CHAPTER 78
This time when dawn arrived, it was greeted with bleak silence. There was a new addition to the landscape. Tyghan and the Danu contingent looked down at the valley.
Melizan cursed. “I don’t think that’s part of the traditional pageantry.”
“Doesn’t trust us much, does he?” Eris said.
Tyghan’s nostrils flared. “Now who’s beating his chest?”
Below them, Kormick’s warriors, witches, and wizards stood shoulder to shoulder, five deep, creating an impassable circular wall around the tall stones that made up the Mother Ring, ensuring that no last-minute contenders got past them and entered the sacred grounds.
Dalagorn dragged his hand over his knotty cheek. “There must be a thousand of them.”
“Eight hundred forty by my calculations,” Eris said.
“Is that all?” Cully said. “I feel much better now.”
Tyghan eyed the circle, already contemplating changes to their plan. “We’ll need to adjust our timing.”
Quin cracked his knuckles. “Fuck. Look up.”
They were so busy looking down at the valley, they hadn’t noticed a small black cloud looming in the distance.
Cosette squinted one eye. “Think it’s rain?”
They reconvened in the main tent, Esmee and Olivia casting fresh wards to keep their words within.
“We can get through their wall. Divide and scatter,” Tyghan said. “That’s not a force meant to scare off a whole army. It’s meant to scare off kingdoms that only came with twenty witnesses.”
“Fast and quick. That’s our strategy,” Eris said. “Kormick has this orchestrated down to the last breath. We’re going to jostle his applecart. Take them by surprise and don’t give them a chance to regroup.”
Tyghan agreed. “Once we’ve thinned their numbers, we can bring out Cael.”
Officer Ailes shook his head. “But he likely has an army of more warriors standing by, possibly thousands, only a few hills away.”
“Sure he does,” Eris said. “But so do we, and ours are far closer.”
“What about that cloud on the horizon?” Officer Perry asked.
“I don’t think it’s any bigger than the one we beat back at the palace,” Sloan said. “We can handle it.”
Sage Jarvis cursed under her breath, the leaves on her head stirring. “One cloud maybe, but there could be a lot more on the way.”
More. The small word tripped through the silent room. More restless dead that could put an end to all their well-laid plans.
“No more.”
A new voice rose from the back of the tent. Every head turned toward it.
“The Abyss is sealed.” Bristol raised her palms. “And no blisters.”
The sun was high. In minutes, the Stone of Destiny would be ready to break its hundred-year silence.
Queens, kings, and their witnesses dotted the valley floor, and the steward of Elphame read from his scroll, hailing the rich history of the Stone and the cauldron.
He stood on a distant knoll, far from the ring of warriors glaring at him.
His voice wobbled. On either side of him were two powerful kings, and next to one of them was the Darkland monster.
Tyghan had watched Kormick enter the valley.
Everyone had. When Kormick dismounted from his magnificent horse, there was a hush.
His cream-colored cape shone in the sun, and his crown glowed against his golden locks like he was an anointed god.
But when Maire shed her invisibility beside him, there was an oppressive silence.
Mouths fell open. Few had ever seen the Darkland monster, and she was not what they expected.
Maire was stunning. Her long copper hair gleamed like a fiery sunset, and the horns twisting around her head twinkled with a sparkling diamond crown.
She was only visible for a few moments because the same guards who protected her at Queen’s Cliff provided a barrier between her and everyone else.
But the spectacle Kormick wanted was achieved, and it would wipe the word monster from their mouths and minds.
She was a beautiful symbol of his power, and no one would forget it.
Tyghan wondered how Bristol was feeling, seeing her mother this way, a unified force with the enemy. I’ll be okay. I have no other choice. He wanted to give her other choices. She stood somewhere behind him, invisible, but prepared to act if her mother reopened the portal.
A timeless heartbeat thumped the ground beneath Bristol’s boots, a new century of rule poised to begin.
Even though her cloak kept her invisible, the sun beat on her just the same.
Sweat trickled down her back, and the fury simmering beneath her sternum felt like it was about to blaze through her shirt.
Seeing her mother quietly standing beside Kormick almost shattered the restraint inside her.
He hadn’t saved her mother out of charity, like he made her believe.
He saved her because she was a prize. A possession to achieve his goals.
He had been anticipating this moment for years.
Bristol had her father’s tiny switchblade in her pocket.
She hoped to gift it to Kormick. Right in his throat.
“His crown is a powerful ward. So is hers,” Madame Chastain whispered, as if she could read Bristol’s thoughts. “It would do you no good to attack him yet. Wait until the magic is spent by others.”
Bristol rubbed the cuff on her wrist, still full of protective magic. Unlike her, Kormick had great powers within him, even when the magic of his crown was spent. She remembered Melizan’s long-ago warning. He’s a demigod, same as Tyghan. You’d be a fool to underestimate him.
The parchment shook in the steward’s hand as he continued to read the proclamation.
“Now is the time for any who believe they are worthy to come forward. Let yourselves be known. There is no magic within the inner circle of the Mother Ring, only the magic of the Stone of Destiny dwells there. It will judge those who step forward, and choose the new ruler of Elphame, and the custodian of the cauldron for the next one hundred years.”
The warriors surrounding the ring pounded their thick spears on the ground in unison. It rattled like a death cry across the valley.
No one moved.
Kormick smiled, soaking in all the eyes fixed on him, and took a step forward.
But then Tyghan stepped forward too.
Kormick’s glare was swift and sharp. “Are you begging me to destroy you, Trénallis?”
“No,” Tyghan answered. “I was just giving my troops the signal to destroy you.”
And then the sky opened up.