Chapter 25
HADRIEN
The queen had grown even more powerful than when I’d last seen her three years ago.
Her power was now so palpable that I could feel it slither in heavy energetic waves across the feet separating us at Valgarde.
Pressure rose against my chest, as if she were pressing her icy hand on me.
Triumph gleamed in her eyes as she drew on dark magic to silence me forever.
I drew on all my gargoyle strength and magic.
But it wouldn’t be enough to shield us all—and not at all sufficient to protect Valgarde from the queen.
I’d lose my ancestral home to Mireille, letting down those who came before me, but I’d learned to resign myself to that inevitable fate as the poppy had hardened.
The mass of dark energy that churned and grew and coiled between her long fingers forged into something devastatingly bleak that promised total darkness. It didn’t surprise me. I expected this from Mireille.
What I didn’t expect was Lilia and what she’d done.
As Mireille launched her devastating assault by hurling the mass at me, Lilia leaped in front of me and gasped out my name.
This tiny human who tended flowers and hummed to plants had just thrown herself between a massive gargoyle and a powerful queen. That had to be the bravest and most reckless thing I’d ever witnessed.
My greatest fear realized. I’d always thought it was when the curse finally claimed me and I eventually succumbed to my stone tomb. But now it became clear. I could lose Valgarde, my land, everything—but I couldn’t lose her.
Every instinct detonated at once.
Protect her.
Years of strategy and control in military operations dissolved in a heartbeat as something more primal took over.
Protect her. Whatever it takes.
My wings spread wide and snapped shut around Lilia as I soared up from the ground.
But it was too late. The queen’s spell hit hard, throttling breath from my lungs, and the force drove us down. My feet slammed the cobblestones hard, but I locked my wings around her, my body being the only thing to protect her from the darkness.
I crouched, pulling her close against my chest, as the queen shrieked, continuing her relentless assault.
The world outside my wings was noise and fury, with her dark magic hammering at stone.
Inside them, it was warmth and gentleness with Lilia’s breath against my chest, her hands wrapped around my torso, entrusting me to protect her.
I roared as the spell pummeled my wings, the force so powerful it rattled my bones and set my teeth on edge, but I wouldn’t let go.
Never. I couldn’t let anyone get to her.
But beneath the hammering, something was different.
The queen’s magic was meeting a resistance inside my stone it hadn’t expected—something warm threaded through the cold, a living presence woven into me so recently I could still feel the shape of it.
Hers. Whatever she’d done in the courtyard with her plant brew worked inside me, still holding.
And the queen’s darkness was pouring against my wings, seeking a weak spot to penetrate.
Something pressed against the inner surface of my wing. Something small and warm and comforting. I’d recognize that touch anywhere.
Lilia’s hand.