Queen of Storms

by C. N. Crawford

  Before I could stop myself, my hand was around his throat, and I was squeezing. Power flooded me, and I whirled his body around, slamming him against the wall. “The next time you hit me with your magic, Melkarth, will be your last.”

  Somehow, his smile was heartbreakingly beautiful as he pried my fingers off his neck. “What a way to die.”

  I stepped back from him, stunned at the violence I’d wanted to unleash over the whole castle. Mad as the kings of Edinnu.

  “Your excellency,” a soft, feminine voice called out.

  My head throbbed, and I turned to catch sight of the reverent sister.

  He turned to look at her, ran his fingers through his wet hair. “Yes?”

  “The Grand Master would like to see you,” she said from behind her veil.

  His ice-cold eyes were still on me. “Tell him I’m busy.”

  “It is a matter of great importance. He requests your presence immediately.”

  The Nathair gave me a sidelong glance. He whispered, “You’re smart enough not to defy me now, I take it. Wherever you go, I will find you.”

  Pure ice flowed in my blood as I watched him saunter off with a casual gait, as if we hadn’t both just threatened to kill each other.

  My time here was up.

  “Would you like me to run you a bath?” the reverent sister asked.

  “No.” I was all out of time here. I needed her to leave so I could search the entire castle from top to bottom. How did I get her to leave me alone? “You’re dismissed.”

  That seemed to do the trick. She turned to glide away.

  My heart slammed hard against my ribs, and I felt like the castle’s shadows were going to devour me.

  I waited till the sister rounded a corner. Then, I started walking, keeping to the shadows, heading for my room and the medicine I had tucked under my bed. Melkarth had promised to find me, but that was a problem for another day. Today’s problem was still Wren.

  I moved as quickly as I could without breaking into a run. That would’ve been suspicious. I hadn’t yet formulated a real plan. Wherever Wren was, someone had shielded her with magic. I moved through the corridors blindly, watching for movements. I tried to blend in with the darkness.

  Thunder grumbled on the other side of the Institute’s black stone walls. I was keeping track of my path, so I’d have a way back to my room if I needed one. The corridors all looked the same, but this one smelled like the Nathair; musk and ginger. I made a mental map in my head. Maybe I wasn’t a knight, but I could learn the secrets of the fortress.

  I figured it was worth another shot at using a tracking spell. After I’d grabbed the medicine, I called up the tiny sphere of silver light. It popped into the air, waiting for my command.

  “Take me to Wren.”

  It flickered and sputtered, like a candle about to go out in the face of a breeze.

  Resistance. Wren was still protected.

  Melkarth had pointed out how powerful I was, and he was right. What if I amped up the magic in the tracking spell?

  I glanced around the corridor to make sure the coast was clear. When I was satisfied no one was around, I pushed more magic into the spell. Tracking spells didn’t usually need more than a trickle of power, but this time the metaphorical candle needed to blaze into a bonfire, like a burning unsworn.

  The halls were strangely empty, as if whatever had happened at the column had spooked everyone. It worked for me. I needed to be alone.

  Getting the spell to work was like pushing through a brick wall with my bare hands. Lightning crackled around my fingers, and a phantom wind moved through the hallways. All around me, I could smell the scent of charring stone.

  The light in my hand suddenly bloomed to full brightness. I smiled at my creation, then watched as it zipped down the hall toward Wren.

  Relief filled me, making my body shudder like a fig leaf in a strong wind. She was alive!

  I broke into a run, moving as fast as my legs would carry me. My plan, if I happened to run into someone, was to bulldoze through them with magic. I’d blow a hole in the rock to get us out of here. The time for cloaks and daggers was over. It hadn’t exactly gone as planned, but I’d infiltrated the Institute like I’d wanted to. I’d gone through their trials; I’d endured the pompous wankers. All of that was behind me now.

  Wren and I were getting the hells out of here.

  Chapter 23

  I didn’t see anyone in the dark corridors as I ran. The ball of bright silvery light led me through the labyrinthine halls, always close to the sound of thunder. I followed it up winding stairwells, higher and higher into the fortress, into places I hadn’t known existed.

