CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

If not for her training and the reflexes Quinlan had forced her to hone, Asterin was fairly sure that she would have vaporized on the spot when Priscilla had shattered her ice restraints in an explosion of shadow.

Even then, Asterin just barely managed to hurl up a shield in time to deflect the onslaught of darkness and the barrage of ice chunks. Quinlan, standing beside her, reacted even more swiftly, shielding several of her Elites and the other guests closest to the blast. Dozens of other shields crackled alive like weak torches against the storm of shadow around the ballroom.

Priscilla fled—her hulking, demonic wings flexing as she leapt into the air and spread them wide, launching over the bodies and debris. She nearly slammed headfirst into a wall, but after a few more experimental flaps, she soared out of the ballroom.

From across the room, Rose locked eyes with Asterin behind her own wall of green light, a single word moving on her lips.

Go.

“Silas!” Asterin shouted at the oldest Elite. “Assemble the Elites and evacuate the guests. No one follows—it’s too dangerous. Understood?”

At Silas’s firm nod, Asterin and Quinlan thundered out of the ballroom after Priscilla.

Unfortunately, flying proved to be much faster than running.

“She’s getting away,” Quinlan said. He reached for Asterin. “Take my hand.”

Asterin only had a moment to acknowledge the strange, euphoric sensation of Quinlan’s magic surging through their locked hands like an electrical current before a gust of wind swept her off the ground. Her stomach dipped as he angled them forward, increasing their speed, their toes skimming the floor.

Flying—they were flying.

The corridors whizzed by as they gained on Priscilla. The woman’s enormous wingspan cost her precious time—narrow hallways and sharp turns forced her to pull her wings in and extend them again every flap.

As they closed in on her, Priscilla let out an angry screech, sounding more beast than human. She clutched her affinity stone and pelted them with orbs of swirling darkness. Quinlan swerved wildly, doing his best to dodge them. The orbs splattered onto the walls and floor, corroding the marble to sludge. Asterin yelped as one missed her face by a mere inch.

Priscilla swooped up the grand stairway. Quinlan swore and lurched after her, nearly popping Asterin’s arm right out of its socket before he managed to wrangle his wind affinity back under control.

With each flight of stairs, they grew closer to Priscilla. Fingers outstretched, Asterin could almost reach out to rip off a wing—

Priscilla veered onto the third floor and smashed a hole through the first door on the left.

With another bitten-back curse, Quinlan steered them through the hole. They landed hard on the marble floor of a large antechamber used for court meetings.

Priscilla skidded across the long oak table on all fours, her talons leaving deep gouges along its surface. She leaped off the end and glanced over her shoulder at Asterin, twirling her affinity stone between spindly fingers. Asterin saw that the once azure illusionstone was now clouded jet black.

A shadowstone.

“Daughter,” she said, the word dripping off her tongue like sweet poison.

Asterin balled her fist around her omnistone. “Don’t you dare call me that.”

Priscilla giggled. “Finally figured it out, did you? Clever girl,” she crooned. “Only took you a decade.”

Rage swelled through Asterin, drowning out every sound, every thought. Cracks shuddered across the floor. She raised her arms, and two enormous slabs of marble quivered upward.

Then she closed her eyes and hurled the slabs with all her might at the woman she had once called her mother.

Except there came no screech of pain, of death—only a peculiar sensation wriggling at the base of Asterin’s skull.

You can’t close your eyes in battle, Rose had told her in Aldville.

When Asterin opened her eyes, Priscilla smiled, false pity written across those horrid features. Standing at the far end of the oak table with the marble slabs suspended in stillness above her, the woman brought her shadowstone down in an arc, as if delivering a fatal blow in slow motion. And perhaps she is, Asterin realized when her arms lowered against her will, bringing the slabs to a gentle rest at the queen’s feet.

Beside her, Quinlan summoned his fire, but his arm lurched downward at the last moment and charred the tables and chairs instead of Priscilla. Waves of heat rippled over them. Beads of sweat rolled down Quinlan’s jaw as he struggled to extinguish the flames before they could cause Asterin and him any harm.

