Chapter Thirty-One Ayleth
Chapter Thirty-One
Ayleth
Though I intended to rejoin the party after leaving Jacquetta, I lingered in the garden, having no patience for the court. No desire to see her milling around the guests.
Which means I do not hear the screaming until it’s far too late.
“We’re under attack!” someone bellows in the distance. “Followers!”
I sprint down the garden paths and toward the lights of the Great Hall. A battle is already raging in the side courtyard. Steel sings and flesh tears as the guards engage with the Followers, at least double the number we faced in the forest. How had they gotten in? And why didn’t Callen alert me?
“Ayleth!”
Jacquetta’s voice carries above the tumult. She weaves through the fighting to reach me, her mask discarded and her gown already torn. Suspicion taps at the nape of my neck. The last time Followers showed up, she was among them.
“What the hell is going on?” I demand. “Is this your doing?”
She throws up her hands. “Oh, of course—blame me, as always. How would I have—”
The ground rumbles beneath our feet. Wind howls through the courtyard. Above us, black clouds lumber toward the palace. But something about them seems odd. They look far more ominous than any storm should. Almost…
Sentient, the word rises from the depths of my mind and every nerve in my body fires.
Lightning crackles over the sky. A bright violet bolt spears the ground, leaving a steaming hole in the flagstones. We leap away from it before we tumble into the crater. And that’s when I know: Jacquetta isn’t behind this attack. It’s the same witch from the forest.
Better than you, that voice needles. Stronger.
“Inside!” I shout, pulling Jacquetta with me toward the palace.
Another bolt of violet lightning strikes a nearby statue of a bathing maiden. It should shatter the marble into a thousand pieces. Instead, glowing vein-like fissures web over the maiden’s body. Then, to my utter horror, the statue’s head turns. Her eyes blaze crimson, boring into mine.
“What on earth?” I murmur, staring at the thing as if spelled.
Stone creaks as the statue detaches its feet from the pedestal and steps down. And she’s not alone. Several dragon-like creatures shake themselves free of their moorings and roar. A griffin flares its wings and, impossibly, takes to the air with a shriek.
“Watch out!” Jacquetta yells.
She shoves me aside as the stone maiden’s arm sweeps toward us. It knocks over a few Followers like they’re nothing more than pins.
“Come on!” I shout.
We race back to the palace, dodging as the stone griffins dive, their talons rending faces and shredding flesh.
Bones snap as the dragon-like gargoyles lunge at Followers and guards alike.
One of the beasts veers into our path, causing Jacquetta to stumble.
I scramble to help her, but I’m too slow.
The stone maiden catches up with us. Her massive, marble arm arches above our heads, preparing to strike.
“Ayleth!” Jacquetta screams.
I hurl my shadows out with all my strength.
Darkness pummels into the statue’s torso.
The stone maiden freezes mid-swing. I urge my shadows deeper, bent on destroying the monstrous thing.
But as my power reaches the statue’s core, I sense a faint rhythm.
Almost like a…beating heart, like what I feel when I hold a witch’s latent magic in my hands.
But how can that be? The statue possesses no power. It’s carved from stone.
Or it was.
Abruptly, the statue’s eyes darken. The fissures in its body rapidly expand and—with an earsplitting crack—the whole thing bursts apart.
Jacquetta and I cling to each other, my shadows shielding us from the jagged, flying pieces of the statue’s body.
Not everyone is so lucky. A nearby guard is impaled by a spear of marble.
A Follower is crushed beneath the remains of the maiden’s leg.
“What the fuck is going on?” Jacquetta heaves between breaths.
“I don’t know,” I reply. “But—”
A sharp cry jerks my attention to the right. One of the nearby windows has been smashed out, the remnants of stained glass like broken teeth. And that’s when I see her: Blodwyn.
The princess is near the tree in the center of the chamber, surrounded by Followers. She’s managed to find a sword and is diving and parrying against their attacks. But she won’t last long.
Good, that voice supplies. Let her die.
Maybe I should. But then one of the Followers strikes the princess from behind.
She drops to her knees and every nerve in my body screams in outrage.
Before I fully realize what I’m doing, I leap through the window, summoning shadows as I go.
Followers flood the chamber from every direction.
A man charges toward me, sword raised. I send my shadows out, snapping his neck with a swift crack.
Blodwyn is just a few feet away now. I can almost—
A menacing groan, like a beast rising from the deep, halts me in my tracks.
The massive tree begins to tremble. Glass apples tumble from the branches and burst against the marble floor.
I dart out of the way as one of its limbs crashes down in front of me.
And then—as though cleaved by an invisible axe—the trunk itself splits down the middle.
The living and dead halves of the tree fall away from each other, crushing bodies as they land.
I watch in horror as the floor below the tree rips wide.
From its depths, inky shadows, like tentacles, slither out of the void.
