The Shadow Queen (20 page)

He couldn’t ask it of her.

Yes. Block me.
He forced himself to focus on the words. To be resolute and to bury every shred of longing for his final piece of connection with another person.
That’s what I want.

You’re a terrible liar.

He laughed, though it wasn’t funny. He’d gone his entire life fooling everyone around him—with the possible exception of Brig—into thinking he was nothing but a charming daredevil who couldn’t take anything seriously, because it had been easier to take his father’s disappointment when Kol could tell himself he’d courted it on purpose. But there was no hiding from Lorelai. She’d already seen the worst he had to offer, and the longer they stayed connected, the more parts of himself he accidentally put on display.

You aren’t the only one who is uncomfortably vulnerable here.
She sat up and braided her long hair with swift fingers.
You can see me just as much as I can see you. If this is going to work—

It doesn’t have to work. Block me.

She rolled her eyes.
If this is going to work, we need some ground rules.

Or you could just block me.

She stabbed a finger in his direction.
Stop arguing with me.
I’m not leaving you trapped inside yourself with no one to talk to.

His thoughts warmed toward this girl who kept surprising him at every turn with the size of her heart and the strength of her spirit.

You keep rescuing me.

Don’t let it go to your head.
She gave him a crooked smile.
I’m sure one of these days you’ll have the chance to rescue me instead.

I hope not.
He got to his feet and offered her his hand.
I hope you stay completely out of danger.

She took his hand, her palm sparking against his with the tingle of her magic, and rose to face him. Her dark eyes were steady.

Ground rules. No poking into each other’s thoughts on purpose. No digging deeper into things we accidentally show each other. And no dumb thoughts about kissing when we have so many other things to worry about. All right?

All right.
He leaned away from her as his collar whispered to hurt, punish, kill, and the pain that lingered in the wake of Irina’s magic throbbed dully.

And you have to immediately show me if the pain gets worse, or if you start to lose control
. She flexed her fingers and looked at his chest, now covered with a shirt borrowed from Gabril.
Now, let’s go eat. I’m going to need my strength.

For the barrier in Eldr?
He didn’t bother trying to hide how much her answer meant to him.

Yes.
Her eyes were on his again as he held the tent flap open, letting in a gust of cold air and a peek at an indigo sky slowly fading to black.

And then do you have somewhere safe to go? Somewhere to hide
from Irina? You can always go to Eldr if you want.

She lifted her chin.
I’m not the one who needs somewhere safe to hide.

Images spun through her mind—a bridge collapsing into the water, communication towers toppling, and Irina clutching her heart as every spell she used against Lorelai’s onslaught weakened her further. His collar’s whispers skittered and screamed as the princess’s plan unfolded before him.

He met her gaze.
You’re going after Irina.

Once Eldr is safe, yes.

Lorelai, what you’re planning . . . you’re going to war.

Her eyes were fierce.
That’s right. I’m going to destroy her defenses, provoke her to use magic so that she grows weaker by the day, and then I’m returning to my castle, and I’m taking it back.

His dragon heart thundered, a vicious tempo that lit the fire in his chest.
Irina tricked me.

Yes, she did.

She stole my human heart and trapped me with this collar.

Lorelai leaned close.
Want to help me?

He bared his teeth in a smile every bit as fierce as hers.
I thought you’d never ask.

I
RINA CLENCHED HER
mirror with a white-knuckled grip and glared at its surface. It was the morning of the seventh day after she’d flooded the Eldrian king with her magic, taken his human heart, and sent him, wild with rage and pain, back into the Falkrains to find and destroy the princess.

It had been a simple command. The strength of the collar’s painful spell combined with the viciousness of his dragon heart should have compelled him to obey her.

And yet he defied her.

She hadn’t been sure at first. She’d scryed the surface of her mirror several times a day, but she’d seen nothing useful. He’d been walking, sometimes crawling, sometimes hanging on to tree trunks as if he needed their help to stand.

