not. The fire hit the back of my throat, and I bit back a hiss as a hand shot out to take the newly made queen’s crown from me.
Rufus’ eyes were narrowed. “I did not realize…”
“You’re going to realize how much you did not realize, Rufus,” I said. “Which I believe, is going to be a great fucking deal more than anyone…” I drew him close by his collars, as if straightening them out, until his nose was touching mine. “Realized…Merlin.”
His throat bobbed but it was not fear in his eyes that I knew who he really was, or that he was not as young as he looked.
No, he was not afraid.
He was pissed.
Gods above and below, it looked as if not much had changed since I’d left. Less than a day, and I’d already made an enemy of the last human mage that the world had seen in five hundred years.