Priscilla laughed, cruel and cold. “Naive little fools.” With a flick of her wrist, Quinlan’s eyes rolled back into his skull.

Asterin cried out, barely catching him as he crumpled. He convulsed against her, and Asterin felt that wriggling again—a little coil of darkness burrowing into her mind, spreading faster than hellfire.

And then her greatest fears and her worst nightmares rushed from the deepest, darkest recesses of her soul and became real.

The room around her crumbled to ash, the floor caving inward. She fell with it, crashing down, tumbling in a heap atop the remains of the palace. The charred mess of what had once been the Wall piled around her, and below—oh, almighty Immortals—below, her city was unrecognizable, nothing but a ruin of smoking cinders. She could hear the chanting of spirits, of angry ghosts, a chorus of spine-chilling whispers.

The rubble shifted at her feet.

She stifled a scream as three corpses clawed their way out into the open and crawled toward her.

Her father. Frail and white as the first snow of winter. His milky, clouded eyes fixated on her, as if to say, “This is your fault,” even though it never could have been.

Luna. Sweet Luna. Her before face, kind and open, the one Asterin had known—but now … her throat, slit.

Asterin kicked the third corpse in the face as hard as she could, her eyes turned up to the scarlet sky so that she wouldn’t see its owner, but she still caught a glance of a signature crimson cloak—

A moan drifted to her through the still, arid air like a lone horn, crescendoing as more voices joined in answering. Dozens upon dozens of corpses clawed up the crest of the mountain toward her. They were all faceless, but she knew they were her people, the people of her kingdom. Asterin backed away as they jerked to their feet, closing in from all sides. She sobbed as Amoux materialized at her hip, bile rising in her throat. With no choice, she drew her sword forth, weighing a thousand tons in her hand.

“Please,” she begged the dead, falling to her knees. “I can’t.” But they continued to lumber forward, reaching out to her. Asterin buried her face in her hands. Amoux clanged to the ground as she felt their clammy touch on her arms, on her neck—

And then, just as quickly as it had begun, everything stopped.

Asterin let out a heaving, broken gasp as that horrible, suffocating sensation faded from her head. Her face itched from the salt of her tears, and the taste of blood was sharp in her mouth—she had chewed her cheek raw. In the midst of her hallucinations, she had ended up near the entrance to the antechamber, leaving Quinlan abandoned and unconscious midway between her and Priscilla.

Before Asterin stood Luna, palms braced outward to shield them with her own waves of light from the oncoming tide of darkness about to wash over Quinlan.

“Mother!” Luna shouted, raising her illusionstone high above her head.

Priscilla gaped. The darkness withered away. “Luna?”

A great beast soared over Asterin’s head, wings stretching up to the ceiling like sails caught in a ferocious gale. Harry. With Priscilla distracted, the demon torpedoed to the floor, wings tucked close to his body. At the same moment that he clamped his teeth around Quinlan’s collar, he unfurled his wings. Faster than Priscilla could react, Harry hauled Quinlan into the air and swooped toward Asterin, depositing the Eradorian safely at her side.

Luna gave her mother a frigid smile. “Surprised to see me?”

Harry landed and prowled in front of them protectively while Asterin checked Quinlan’s pulse. Steady.

Priscilla stammered in disbelief. “Y-you broke the spell.”

“Yes,” said Luna. “The spell that took everything from me. My powers, my memories—”

Priscilla threw her hands in the air. “I was trying to protect you!”

“From what?”

“You were a mistake,” Priscilla said, her expression softening. At Luna’s flinch, the woman hastily added, “The greatest mistake I ever made. But you don’t understand—he never wanted a child—he would have killed you if he had found out, so I had to hide you—”

“Who would have killed me?” demanded Luna. “Other than you, by conjuring a demon and then lying about it? The thirty guards, the slaughtered villagers. You sent us to avenge them, but you just wanted us dead!”