  Somehow, I felt eyes on me. Ice whispered up my spine, and I tried to not to think about the fact that the Nathair might be watching me even now. I tried not to think about him transforming, his black scales glittering in the rain, jaws moving for my throat. Into another shadowy corridor, my heart beating a rapid tattoo.

  The emptiness in the halls seemed more disturbing the further I went. Not a soul. Wren, wherever she was, was being kept away from everyone else. Why? She wasn’t dangerous. She was an ordinary fae, just like me—except without magic. She had no powers whatsoever. I had no idea what they wanted with her.

  Why single her out? Why put her high above the dungeons, away from the other prisoners? She’d been in a dungeon when she first came here. I’d seen that in the scrying mirror. Then, for some reason, they’d moved her.

  But why?

  The question was like an earworm that I couldn’t get rid of. At least it looked like I’d get the answer as soon as the ball of light began to slow.

  Torches lit the long hall, their light wavering over the stone. Thunder shook the walls, but apart from that—complete silence. Then, the orb of light stopped abruptly at a door. I sprinted toward it. By the time I reached it, my lungs burned. The sphere cast silver light on a dark, unmarked expanse of oak.

  For reasons I couldn’t quite explain, my nerves sparked with apprehension. Something just seemed wrong about all this.

  I took a deep breath, and the orb of light faded. I turned the doorknob, unsurprised to find it locked by magic. I pressed one palm against the door, working through the unlocking spell I’d already been practicing. At last, the latch clicked, and I turned the knob and pushed open the door.

  This wasn’t what I’d expected—not the room of a prisoner.

  A large feather bed stood by the farthest wall, the sheets a beautiful silver. A writing desk sat in the corner, covered in paper and pencils. There was Wren, sitting at the desk, her golden skin a little paler than usual.

  “Cora?” she gasped. Her dark eyes fixed on me, unbelieving. “Are you really here?”

  Wren looked exactly as she had the last time I’d seen her, except in more expensive clothes. Her golden complexion looked soft and dewy. Her shiny black hair cascaded over a silk blouse in waves. She sat beside a half-eaten plate of oysters.

  She was living like a knight.

  “Cora, what the hells are you doing here?” she asked when I hadn’t spoken.

  “I thought you were a prisoner,” I said, phrasing it as a statement instead of a question.

  Her gaze shuttered. “I could ask you the same thing! Why are you here?”

  “T-T-To save you. Obviously.” My stutter didn’t usually come out with Wren, but I’d never felt this confused around her before.

  She rose from her chair and hurried over to the door. “You shouldn’t have come.”

  Frustration burned in my mind. “What are you talking about? Do you have any idea what I’ve been through?” I sputtered. “The pit. A half-naked march through the city. A lightning trial. A psychotic mentor who’s also a dragon—who, by the way, wants to kill me now. We have to get out of here. Now.”

  “Leave? No! I can’t leave.”

  Had she lost her bloody mind? “Of course you can leave. I have a mental map of the way to get out. I can use magic to blast through the
rock. But we have to go now.” I pulled on her hand, but she stayed rooted in place.

  “Cora, no.” She looked scared.

  I paused and stared at her dark eyes. Why wasn’t she coming with me? Something didn’t add up. We should be moving by now. We should be running for our lives, because at any moment, the Nathair was going to come storming in here. He’d rip our lungs out of our backs.

  I shook my head involuntarily. No words were coming, I was just saying no with my head.

  “You need to leave. Right now,” Wren warned. “Please. Go.”

  I was trying to work through things in my mind, when I remembered. “Your medicine!” I said, and I pulled it out of one of my pockets. “Here, I brought this for you.”

  “Cora, I don’t need that, and you need to leave! Why aren’t you getting that?”

  This had all been for nothing. Nothing. I stared at her, my muscles tense, my heart thundering. Something was different about her, that much was about as clear as a church bell, but that didn’t change the fact that I was crushed.

