Chapter 45
FORTY-FIVE
MORE GENTLY THAN SHE COULD HAVE IMAGINED UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, Oskaren detangled herself from Thia, laying her onto the stone like she was made of glass. “Solanthe,” she growled, clambering to her feet. “What are you doing here?”
Callista—Solanthe—ignored her, metallic eyes surveying the scene before her. “I must say, Thia. You’ve done well. I was convinced you would not succeed.”
“You.” Thia struggled to sit up. Oskaren stepped closer, and Thia gripped her leg gratefully. Whatever ounce of care she’d felt for Callista had dissipated, leaving her with only the rage she felt on behalf of Oskaren. “You got Oskaren cursed.”
The Mirror of Souls, Thia realized suddenly. Do you not love her? It had been about Oskaren, but not in the way she’d thought. The Mirror had been trying to warn her.
“Actually,” Solanthe said, taking another step toward them. “It was I who cursed Oskaren.” She surveyed the girl with some odd mixture of hunger and disgust, her gaze narrowing on Oskaren’s protective stance and the way Thia clutched her calf for balance. “Not well enough it seems.”
Oskaren’s hands tightened on her sword. “I will kill you if you harm any one of us,” she growled. “Why the charade?”
Solanthe smiled slightly, and Thia wanted to slap the expression off her face. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific. I have many charades.”
Oskaren raised her sword, pointing it at the sorceress’s chest. “Why let me think the king did it? If it was you?”
Solanthe stepped closer, pausing just before the reach of the blade. “Is that truly what you’d like to know? Not the depth of my care for you, whether I have regretted handing you such a fate after so many years of affection between us?”
“No.” Oskaren’s sword lowered a fraction. From fear, Thia realized, as the girl’s arm shook.
“Enough games,” Thia spat at Solanthe. “What do you want?”
The queen eyed her coldly, a much harsher look than the stiff-but-matronly mask she’d worn before. “You’re as insolent as your mother.”
Thia blinked. “You knew my mother?”
Solanthe smiled. “Sweet girl,” she said, her voice clear as a crystal. She seemed to be enjoying her ability to tantalize them with the truth. “Who do you think killed her?”
Thia’s head emptied. She felt cool, calm, in a terrifying sort of way.
Solanthe gave her a pitying look. “You’d be amazed how much more effective a ruler you can be when people don’t know it is you that governs them. Your mother was no different. I befriended her. Sheltered her. Guided her. Then, when I knew exactly what she was and who she had birthed, I killed her.”
Oskaren rammed her blade forward. Solanthe only tsked, giving a casual wave of her manicured hand, and the sword flew from Oskaren’s grip.
The girl stumbled forward, falling to her knees at Solanthe’s feet.
The woman rested a possessive hand on Oskaren’s hair, and when she twitched away, the older woman laughed.
But Thia only stared. Solanthe’s mouth hadn’t moved. Which meant—
“You’re the Mage Queen.”
The sorceress—the mage—leered. “You are a clever girl, aren’t you?”
Thia wanted to stand. She wanted to claw the humor right off the woman’s face. But she felt so heavy, so weak, like even sitting she might collapse. So she settled for balling her hands into fists. “Who the hell is King Caradoc then?”
Thran stepped in front of Thia, arms crossed. “A child of Irondeer,” he murmured, surprising her. “The unwanted son of one of the magistrate’s affairs.” He was visibly pale, his mouth a hard line. “Isn’t he?”
Solanthe’s snarl confirmed it. “A nameless bastard keen for coin. I needed a king, and he was more than willing to oblige. His eyes—a tragedy of his birth—only sold the ruse.” She inspected Thran with disgust. “I knew those birth records were found, just not by whom. Until you met him and decided to share your little insights about his unusual appearance.”
Thia gasped. The shard—she’d thought she’d seen a flash of silver when Thran had spoken of the king’s eyes outside Cyning. And other times, too, now that she was searching for it. She brandished the fragment at the woman. “You’ve been watching us.”
Solanthe shrugged. “I never lied, Thia. You could have found me in it if you’d possessed the ability. But portals operate in both directions.” She sniffed. “You should be grateful. You were never in any real danger, so long as my eye was on you.”
Thia frowned.
“Unfortunately,” Solanthe said, turning her attention back to Thran.
“I cannot say the same for you.” She offered him a frigid smile.