Without allowing him to see her thoughts through the connection her magic had forged between them—something no one but Raz was ever allowed to do—she couldn’t be sure of his intent. She’d assumed he was hunting the princess, slowed by the injuries she’d inflicted.

The truth set her blood ablaze with rage.

She stared at the mirror’s surface, her teeth clenched so hard that little shocks of pain reverberated up her jaw as the swirling clouds of the mirror’s surface parted to reveal the princess walking through a forest of hornbeam trees with the king by her side.

Not trying to kill her. Not ripping out her heart.
Smiling
at her when she looked at him, though he sometimes curled his hands into fists as if fighting the urge to hurt her like he was supposed to do.

“Fool.”
Irina spat the word at the mirror’s surface while her heart pounded and her palms burned.

He acted as though he wasn’t under a blood oath to fulfill the task she’d given him. As if his kingdom wasn’t on the line.

As if he could ignore her express orders without incurring any consequences.

Had he forgotten whom he was dealing with?

Irina’s hands shook with rage as she stared at Kolvanismir and Lorelai. The man who’d helped Lorelai escape wasn’t visible in the mirror’s surface. He hadn’t been since the first time she’d seen the princess.

He was of no consequence. She’d had his sketch drawn from the memories she’d found in the king’s blood. Viktor had recognized him immediately as Gabril Busche, the former head of the palace guard. She’d thought he was dead. She’d attended his funeral.

She’d be happy to attend it again.

But he didn’t matter now. She could use him against Lorelai if necessary, but she didn’t want to bear the strain of the magic that would take. Not when she’d already used so much power to create the perfect huntsman.

No, what mattered now was sending a reminder to the king that breaking an oath with a
mardushka
was not an option.

Not if he ever wanted to take another pain-free breath again.

Setting the mirror down on her vanity with a sharp click, she scooped up a blue velvet bag with a black ribbon drawstring. Loosening the ribbon, she poured the contents of the bag into her palm.

The moment the scraps of thistle and bone touched her skin, her magic flared, and she felt the connection to the king’s collar.

She closed her fingers over the thistle and bone, locked eyes with the mirror’s surface, and said, “
Kaz`lit
. May the punishment I deem worthy for his crime flood his body with pain.”

Power poured out of her, sizzling against the bits she held in her hand. She felt the heart of the thistle she’d used for the collar surge beside the heart of the wolf she’d slain to harvest its bones. She’d conquered both hearts long ago. Now it was simply a matter of using them to conquer the king’s heart as well.

And then Lorelai would die, and Irina would finally be at peace.

Maybe the king thought Irina couldn’t hurt him if she wasn’t beside him. Maybe he didn’t understand that once the heart of a living thing had been conquered by a
mardushka
, any object created from that heart obeyed the
mardushka
as well.

Or maybe he was stupid enough to think the princess’s magic would be enough to save him from the wrath of his queen.

“Kaz`lit!”
She threw back her head, a vicious smile of triumph on her face as the magic connected with the hearts she’d conquered. “Flood his body with the punishment he deserves.”

The magic spilled out of her. The thistle and bone did her
bidding. And when she looked down once more at the mirror’s surface, the defiant fool of a king was on his knees, his expression full of agony, as he pulled frantically at the collar around his neck.

Irina concentrated, sending every bit of rage that flooded her body straight into the collar. Let him burn from the inside out. Let him
hurt
in places he never knew could feel so much pain.

Let him understand the cost of betrayal.

He fell forward, his body spasming, his mouth open in a scream Irina could enjoy even if she couldn’t hear it. Talons grew from his fingertips, and she imagined the dragon’s fire in his chest scorching him, begging him to shift though his queen refused to let him.

And then the princess was there. Falling to her knees beside him. Reaching for his chest and leaving her own heart exposed.

Irina clenched the bits of thistle and bone so hard she felt them crack as she snarled, “Kill her. Kill her now, Kolvanismir. Use your talons to rip her heart out of her chest, and the agony will stop. Eldr will be saved. Just
kill her
.”

She pushed more agony into his body, and a stab of pain shot through her own chest in response.

