68. Willow
Chapter 68
Willow
B ig fucking mistake.
Running full pelt down a dark tunnel, death screeches at my heels. Who’s great idea was this? My wet boots squelch. A rapid click near my ear. Pungent, rotting breath. Mold. Something catches my hair, ripping my head back with needles. I break free. Run. Terror fills me. So does euphoria, a thrill.
I’m insane. I’m dead. Hot. What an idiot move to make. I’m?—
Something white flickers ahead of me.
“Get down.” A growl in my head.
I drop. Air gusts over me, through me, and I land on my stomach, skidding forward. Dirt and gravel cut into me. I’m sliding so fast that I drift sideways. All I can think is to move the sword away from my face. Blue glyphs flash in the darkness. Behind me, strange sounds reach my ears. Shrieks cut short. Squelches and wet thuds. Gurgling. I can’t comprehend anything until my shoulder hits something, and my slide ends.
Breathing hard, I stretch my senses. Too many things happen at once, too many sounds and smells. I don’t understand. I check to see what I hit. It doesn’t feel like a wall—too much air around me. The wall is a boot belonging to a shadowy figure now stepping over me. A silken wall brushes my face like someone’s dragging a sheet over my body. I track the shape with my eyes and see darkness spread, filling the expanse of the tunnel and blocking my view—I squint to focus. What is that? Wings?
Little drops of darkness float upward and sizzle against the ceiling.
The knowledge hits me all at once—the voice in my head, the flickering light. It was a skull.
“Styx?” I shout with my thoughts.
“Being greedy as usual,” he taunts.
Wincing, I use the sword and push to my feet. My eyes only pick up flashes of shadow on shadow. I can’t catch anything clear, even with my eyesight. He’s one Sluagh, but there are so many Nightmares. Limping forward, I adjust my grip and prepare for more danger. It doesn’t come. Within seconds, the monstrous death rattles die down. The dripping hiss of blots meeting rock is the only sound left.
I open my mouth to call out, but Styx’s warning in my mind stops me.
“Your resonance stone.”
Shit. My hand slaps to my chest, feeling for the stone. It’s there, burning hotly on a chain.
“Turn around,” he orders.
Gravel crunches as I pivot so fast I’m left dizzy. There is a rustle of movement, and a hard, warm body presses against my spine. Hands wrap around my middle. He drops his nose to my neck, tugging me closer. His masculine scent blooms, good and real.
“You smell so fucking good.” His mental voice is more of a groan.
“You saved me.” I want to sink back into him, to turn and kiss him, to be with him in every way, but this tournament isn’t done. I can’t betray him by revealing his face to everyone watching.
His teeth clamp on my neck. “Did I?”
A rush of warmth blooms in my chest, and I smile . . . then realize he’s not hugging me. He’s stiff and tense. Something barbed and twisted wraps around my heart, squeezing. I pull back, but he won’t let me go.
“Styx? What’s wrong?”
“You’re about to find out.” His arms lock tighter around me. “When you see him, tell him this is payback.”
The world around us flickers. We stumble into a room in an instant, and he lets go. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust, but when they do, my world shifts.
Obsidian walls veined with crystal surround us. An overripe, sickly sweet bouquet of something floral is in the air. The ceiling rolls with a never-ending shadow storm. People—people everywhere. Human, old, young, different. Faerie like I’ve never seen. Some are like the Nightmares we’ve studied, like those we’ve seen, but others are almost indistinguishable from normal.
I’m standing at the foot of the steps leading to a dais. It’s not the two thrones of patchwork limbs atop that shift my world, but the people sitting in them—a tall, dark-haired male I recognize from Clock Tower memories. With sharp cheekbones and angular features, Oberon has the kind of stare that could wither stone. But it’s the queen beside him who steals my attention. I’ve dreamt about killing her for weeks. But when I envisioned her, she was the vibrant, powerful brunette who cursed me in my dream—the effervescent lady in the portrait hanging in the castle.
Her pale dress is made of squashed petals and hangs wilted on her frail body. A tarnished gemstone tiara slips on her matted brown hair. She looks wild and unhinged as she takes me in, knuckles whitening on the throne’s arms.
“What have we here?” Oberon purrs, standing and looking down at me. Something is off with his skin. It’s stretched too tightly over his bones. No—something is too big beneath the skin. His bones move like they’re alive.
“Styx?” I shout in my mind. “If this is a joke, I’m not laughing.”
