All of it was Her
I was panicking, trying desperately to think of a way out of this throne room. I was so used to fearing my shadows. But this fear from not being able to reach out to them or use them was far worse.
Malvina just stood there in front of Caedryn’s throne with a wicked smile. And then it hit me where I knew that smile, why she looked familiar. But there was no way. It couldn’t be. I had to be wrong…
“Thank you, Sevrin, you’ve served me well over the years, and it all led to this moment.
” Malvina smiled at the Arcanum leader I had spent months with.
I thought back to our first meeting when he said he’d been expecting me…
Malvina was why. She must have positioned him at the base as an informant. The thought made my blood boil.
Zareth walked to stand by Malvina’s other side. His face was unreadable, impossible to tell whether he was shocked by the king’s death or in on it.
But if he wasn’t under Malvina’s control, then I had to assume he was in on this coup too.
“She’s breathing!” Bramick’s teary-eyed shout from where he held a too-still Aerie was the single greatest thing I had ever heard.
We were still in a horrible situation, but at least she was alive.
Bramick had been frozen by Malvina’s magic while holding Aerie just like the rest of us, but it seemed he was breaking through her magic enough to pull Aerie closer to him.
I’d made a sneer over the shock and anger over Sevrin’s betrayal.
He pulled Aerie closer in his relief she was alive.
Maybe there was a pattern here…any time someone could resist her mind control, it came during an emotional outburst. Powerful emotions might just be the key.
It seemed to resist her magic or at least wear her down.
“I can see you are all in shock. You have some catching up to do.” Malvina stepped over one of Caedryn’s outstretched, motionless legs as she walked straight past Varyn toward me. The prince’s tears and anger made him look deranged, but she paid him no mind.
“It’s me you want, Malvina,” I said. “Let the rest go, and we can talk about whatever you want.” I had to do anything I could to get my crew to safety and away from her. I had no idea what she was capable of at this point.
“Do you see a way out, Noxie?”
I didn’t get a response.
“Noxie?” Now my panic was becoming all-consuming. Why couldn’t I reach him?
Something fundamental shifted in me at the thought of his death. I’d be permanently changed forever. I couldn’t feel our bond, but surely I’d have felt it break if he were…
Extreme emotions…I leaned into it and lunged for the queen from ten paces away.
Her momentary shock wore off too quickly. She shouted, “Stop!” directly into my mind, and I froze once more with my dagger raised in one hand, the black flames now back to orange.
She fixed her face, took a deep breath, and continued. “We have two important matters to discuss, Naci. Which shall I start with? Who I am to you, or who you are to me?”
I was trying to process too many things at once to even speak.
“Let’s start with who you are to me.” She knelt next to Caedryn, and what I thought would be a remorseful or even sad gesture toward her dead husband turned out to be far more sinister.
She grabbed the crown from his head and removed her own, throwing hers unceremoniously aside, placing the king’s crown of thorns upon her own head.
I saw where this was going, and I was helpless to stop it. My heart raced faster.
“You see, I am the Queen of Ashenholt now.” She crossed to Varyn and lifted his chin to look at her. “You will legitimize my claim over yours to the throne.”
“Why would I ever do that, you murderous bitch?” He sounded as angry as I felt.
“Silence!” She backhanded him, a small drop of blood forming on his cheek where one of her sharp red nails cut him. She seemed to really hate being called a bitch. “This is Naci’s party, not yours. Do not ruin it for her.”
Varyn fell silent, with a heaving chest, making me wonder if she was using mind control on him to keep him quiet now too.
“Where you come into this, Naci, is quite delicious. You’re a powerful Umbrathren not unlike me—”
“I’m nothing like you!”
“Silence!” This command settled into my brain, leaving me with a pounding headache, and I was forced to obey. “Will the interruptions ever stop? As I was saying… You and I would make a great team, you know? Together, we could conquer more than just Ashenholt, more than just the continents, even.”
Gods…she wanted to rule all of Caelia. And even more than Caelia? I couldn’t fathom what that meant—she wanted to conquer other realms too? The gods’ realm?
And she wanted to use me to do it.
She paused her speech for dramatic effect, making me wonder how many times she’d rehearsed it. My hatred for this woman grew with every word she spoke. She was so different now than she had been when I was a prisoner here. It had all been a lie, a facade.