The king opened his eyes and locked gazes with the princess.

There was nothing but hunger for blood on his face.

Irina smiled and used her free hand to push at the ache in her chest.

It was almost over. She’d broken him.

The princess leaned down.

The king dug his talons into the ground beneath him.

Irina gripped the thistle and bone, pushing pain into him
even while her heart stuttered and her chest burned.

And then Lorelai put her bare hands against the Kol’s chest, her eyes never leaving his, and the pain that had been pouring out of the collar rebounded toward Irina like a whip.

The queen stumbled away from the vanity, her hand still clutching the remnants of her huntsman’s collar, while fire streaked through her veins and her vision began to gray.

This wasn’t possible.

It
wasn’t
.

First the mountain’s heart had yielded to Lorelai and now
this
.

It had taken Irina ten years of training, of searching out the black clan
mardushkas
willing to disobey King Milek’s edict and practice the darker side of their nature. Ten years to learn how to force an unwilling heart to fully submit to hers.

And yet Lorelai was doing it as if it was nothing.

Irina gasped as the fire in her veins felt like it would incinerate her where she stood. It was a wolf’s rage, a thistle’s thorns, a queen’s revenge, and a dragon’s fire.

It was unbearable.

Releasing the thistle and bone from her shaking fingers, Irina stumbled against the wall and pushed her palm against her aching chest as the truth turned her knees to water.

She’d lost her huntsman. Lorelai had declared war against her when she’d destroyed the northern command outpost. If Lorelai was on her way to the capital, all that stood between Irina and destruction was the web of magic that lay beneath the ground and the strength of Irina’s failing heart.

You beat her
. Kol stared at Lorelai, a wild light of triumph in his amber eyes.
You beat Irina.

Lorelai stood beside him above the steep banks of the Silber River while Gabril scouted the area around the bend to the west where a massive bridge connected north Ravenspire with the south. Power still gathered in her palms, and she tried to feel triumphant as well. She’d done it. She’d battled the magic that poured out of the collar, and she’d shoved it back toward Irina until it was once again bearable for Kol.

Irina had fought her for him, and Lorelai had won.

She hadn’t been able to remove the collar, but still—she’d
won.

Lorelai knew she should be thrilled, but instead she looked away from Kol and sagged slowly onto the damp clumps of river grass that clung to the rocky bank.

Lorelai?

She was stronger. She could beat the queen.

Her chest ached sharply as the truth sliced into her. She could beat the queen, which meant she could’ve saved Leo.

She stared at her hands while grief thickened her throat and shame sank into her heart like a stone.

Why hadn’t she ripped off her gloves at the first sign of Irina? Why hadn’t she stood alone in the street and faced the queen while Leo was safe in the blacksmith’s shop?

She’d been so afraid to reveal herself, so sure it would be the end of everything, and Leo had paid the price.

Wait a minute.
Kol knelt on the rocky soil beside her.

He died because we tried everything but magic.
She couldn’t look away from her hands. Powerful but useless the one time it really mattered.

Her vision blurred, and a shiver worked its way down her spine.

Lorelai—

If you’re going to tell me that I couldn’t have known I’d be stronger, or that I was right to be afraid of Irina, or some other useless thing that won’t help, please don’t.

It hurt to breathe. To feel the rush of her heartbeat and know that Leo’s heart could still be beating too.

I was going to say that we always know what to do when we look back. I’ve replayed the moment my parents told me they were taking my brother to the war front a hundred times. And every time I find a way to change the outcome.
His voice was quiet, but his thoughts were full of the loss that haunted him.
I convince them to wait a day. I get expelled earlier so that they have to stay and deal with that. I pretend I’m terribly sick. I run away so that they have to look for me. Anything to keep them from going to the war front. Anything to make the truth something I can bear.

I can’t bear this.
The shiver that ran down her spine seized her body, and she trembled, teeth chattering.
I can’t bear knowing I could’ve stopped Irina and saved my brother.

I know you can’t, but you don’t have to bear it alone.