They snake through the chamber, latching onto courtiers or Followers and dragging them into the darkness.
“What on—” I breathe, hardly able to comprehend what I’m seeing.
“Help!”
My senses rush back to me, recognizing Blodwyn’s cry. A tendril of whatever is coming out of the ground has wrapped around her ankle and is reeling her toward the gaping hole. I leap over bodies and debris, just able to snatch her forearms before she’s pulled into the abyss.
“I’m here,” I say. “Hold on!”
I send my shadows to help, but they shrivel away from the force as though they’ve been burned—just like what happened with Nox. And at the Mine.
“Ayleth, please!” Blodwyn begs.
You don’t care about her, that voice again. Just let go. It’s better if she dies.
But in this moment, all I can see in Blodwyn’s panicked gaze is the young girl I used to know.
The girl I used to be as well, who needed anyone to save her.
Whatever comes next, I will not let her fall.
Gritting my teeth, I pull even harder. But the void pulls as well.
My shoulders strain in their sockets. Blodwyn’s hands slip in my grip.
Her left falls away entirely. She screams and grapples for purchase. I reach for her, but—
“I’ve got her!”
Another pair of hands grabs Blodwyn’s dangling wrist.
It’s Jacquetta.
For an instant, all I can do is stare at the other witch. Why is she helping?
“Come on,” she calls. “Pull!”
Shaking myself out of my stupor, I do as she says. Jacquetta and I haul Blodwyn to safety. The princess struggles to her feet, breathless as she stares at the smoking crevasse yawning before us, the chasm seeming to stretch endlessly downward.
“Look!” Jacquetta grips my arm.
At first, I don’t understand what she’s talking about. Then…
A hand reaches out of the abyss and plants itself on the ground.
Then another. And then, like something out of a nightmare, a figure drags itself out of the deep.
At first glance, I think it’s a person. But the angles of its body are all wrong.
Flesh hangs from its frame, greenish and rotting and so unnatural that my stomach roils.
The creature’s yellow eyes sweep over the crowd.
“Enough!” it shouts, its gravelly voice resonating over the chamber.
Everything halts.
The statues, who have chased us inside from the courtyard instantly smash to the ground. The fury of the storm ceases. The resulting quiet is nearly as deafening as the battle had been, broken only with the sound of weeping or whimpers. Until—
“Meira!”
A person who I assume to be a Follower fights his way through the wreckage and falls to his knees in front of the creature, his hands raised in reverence.
“Goddess! You have returned. You’ve come back for us and now we can—”
The creature tears into the man’s chest with its bare hand and rips out his heart.
It happens so quickly that the Follower utters only the briefest of cries, his bewildered attention fixed to the ragged hole in his own chest, before swaying on his feet and sinking in a limp heap to the ground.
The creature surveys its kill with bored indifference, the Follower’s blood dripping from between its fingers.
And then…it lifts the heart and takes a bite.
Every part of me recoils, watching as trails of blood run down the creature’s chin and neck. A few people around me retch. The creature pays them no mind. It devours a few more bites, flesh sticking to its teeth, then flings away the remains of the Follower’s heart like the pit of a fruit.
“I have no interest in your ilk,” the creature says. Its lips are slick with gore. “I seek the princess.”
Blodwyn? Jacquetta and I share a panicked look.
On instinct, I push the princess behind me. But even that was a mistake. The creature’s head whips in our direction. She points a finger, the end tapered like a claw.
“Ah. There she is.”
“Stay away from her,” I warn, calling my shadows.
The creature’s attention pivots to me, those feral, yellow eyes glittering.
“Usurper,” it seethes.
Terror lances down my spine. “Who are you?”
The creature laughs, a hideous crunching sound. “You will all know my name soon enough. The so-called White Kings have stolen from me. And it is you who will pay the price.”
With that, it lunges for Blodwyn.
“Stop!” I cry, throwing my shadows out.
But they barely graze the creature’s body before falling away. The hideous thing advances, its outstretched arm reaching for Blodwyn, who trips over the debris as she attempts to escape.
Something whistles past my face.
The creature hisses as an arrow embeds in its torso. I whirl around to see who fired it. Warbeck’s son, Gavin, stands a short distance away, another arrow already nocked.
“Don’t touch her!” he shouts, letting the shot fly.
The creature bellows as the arrow pierces its shoulder. But then it sends a rush of air in Gavin’s direction, knocking the boy aside like a ragdoll.
“People of Riven,” the creature addresses the hall, dagger-like teeth bared. “Hear me: I will return. When I do, you may either follow me or this entire palace—this entire realm—will feel my wrath. For the reign of White is at an end. And I am the true queen.”
There’s another bone-rattling crack, and then the creature vanishes into the chasm, which seals up behind it, leaving nothing but its haunting words:
I am the true queen.