CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Igazed into the mirror once the maids had finished dressing me, relieved to find Preston and Nerissa had ordered me to be clothed in leathers that reminded me of Garrick’s hunting outfit or the attire of a fae warrior, not a flimsy dress fit for a sacrifice. It seemed they wanted to continue the farce of using me to be Silverfrost’s savior until the last moment. In some twisted way, they were delighting in their deception, just like the other games they’d played.
While one of the women left to summon an escort for me, I considered the conversation I’d had with Garrick and the Ashwoods the previous night.
“They need more than my blood,” I’d explained, “or else they would have killed me and drained it from me the moment they learned of my heritage. They need me alive to open the entrance. And yet, all this time, they’ve also feared me and suppressed my magic. I don’t understand. If they’ve weakened me and I doubt my ability to command my power...how do they expect me to succeed?”
“It’s possible the entrance is easier to open—especially since it’s already ajar—than it is to close,” Prince Fitz had mused. “It would likely take more effort to undo what has already begun. If it’s already open, your presence and willingness to open it might be all that’s required. But to close it? That could demand a lot of power.”
“It always takes more power to hold the darkness back than to join it,” Prince Holden agreed. “It’s likely that you need to be at full magical strength to send back the demons and seal the entrance.”
A knock at the door jolted me from my reverie, and I straightened as one of the maids opened the door for an escort of four guards. While the guards were likely a way to show the court that the king and queen wouldn’t allow anyone to kidnap me again, I couldn’t help but also see it as a sign of their fear of me, no matter what Preston said. They knew my magic was no longer locked away. Outside of my enchanted rooms, I was free to wield it as I pleased.
I could only pray it would be strong enough to do what I needed to.
Wordlessly, I filed out, letting a male and female guard each take the lead while two others flanked us. It was a long trek through the castle and down into its bowels, past the dungeons and through catacombs lit with flickering torches. Our footsteps echoed in the cramped space as we wound through countless tunnels, past silent tombs of Silverfrosts long dead. The air smelled dank and smoky, while the shadows were heavy. The same dread I’d experienced each time I neared underworld creatures settled in my chest, though this time it multiplied a hundredfold.
At last, the sounds of people murmuring pierced the eerie silence. We rounded a final few bends in the catacombs before entering an open, well-lit space. The same one I’d seen in the vision Preston had given me, when he and Nerissa had first emerged from the underworld. Cobwebs clung to the edges of the ceiling, which was a little taller here, letting me feel like I could breathe freely after the cramped tunnels we’d exited. Three of the walls were smooth and bare, plain earth without any tombs or signs of disturbance. Just before us, King Preston and Queen Nerissa stood on a stone floor with a small group of heavily armed fae guards.
Ahead of the siblings, on the far wall, was the entrance to the underworld itself. If I’d thought the air had been oppressive before, it was now suffocating. The door was simple grey stone, carved with ancient markings in a forgotten language. One side was slightly ajar, offering a glimpse into nothing but blackness. Worse than blackness. It felt like a void, like endless nothingness and despair and misery.
I’d expected a larger crowd to witness this supposedly glorious moment, but I supposed this was where the siblings’ show ended. It didn’t matter if anyone watched what happened next—perhaps they felt it would be easier to manipulate me if they didn’t have others around who might interfere. Once the demons infiltrated our world, they would soon overrun the kingdom. Everyone would know of my failure.
It was a grave reminder that I could not fail. Too many innocent lives hung in the balance.
Foreboding raked its icy claws down my spine as my escort closed in about me, two of the guards seizing my arms. Here it was: the moment when the undead souls before me enacted whatever plan of manipulation they had in store. I could only hope that, while they were distracted, the rebels, Ashwoods, and Garrick could make it down here in time.
“Where are the demons I am to return to the underworld?” I asked, trying to sound confident as the guards dragged me toward Preston, Nerissa, and the waiting door. “Wouldn’t they need to be present to be returned?”
Preston waved a careless hand. “There’s no need to play pretend anymore, Snowflake.”
My eyes darted back and forth between the guards, from those lined up beside the royals to the ones holding me in their iron clutches. I scowled. “How did you gain their assistance in destroying the world?”
Nerissa smiled contentedly as she stalked forward, her eyes piercing mine. “Their cooperation ensures their lives will be spared. Now, enough stalling. You have work to do.” She drew a dagger from her belt, letting the naked blade reflect in the dim light of the lanterns as she raised it toward me.