  She didn’t even want to see me. But why? If she wasn’t kidnapped, then did she just up and abandon me? I didn’t understand what I had done to her to deserve that. Had she been lying about being my friend all this time? No… that wasn’t possible… we had too many memories together, we’d been through too much.

  But all of this was too much, too. Still, I sucked it up and shored up my composure.

  “Wh-why did you come here?” I asked, “I could see you were depressed or something before you left London, but….” I gestured at the walls. “Why come to Gibraltar? Why didn’t you talk to me?”

  Her dark eyes looked fierce. “Depression wasn’t the problem.”

  I blinked. “So, what was the problem?”

  Wren winced like a sharp pain had stabbed her in the side of the head. She turned away from me, slinking into the corner as if she were trying to disappear into the shadows.

  “You can’t stay in here.” Her voice was strangely quiet. “Don’t you understand?”

  Frustration simmered. I’d been expecting gratitude. “Uhh, no. I don’t, because you haven’t said anything, Wren. I have no idea why the hells you came down here. A little clarity would be great right now.”

  She turned to face me. Her jaw was clenched shut, and she had her teeth bared, like she was trying to hold something inside. “I didn’t mean for you to follow me.”

  “You did a fine job at making sure I didn’t.”

  “I had to leave. I didn’t have a choice.”

  I shook my head. “I’ve known you since birth. We know each other’s secrets. You’re the only one I trust. This isn’t like you. What have they done to you here?”

  “They didn’t do a thing!” She gripped her hair like she was going to tear it out. “It started in London. The dreams were getting too intense. I couldn’t stay with you any longer. I had to come down here and try to make it back to Edinnu.”

  “Edinnu?” I rarely said the word out loud. Neither of us did. “Why in the gods’ names would you go back to that place we fled? He’ll kill you. The king will kill you in an instant.”

  She shook her head. “The Institute here guards a portal that leads to every other realm. They call it the pillar. There used to be two.”

  “The Pillars of Hercules. Yes, I saw it today.”

  “I thought if I came down here and activated it, I’d be able to go back to Edinnu and fight this curse. At first, I thought I could hide it, bury it, but … it got too much. I decided to leave in the middle of the night. If I’d stayed and tried to talk to you … I don’t know what would’ve happened.”

  “Why would talking to me have been bad?”

  A pause; a moment that hung in the air like a breath before a fall. “You know how I always killed things?”

  I frowned at her. “Killed things? I mean, yeah, plants. A bird I was trying to heal. What does that have to do with anything?”

  Her eyes shone brightly. “Remember Martin?”

  I did remember Martin. A little younger than I was now—maybe seventeen years old. I’d found him crawling on his stomach one night, just next to the canal by our London shop. He’d been beaten and stabbed and left to die. His blood had coated the brick.

  When he saw me, he’d begged me to help him. I didn’t want to blow my cover and use magic to heal him, but there was no way I’d get him to an ambulance before he bled out. So, I rushed to him, threw myself at his side, flooded his body with a healing spell. I had to get my hands against his stomach for it to work. I would never forget how warm the blood was, how strongly it smelled, or how quickly it cooled in the frigid London air.

  The spell hadn’t worked.

  “That wasn’t your fault,” I said. “My magic wasn’t strong enough.”

  “You and I both know you can’t heal people around me. Your spell failed because I was there. I’m cursed.”

  I crossed my arms, trying to think logically. “A, we don’t even know if that’s true or just a theory. And B, what’s the big deal? Just stay away from me when I’m using healing magic.”

  But she still wasn’t moving, and every second we spent arguing was another second we risked that door breaking open.

  “Wren!” I barked. “I’m done messing around.”

  “And I’m sorry you wasted your time.” Her whole body shook. “The darkness inside of me doesn’t like you. She’s getting stronger, and I don’t know how much longer I can keep her held down.”

  Now my heart was beating inside of my throat, pulsing against the sides of my neck. My entire field of vision shook. I could hear the blood pumping like it had been put on the loudspeakers. “Darkness…?”