He sat quietly beside her, his thoughts an open invitation for her to see what he bore alone. How the weight of his responsibility and fear was crushing him. How he understood the terrible wound of hindsight and what it took to keep moving forward because that was the only road left open.

Something hot and feral churned through Lorelai. Magic sparked and burned in her hands, and she curled them into fists and pounded them against the ground until the skin broke and bled. She wanted to tear the world into pieces. She wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear.

She wanted her brother.

She was crying, choking on her tears. On the truth.

You aren’t alone.

She leaned against him, the warmth of the dragon’s fire in his chest chasing the chill from her skin. He wrapped his arms around her, his hold gentle, his thoughts full of confidence that she could keep moving forward when she was ready. And that she wouldn’t do so alone.

She cried until the shame and grief had emptied out of her. Until she felt hollowed out from her head to her toes and exhausted in a way that felt permanent.

When she grew quiet, she realized that he was still on his knees, the rocky ground cutting into his skin. That the air had grown damp and cold, and he’d shifted his body to block the worst of it from touching her. She was suddenly, agonizingly aware that she’d practically crawled into his lap, and that she’d
soaked the front of his shirt.

Nothing in Gabril’s lessons on ladylike conversation was remotely helpful in knowing what to say next.

You don’t have to say anything at all.

That was nice of you,
she said even though
nice
wasn’t the right word. He’d understood her grief, and he was the last place she’d expected to find peace.

Can I ask you something?
His eyes met hers, steady and certain, while the wind tugged at his wild hair.

She saw the question forming in his thoughts, but was too weary to flinch.

Who killed Leo?

Her thoughts were a maelstrom of images and pain. Running over catwalks, Leo in her wake. Irina shouting an incantor. Monstrous vines exploding across the sky and hurtling toward the ground. Her gloves on as she desperately pulled Leo to the gate while his veins turned black and his heart stopped.

I should’ve taken off my gloves.

That doesn’t answer my question. Who killed Leo?
His voice was gentle.

I failed him.

Maybe in hindsight that’s how it looks. But why were you in Nordenberg in the first place? Why did you have to run? What poison was running through his blood?
He placed a finger under her chin and lifted her face until he could look her in the eye.
This is important, Lorelai. It’s the difference between drowning and moving forward. Who killed Leo?

She stared at him as the answer slowly bubbled to the surface.
Irina.

He waited while the truth settled. While she found her equilibrium and her compass.

It mattered that Lorelai was strong enough to defeat Irina, and she’d spend the rest of her life wishing she’d known that all along. But it mattered more that she remember that Leo wouldn’t have died if Irina hadn’t decided that staying in power was worth sacrificing the lives of her people.

The exhaustion that swept through her dissolved into anger, which hardened into purpose once more.

She couldn’t change the past. She could only move forward and make better choices now.

Slowly she climbed to her feet and then reached down to help Kol up. His hand was warm in hers, and she wanted to say thank you, but he already knew.

Gabril came around the corner, his face creasing into a scowl when he saw their joined hands.

“The bridge is clear for now. No soldiers in sight. Sasha scouted back the way we came. Since she didn’t give me any warnings, it seems we haven’t been followed.”

“Because Irina will use magic against me when I make my next move,” Lorelai said.

“Agreed.” The scowl on Gabril’s face deepened. “Are you going to stand there holding hands all day, or are we going to do this?”

Kol let her go. Cold air swept over her skin in the absence of his warmth, and she felt ridiculous for noticing the way his hair curled over his ears and the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

Careful now
, he said as he brushed past her to follow Gabril.
We might need to add a ground rule about noticing inappropriate things at inappropriate times.
He sounded amused.

I can’t help that I’m an observant person.
And speaking of being observant, we need to watch for Irina’s counterattack. I’m hoping that when I use magic again, she’ll be ready to send something nasty our way.

That’s not really the kind of thing I’d hope for.

It’s the whole point of this plan. The more magic she uses, the weaker she gets. Now let’s stop the ogres in Eldr and start causing Irina more trouble.