I scoffed. “As if I’ll open the entrance for you. My intention has always been to close it.” My breath frosted between us as the air grew chillier, full of the threat of my building magic.
But Nerissa’s gaze remained unafraid. Without drawing her eyes from me, she snapped her fingers.
Movement pulled my attention away from her, toward another row of guards, ones I hadn’t seen before because they were carefully tucked behind the first. Bound and gagged between a pair of them, struggling in vain against their strong immortal grasps, was my half-brother.
My heart dropped. “Charles?”
Caught in my fight for freedom and survival in this cruel world, desperate to rescue Garrick and secure a better future for us, I’d scarcely spared my half-brother a thought since he’d so callously abandoned me to this fate.
One of the guards ripped the gag from Charles’s mouth, and he gasped, his wild eyes meeting mine. His face was pale with fear; his dark hair tousled and greasy as if he hadn’t had the opportunity to bathe in days. Dark circles rested beneath his eyes like bruises, and he trembled with fear. “Flor—ren— Ren,” he choked out.
I didn’t hate him. I couldn’t. As much as his betrayal had cut me to my core, had made my heart ache and bleed, he was still the brother I’d grown up with. The boy I’d played chess with and teased. The one with my stepfather’s chin and mannerisms, so dear in their familiarity. The one who, like me, shared our mother’s eyes.
He’d betrayed me to this suffering, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to experience the same cruel life.
“You and Aspen thought you were the only clever ones making plans, didn’t you?” Nerissa crossed her arms, tucking her dagger against her chest, as her stare bored into mine and her voice went cold. “Open the entrance for us or watch him die.”
My pulse raced. “Charlie,” I breathed.
A guard kicked him to his knees, and he grunted in pain, grimacing as he crashed to the stone floor. The fae set a knife to my half-brother’s throat, a silent promise. When Charles lifted his head, his eyes were shimmering with silver—tears he was trying desperately not to let fall. Did he still fear me? Did he hate me? Did he only see me as a way to survive, or did he feel remorse for what he’d condemned me to?
“I’m sorry, Ren,” he said, his tone soft. I wondered when he’d last eaten, and how long Preston and Nerissa had held him in Silverfrost. How long had he been shut up here, either in these forsaken dungeons or in the hellish ones beneath the fortress? Had they tormented him? Left him to be leached of all hope by demons? My stomach churned as the images rose unbidden in my mind.
Pity rent my heart in two.
“You’re better than any of us,” he went on, blinking against his tears. “You always have been. The kindest, gentlest person in Altidvale. The most patient, despite all the unkind words we spoke about you. What I did was...” He trailed off, shaking his head.
“Unforgivable?” I supplied. Despite the ache in my chest, my tone was icy. For as much as I hated to see him suffer, I also hated to see him beg for mercy from the woman he’d shown none to. I couldn’t help the bitterness that rose to meet my compassion.
Charles didn’t deny it. “Yes,” he said, even as he continued to tremble. He didn’t avert his gaze, meeting mine unwaveringly. There wasn’t fear or disgust in his eyes—at least, not of me. Now, I was his salvation. But was that all I was to him? “I could apologize a thousand times, yet it wouldn’t be enough to atone for what I did—the pain I put you through, the way I cast you off.”
I tried and failed to swallow the lump in my throat.
“Very touching,” Preston cut in, jerking my attention to him. “But we aren’t going to wait forever for you to make your choice. Open the door, or he dies.”
The guard’s hand tightened on the knife he held to Charles’s neck, poised to strike. I knew it was all for show. I might be able to stop a guard with my magic and defend Charles, but the fae were truly holding him for Preston or Nerissa. And their magic—a simple flick of their wrist could end him. I didn’t know how to stop that.
“And when I open the entrance to the underworld and all hell breaks free, Charles will be killed anyway,” I protested.
Preston’s smile was slow and cruel. “Oh no. Just like our bargains with the guards here, we will promise both yours and your half-brother’s safety. Silverfrost may fall, but you can both escape to go live out your days in your human world.”
And watch it fall around us as demons torment and murder our people, I thought darkly.
I turned to Charles again, heart thrashing in my chest. I was desperate, trembling. A tear broke free and trailed down his cheek, making him look so vulnerable and young. He was my little brother again, falling and scraping his knee on pebbles in the road, tearfully accepting my embrace as I helped him home and cleaned the wound.
I knew I couldn’t trust Preston and Nerissa’s word. As undead souls, they could lie.
