Chapter Forty-Five Ayleth #2
“Oh no?” Selene asks, arching an eyebrow. “Then prove me wrong. Make your choice: Jacquetta or the crown.”
My heartbeat slams against my ribs, repeating the words like a drumbeat:
Jacquetta or the crown. Jacquetta or the crown.
If I surrender the Bloodstones, the Heirs will reforge the Veil. I’ll lose everything. To them. But if I don’t…my eyes meet Jacquetta’s. There’s a plea in her anguished gaze.
Forget her, that voice orders. She’s not worth this.
A thin line of blood trickles down Jacquetta’s neck. Della and Sindony draw their own blades. Nox growls, ready to pounce. That deep instinct thrums, begging me to use my shadows. Destroy Selene and the others. But I don’t move. Don’t get the chance to do anything.
Because a scream shatters the courtyard.
Della arches back, her face contorted in agony. At first, I assume one of my archers survived and fired a shot. But then Della sinks to her knees, revealing the shadowy form behind her. One with glowing crimson eyes.
“Shade?” I breathe, torn between relief and confusion. “What are you doing here?”
In answer, my Huntsman withdraws his hand from Della’s back. The orb of her power pulses faintly in his palm. The other witches scream and scatter, but my focus is fixed on Shade as he glides toward me, shadows wafting like smoke from his limbs
For you, my queen, he rasps.
And then he extracts something else from the shadowy folds of his body: my crown.
The jagged shards of the Bloodstones begin to glow, sensing Della’s power.
“The crown!” Selene shouts. “There!”
The other witches charge, throwing spells in our direction. But a wall of shadow rises up, keeping everyone else back.
Take it, Shade repeats, oblivious to the others. Do what you promised. End them.
It is what I promised. What I wanted: for all the covens’ magic to be destroyed, leaving only Malum.
But now, as I stare at the Bloodstone crown, I do not sense the tug of my destiny.
Instead, there is only emptiness. This may be the crown from the prophecy, but what has it really given me?
Not glory. And certainly not happiness. If I take the Heirs’ magic, what will that really solve?
How soon before someone else comes and snatches this crown from my own hands—an endless cycle of violence and betrayal.
An endless pit of hunger I’ll never be able to sate.
I find Jacquetta’s gaze through the tempest of shadows, the bright blue of her eyes like a beacon.
For the first time in a long time, I know exactly what to do.
“No,” I say to Shade, shaking my head. “Not this way.”
You swore to us, he says, something low and lethal in his voice. Bound yourself.
“I know. But all this crown has brought us is bloodshed. Ruin. That isn’t who I want to be. Let’s choose a different path, Shade. Together.”
My Huntsman pauses, his shadows curling around him, uncertain. For a moment, I think I’ve reached him. The fire in his gaze dulls in the slightest. But then…
So be it, he replies.
His grip tightens around Della’s heart. Black fissures expand through its surface, like glass cracking. Della screams where she’s huddled on the ground.
“Wait!” I cry. “Shade, don’t!”
On instinct, I send my shadows on my Huntsman. But they…don’t come.
I see them, just out of my reach, but they refuse to heed my call. Even my own power dims inside my chest, like a heartbeat growing fainter.
“What’s happening?” I ask, horrifed. “What have you done?”
In Shade’s hand, Della’s orb of magic shrivels to a husk. The other witch utters a last, despairing whimper, and then stills.
We will have our vengeance, Shade rasps. If you will not get it for us, then we shall serve another. The true queen.
The true queen.
But he can’t mean—
As if in answer, the ground begins to quake. Wind gusts around us, so fierce that the bones of the Sanctum groan under its pressure. Tree branches lash back and forth, startled birds flying from their nests as they’re swept away.
“What is this?” Selene shouts over the tumult. “What’s going on?”
Before I can do anything to warn them, the earth splits beneath our feet. A chasm, just like what I witnessed in the Great Hall, wrenches open and a body drags itself out of the darkness, one that is twisted and rotten and wrong.
