Chapter 45
FINAL WARNING
ASTROPHEL
THE SMOKE IS the first sign something’s wrong.
Thick, dark plumes of it curling around Leilani’s reaching fingers like snarling briars.
The laugh that chokes to a gasp the moment she takes up the sceptre is the second.
I push towards her. I should have stopped this.
But before I can reach her, she’s rising – hovering at shoulder-height.
I swallow, the spectre of Orthriel’s last warning an anvil in my chest.
All my fears, ever since the avalanche. Coming true.
‘Leilani,’ I yell, reaching for her. But her back bows in mid-air, the angle unnatural. She falls to the ground with a thud.
I sink to the floor, Tansy following at my heels. I trace Leilani’s jaw, call her name. Tansy is more methodical. She’s checking pulse points. Leilani’s eyes roll back. She starts to twitch.
Alive.
I sit there, helpless, no longer even thinking of the night-birds. Let them come. If Leilani is lost, what does any of it matter? I can only see her shimmering face, her puckering lips, her writhing limbs. She’s trying to speak. I bend closer.
Then she stills.
This is worse. This is a tearing in my chest. Ice infusing every vein.
Move. Move.
I shake her. Roughly. She’s limp as the rag doll she held clamped to her chest the first time I ever saw her. I stare over at Tansy. She’s checking again, her movements jerkier now. And then she stops, lets fall Leilani’s wrist. She’s shaking her head.
‘She’s gone.’
No.
She should never have attempted this – no good can come of meddling with Shadow Lore. The Queen’s stories taught me that. I curse, running my fingers along her jaw again. She was too slight to ever control it. Could never hope to master it.
For a long moment, no one speaks. Then people are crying, pressing closer.
I screw my eyes shut. A child’s hope. If I don’t see it, it isn’t true.
But my hands are shaking; grief shreds at my chest, flaying me as the night-birds savaged the Clanschief’s face.
And then, a gasp.
My eyes fly open. The Princess is staring back at me. Warmth floods my body again. She’s mumbling, something about finding the next sceptre. But I can’t focus on the words. Slowly, my blood refreezes. This should be a miracle; her eyes are open, her lips are moving.
Only it’s not Leilani’s eyes staring back at me.
They’re darker, deeper. Colder.
Orthriel’s warning ricochets my mind like the cries of the mutilated night-birds still echoing this cave. Leilani was Shadow-Marked, yes – as they’d told the others. But this final warning the cielsylph reserved for me alone.
‘For I trust you to do what they will not,’ Orthriel said.
‘What I failed to do when it happened to Noelani. What I cannot do for Leilani, not weak as I am.’ They sighed.
‘The corruption has begun, but she may rally. You’ll know it’s too late if her eyes change.
If they darken, then you must be on your guard.
For then she’s begun a true descent into Shadow, one she may never come back from. Do you understand?’
I nodded, dumbstruck.
‘You swore to the King to protect her, Astrophel. I need you to swear it again, this time to me. But know this; when it comes to it, the one Leilani may need protecting from is herself. If she can’t resist the contamination, if she starts to behave in ways that put others at risk, then prophecy or no prophecy, you’ll have to act.
She’s Starborn, never forget that, and a dying star can burn bright enough to reduce the four realms to ash. Can I trust you with this?’
As I look down at this new Leilani, who now wields her ancestor’s eyes as well as her sceptre, I no longer know.
The change is begun. If she can’t fight this, if we can’t fulfil the prophecy before Shadow consumes her, how far will I go to protect her – this woman I’ve come to imagine my future with…
Unto death?