“I never sent you!” Priscilla shouted. “You were never meant to go!” She pointed at Asterin. “That little bitch was just supposed to take some of her precious Elites. How could I have guessed that she would drag you along with her? She ruined everything!”

Asterin barely had time to fling up an energy shield as Priscilla sent a blast of darkness at her, propelling her three feet backward and nearly causing her to trip over Quinlan, still out cold on the floor.

Luna threw herself into the line of fire again, shining brighter than a star as she used her magic to push Priscilla further back. “Don’t worry,” Luna said to Asterin over her shoulder, sparing her a single glance filled with sincerity and burning resolve. “I won’t let her hurt you.”

At that moment, all Asterin could think about were the many times she had doubted Luna. But with or without powers, Luna had always possessed a goodness in her heart that Asterin had never quite been able to fathom. Despite everyone’s misgivings, Luna had remained brave and loyal.

With a growl, Harry launched into the air and shot toward Priscilla, forcing her to defend against both his and Luna’s attacks at the same time. Luna gained another foot, pushing the darkness farther and farther away, conquering Priscilla’s magic with her own.

“Luna,” Asterin choked out.

“Hush,” Luna cut her off, a smile playing on her lips. “I can handle my mother.” The smile slipped away when Priscilla’s darkness gave Luna a particularly brutal shove.

“Get out of the way, Luna,” Priscilla hissed, ducking as Harry’s fangs snapped an inch from her neck. “You don’t understand—”

“What I understand,” said Luna, voice trembling, “is that you want to take away the person who has stood by my side all the years that you did not.”

“I made you her lady-in-waiting so you could live a life of comfort and luxury!” Priscilla’s face twisted in grotesque frustration. “I gave you anything you could ever desire, and this is how you repay me?” The next time Harry hurtled for Priscilla, she grinned and held up a hand. “Shadow demon! In the power of our blood bond, I order you to kill Asterin Faelenhart.”

To Asterin’s horror, Harry halted midair and turned his glazed stare upon her. Didn’t he say blood bonds were myths?

Asterin latched onto Quinlan and began lugging him away from the fight. “Harry,” she shouted, “snap out of it—”

And then Harry’s barbed tail lashed across Priscilla’s face.

Priscilla screamed, holding her cheek. “Shadow demon—”

Harry shifted, human hands wrapping around Priscilla’s throat. “For the last time, it’s Harry.”

“Enough.” The black veins in Priscilla’s neck bulged. Harry swore and recoiled as spikes erupted from her skin, piercing clean through his palms. A blast of shadow sent him careening into a column, and Asterin’s ears rang at the ominous crack of fractured marble. Harry slid to the floor and Luna gasped, the column teetering above him. Asterin conjured a barrier of ice over his body just as the column gave way with a deafening crash.

“Why are you doing this?” Luna screamed at Priscilla, voice breaking. “Why are you trying to hurt my friends?”

But Priscilla’s attention had shifted. For the second time, her shadow magic receded, collecting around her body in a shield. Her eyes fixed beyond Asterin and Luna, glinting with something akin to wonder. “Jakob?” she said. “You … you came for me?”

Both Asterin and Luna whirled around to find the King of Ibreseos in the ruined doorway.

A snarl ripped from Luna’s lips. She assaulted Priscilla’s shield with a fork of blue light. “Answer me!”

Priscilla struggled to keep her footing. “Jakob, help me!”

The king moved a fraction forward.

Luna howled. “Answer me, Mother!”

King Jakob froze. “Mother?” he echoed.

Priscilla’s eyes widened. To Luna, she shrieked, “What are you on about, girl?” Her voice raised an octave. “How dare you even suggest such a thing? You disgust me with your nerve!”

Luna turned to face Jakob. It would have taken a blind idiot to miss the resemblance between her and Priscilla, now that the spell had been lifted.

“Priscilla,” Jakob rumbled, striding into the room. “Who is the father?”

The former queen released a tiny whimper.

“Who is the father?”

Priscilla’s shoulders slumped with each punctuated syllable. At last, she surrendered.

“You.”