Beira unclenched her fingers from my neck just long enough that I could broil her skin with fire. Her hair and skin lit up with flames, and she leapt off me, extinguishing my attack. I scrambled to stand, my hands at my throat. I gasped for breath, my windpipe like a crushed straw.
Lyr’s attention was entirely on Beira, his sword drawn. His voice was low, controlled. “You lied to me, Beira. You said you would cure her.”
Beira stood tall, her hair whipping around her head. “The gods have spoken!” she squawked, her voice making the ground tremble. She shifted from foot to foot, the snow crunching. “She must die.”
“She’s Salem’s wife,” I rasped, stumbling back to the house. “She wants revenge.”
“You lied to me!” Lyr said again, no longer as controlled. No, this time, his voice cracked. He sounded heartbroken.
Apparently, he was shocked, shocked that the demented monster with human bones in her house wasn’t entirely on the up-and-up. Note to self—never trust Lyr’s judgment of people again.
While Lyr had her at the end of his sword, I turned back to the house, finding it sealed again with frozen rock. But I pressed my hands against it, and the heat came faster this time. After a moment, I realized that the magic wasn’t only coming from me… but from Salem, too.
“Stop!” Beira shrieked.
Lyr seemed to be doing a good job of keeping her at bay. When I cast a quick look back at him, I found that he still had his blade trained on her throat.
As I heated the rock, I could feel that Salem and I were working together. The stone glowed red like molten lava. Between the two of us, we had the full force of his magic. As I felt his energy melding with mine, I stood tall.
In the next moments, the rocks were melting, steam rising from the snow. As the stones melted and cracked, heat blasted over my skin. Magma burst from the house, flowing into the snow—
And Salem rose from the melted ruins.
Molten stone coated his body, sliding off his skin. The clothes he’d been wearing had burned away, and his wings spread out behind him, magma dripping off the feathers. Smoke and steam coiled into the air around us.
For a moment, his smoldering eyes were on me, like two black coals with cracks of lava. Then his gaze darted to Beira.
Lyr was still holding his sword to her throat, but her body glowed with a crystalline sheen. An arctic blast of frosted air burst from her.
Salem was undeterred. He stalked closer, like an animal homing in on its prey. He spread his arms wide and pulled her shimmering magic into him. It twirled through the air, winding into his body. He stood tall, his feet melting the snow beneath him. Curls of steam rose into the air.
Lyr kept his sword at Beira’s neck, and she started to shrivel. Her screams sounded tortured, animal. Her skin withered, growing paler and leathery; her eye bulged; her body shrank. As she shrank, bones began to protrude from her body, until she fell to the ground.
Salem and Lyr stood over the husk of her body. Her single eye blinked once, and Lyr drove his sword through it, impaling her head.
Slowly, she began to flake into little crystals of white that blew away in the wind, whirling into the snow.
The last thing to drift away was her eye.
As the snow started to melt around us, the faint smell of spring filled the air.
The Queen of Misery was no more.
Salem
I closed my eyes, feeling the wind over my skin.
Now, I wore nothing but my sheathed sword around my waist. I still held the little piece of blue sea glass between my fingers.
Silence… It was gone—the crackling hum of the curse, the fire in my blood. I cracked my neck, feeling lighter, more at peace than I had in eons.
It was done. Over.
At least for me. When I opened my eyes, I saw Aenor studying me carefully. She pointed at my forehead. “It’s gone. The glowing star on your forehead is gone. The curse is gone.”
It was. But the divine hex still flowed beneath the surface of Aenor’s skin. It was hard to feel too much elation when my mate was still dying.
Lyr pulled his sword from the snowy earth, then shot a glance at me. “I could have done without seeing you naked.”
I looked down at myself. My chest still dripped molten rock into the snow, and murderous intent dripped off me in much the same way, sizzling on the earth. “The only reason you’re alive now is that you were holding a blade to Beira’s throat when I first saw you here. Did you really think it was a good idea to throw Aenor right into realm of the woman who wanted her dead?”
“The only reason you’re still alive,” growled Lyr, “is that you are Aenor’s mate and I don’t want to ruin her life. But you killed my queen once, and I’d really like to send you to the sea hell.”
“No one threw me anywhere,” Aenor cut in. “I wanted my magic back so I could heal Gina. She was stabbed with an Ollephest tooth.”
“No, and Beira’s power died with her,” I said, my mind ablaze. “We need another witch. Someone who’s not insane. Someone powerful—”
“No.” Aenor had started pacing. “No more witches. They’re not helping us. They’re just trying to extract what they want. All of them have a price.” She glared at me. “Which generally seems to be marriage to you. Could you try to be less appealing?”
“Gods save me,” Lyr muttered, turning away from us and sheathing his sword with a violent thrust.
“What is your other idea?” I asked impatiently.
“Beira said there was a way to heal myself,” Aenor said.