“I suppose I have the Storm Crow to thank for delivering you to me, far away from anyone who might wonder why the Silver Sorceress has an interest in you.” She lifted her hand and gave a sharp flick of her nail.
At first, Thia didn’t understand. Thran’s eyes bulged; he made a strange gurgling sound and bent at the waist.
Then Thia saw the sliver of red splitting his throat in two.
Blood gushed into his hands as he raised them to the wound, like he could push it back in. He fell to the floor, wheezing and thrashing, as more and more red pooled around him.
Thia screamed. She dragged herself toward him, practically crawling.
“Thran,” she cried, throat burning as she reached him.
She could see the ruins of his trachea dangling through the center of the cut, the speed at which blood was pooling telling her at least one of his arteries was severed as well.
She put a hand on his shoulder as sobs racked her weakened frame, and he turned his watery gaze to her.
He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
“I’m sorry,” Thia sobbed.
And then he was dead. Thia collapsed onto his chest, feeling sick. I’ll see you home. This was her fault.
Solanthe laughed. At the sound, Thia drew her knife, rage burning every cell in her body.
The mage seemed only more amused at Thia’s show of bravery. And it was not misplaced; she gave another wave of her hand, and an invisible force tore the dagger from Thia’s fingers.
“Go on then,” Thia snapped, glaring. “Kill us too. What are you waiting for?”
Solanthe smoothed her hair with a careful hand. “Thia, dear. I’m never rash. You will not die today.”
“Why not?” she demanded. She almost wished for it. To end this misery, when home was impossible now. To forget about Thran, dead on the ground beside her, his blood soaking through her breeches. “You’re the Tyrant, and I’m the Storm Crow. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Solanthe smirked. “As I said, I’m never rash.
I had to know if you possessed any of your mother’s gifts.
What an amusing way to find out and rid myself of a pesky witch infestation at the same time.
” She pressed her lips together thoughtfully.
“Such a disappointment you turned out to be. Oh, not to me, dear,” she added, at Thia’s confused expression.
“Your lack of talent is highly convenient to me. But I mourn to think just how devastated Melina would be to discover neither of her children inherited her prowess.”
Thia’s brain was slowly coming back alive, and while dwelling on her dream from the Mirror of Souls, another vision played through her mind at the queen’s words.
I knew your mother, Dess had said. She was singing.
It had never made sense why they’d been sharing a cell.
But if the Mirror had shown Thia something real, something more than just her feelings, then it could have shown Dess the same.
“Dess is my brother,” she breathed. She looked over at him, wonderingly.
He met her stare with one that was equally hopeful and horrified for what that would mean about his past. Now that she had stated it, she could see the truth of it, in the jaw so like the photos she had of her father when he was young, the same yellow-blond hair.
The nose that was Melina’s, short and pert.
And of course, those hazel eyes, so like her own.
Solanthe laughed. “Right again, Thia. I must say, I enjoy watching you piece it together. How exciting.”
Suddenly, Mavrel shot from his hiding place behind the boulder.
He dove for the mage’s face, talons extended to rip, to kill.
“You,” the queen shrieked. With his injured wing, it was a clumsy flight; he managed one vicious cut across the woman’s cheek before a snap of her fingers sent him flying back into the boulder, where he dropped to the ground stunned.
“I should have known you’d be here with them.
” She brushed an elegant hand over the blood dripping down her face, and her skin reappeared unblemished.
Oskaren slid across the floor to reach for Thia’s hand. “You’ll pay for what you’ve done,” she snarled.
Solanthe’s expression soured. “Your ego always did need checking, Ren-díeran. It seems I did not punish you enough the first time. A mistake I assure you I will not make again.”
Thia was suddenly exhausted. With Thran dead on the ground, Oskaren’s hand clutching hers hard enough to hurt, the truth of her brother ringing in her ears with no hope of saving him, she just wanted this over with.
But Solanthe still made no move to harm them.
Instead, she began pacing, expression thoughtful, as though her next words were as much for her own benefit as theirs.
“As for Melina’s children, you will live, for now, as I promised.
The Storm Crow is but a harbinger, after all. ”
There was a plan in motion, some greater plot the woman was alluding to, that Thia’s tired brain could not keep track of. “So?”
“So,” the woman hissed, turning to pace back in the other direction.
