Epilogue
Connor
I felt the shift just before I entered the throne room.
My mother’s royal attendants stepped forward, bowing deeply, bending almost double in that scraping, fawning manner the Queen demanded, and were about to push open the enormous gilt doors so I could enter. But then I felt it—that chime, the thrum that rang through the bowels of our reality.
“Stop,” I snapped, unable to disguise my rage.
One guard flinched and hesitated, a trembling hand on the door handle. He turned to look at me but dropped his eyes quickly. “Your Highness?”
Burning fury coursed through me. I itched to take it out on this foppish fool, to smash my fists into his soft pale face.
Behind me, my assassins grew still. Argathon, clad in his pitch-black armor, had removed his helmet, baring his scarred and pitted face.
Purg drifted behind him, the diaphanous black cloak barely holding him together, still physically weakened but magically sound.
Grisela brought up the rear, a giant pile of rocks wrapped up in a frilly black dress in deference to the occasion.
The guards at the door avoided looking at my assassins; their obvious fear was almost a cloying stench.
I unclenched my jaw with difficulty. “Leave,” I spat out. “All of you.”
Another far braver attendant cleared his throat. “Forgive me, Your Highness, but we cannot leave the doors unattended. We must announce those who come to court.”
I bit out the words with effort. “You will leave now, turn away all other courtiers, and wait until I summon you, or I shall have your heads on pikes outside the castle gates before morning.” I exhaled a long breath through my nose. “I must speak to my mother in private.”
Not that we would have any privacy. The Queen was never alone.
She sat on her obsidian throne flanked by her private guards and surrounded by a handful of advisers.
The advisers were all elderly cretins, and her guards, although skilled, had not landed a blow outside of sparring sessions in decades.
The attendants glanced at each other nervously but obeyed me, retreating down the hallway and disappearing through the doors at the end of the corridor.
“Sire?” Purg’s voice was like a dry leaf skittering along hard ground. “Sire, I felt?—”
I whipped towards him, teeth bared. “I know. Do you think that I do not sense it, you fool? If one more word falls from your lips, I swear I will whip off your new binding cloak and scatter your essence from one end of this wretched realm to the other.”
Purg scuttled back behind Grisela.
I turned back towards the throne room doors, breathing deeply in through my nose, trying to contain my rage.
My brother had made it out just in time.
Despite all my careful planning, despite the danger I had put myself in, that wretched buffoon of a woman had managed to slink into the Under and bring him back.
He was alive, and victory had been snatched from my grip with mere seconds to spare.
I clenched my fists, so angry I could burn and crush the castle to ashes.
No. No, this was my home.
Argathon shifted on his feet, his armor creaked. “Sire… what will we do?”
“As always, Argathon,” I growled. “You will do what I tell you.”
My plan had failed, but I had another. I would take the stone, no matter what.
I tossed my head. “Follow me.” I pushed open the huge doors and stalked angrily into the throne room.
Our footsteps echoed in the enormous, cavernous room. A mile away, the dais rose high in the air, granite steps leading to the mighty obsidian throne.
My mother was there, waiting. She sat on the throne, wearing a glittering black gown that wrapped low around her shoulders, artfully draped, falling like a waterfall down her curves.
It looked like the royal tailors had stripped a section of the midnight sky and molded it to her tall, statuesque figure.
The Queen sat on the edge of the throne, spine rigid, leaning forward slightly, her beautiful, terrible face—framed by the thick curtain of her jet-black hair—tense, her peridot eyes glittering, her pearly white skin paler than usual.
She was waiting for me.
I lifted my chin. “Venus has risen,” I called out. “My brother is dead.”
The advisers surrounding her gasped, clutching their chests. Her guards—clad in black armor that had never seen battle and weighed down by swords that had never clashed with another—tensed and edged closer to the throne.
My mother didn’t move an inch. But I saw it, even from this distance. I saw the shadow that passed over her face. I’d never seen her display even a modicum of emotion, but in that small moment, she might as well have thrown back her head, gnashed her teeth, and wailed to the heavens.
Her favorite was dead.
It didn’t hurt anymore. Or, rather, it wouldn’t very soon.
An adviser—a elderly mage in a brown robe—bent low beside her. “We shall inform the scribes, and we shall confirm the news, Your Majesty.” His voice trembled. “Perhaps all is not lost.”
My fingers twitched. Not yet.
My mother gave an infinitesimal nod, and four robed men rushed off the dais and down the steps, barreling towards us.
I felt my assassin’s eyes on me as the advisers drew closer, heading towards the doors. I shook my head subtly, indicating that they should let them go. They would inform the scribes first. By the time they found out that my wretched brother was still alive, it would be too late.
I kept walking towards the throne, my steps echoing like the toll of Death’s bell. My mother glared down at me as I approached. Stopping at the edge of the dais, I bowed deeply and held my hands behind my back.
A dagger flashed in my palm.
TO BE CONTINUED