She was still pacing over the rapidly melting snow. The entire landscape was changing around us. No longer frozen, it had quickly shifted from spring into a sort of rot.
Aenor’s feet squelched in the mud. “She said, ‘You could have healed yourself, if only the people loved you. A leader grows strong from the sacrifices of her people.’ It was the same thing that Richelle said, about sacrificing for a leader. Richelle was completely obsessed with the idea that a sovereign’s health feeds the land. But she also said powerful magic works both ways. A sovereign can draw power from her kingdom. The problem is, I’m not a leader, and my people revile me.”
Lyr had whirled around, his gaze intent on Aenor. “Beira was right.”
My eyebrows crept up, the idea taking root in my mind. “It’s an ancient fae tradition. The king or queen can draw strength from their people. It’s a sacrifice of sorts. When I was king, the gladiatorial tournaments I held helped to turn me into the magnificent creature you see before you today.”
Aenor blew out a gust of air. “So, the arrogance thing wasn’t from the curse, I guess.”
“No, that’s just me,” I replied. “Anyway, if Beira said that a sacrifice of your people would work to cure a divine hex, I have no doubt she was telling the truth. She thought you were about to die a very painful and final death, and would have no reason to lie at that point.”
The breeze rippled over my bare skin. Honestly, I was desperate to get some clothes on, but there were no wardrobes in this godforsaken swamp world. The stench of sulfur and decay was starting to rise around us.
Aenor’s eyes gleamed with a sort of feverish light that made me wonder if she was losing her mind. “Yes, good. I don’t need Richelle, or Beira, or another witch. I just need to become Queen of Nova Ys, and for the people to love me enough to want to…” She bit her lip. “What would they have to do, exactly?”
I shrugged. “A few deaths would be a good start. Bit of torture. Feed them to a centaur. I could always light them on fire.”
“What is wrong with you?” said Lyr.
She stared at me. “This really is what you’re like without the curse.”
I frowned. “Your life is more important than those faceless fucks.”
“Taking power from the people is what my mother was doing that day, when she had me slaughter that poor man. The one she’d called a traitor. She was extracting a sacrifice from her people to gain power. But I can
’t do that again, obviously—not that way. And I don’t have the loyalty of the people.”
Anger scorched my throat, and it took me a moment to realize that I was angry at myself for ripping her crown away from her. “Just reclaim the throne of Nova Ys and celebrate the crowning with a sacrifice.”
Lyr held up his hand. “Ease back on the slaughter fantasy for a moment. This is a brilliant idea, and thankfully, there is another way to do it. I remember how Queen Malgven drew strength at one time, before she started the executions. It was a ceremony, at night, under the moon. The people of Ys would give her strength from their bodies. Everyone spent the next day sleeping, but no one had to die.”
I wanted this to happen now. “Good, let’s go. We will kill anyone who protests.”
Lyr glared. “It’s not quite that simple. The ceremony requires actual loyalty, and Aenor doesn’t have that yet.” He turned to her. “For a hundred fifty years, everyone thought you were at fault for sinking the island of Ys.”
“Bring me, then, and I’ll tell them it was me,” I said, growing impatient. “They can throw rocks at me or whatever it is they want to do.”
“It would be a start, but I’ve already told them. And there are some who believe it, but most think that Aenor bewitched me into saying that. They’ve been committed to hating one person for a hundred years, and they won’t shift easily. She’s their devil, someone they can join together in loathing. It unites them.”
Aenor started pacing again, her narrowed eyes on me. “This would be an ideal time for Caradoc of Cornwall to not be rubble.”
“What do you mean?” asked Lyr.
Was he thick? “The statue,” I said, remembering the legend Aenor had told me in my mossy bedroom. “The legendary statue of the Meriadoc family. King Caradoc, the first king of Ys. You pluck the crown off his head to become ruler. But someone turned it to rubble, apparently. That someone being me.”
Lyr was watching Aenor. “Do you believe that legend?”
“Yes, of course,” she said. “It was passed down from one member of the Meriadoc line to another for centuries. Anyway, it’s a moot point—”
“I know where it is,” he cut in. “It’s not rubble. It was one of the most important treasures of Ys. We located it at the bottom of the sea and brought it to the palace we built in Nova Ys.”
“Good,” I said. “Let’s go.” I didn’t want to waste another moment.
Lyr stared at me, seething. “You’re not welcome in Nova Ys.”
I prowled closer. “But that’s the point, isn’t it? Let me be the person they revile, so they can forget about hating Aenor. I’ll be their monster. What does it matter to me? I’ll be in the heavens soon.”
I caught the look of hurt in Aenor’s eyes, and it pierced me. She still hoped I’d stay. But a god on the earth was a twisted, broken, and fragmented thing—missing a vital piece.
“Fine,” Lyr said reluctantly.
