42. Konstantin
42
KONSTANTIN
T hough a woman is dead on my hills and we aren’t alone, I grip the standing collar of Isla’s borrowed coat. My desperation to keep her at my side takes the shape of a harsh kiss, one that’s as brutal as it is fleeting. When I pull away, Isla’s stare glitters with confusion.
I cut my eyes to the top of the stairs, wrap an arm around her waist, then guide her up to the vestibule whose glass ceiling is already lifted. The instant we step out into the glacial evening, Aodhan shifts. He doesn’t soar toward the hill, though. He treads the air over our heads, as though worried the two sleigh drivers and Ksenia will abduct us.
For a heartbeat, I give this theory room to grow. After all, my sister didn’t truly put up any protest in revisiting the crime scene. I shake off my gnawing paranoia. Under salt oath, she admitted not wanting to harm me. Still, as we crest the hill, I remain on my guard, my magic tingling my fingertips, ready to pour out.
When the sleigh begins to slow, the rise and fall of Isla’s rib cage quickens beneath my splayed fingers. She pulls away from me and squints past my sister’s head, past the air-Fae driver at the helm. I spot Vance before I spot the body. Probably because the woman sprawled at their feet is as pale as my wintry kingdom. If it weren’t for the scarlet stain on her white dress and the macabre hue of the snow espousing her body, Mestyla would’ve vanished into the landscape.
My lids twitch as Isla disembarks from the sleigh. The first and only glance I had of my niece at Oloho Samov had been so brief that I’d failed to spot a resemblance to her mother. Would I see one tonight? Would I see Alyona? Would I relive the haunting nightmare of her execution?
I stand and advance toward the footboard.
“If Salom hadn’t gone after Svyato, I could’ve gotten Mestyla to meet with you.” Ksenia is hunched on her seat, face tipped toward her lap. Moonlight catches on the dried tracks of blood, making them shine black. “All of this could’ve been avoided.”
Except the Cauldron foresaw my niece’s death, so she’s wrong. Since Ksenia is oblivious to the prophecy, I don’t deliberate the subject with her. The same way I don’t blame Salom for this outcome. If anyone is to blame, it’s me, the man who revoked Salom’s bargain and thus permitted him to get close to Svyato.
I snap my fingers, levering Ksenia off the sleigh and planting her pitilessly onto the path. And then I hop off the footboard and blow her toward the corpse. Silence hangs in the quiet air like fog, thick and suffocating, blighted only by the crunch of our boots.
“We’ve already checked for a pulse, Princess,” one of the soldiers informs Isla, who’s kneeling beside the body, two fingers wedged into the base of the woman’s pearlescent neck.
“Then you have no issue with the princess checking for herself, now, do you?” Vance’s rhetorical question makes the soldier palm the pommel of his sword.
He better not pull it out, for if he does, I will wedge it inside his chest myself. Through his mouth.
Vance rolls his neck, his shaved scalp catching the drips of residual moonlight. “Do you know how fast I once split a man from neck to groin?”
Since Vance has got the man handled, I turn my attention back to the lifeless woman at his feet.
As I trace the sharp edges of her body, I ask Isla, “Is it her? The female from the prophecy?”
“Yes.” My fiancée sits back on her heels, her gaze riveted to the dagger plunged in the girl’s chest.
To think I gifted her a matching one tonight…
I crouch and flip a strand of white hair off my niece’s cheek. My pulse grows quiet as I stare at the spitting image of Alyona. No wonder everyone believed my sister had resurrected. As I observe her, conflicting emotions war within me—loathing, regret, relief, grief.
Isla sighs. “I always wondered why I’d use a dagger to commit the crime.”
Because she wasn’t the one who’d commit it…
My gaze drifts to the ring that shines atop her slender finger. Did our ruse spur Mestyla to come after me, or would she have come had I not tied myself to a shifter?
“You always wondered ?” Ksenia asks.
“Mestyla’s death was foretold by the Cauldron twenty-some years ago,” I explain, relishing how the information bleaches her complexion.
I skim a thumb over my breastbone that feels both rigid and tender. “I’m genuinely surprised that a person as well-informed as yourself hasn’t heard of the prophecy, sister.”
As I straighten from my crouch, I glance toward the sword my soldier is still grazing while glowering at the Serpent.
I contemplate tearing it from his scabbard and removing Mestyla’s head but settle on another manner of damnation. “Rossi, as long as there’s blood in a body, you can bring back the deceased, correct?”
