Chapter 43
Guinevere
Alaric’s face is distorted with agony as his attack continues.
Fog swims at the edge of my vision. The room spins. I shake my head but cannot clear it.
Alaric’s hand is clamped around my wrist. His tone is urgent. “Run, Guin.”
“No.”
“You have to run. She’ll destroy your heart if she burns you.”
“Snap out of it.” I push hard against his chest with my free hand, but it’s useless.
“You know I cannot.” His grip is firm. He’s always been stronger than I am.
“I should have listened to you. I was not ready.”
“You must be ready now, Guin. Or she will make me destroy you.”
A vision of all of Blackthorn trapped under her power washes over me. They’d be forced to endure her forever. Alaric would be bound to her forever.
Leaning in, I snatch his dagger and pull it from the sheath at his belt. Then I shut my eyes as I thrust it home.
Alaric grunts. He bends forward in pain, dropping my wrist.
I duck and roll away, but more guards have pushed inside the room, blocking me from getting to the queen.
I run for the mirror, but a slim young guard steps into my path.
I leap forward, throwing my shoulder into the belly of a tall gruff guard, making him double over. The second man I knee in the groin, and he wheezes and drops to the floor.
Two more approach, weapons drawn. There’s not enough room to move, and the ones behind me are up on their feet again.
The first sword pierces my side. I gasp. The guard—a tall man with a scar across his brow–withdraws the blade, but his companion plunges his into my belly, and I shudder. I stumble back, but the guards behind me add their weapons, and I’m stuck like a pig on a spit.
Alaric pulls the dagger from his belly and drops it to the floor with a clatter.
I have moments to escape him. I yank myself free of the guards’ blades, twisting until they tear through skin and cloth.
Then I pull the last from my body and turn it on its owner, stabbing him clean through the heart before he can react.
I didn’t want to hurt them. There’s only one person I came here to kill, but she is out of my reach.
The guards weren’t ready for me to keep fighting.
Their eyes widen in fear. Bright red blood spurts from the dying guard as I drag the sword out of him and plunge it into the next man, the young guard, whose green eyes are framed with dark lashes.
His mouth opens in a choked cry as the sword slices into him and blood bubbles erupt from his lips.
“I’m sorry.” I blink away tears. I cannot stop now.
I look around for Melantha, but she’s nowhere to be seen.
A hand catches my broken, aching wrist with impenetrable force. “Cut it off,” he growls. “Do whatever you must.”
“No,” I whisper, horrified.
Alaric grabs my other hand and drags both behind my body, holding me firmly, and though I fight and stomp on his feet, he will not let me go. The queen’s power is too strong.
“Behind the mirror,” I tell him through a sob. “Your heart.”
He jerks, his body tensing, and starts toward the mirror.
Melantha reappears in the doorway. “She must be destroyed. Take her to the square and tie her up to a stake. Make sure she cannot escape.”
And just like that, Alaric turns again with a groan and carries me out into the corridor.
My hands and feet bound, Alaric sits me on a wooden bench, glancing away as he straightens and goes to work building the pyre. Slowly he gathers firewood and stacks it against the base of the wooden structure until a tall pike sits in the center of a mound of fuel.
I do not know how much time has passed. Clouds hide the sun. A crowd gathers. Palace guards circle the square and hold them back, but they keep coming until they are pressing shoulder to shoulder in a ring four, five, six deep, their eyes wide, leaning toward each other to whisper in hushed voices.
“Is it really the princess?”
“I heard she died.”
“That thing is not the princess. It’s an imposter. Look how pale her skin is.”
“I heard she raised the wights. Is she a witch?”
“I say she’s a monster from the Gloamwald who’s taken the form of the princess.”
On and on it goes until it forms a torrent rushing through my ears.
All of a sudden the noise dies and the crowd parts.
In places, the guards have to force people back to make a clear path for Melantha.
The queen has dressed herself in a long purple dress with gold trim.
Her cloak is hemmed with white fur, and on her head she wears my father’s crown.
The rushing in my ears returns, but this time it has nothing to do with the voices of the townsfolk.
Anger surges within me until I tug on the ropes binding me, longing to jump to my feet to find a weapon that will serve to drive into her cold heart.
She looks down her sharp nose at me, then turns to the crowd. “Today we have captured the witch responsible for the wights that have plagued our town. Today we end this and restore peace to our lands.”
The cheer from the crowd chills me. How easily she’s used this for her gain. Made herself look like their savior. It eats at me that her words are true. I am responsible. In coming back here, I brought this on them.