She’d been biding her time. Planning from the shadows.
I’d gotten funny feelings around her, and now it all made sense.
How many times had she mind-controlled me already?
I’d felt the tingling in my scalp at least thrice that I could recall—once during the dinner after which everything changed, when I’d been imprisoned and Caedryn revealed that he’d killed my mother.
That night, Varyn had just stared silently at his glass.
Gods, maybe she had been controlling him, too, that night.
“Sevrin and I have a theory about you,” she continued before I could go down that path in my mind. “That unique sight of yours. Do you know the story of the fallen goddess?”
I didn’t know what she was talking about. I’d never heard such a story.
She looked around as if she were waiting for an answer, even though she knew none of us could speak, before continuing.
“Legend says that one goddess bestowed a powerful gift upon a fae child and was banished from the gods’ realm for it.
Gods are not supposed to interfere in the affairs of our realm.
Around the same time that this rumor began among the Umbrathren scholars, a prophecy was made. Sevrin?”
His eyes turned white, and his voice was…
inhuman when he spoke, as if he were reciting something in a voice not entirely his own.
“Born now, under a blood moon, is One with the power to save or end all of Caelia. Her duality and circumstances will determine whether the former or the latter comes to pass. She will toe the line between good and evil. The connections she makes, or the bonds that will break, will determine her—and Caelia’s—fate. ”
There was no way. No, it didn’t make sense. What they were suggesting was preposterous.
But then again, it held some merit—the duality, the double sight, good versus evil. Did that mean my fire and shadow? My normal and my magical vision? Could this prophecy actually be about me?
No. Absolutely not.
“The theory then is this,” Malvina continued.
“Because both the prophecy and the banished goddess happened around the time of your birth—the prophecy was made about you, a terrifying, powerful fae that could rule or ruin the world, and one goddess bestowed a special power within you to help tip the scales toward savior over destruction, leading to her banishment. That special vision of yours is unheard of, yes?”
Was…was she saying what I thought she was saying? Blood rushed in my ears, and my black and gray vision pulsed, making me shake my head. How could they be sure, of every fae born around my birth, I was the one it referred to?
“You understand, even if you do not comprehend,” Malvina finished with a grin.
I looked to Drayce next to me to find my shock, disbelief, and fear mirrored right back.
I knew before it happened what she was going to say next.
“That brings me to who I am to you. Any thoughts, Naci? You may speak.”
I swallowed. Gods, I hoped I was wrong. “You’re…
Aemilia’s mother, Nella’s mother. You’re the black-haired homewrecker.
” My anger was building, and though I couldn’t call to my vey form, I could feel the shadows raging inside.
“You did something to her, to Keryth!” I thought of the manic journal entries—it had been Malvina.
“You mind-controlled her to leave Cassius and me!”
She just smiled, revealing her sharp, fae canines. I saw all the proof I needed in her features.
“Your husband killed your own daughter, and you let him!” Nella had been her child… I couldn’t fathom how a mother could watch her daughter be butchered and do nothing, feel nothing.
Evil wasn’t a strong enough word. This female was something demented, twisted, like I couldn’t describe.
My mother had loved me. Nella’s? This bitch had to die.
Drayce dropped to his knees and let out a bellow of fury. He was resisting…and he could move. He seemed to realize it the same moment I did. He launched his water magic at Malvina at the same time Bramick sent a sharp pillar of earth careening toward her.
Seems it wasn’t just me that picked up on her waning control.
In her rush to throw up a shield of raw magic, her mind control seemed to drop and the whole crew felt it.
Despite the freedom to move now, I stood paralyzed in anger at Malvina’s revelation while Drayce conjured a storm overhead and Bramick shook the ground below.
Kellan sent another throwing star directly at Malvina’s face as Bernitha abandoned all notion of magic and charged at the queen with her sword held high.
Her battle cry instilled hope in even my broken heart and prompted me to join in the attack, sending a shadow from one hand and flames from the other toward the queen.
With a scream of fury, Malvina threw her arms wide, and her shield exploded out from her in a barely visible wave that extinguished our magic and knocked Bernitha back off her feet.