Witch Queen (3 page)

“Come, Elena. We can be together again.
Nothing will ever come between us again, I promise.” He paused and
then added in a gentle voice. “I love you.”

Silently, still beyond words, I stumbled
back, shaking my head like a stubborn child. I wasn’t sure what I’d
expected, but this wasn’t it. I knew it was some sort of trap, but
I never once imagined that Jon would be lost to me.

Jon seemed to sense my reluctance to
recognize him, who he truly was.

“It’s me, Elena. Jon.”

“He’s not Jon,” hissed Will, and his
shoulders tensed. “Jon’s gone. Whatever this thing is…it isn’t him.
Not anymore.”

Jon’s black eyes shifted in annoyance.

“Lies. All lies. Don’t listen to him, Elena.
It’s me. Look at me. I’m the same man who saved you when everyone
else left you to die. Remember? That was
me
. I took you to
the witches. I took care of you.” He moved forward. “Let me take
care of you again.”

I stumbled back into Leo. My sword was
heavier than I’d ever remembered, and it started to slip from my
trembling hand.

“But…” I faltered, trying to find a glimpse
of the man I remembered inside this creature that stood before me.
Was he even in there? Was this just another version of him or had
his soul been corrupted by black magic? Was the man I loved lost
forever?

“But you’re sick,” I said finally, for lack
of a better word.
And I don’t know how to make you better
, I
wanted to say. Tears fell freely down my face, and my throat
throbbed with the emotions that cascaded in me.

“I’m not sick,” Jon said with a little
smirk. It was almost like he enjoyed torturing me like this. “I am
better.”

“Than what?” Will shot back. “Better than
what?”

“Everything.”

Will and Leo exchanged a worried look. It
was strange to see this shift in Jon’s behavior. I’d never seen
this arrogance before. The real Jon was slipping away from me. It
was like I was staring at someone else completely, a stranger.

“I am everything you’re not,” Jon continued.
He focused on me. “I’m stronger, faster, smarter. I’m stronger than
ever before. My body is resilient and fast. My senses are sharper,
and I can see in the dark.”

“That explains the lack of light in here,” I
added, and his eyes narrowed. Something in me went still and cold
under his gaze, but I didn’t dare look away. I didn’t want him to
see or sense how terrified I was. While I was terrified of him, I
was more terrified of what I would be forced to do if he proved to
have become completely corrupted.

“You’re frightened of me,” he said in a
disturbingly casual voice.

My body started to shake.

“Don’t be,” he soothed. “There’s nothing to
fear, my Elena.”

I flinched at his intimate use of my
name.

“I am the same man with all the same
experiences and memories. Nothing’s changed on those levels. The
only thing that’s changed is that I embraced shadow and darkness,
and it gave me real power. But it’s nothing to be frightened of.
You yourself know of what I speak…of having power of your own. The
power of darkness only wants to make you better, like me. What’s
wrong with improving oneself?”

“My power is nothing like this,” I said.
“You’re changed. The darkness has consumed you. Corrupted you.” My
eyes burned as my stomach contracted into a painful ball.

Jon’s smile became wild.

“I have changed. I have the strength of five
men, and I can do things that I never dreamed I could. It’s amazing
really. Who wouldn’t want to taste this power? Anyone would be
foolish not to want it. And you can have it, too, if you’ll join
me. Think of what we could do together with our combined
strength.”

I could swear there was a ghost of triumph
on his face. “Join me. Join us.”

“I won’t.” I was surprised by my
self-control. “Whatever this plight is, this
infection
that’s spreading in you, it is evil. I can feel it in my soul, and
I know my intuition to be true, just as I know that the sun rises
in the east every morning. It’s not right. It’s a sickness…a
terrible sickness. Can’t you see that? Can’t you see what it’s
doing to you?”

“Of course I can.”

He raised an eyebrow and cocked his head to
the side. His pale alabaster skin seemed to radiate a sickly glow
in the light.

“It made me a better man, the man I’d always
wanted to be. I fought it at first, you know.” He dragged his
fingers through his hair, and the familiar gesture nearly sent me
to my knees.