“Tie her to the stake,” she commands Alaric.
His hands are gentle on the ropes as he unties me and helps me stand. None of this is his fault. I see that now like I never could before.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper as he leads me up the three wooden steps.
When I glance up at his face, his expression is pained. He looks away.
I’ve failed him. I did not listen. He was right, as he always was when he told me the truth I did not wish to hear. My poor gargoyles. I’ll never return to them.
Melantha raises her hands and spreads them wide. “Now the witch will burn and we will be free of this plague.”
There’s another cheer as two of the guards hold torches to the fuel below the pyre.
What will it feel like to burn? There’s an awful wait as the fire is lit and the small twigs and animal dung start to burn, and I wonder if it will hurt more than being torn apart by wolves.
Will it kill me? Or does the queen have further horrors in store for me?
She will never let me go. That I’m sure of.
When the first logs finally catch alight, the flames finally reach high enough to really heat me. People in the crowd grow restless. A woman at the front calls out. I cannot make out the words. A man with a patchwork cloak throws something, which splatters against the base of the pyre.
I didn’t have time to think when I died on Alaric’s sword. This death is slower, far more awful. There’s so much more time to anticipate the pain.
As the flames rise, I hold back my screams. The heat is searing, but it is only when my clothes catch fire that the sting becomes unbearable. My lips crack as they draw back from my teeth in a grimace, but still I can’t hold back the cry of pain that rips from me.
Melantha’s expression is triumphant. Her guards watch on coldly. It’s only Alaric who is pacing the square, unable to keep still.
When I cry out again, he spins. The look on his face is furious, but as he strides toward the pyre, I catch a glimpse of something else through the flames. Sparks flare and smoke stings my eyes, but there’s a wild look in his blue eyes that is all desperation.
At the foot of the stairs he doesn’t stop. Alaric walks into the fire like it’s an April shower. Like it isn’t licking and snapping at his flesh with a thousand sharp teeth.
My back bows and my fingers and toes clench and I scream. The next moment his arms are around me and he holds me close, dropping his mouth to my ear so I can hear over the crackling fire. “If you burn, I burn with you.”
I’d cry, but the fire snatches my tears before I can weep. It burns the ropes binding my hands, and I fall forward against Alaric. I want to tell him to get out. To leave me and save himself. I cannot. I’m not strong enough to do this without him.
As another sob of pain wracks my body and flings my head back, I stare up at the sky, searching for a star. Wishing a hopeless wish—that this will end—but if the stars are out, they are smothered by thick clouds.
Something jolts the stake so hard I’m almost knocked off my feet. I look but catch only a blur of movement in the sky.
There’s a shout from the crowd and screams. People are pointing.
Melantha shrieks and covers her head, screaming for the guards to protect her. “What new witchcraft is this?”
I almost laugh. Am I hallucinating? I could swear I see my three beautiful gargoyles diving and wheeling in the air above the crowd.
“Finally.” I don’t understand Alaric’s murmur. Next moment he stoops to lift me into his arms. It’s torture everywhere he touches me, but I no longer have the will to scream. I find it, though, when he passes me—still burning—into Raban’s arms as he swoops low above the pyre.
“Take her to the river!”
With powerful beats of his wings, Raban lifts us higher into the sky. Words tumble from my lips. “No. Not the river.”
“Princess, you’re on fire. We need to put you out.”
“No. The queen’s solar. There’s something I must do.”
“Princess—”
“The window. If you love me, then do what I say.”
A tortured look crosses his face, but he beats his wings again and directs us toward the tower. Everything hurts. I don’t dare think about it, though. I must get to Alaric’s heart.
We crash through the window, and I stumble away from Raban before I can set him alight too.
“Wait!” Rushing to the bed, he snatches a heavy blanket and throws it around me, finally smothering the flames.
I whimper. The pain is intense. But I have one last chance and will not hesitate this time.
Clenching my fists, I stagger to my feet. I drag myself to the dressing table and yank away the cloth covering the mirror. Then I catch sight of my reflection. For a moment I can barely comprehend that it’s me.
My face is blacked and singed, my long hair burned away, my lips raw and chapped. My clothes are all but gone, rags hanging from my frame. From my arms and legs, skin sloughs away in drifts that turn my stomach.
Shutting my eyes, I reach around the mirror, searching for the hidden catch. My fingers slide over smooth wood fruitlessly.
With a scream, I snatch up the chair and smash the mirror, revealing the cabinet behind where a small silver chest sits hidden. Reaching through the mess of broken glass, I close my hand around it and draw it out.
Mine at last.