How are you going to stop the ogres?
His thoughts were a blaze of desperation bound with a thin thread of hope.

I’ll ask the heart of the river our kingdoms share to do my bidding. If I can convince it to submit to me, then I can send a wall of water into Eldr and have it remain as a barrier between the ogres and your people.

I’m not sure water alone will do anything but slow the ogres down.
There were flashes of horrifying scenes in his memory—children and elderly Draconi running from enormous, gray-skinned beasts who smashed everything to pieces—and he shivered.

It won’t be just water.
She met his gaze.
I’ll bind my magic to the river’s heart. As long as I’m alive, nothing will pass through the barrier. And if I die . . . just stay close to me. If I die, take my heart to Irina. Technically, you didn’t agree to kill me. You agreed to bring her my heart. Her blood oath would force her to honor her promise. Either way, Eldr will be safe. Now let’s get across this bridge so that I can get started.
They rounded the bend and came upon the bridge.

It was an enormous structure, wide enough for four wagons to travel abreast at once. The ancient wood was bleached and weathered, but it stood sturdy, braced by crossbeams and thick pillars sunk deep into the river’s bed. The water ran deep, its current strong. From her standpoint on the north side of the bridge, Lorelai could just see the bank on the south shore. Four pairs of statues of kings and queens long buried in the royal tomb stood guard at each end of the bridge, silent stone sentinels three times as tall as Lorelai.

There were other ways over the river—smaller bridges to the west, ferry docks to the east, but this was the avenue that connected the main road in the north to the main road in the south. This was the fastest way to get to the capital. Once this was gone, it would take weeks for Irina’s northern army, currently stranded in the Falkrains, to reach her.

By then, either Irina or Lorelai would be dead.

You’re not going to die.
Kol’s voice was fierce, and she heard the whispers of his collar crawling across his mind, urging him to destroy instead of protect.

I might.
She didn’t look at him as she walked past Gabril to study the bridge and plan her attack. She wanted to live, but she wanted the safety and well-being of her kingdom more.

I will lay down my life for yours. It’s the least I can do.

She saw the resolve blazing through him, a brilliant light that filled him the way his determination to protect Eldr filled him, and her heart beat a little faster. The whispers from his collar grew louder, begging for her blood, but he fought to ignore them and focused on the debt he felt he owed her.

Eldr needs its king
, she said as she walked between the first
pair of weathered stone statues.

And Ravenspire needs its true queen.

She lifted her chin and met his eyes.
We’re allies now. We’ll just have to save each other.

She moved through the next pair of statues, shivering a little as she looked up at the empty gray eyes of a queen with long hair and clasped hands that were missing most of their fingers.

This water flows through Eldr.
There was longing in his voice. A sharp ache of loneliness as memories of wide bronze halls with rounded balconies, rugged mountains, and rooms filled with laughter and music swept over his mind.

And soon this water will make Eldr safe.
She looked at the water and prayed its heart would submit to hers without a fight.

“Which do you want to do first? The bridge or the water?” Gabril said as he strode onto the bridge ahead of Lorelai.

Whichever one Lorelai chose would spark a response from the queen. And even though Lorelai had beaten the queen’s attempt to punish Kol, she’d be performing two tremendously difficult spells, one after the other. If the river or the wooden bridge refused to submit their hearts to her, she’d be weakened and unable to fight Irina.

“I’ll send a barrier into Eldr first.” If the queen retaliated, and Lorelai was too drained to fight, she could flee. Leave the bridge intact and alter her plan. But her promise would be kept, and Kol wouldn’t have to worry about losing anyone else he loved.

Thank you.
He walked abreast of her as they passed the final pair of statues on the north side and began moving across the bridge.

I keep my promises.

And I keep mine.
His fingers brushed against hers, and she saw the vow he’d taken to protect her at any cost. She saw the pain the collar was delivering in response. The way his dragon heart begged for her blood, and the way Kol forced himself to ignore them both so that he could be the boy he wanted to be instead of the predator Irina had created.

She saw, and her heart beat a little faster, a little harder, as together they walked out over the water.