“I fought for you,” he continued. “I fought
it until there was no more fight left in me…until I was a breath
away from death. But once I accepted the darkness, everything
became clear. I knew it was the right thing to do. Just like you
will, Elena, when you embrace the darkness as I did. It’s
wonderful. You’ll feel wonderful.”

He smiled at me again, and black liquid
oozed from the small cuts and cracks in his once sensual lips.

“Come here, Elena,” he purred. He reached
out again, and I felt myself leaning towards him.

“Don’t,” hissed Leo, and I froze, stupefied
at what I had almost done.

Leo’s breath tickled my ear as he grabbed my
elbow and squeezed harder than necessary.

“It’s you he wants. You can’t let yourself
get close to him. Our Jon is gone. It’s too late.”

I’d learned to listen to Leo’s instincts and
to trust my own.
Our Jon is gone
. His words resonated in my
mind. I knew it to be true, but my heart refused to believe it.

I braced myself as I stared into those
liquid-black eyes.

“You know I can’t follow you, Jon. Not
anymore.”

The words stung my throat as I forced them
out. I felt that my soul was dying as I stared at the creature who
was once the man I loved. The man I
love
.

Anger flashed across Jon’s face, and his
haggard features twisted grotesquely. He shook his head and smiled
slowly.

“Ah, Elena,” he tsked. “You disappoint
me.”

With a flick of his wrist, he drew a long
silver sword from the sheath at his waist.

“I didn’t want to have to do this. I was
hoping you would surrender to me without a fight. I thought our
love would be enough, but you’ve always been infuriatingly
stubborn. It’s a fault that will be cured soon enough. It’s not
without regret that I’m going to have to kill you and your
friends.”

His words hit me like a punch in the gut,
and I strained to keep it together. Cold rippled through my soul.
This might be the end of us. I might never get him back.

Jon’s eyes sparkled with primal fury as he
paced with his weapon drawn. “The way I see things, Elena, you have
two options. The smartest would be to accept my offer and come with
me. The second option is that I kill all of you.” He raised his
brows. “What will it be?”

Will and Leo moved in next to me.

This is it
, I told myself.
This is
the day Jon dies. This is the day he is lost from me
forever.

I tightened my grip on my short sword. I was
shaking all over with an overpowering anger at the high priest. I
swore that one day I would make him pay. I would make him pay and
kill
him.

And yet, even as I stood there clenching my
weapon, I knew with all certainty that I could never hurt Jon. Even
in his demented and infected state—I could never hurt him. Not
ever. There had to be another way…

I clenched my jaw and took a careful step
forward.

“The Jon I know would never threaten to kill
or hurt me or his friends in any way.” I angled my body forward and
added softly, “I know you’re in there, Jon. Fight it.”

For a brief moment, I saw a flicker of
recognition on his face, but it disappeared so quickly I thought
maybe I had imagined it.

Jon’s face wrinkled in a smile that didn’t
reach his eyes.

“That Jon was weak,” he said. “Clearly that
Jon was weakened by his love for you. But I’m the stronger one, the
better one. Your Jon is lost forever.”

“I don’t believe that.” My eyes burned and
ached. “There has to be a way to stop this sickness, to stop the
black magic from spreading to the Pit and the rest of Anglia. And
when we find it, I’ll make you whole again. I promise.”

“You promise?” laughed Jon. “You
can’t
stop it. None of you can. Even as we speak, it has
already spread to the southern and western parts of Anglia. Soon it
will spread to every corner of Arcania and then to the rest of the
world. Shadow and darkness will consume everything and everyone. It
will never stop until it conquers all.”

As I frowned at this new bit of information,
Jon lurched forward and cut the air in front of me with his
sword.

Leo grabbed me from behind before I knew
what was happening, and Jon’s sword missed my midsection by a hair.
Moving faster than I’d ever seen him, Will lunged forward, kicked
Jon in the chest, and slammed the prison door shut. In the same
movement, he slipped the door’s iron bolt across and locked Jon
inside.

In a rage, Jon threw himself against the
metal bars.