Both Isla and Ksenia suck in air, both comprehending what I’m about to ask of the Serpent.
“Yes,” he replies calmly.
“I realize this would make her your responsibility, so naturally, this is your choice. But I would like to open my niece’s eyes, not just onto the world again, but onto the new version of Glace I’ve undertaken to create with Isla.”
“That’s a dreadful idea!” Ksenia bellows. “Not only does she want your necklace—your head—but she’ll also come after m?—”
I fling my hand up, again snapping her jaw shut. Hard enough to uproot more teeth? “I don’t care for your opinion, Ksen. Only Rossi’s and Isla’s.”
Isla climbs back to her feet, dusting the snow off her thin black dress. “You’d be giving her power.”
“Exactly!” Ksenia’s muffled exclamation makes my molars grit.
“Nevertheless, I like the idea,” my shifter princess says.
I do as well, but my reason is petty. I like the idea because my sister hates it.
Vance’s black eyes lower to Mestyla. “I’ve asked Daya.”
He keeps his arms crossed for so long that I assume Isla’s grandmother has refused to let him make a Serpent of my niece. But then he crouches, frees the dagger from Mestyla’s chest, and holds it up to Isla who blinks hard before taking possession of it. As fresh blood dribbles off the short blade, my fiancée steps back.
And back.
Suddenly, she freezes, stares down at her hands, and shudders. “This is… This is the image from the prophecy.”
“You’ve all lost your fucking marbles!” Ksenia stumbles forward, her bound hands and long skirt causing her to trip as she runs toward Vance who’s stooped over our niece, already lapping at her wound.
“Do not interrupt him.” I enclose the Serpent and Mestyla inside a dome of air that she desperately shoves against.
“What do you think she’ll do if his venom takes?” Ksenia screeches.
She’ll tell me truth.
“She’ll come after me! She’ll kill me!” Ksenia’s voice splinters the air.
“I won’t let her.” My cheeks tick. “Unless you betrayed our family, that is.”
A hailstone streaks down between us. I craft a second shield over my head and Isla’s, then stretch it out just far enough to also shelter Ksenia from the fast-approaching thundersnow.
My sister glances up at the sky, mouth pinched in shock that I’d guard her from the elements. In truth, even I’m shocked. I could claim my protection is a kneejerk reaction born of habit, but that would be a lie. Deep down, it’s a final attempt to cling to the possibility that our familial bond isn’t beyond repair.
Stare affixed to mine, Ksenia backs away. And then she whirls and trudges back to the sleigh. The silence of her retreat…of her rejection tolls through my marrow.
“Make sure she gets on the sleigh,” I instruct the soldier standing behind Vance, the sword-happy one currently lobbing fire at the hailstones.
He seems loath to go after her, nevertheless, he follows orders. I even catch him exchanging words with my sister, who hisses at him to be quiet.
Aodhan flies after them, swerving to avoid the incoming orbs of ice, before plummeting on the bench seat beside Ksenia.
Isla sidles near me and rests her head on my shoulder. “To give her a second chance is incredibly noble of you.”
I think she means Ksenia, but her attention is on Mestyla. Would she think less of me if she knew that my objective wasn’t honorable? I tug the dome of air that entrenches Vance and Mestyla over our heads to free one of my hands, then curl my arm around Isla’s waist and hold her tight.
A raspy gasp suddenly rents the air, followed by a possessed spasm. Mestyla’s body jerks and trembles as Serpent magic floods her veins, painting her milky eyes black, and her white hair burnt-carmine.
She slaps a hand across her forehead, where a trickle of black blood heralds the advent of a tusk. Upon seeing the stain, her lashes reel high. She gawks at her maker, whose mouth and nose are still scarlet with her old human blood, then at Isla, then at me.
“We’ll have to head into the ocean to complete the change,” Rossi says.
A rush of air slips through Isla’s teeth. “But the orcas?”
“They know their place.” I’d heard the Serpent had braved my oceans and had drawn quite the crowd doing so. “The only catch will be getting in and out of the agitated surf, since Imogen has yet to return, and this girl probably doesn’t have the faintest clue how to swim.”
“I’ll fly you there,” Isla volunteers as Mestyla watches on like we’d just been turned into mythical creatures.
Vance wipes his mouth on his knuckles. “When you’re in your other form, can you reach out to your father to check on Imogen? I know she’s busy with Salom, but she hasn’t been replying to me, which isn’t like her.”