Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
MAVERICK
E mory stepped out of the nook, and Driscoll gestured to the ground. “You two might want to sit or risk fainting when I tell you the truth.”
“What truth?” Emory asked as she sank to the ground, stretching out her legs and tucking a stray wisp of white-blond hair behind her ear.
Dust and soot covered her pale skin, her blue eyes as searing as ever as she set them upon Driscoll. After years spent wondering what she might look like, I wasn’t sure I could’ve conjured up a face like Emory’s if I’d tried. Those delicate features, her high cheekbones and straight nose, her full pink lips. I looked away as I sat against the opposite wall. Also a murderer. A liar.
I hid my identity from her because it could jeopardize my entire profession. She’d hid hers from me because... because she’d been married. I couldn’t get it out of my head. I couldn’t make the sharp thorns of that betrayal dull. Married. Another man touching her, kissing her, loving her. It wasn’t fair to her to be angry about her marriage. I knew it wasn’t. She’d just been following our rules. And she’d never crossed any lines with me. I’d been the one crossing lines. But murder? I could be angry about murder. It was just so unlike her. That was the part that hurt. It made me feel like I really hadn’t known her at all.
Driscoll sat next to Emory. “It’s a really long, sordid tale that I’m going to skip so I can get straight to the plot twist. A revelation. Something Leoni and I discovered on our journey together with Princess Poppy.”
I sat down, drawing up a knee and roping my arm around it. “What revelation?” I asked.
Driscoll took a deep, steadying breath. “The shadow king is actually Spirit Shadow.”
My heart stopped, and the floor tilted under me.
Driscoll waved his hand. “The gist of it is that we found Queen Priscilla, queen of the shadow court, and she confirmed Spirit Shadow is alive and well.”
But Queen Priscilla died along with her husband and baby during the Shadow War. At least that’s what we’d all believed.
“Queen Priscilla found Spirit Shadow’s dagger. She also found Spirit Shadow’s crypt, right here in Shiraeth. She’d wanted to release him and beg for his help in the Shadow War, which they were losing, hoping he’d help change the tide, help Sorrengard win. So she used the dagger to release him from the tomb where he’d been trapped. But things didn’t go as planned. After she released him, he tore through Shiraeth and destroyed everyone and everything before returning to the shadow court, where he’s bound until the other six spirits are freed as well.”
I blinked, staring at the ground, then looking back at that opened tomb, then back to the ground. This couldn’t be true. This wasn’t possible. The spirits hadn’t been trapped. All evidence pointed to the fact that thousands of years ago they’d made the decision to leave, to go to Galaysia, where they waited to greet souls to the spirit world, to welcome them in death. They’d been meddling too much in human lives, and the elementals of the Old World were becoming too violent, too greedy with the powers the spirits gifted them. So the spirits destroyed them and disappeared. Then our direct ancestors found Arathia a thousand years later and settled here. The spirits decided to give us humans a second chance, to gift us their powers. But this time, they stayed away. No meddling. No getting involved.
What Driscoll was saying . . .
I looked at him; he was still petting the wolf. “How did Spirit Shadow get trapped?”
“I don’t know how he got trapped or who trapped him.” Driscoll shrugged. “Queen Priscilla died after revealing all of this information to us. But she said the other spirits are trapped too. The spirits’ weapons are the keys to freeing them all.”
Emory stood, pacing now. “So what does he want?”
Driscoll swallowed. “Queen Priscilla claimed he wants to free the other spirits. But he needs the weapons to free the other spirits. He has some of them already.” He ticked off his fingers. “His dagger, Spirit Water’s trident, and Spirit Earth’s bow and arrow. He’s trying to gather the weapons so he can set all the spirits free and they can get revenge for being trapped so long ago.”
Emory stopped, hand floating to her mouth.
This couldn’t be happening. And everyone at the academy had missed all the signs somehow. Or they didn’t want to see the signs.
“We have to get that bolt back,” Emory said, likely thinking the same thing as I was.
“What about getting out of here?” Driscoll threw his hands up. “You guys just can’t help yourselves.”
“You two don’t need to do anything else.” I cut my hand across my body. “Leave and I will take care of finding the bolt.”
Emory stared at me, planting her hands on her hips. “So you can get all the glory? Find the bolt and be the hero? No, I don’t think so. That bolt could be the only thing that saves me at this point.” She raised her chin. “I can use it to bargain for my freedom.”
“That’s what you care about right now?” I snorted. “Not that our entire world is in danger of going extinct, exactly like what happened to the Old World?”
“Is that why you want the bolt, then?” she asked, accusation in her eyes.
I looked away. “That’s none of your business. And the frost queen won’t bargain with you. She’s not the bargaining type. Not the forgiving type. She’s been humiliated by you for years. Time and time again you’ve gotten your hands on valuable objects that you’ve taken right from under her nose. She won’t let you go free.”
“We’ll see about that,” she said. “Maybe if I give her the name of the bone collector, it will change her mind.”
I stiffened at that threat. Stubborn, stubborn woman.
“Wait.” She faced Driscoll. “Is that why the king of Apolis called that conclave? Is that what he wanted to tell all the rulers?”
Driscoll nodded. “And it doesn’t sound like it went well. The frost queen stormed out.”
“Because she’s in denial. But why?” Emory said. “To defeat this threat, we’re going to need all the courts to band together.”
I agreed, but I’d have never been so brazen to say something like that out loud. Not when she employed me, held the key to my future—and was known to imprison those who spoke against her. All the rulers of Arathia were bad about sweeping things under the rug, ignoring threats, but the frost queen might have been the worst of them all.
“We’ve found where Spirit Shadow was trapped,” Driscoll said. “This is huge. And also really bad. Especially because the only people with this information are currently in a crypt somewhere in the Deadlands with a giant wolf who’s probably going to wake soon and be very grumpy—and hungry.”
Emory swiped the dust from her pants. “Well let’s just hope our magic returns before that happens.”
“Let me know if it does. I’m exhausted and tired of you two and your bickering. I’m going to take a nap,” Driscoll lay down and rolled over. “Let me know if wolfy wakes up.”
“You can sleep too,” Emory said to me. “I’ll keep watch.”
“I’m not tired.” I should have been, but my mind was racing with theories, reeling from all the information Driscoll had just shared.
“Me neither,” Emory said.
The sound of Driscoll’s snores filled the crypt, his chest already rising and falling in a slow rhythm.
Perfect. So it was just me and the white rabbit, then.