CHAPTER 82
Bristol heard shouts as she circled to land, and saw the knights below drawing swords and readying spears. Melizan and Cosette ran forward, their arms outspread. “Stand down!” they yelled. “Stand down!”
She heard other screams from the rim. Horrified ones.
Avydra. Beast. Dragon. She landed some distance from the Mother Ring, giving her space to transform back into a woman with arms and legs and wounds.
Her clothes were singed and shredded, but she didn’t feel the burns and cuts.
Other wounds consumed her. She had won, but she had lost. Elphame was saved from a tyrant, the cauldron secure for both the fae and mortal world for another hundred years, but Bristol lost what she had come there for in the first place.
The reason she left her sisters and Bowskeep. Her father.
She was numb again as she walked back to be with her mother. I’m bringing them both home. But she wasn’t. Stringent shouts nearby pulled her from her stupor.
“Kill her!” King Merriwind of Mistriven yelled to a knight as he pointed at Bristol. “Kill her now!”
The knight’s chin dipped as he sheepishly looked at Merriwind. “But, Your Majesty, the Stone just named her the new queen of Elphame.”
“It was a trick!” he yelled, the once timid king now emboldened by Kormick’s death. “She and the Darkland monster were working together all along!” He stepped into Bristol’s path to block her. “Arrest her! Her kind aren’t even legal in Elphame!” Bristol didn’t stop, prepared to walk through him.
But then the king of Mistriven was flying through the air, launched by Cael.
“Shut up, Merriwind! A dozen other feet were planted in that ring, including mine and Tyghan’s, when the Stone called out.
It could have waited for any one of us to step up, but it didn’t.
It chose her. It’s not a trick! She’s the new queen of Elphame! Bend your knee!”
Bristol registered surprise that it was Cael defending her. In fact, he even looked relieved.
“That’s right,” the queen of Cernunnos agreed, and bowed her head to Bristol. “Your Majesty.”
The king of Greymarch did the same, as did many of those who were starting to gather now that the battle was over.
Cael followed suit, dropping to one knee. “Your Majesty.”
Bristol paused in front of him uncertainly, a jumble of emotions stopping up in her chest, but she then continued toward her destination. Her mother.
Merriwind got back to his feet. “But—”
Tyghan shot him a lethal stare to shut him up, as his long strides closed the space between him and Bristol. “You’re bleeding,” he said.
She saw his shirt for the first time. He was drenched in blood. Her father’s blood. Agony still lined his face. “I’m all right,” she said, wondering if he saw her as a beast now. “I need to go to my mother.” She tried to step around him, and he caught her arm.
“Bristol, wait—”
“What?” And then she noticed the unnatural silence. She saw Julia’s anguished face. And Sashka’s. And—
Every face was frozen in time, frozen on her. The quiet. There were no screams or sobs. Her stomach hollowed to an empty pit, and she ran. “Mother—”
“Bristol!” She heard Tyghan call. “Don’t—”
She stumbled to the other side of the ring, where she had left her father, and stopped short.
Her mother’s cheek was pressed to her father’s chest like she was listening to his heartbeat.
One of her arms draped over his middle in a tender embrace.
Her graceful form was relaxed beside him.
But the back of her elegant green velvet gown had a large stain.
Blood. In the middle of the stain was an arrow.
Elven arrows. They kill every time.
Cully stepped forward. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It must have been a stray.”
Bristol stared at him in disbelief. “In the middle of her back?”
A dozen Eideris archers stood by him, empty bows in hand, impossible to know who it came from. Was that the point?
“She was the Darkland monster,” one of the archers said, like it was no great loss. “All of us know someone who died at her hands.”
Bristol spun toward Tyghan. “You promised me! You promised!”
“I had just stepped away for a minute after Kierus—” His voice shook. “I’ll get to the bottom of it. I’ll find out—”
“The bottom of it? What fucking difference does the bottom make now? She’s dead. You promised me—”
Bristol stumbled, weak, waving Tyghan away when he came toward her. “Leave me alone!” Julia ran to her instead, slipping an arm around Bristol’s waist just as her knees gave out. Hollis ran to her other side.
“Where’s the High Witch?” Melizan shouted at Sashka. “I thought I told you to summon her!”
“I tried,” Sashka said, her voice shaking. “The High Witch is dead.”