“You will die! Die!” He let out a guttural
howl that froze my blood. “Here! The faithless ones are here!” he
cried out. “The steel maiden is here!”

Leo’s fingers dug into my elbow. “We need to
move. Now!”

I knew he was right, but my legs didn’t want
to move.

“I can’t…we can’t just leave him here.” But
I took another step back as Jon rammed his head against the metal
bars, thrashing like a wild animal.

“Yes we can, unless you want to die down
here and become something like
him
,” hissed Will as he made
his way back towards the exit.

“No!” I yanked my arm free and saw the
annoyance on Leo’s face.

“This wasn’t part of the plan, Elena,” he
whispered so that only I could hear him. “The plan was to rescue
him
if
he was still alive—”

“He
is
still alive! He’s just
sick.”

I bared my teeth, and blood pounded in my
ears as my desperation increased. I needed to figure out a way to
save Jon. “There’s got to be another way.”

Will halted and spun around. “If there is,
let’s not think about it until we get out of here.” His eyes
widened. “I hear movement coming from the upper levels. We need to
leave.”

I wiped the sweat from my brow with the back
on my hand. I looked again at Jon through the bars of his cell.
Jon’s black eyes focused on me with an unnerving gleam of unnatural
hunger. He seemed to have given up on fighting with the bars, and
yet his body trembled. Sweat coated his face and skin as though he
suffered from a high fever. The magic that flowed through his veins
was an illness, dark and cold. I was not that different, but the
magic that flowed through me was warm and light. Although we
couldn’t be more different, we were both possessed by magic. And
then something hit me.

“The witches. Yes, the witches can
help.”

I looked into the face that I had once loved
so dearly, but the sinister smile sent a new wave of shivers down
my spine.

“If we took him back with us—

“And how do you plan on doing that? He’ll
kill us all before we even make it out of the temple,” said
Leo.

“We can’t do anything for him now. If you’re
right, and I hope you are, his only chance is if we come back to
get him out of here when it’s safer. Then we can make for Gray
Havens.”

“I’m not giving up on him,” my voice
cracked, and tears cascaded down my hot face.

Leo squeezed my arm. “You’re not. We’re not.
But right now we can’t do anything for him. And if we stay, we’ll
die. Jon wouldn’t want that.”

I blinked through my tears. I knew he was
right. Jon just stared at me, unfeeling, unmoved, unimpressed. And
although I looked into the face of a stranger, I knew deep inside
that my Jon was there, trapped, and I was going to set him
free.

Jon wrapped his fingers around the metal
bars.

“Don’t leave me, Elena.” His words tore at
my soul.

As I opened my mouth to say something, Leo
tugged me away. At first I fought, but then I let him drag me away.
They were right. There was nothing I could do for him.

“Elena! Don’t leave me. I love you…”

Cursing, I couldn’t even glance back at Jon.
I could hardly keep up with Leo as we ran up the stairs because the
pain of leaving Jon was consuming me. I barely managed to make my
way up the stairs.

But I did.

Will disappeared out of the doors to the
prison. I heard the clash of metal even before I saw the four
temple guards. Their eyes, too, burned with the black sickness.

Will was the first one there, and he managed
to throw them off with his long sword and quick stabbing skills.
Leo rushed to his aid as the guards rained down blows with their
swords again and again. It was a miracle that Will and Leo
deflected them. But they couldn’t last long because the guards
moved just as skillfully as they did. And the guards never
tired.

“Kill the steel maiden! Don’t let her get
away,” one of the guards commanded.

A guard broke off his attack on Will and ran
towards me, his sword raised above his head.

But I didn’t move. I was frozen. It was only
when I heard Leo shout from somewhere that I snapped out of it.

I raised my weapon just in time to deflect
the blow that would have landed on my skull. I sidestepped when the
guard got near me, and I sliced my blade across his stomach. He
howled as he stumbled, his face twisted in an ugly mixture of rage
and cold murderous intent.

The wound would have disabled a regular man,
but this man was infected with magic. And within a split second, he
launched another attack. His sword flashed at me as he swung it in
every direction, trying to kill me. I blocked, dodged, and parried
all his swings. Except for one.