“If you are dead, there is nothing to set events in motion. I have spent decades searching for the last of the Dómgeorns. With the Storm Crow in my grasp, all I must do is wait. The child of House Nightwing will reveal themself before long.”
Something else was needling Thia, some other thread of the puzzle she had dropped.
The Storm Crow.
There was a reason her mother’s mirror had lit at her touch, just when she had been most desperate for knowledge of her.
A reason that poison had mysteriously disappeared from Oskaren’s veins all those nights ago.
A reason only she had felt the songs of the Losrohir in her bones.
A reason she had wished with her whole heart that Oskaren could have but one night, and then the girl had received it. You did something.
She thought of the first time she had seen Ren, the girl behind the curse, when she’d been tending her wounds, wishing there was something she could do to take her pain away. The spark.
And how she had seen the curse as a tangible thing in her most desperate moment, when all logic had left her and every guard she’d ever had was gone. And she’d known exactly what it was and how to break it.
They need only feel, and their desire is made manifest.
She looked at Oskaren, the hollow rings below her eyes from years of suffering, and felt her heart crack under the weight of love that flowed through her.
She looked at Dess, and she knew she would do anything, risk anything, give everything, to keep him safe.
And she looked last at Thran, who was afraid, but who was good. Who had died for her.
She let all that love become strength.
And clambered to her feet.
Two things happened at once. Oskaren stood, too, arm coming around her to hold her up. Solanthe raised that same red nail, pointing it at the dark-haired girl, silver lightning crackling at the tip.
Thia didn’t know what the woman intended, to curse her again or kill her.
She didn’t wait to find out. She let that strength explode out of her.
It became a beam of gold that began in her chest, then moved down her arms into her hands as she flung them forward.
Light burst forth, surrounding them in a shimmering, glorious sphere, just as Solanthe threw the crackling silver.
The force of the queen’s blow slammed against Thia’s shield, then ricocheted back toward her.
Solanthe threw up her own hands just in time to spare herself, but the force of it sent her careening backward.
She slammed into a boulder, hiccupping as it knocked the air from her lungs. A spot of red trickled onto her chin.
Then she fell. When she hit the stone floor, she did not move.
Thia sagged forward out of Oskaren’s grip, the abrupt surge of energy abandoning her. Dess’s palms clamped around her ribs instead, just before she fell.
“Thia,” he breathed, uncertain. “You’re a mage.”
The words hit her ears and bounced off. Her gaze was caught on Thran’s lifeless body, the pool of blood that still glimmered in the flickering green light. Then movement shifted in her periphery, and she managed to turn her head.
Oskaren approached a still Solanthe, sword clutched by a taut arm.
Dess’s grip tightened around Thia. “Kill her.”
Thia didn’t know if Oskaren heard or not, but it was clearly what she intended. Her gaze didn’t leave the queen as she took a determined step, then another. She paused only when she was directly above Solanthe, and then wavered.
“Ren,” Thia said gently.
The queen moved. She rolled upright, nostrils flaring. No sound left her lips, but the mountain groaned. The cavern walls shuddered, the rumble so loud, Thia felt it in her chest.
Rocks began to rain. Thia was immobile, torn between fleeing and dragging herself to Oskaren, who was still staring at the queen.
Then Dess wrenched her back just as a boulder crashed where she’d been standing.
“Ren!” Thia shrieked, her view of the girl now obscured.
“We have to go,” Dess yelled above the chaos. “The mountain is falling!”
“I won’t leave her,” Thia protested. She tried to twist away from him.
“I’m here,” Oskaren said, hand finding her face. The quiet cry of a bird alerted Thia to the presence of Mavrel, nestled in the girl’s other arm. Her knees shuddered with relief.
“The queen?” Dess asked.
Oskaren looked over Thia’s shoulder without dropping her hand. “Escaped. The rocks prevented me.”
Another boulder crashed to their left.
“We have to go,” Dess said.
There was a large stone already crushing Thran’s right leg. Thia knew they’d never be able to bring him, but it didn’t hurt any less as she turned her back and allowed Dess to half carry her toward the tunnel.
They sprinted for the exit, stones thundering around them.
Smaller shards tore at their skin; Oskaren disappeared to avoid a larger one, and for a terrifying moment Thia thought she was gone.
But then she reappeared to lead the way into the darkness.
Thia went next, Dess closely behind. The cavern gave a last shattering groan, and a stone dropped into the opening, sealing them out of the lair for good.