  “I thought I could get back to Edinnu and deal with the darkness,” she said, “But the Storm Fae stopped me. They won’t let me leave, now.”

  “The doors are open now, Wren.”

  “But I’ll kill you.” She was speaking through gritted teeth, now; really fighting to contain whatever this darkness was. “This is inside me.”

  Holy shit.

  “What are you?” I asked in barely a whisper. Whatever it was, maybe my magic could fix it.

  She shut her eyes and groaned like she was in pain. All at once, the torches in the room guttered out. An uncomfortable, life-leeching cold settled in, chilling me down to the marrow. I swallowed hard, and I realized my teeth had already started to chatter.

  “Wren?” I asked. I couldn’t see a thing. This room had no windows in it, and only the torches had provided any form of light.

  Hastily, I muttered a charm for a light spell. The light flickered—too weak—and in those staccato bursts of light … I saw something that made my blood run cold.

  Wren’s eyes glowed, burning with the blue of the brightest stars.

  “Wr-Wr-Wr-Wren?” I forced the word, stammering it out.

  “Not Wren,” a deep, gruff voice croaked from within her throat. “The Reaper.”

  She was the Reaper? The Institute’s secret weapon?

  I didn’t know what the hells was going on, but I was starting to appreciate her warning that I needed to leave. I just couldn’t make myself do it. This had all been for her.

  The light charm flickered again, and Wren swooped for me, moving fluidly like a wraith. When she opened her mouth, magic streamed out—a storm of deep purple and blue light. It spilled out of her and wrapped around her like fire.

  In a flash, I summoned my shielding spell. When Wren’s magic hit mine, it felt like getting slammed with a bowling ball. The shield held, but the force of the impact sent me staggering back against the door. It knocked the wind right out of me. My ears rang. My chest tightened, and all I could hear was that awful howling sound, like thousands of voices crying out in pain.

  And before I could figure out what to do next, Wren was coming at me again.

  With my hands stretched out, I pushed what magic I could into the shield just as her maelstrom of magic slammed into me. I slammed into the door a
gain, certain my bones were breaking. And on the other side of the magical battle, Wren’s eyes burned. But it wasn’t really her.

  The darkness inside of me doesn’t like you.

  She was reaching for me. Even through my shield, I could feel her magic invading my body, slithering tendrils stretching to touch me. I dropped to one knee, realizing full well that my magic was about to fail. I knew those coils of magic weren’t just going to touch my body—they were going to dig their roots into my very soul.

  I could feel her intent—its intent. It wanted to take my soul away from me. And in a few minutes, the bubble around me would pop. Dark magic pushed toward me on all sides, but I could see her at the center of it. She was like a statue, her body tense and still, her hands clenched tightly into fists, her eyes fixed on me.

  Lucky for me, I’d been practicing using two spells at once.

  My shield had all but collapsed, but I still had power left in me. I stretched one hand toward Wren, splaying my fingers out. I called for Taru’s fire like I had at the pillar.

  I’d fight this creature’s storm with one of my own making.

  Even in this windowless room, I could feel the presence of clouds around us. The air smelled charged, the ambient energy built up like an elastic band, ready to snap at a moment’s notice. Maybe the Reaper was here—but Taru was here now, too. The Storm God controlled me; he compelled me to do things against my will. But he came for me when I needed it.

  Taru was so close it was like he was breathing cold wind down the back of my neck. When I chanted for him to send me his fire, I reached out with my hands and grabbed it. Then, I hurled it at the Institute’s walls.

  When the lightning struck the stone, it sounded like cannon fire hitting us. The world violently quaked, and I struggled to stay upright.

  Wren—the Reaper—staggered back, but her magic didn’t relent. Wicked faces of colorful smoke flashed before my eyes. Phantom voices flooded my hearing, an army of ghosts trying to take me down.

  I hurled another bolt of Taru’s magic. One final, earth-shattering explosion rocked the castle, and the Reaper slammed me with a powerful force. I shot back against the wall, then fell to the floor.