The lost princess.
The other witches freeze where they stand, gaping at the creature in abject horror.
And I know in this moment that they did not summon her.
That they’re as powerless as I am. Power that shrinks even further as I watch Shade approach the corpse-like creature and present her with the crown.
She wraps her skeletal fingers around the Bloodstones and places it on her head with a smile that chills my blood.
“Well,” she says in that croaking voice. “Now that this has been returned to me, let us see if we can manage the rest. Huntsman, bring me their hearts.”
Shade’s eyes meet mine, a hunger I do not recognize burning in their depths.
Yes, my queen, he rasps.
This time, I know he does not mean me.
In a blur of darkness, Shade lunges. I reach for my shadows, but it’s useless.
They will not obey. Shade barrels toward me and I brace for the blow.
For my own heart to be ripped free of its moorings.
Instead, a roar splits between us, followed by a hulking shape.
Nox. I barely have enough time to leap out of the way before the Nevenwolf lands, squaring off against Shade.
Confusion tangles my thoughts. If I can’t command the shadows, why has Nox come to my defense?
The Nevenwolf looks back at me and chuffs, jerking his head toward the forest.
I don’t need to be told twice. I turn on my heel, locate Jacquetta in the chaos, and race in her direction.
“Come on!” I shout, grabbing her hand and pulling her along with me.
We sprint together through the Sanctum’s gate.
But we don’t get far. Directly ahead of us, the trees begin to tremble.
Wood cracks and groans. And then, to my complete astonishment, the roots of the trees rip themselves out of the ground.
They slap back down onto the earth, find purchase, and raise the trunks up with them so it appears as though an army of massive, monstrous spiders towers above us.
The trees give themselves a shake, leaves falling from their branches. And then they charge.
Horror climbs up my throat.
The trees’ long roots travel like tentacles, limbs sweeping down to pluck bodies like they’re no more than toys. A gray oak scoops a man up and neatly snaps him in two, then flings the mangled pieces of his corpse away.
“This way!” I shout, veering in the other direction.
Jacquetta doesn’t follow. “Mother!”
She bolts back toward the Sanctum, where one of the trees is attacking Nerissa, its long, fingerlike branches puncturing the earth around the other witch. Nerissa is dodging as best she can, but the tree is at least a hundred times her size.
“Jacquetta!” I call. “Wait!”
Branches spear down around me as I rush after her.
I weave in and out of their path, narrowly avoiding being impaled.
Other witches aren’t as lucky. To my right, I spot Selene, her body crushed beneath a broken tree limb.
Another witch is in pieces, her sightless eyes staring into the sky.
I ignore the way my stomach roils and propel myself forward, focused on Jacquetta.
When I reach her, the other witch is kneeling beside Nerissa, who is sprawled on the ground with a branch sticking out of her chest. Blood pours from the wound and pools around her. Limns her lips in sticky garnet.
“Please,” Jacquetta sobs. She turns to me, her hands gloved in red as she vainly attempts to stanch the wound. “Please—help.”
But there’s nothing I can do. Not even the strongest Blessed could make a difference now. Nerissa’s bloodshot eyes shift to Jacquetta and her lips move. But her words just gurgle, blood spurting from her mouth. And then the light drains from Nerissa’s eyes.
“No!” Jacquetta screams. “Come back! Please!”
She crumples over her mother’s lifeless form.
Despite everything between us, I want to hold her.
Offer some comfort. But there’s no time.
An ensorcelled tree is lumbering in our direction.
I’m just able to pull Jacquetta away before one of its arms can cleave us in two.
It lands on Nerissa instead, eliciting a sickening crack of bone.
“We have to go,” I beg Jacquetta. “We’ll die if we don’t.”
She finally obeys. We race through the battlefield and toward the forest, the sound of the creature’s haunting laughter echoing behind us.