“I forgive you,” I choked out, my own tears blurring my vision as I met Charles’s gaze. “Even if I’m unsure if you only beg my forgiveness now because you’re afraid for your own life.”
Charles made the smallest jerk of his head, all he could risk with the point of a blade pressed to his throat. “I love you, Ren. Don’t open the door.”
I gaped at him. He wanted me to watch him die?
But if I opened the entrance, countless lives would be lost. I would be sacrificing them for only one man. I thought of Garrick and Aspen, of the rebels who’d waited and placed their hope in me for years. I thought of the Ashwoods and their willingness to help me take my crown. I thought of the injured Silverfrost soldiers and the respect in their eyes when they saw how I took the time to notice and care for them. I thought of the healer who’d cared for me in Northelm and deferentially referred to me as her queen, and every citizen who had watched me with joy and welcome in their expressions, not seeing a human but their leader, their protector. And I thought of the people in my hometown, both those who’d treated me well and those who’d scorned me.
Countless fae and human lives were at stake, and whether some had wronged me or not, they didn’t deserve the endless torture that awaited them if the underworld devoured the living one.
And yet...who would I be if I sacrificed my own half-brother?
It wouldn’t be that simple, anyway. I knew that in my heart. If I stood by and let Preston and Nerissa order his death, they wouldn’t let me walk away without manipulating me in some new way. They wouldn’t rest until they could use me to exact their revenge. After Charles, perhaps it would be Aspen or Garrick. They’d find everyone I cared about, strip me of every person that made life worth living.
But if I could stall long enough for Garrick, the Ashwoods, and the rebels to arrive, perhaps we could rescue Charles together and subdue Preston and Nerissa, at least long enough for me to seal the door.
As if reading my thoughts, Preston strolled closer, a sneer across his face. He glanced back toward the catacombs, where a rumbling began as skeletons erupted from their coffins, spilling toward the entrance of our room. Cutting off any means of escape—or my reinforcements’ route through. “I know why you try to stall,” he said. “But whatever plans you think you’ve made...you’re alone. No one is coming, Snowflake. It’s just your little human self and your half-brother against us and our death magic. You can’t kill us.” The rotten stench of his breath enveloped me like a cage.
I stared at the skeletons standing like sentinels, prepared to fight and hold back anyone who tried to come to us. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end at the unnatural sight. Countless empty eye sockets and gaping jaws grinned back at me, their finger bones clinking together as they fisted their hands.
My stomach sank. There would never be enough time then, not for Charles. I had only one choice.
“I love you, Charlie,” I said, and then I stepped forward. Stale air from the underworld filled my lungs as I approached its door. I could taste it on my tongue: coppery with the scent of blood and despair. Terror made my knees tremble as I held out my hand toward Nerissa, prepared to accept the dagger she clutched.
She gave me a smile that was all teeth. “You don’t need to spill your blood to open it, not when you live. It’s there, inside of you. This was merely for if you didn’t cooperate.”
I frowned, absorbing her words. When I’d fought off underworld creatures in the past, I’d had to use my blood to repel them, but perhaps that was because my magic had been frail from forget-me-nots and little practice. All along, I hadn’t needed to weaken myself.
Inhaling sharply, I pressed my palm against the door, feeling the scrape of rough stone against my skin. It was cold—colder than the frost and ice and snow my magic could summon. Colder than death. The sensation sank all the way to my bones, a sharp ache of pain from the shock of such a loss of warmth in my body. I shuddered, squeezing my eyes shut as I attempted to concentrate.
Open, I thought. My body quaked, muscles spasming with cold and fear and overcoming despair. Every ounce of me rebelled, instinctively knowing that nothing good could come out from behind the door.
Gritting my teeth, I thought of the light that flared from my very blood. Starlight. But I wasn’t trying to repel the demons this time; I needed to force the door to harken to my will. There was power flowing through my veins that could command this entrance, could determine the fate of the world itself. I mustered every ounce of authority, every piece of me that ached to protect Charles.
“Open,” I ordered, and my voice didn’t even seem like my own anymore. It was that of an uncompromising queen, confident in her power and her strength. It was low and yet loud, echoing in the chamber.
With an anticlimactic creak, the entrance swung further and further inward, until I stood before nothing but gaping blackness. The scents of decay and blood poured forth, as if welcoming me into an icy embrace. And then—approaching sounds filled the air. The rattling of bones, the scraping of claws, the snapping of teeth.
The creatures of the underworld were coming.