Each step Oberon takes down the steps is punctuated by some kind of wet, squelching sound. The air before him shudders with his approach. The closer he comes, the better I see what his footsteps leave behind—dark, viscous blood. He’s not bleeding. Not wounded.
Just evil.
Ancient.
His aura tries to suffocate me as he takes my jaw, tilting me to inspect my face. My insides revolt at his touch. It’s cold and clammy, and his magic feels like a scrape—not an itch.
“I thought you said she was ugly,” he muses to someone at the side.
Footsteps approach. Absynthe. Tobacco. A raspy drawl. “She was.”
Oberon lets go of me as Emrys arrives at his side. His coppery eyes lock with mine. A jolt rips through my heart. One will betray me. One will try to kill me. Well, at least we can cross that first one off the list. Oberon circles me, inspecting me like an offering for sale. I twist, trying to keep my eyes on him but also Emrys. Which villain is more dangerous?
Fighting tears, I whisper, “What are you doing here, Emrys?”
“I would ask you the same, little moth.”
“He’s finally come to his senses,” Oberon drawls as if it’s obvious. “He’s ready to be rid of queens, once and for all. But what I want to know is, how did you get in here unnoticed?”
My eyes widen. They didn’t see Styx? He must have flickered in and out too fast. My palm burns suddenly. I hiss and glance down, opening my fist to see. The circular welt is deepening to a dusky color. I feel compelled to move. What does this mean? Are the trials over?
“What is this?” Oberon’s hand snakes out and wraps around my wrist. He lifts my palm upward, then shows it to Titania. “Darling, did you know they started your trials without you?”
She makes some kind of incomprehensible sound.
“How charming,” he continues, a teasing lilt to his voice. “The distraction you crafted works so well. They don’t even care you’re not there.” He flicks the resonance stone on my chest and lowers it so his face is captured. “Hello, Good People of Avorlorna.”
I step away from him and stumble up a step. I look more closely at Titania and see something more disturbing than her disheveled appearance—bruise marks around her neck. Her visage shimmers. This is her dream form, her specter.
“I thought you were slumbering,” I say.
Her eyes widen. She tries to respond, but her lips are sewn shut—with flesh-colored vines. They crawl like maggots in and out of her flesh. Bile rises in my throat.
“Oh, she is,” Oberon coos, somewhere below me. “As she has every winter for the past five years.”
“I don’t understand.”
I take another step up, away from him. He doesn’t seem to care. He’s not even bothered that I still have my sword. He just smirks.
“You don’t truly think I would simply pause war because she’s sleeping? She stole my legacy.” He gestures at Emrys, then back at her. “That tiara is the cost of her Gentle Interlude . . . unless, of course, she returns what is rightfully mine.”
Pity rolls through me. Titania might be cruel. She might have lied horribly to her people about the reason they died in droves. But she’s suffering to give her people a few months of peace.
Movement to the side of the dais catches my eye. Alfie’s copper hair. A glint of steel. That’s not a look of rescue on his face. It’s murder. If he kills her here, she’s dead in her bed at the palace. Any hope of reclaiming my magic evaporates. Fox’s face flashes in my mind.
Do I kill her . . . or save her?
Alfie’s green eyes meet mine, then dart to Titania, weighing his chances of reaching her before me. He lunges, breaking free from his hiding place. I intercept Alfie mid-leap, my body slamming into his. We tumble across the dais in a tangle of limbs and crash into Titania’s throne. Chaos erupts in the throne room—shouts, the scraping of talons, swords, the thunderous footsteps of guards—Oberon’s bellow.
“What are you doing?” Alfie snarls, his face contorted with rage as we wrestle. We clash with Titania’s throne again. He turns his dagger on me, pointing the tip to my throat. My lower back hits the throne’s arm, and I’m forced to bow backward to avoid being cut. Titania’s scream is muffled. She’s trying to tell me something. I grab Alfie’s wrists and hold him off, but he’s strong. He snarls in my face, “You should have killed me. Now I’m going to kill you.”
A force rips him off me, and he is tossed to the side. I have a moment to register Emrys’s panicked and murderous face, and then Titania screeches something muffled. I pivot to find her thrashing on the throne, fingers scrabbling at the jeweled band on her head. But she can’t reach them. It’s like an invisible string keeps yanking her hands back. Her eyes hold a silent plea.
Alfie rises behind her, thinking the same thing I do. That tiara is the cost of her Gentle Interlude.
If we remove it, she wakes. This is all over. One of us wins.