32. Chapter 32 #2
“What about Lily?” I ask, letting the pieces of the letter tumble to the floor. Maxine and Bella share a silent look as I add, “Surely, we can’t just leave her behind?”
Bella swallows in regret. “She’ll die on that boat, Shadow. She’s hasn’t finished healing from the Dreamshade poisoning yet.”
I shoot her a furtive glare. “Are you implying that we should leave her here to die? To be pinned beneath a pile of rubble when these walls come crumbling down?” I cross my arms and plant my heels where I stand. “Over my dead body.”
“Don’t do that, Shay.” Maxine sighs. “You can’t know for certain what will happen.
She’s well protected within the infirmary by an entire legion of dragons.
For all we know, she might be perfectly safe.
Safer than us, even.” She clutches my hand, her lips thinning in severity.
“Plus, the queen is not looking for Lily. She’s looking for you.
Which means that you must leave here at once before she finds you and kills you. ”
A stubborn, angry rash blooms along my neck, growing larger with each passing second.
“The queen vowed to kill Lily too, don’t you remember that?
She vowed to kill us all. We can’t just leave Lily behind.
It’s not right.” A loud boom erupts above, causing more bits of loose rock and ash to tumble over our heads.
“I apologize in advance for this,” Maxine says with a sweep of my legs, sprawling me flat on my back with a heavy thump, like a deadweight. “But at least your leg is healed, am I right?”
“WHAT THE FUCK.”
The two of them proceed to hoist me up by the arms and legs and then drag me through the arched doorway. I twist and scream against their grips and say, “You’re not sorry, you she-devil incarnates! Put me down!”
But they don’t listen. Instead, they carry me down a steep staircase smothered in inky-black darkness, where mossy plants cling to the walls like curtains of dread, and twilight vines twirl like slithering snakes.
With each step, I twist my hips like a contortionist in my attempt to escape, but the sleeping potion has left my body weakened in the aftermath, my waning strength no match for the persistent determination of my friends.
Those bitches.
“We’re nearly there,” Bella says through gritted teeth, her voice tinged with regret and misery.
“I’m not going anywhere without Lily.” I throttle my body forward and slip out of their grasps, only to land on my ass in the tunnel’s stone-laden ingress. The impact of which quickly reminds me that my shoulder is still mending.
Ouch.
The pebbled shoreline of the Silverhorn River glistens back at me like polished glass and wisps of moonlight, cradling a group of bobbing boats that sway in silent anticipation of our arrival.
I roll onto my stomach with a groan, only for Maxine and Bella to sweep me back into a stand, allowing me to use their bodies as buoys as I find my slippery footing amongst the jagged pebbles.
“Thanks,” I grumble, spotting a group of boats drifting toward us.
A shrill whistle pierces the sky, coming from the castle’s turreted towers, which are barely visible beneath the dark eclipse of a dragon’s silhouette. An onyx beast soars over the castle drawbridge, releasing an inferno of fire from its depths.
“Sulfuric pits,” I whisper in horror. “Dragons.”
And then one of the boats explodes in a shower of splinters and smoke.
“Get down!” Bella shrieks, throwing her body over me. The other boats quickly retreat into the fog as I glance around Bella to see what all the commotion is about. Oh dear. Whoever had been manning that first boat is long dead by now… and it's all my fault.
“You thought you could run from me?” A shrill voice penetrates the air.
I spot a glint of something white in my peripheral vision.
It’s refracting off a crown that’s decorated in quicksilver twine, matching a gown of silver-spun lace and fractals of ice.
“Did you really believe yourselves to be so clever?” The voice comes again as the queen lifts the hem of her elegant dress and wades into the river.
The pull of her power draws in a frenzy of fish who swim around her in tight circles as she adds, “No one takes me for a fool and lives to tell the tale. Especially not you three.” Her lips pull back to reveal a pretty white snarl.
“Come out, my pretties, and face your doom. I can smell you.”
“Quick! Hide!” Maxine whispers, grabbing me and Bella and dragging us behind the trunk of a nearby tree.
I peer around the tree and continue watching.
The queen’s gown ripples like liquid silver against the current of water, the gentle fluidity of its fabric contrasting starkly against her intense gaze, which locks onto three women standing across the riverbank—three women who are not us.
The women are all adorned in sable robes that look stitched from abysmal darkness, their crowns laden in forest twigs.
Each of their crowns seems to represent a different season, with its own brand of uniqueness: Spring, Fall, and Winter.
They look like the Harvest Queens.
The women I saw in my dreams.
The ones who vowed to Augustine that they would protect me.
“My dear nieces!” The queen’s voice pinches the air like a poisonous sting.
“It’s so nice to see you. I was beginning to wonder whether you’d ever show your faces again, considering how hard you’ve been working to undermine my Divine Army with those bombs of yours.
How many innocent people have died under your watch, I wonder? And you call me the monster?”
The first woman’s eyes narrow in disgust. Beautiful eyes the color of sepia clouds and tree resin. Eyes that I recognize. Hang on…
I know them.
“I heard from a little birdy that you were coming to collect the raven for me,” the queen continues, her voice grating on my nerve endings. “She’s here, isn’t she? In this very forest… hiding. I can smell her.” She sniffs the air and looks around with glee.
Amber and Sunshine restrain Snow by the shoulders, holding her back as she fights and thrashes like a rabid wolf, wild-eyed and hungry to dive headfirst into the water and pommel the queen’s face into her skull, from the looks of it.
Wait. They’re the Harvest Queens?
The queen pauses in the middle of the river where she releases an amused laugh.
The current creeps to a halt around her, as if deciding she’s its new sense of gravity.
Quicker than a bone break, she snaps her head toward the tree where I’m hiding, almost like she can see straight through the trunk itself… right into me.
“Do you want to be the ones to tell her, or should I?” She curtails a smile.
Sunshine sniffles like a mother who’s lost her child. “Please, please, don’t do this…”
Snow lunges out of Amber’s grasp and charges.
In return, a thread of golden magic explodes from the queen’s fingertip, shimmering like a serrated ray of the sun.
It races across the river and creates a thin veil as tough as rock, which Snow ricochets right off.
The little light weaves around a pair of oversized boulders next, squeezing between the thorny bramble of the forest thicket.
It sails over a bush laden in smog, until finally, it winds itself around a tree.
My tree.
And then it winds itself around me, like a lasso.
Bella’s nails leave behind indents in my skin as she tries to secure me in place.
Maxine curses like a sailor as she throws her body over mine.
But their combined strength is no match for that single little thread of bloodmagic, which hauls me onto the riverbank despite my incessant kicking and screaming.
Plop.
Someone wraps their arms around my neck. I close my fists and prepare to swing, only to realize that Sunshine is embracing me in a tight hug. Relief floods through me now that I’m free of the magical string and in the arms of someone familiar. I drop my arms and exhale against her body.
“Thank the gods you’re still in one piece,” she says.
“Tell her!” the queen screeches.
“Everything we’ve ever done is to protect you,” Sunshine explains with urgency, taking a step back and surveying me, her hands clasped in mine. “You must believe me.”