I nodded at the muddy earth. “Open the portal, Lyr. Take us to Nova Ys. Can you assemble the Ysians? Let them hear my confession. And then Aenor can pull the crown from the statue. She’ll prove herself as the true sovereign, draw power from the crowd, and it will all be over.”
“I can assemble them, yes,” he replied. “But when they finally come to believe the truth, they will want your head on a platter.”
I twirled the sea glass between my fingertips. Why was I still holding on to it? My curse was gone, and yet I was keeping this close to me, like a good-luck charm. “Well, let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.”
I glanced at Aenor. My departure from this world was like a toxin poisoning the air between us, and that glint of hurt in her eyes made me want to immolate myself. Lyr was staring at me, too, like I was the worst sort of mate for leaving Aenor behind.
But the fact was, Beira was right. Before the curse, I’d been standing on a ledge, already corrupted. All she’d had to do was give me the teeniest, tiniest of pushes, and I’d descended into the beast.
Aenor rubbed her eyes, her muscles tense. “Lyr, we need to do this now. I don’t know what kind of condition Gina is in, and I want to get back to her as soon as possible. I need to heal that Ollephest wound.”
“Fine,” Lyr said again, and turned to open a portal. “But do not expect this to go smoothly.”
As he opened the portal, Aenor sidled up to me. She flashed me a sad half-smile. “Don’t you want your fire magic back?” It still flickered around her in phantom flames.
I shook my head. “Where I’m going, I won’t need it. It will keep you warm while I’m away.”
I liked that—the idea of leaving my magic with her to warm her. But when I saw how close the ribbons of dark corruption were to her heart, a bit of blind panic ripped through my mind. Beira had sapped more of her strength.
This gambit was our last shot. Any more time after this trip to Ys, and the hex would stop her heart.
I brushed a strand of blue hair from her forehead. What I wanted was to get her alone, to explain why I was still leaving. That I loved her but that I was still evil. Even without the curse, I was broken and incomplete. My name meant whole, and I was the opposite.
That had happened when I’d fallen, and there was no fixing it.
Aenor
The portal opened before Lyr, and he jumped in first. I took a step back from Salem, pushing away the disturbing thought that our time would end soon. Of course he was leaving—it was what he’d wanted since humans were drawing on cave walls. To become a god again.
But I couldn’t think about that now, not when there was so much else at stake. Anything beyond regaining my crown had to be dealt with later.
Because right now? Distractions meant death.
I took a step closer to the portal and leapt in.
I watched as Salem leapt in next, still completely naked. The last of the darkened lava slid off his body. Then, as I sank beneath the surface of the water, the enormity of what I was about to undertake hit me like a tsunami.
I was about to face the people of Ys for the first time.
They’d known me once, a century ago. They’d known me as the drunk and wayward princess, with just a shadow of her mother’s power. And now, I’d need to show them I was strong, clearheaded. Fit to be their sovereign.
And if I failed? Gina and I would die together.
The toxins were sliding closer to my heart. Almost out of time.
I’d have to strike the balance here—somewhere between stressing the urgency of this situation to the people of Ys and being so urgent that I seemed like I’d lost my mind.
When a few streams of pearly light pierced the surface of the water, I swam for them as fast as I could. At last, my head breached the portal, and I hoisted myself out, catching my breath.
When I looked around the room, I was relieved to find that Lyr had opened the portal into an empty bedroom instead of a great hall full of people. That was a good thing, because I wasn’t exactly ready for prime time.
As I stood, I surveyed the room of pale, sandy stone, its arched ceilings thirty feet high. A bed stood on one side of the room with a wardrobe across from it. I could hear waves crashing against rocks, and I crossed to a tall window to look out at the sea.
Behind me, I heard Salem get out of the portal. He said something quietly to Lyr. Probably asking for clothes.
But all I could think was that this place smelled like home, that this was where I belonged. Over the briny air, I breathed in the scent of plum trees, primrose, and wild grasses. The rich aroma of Cornish pasties spilled into the room, and my stomach rumbled.
Gods, how good I’d had it at one time, and I hadn’t even realized it.
Peering out the window, I felt my heart thrill at the sight of the distant sea. Nova Ys… It felt so much like my home. It looked so much like home. It was a city of sandstone, enclosed by towering walls. From here to the city’s walls, towers seemed to grow from fields of wildflowers, covered in vines. Fruit trees lined a winding cobble
d road that carved through the city.
Beyond the walls, cliffs overlooked the sea. That was where I’d once spent a lot of my time—beyond the walls, by myself. Salem had hated exile from a city, but me? I’d let myself out.
If I walked the cliffs, would I find a perfect Cornish oak, bent by years in the wind?
It wasn’t until now that I let myself understand how much I’d missed the peace of Ys. For all those years, wandering around England or the States, I had locked my mind up tight, a dam protecting against the sea of homesickness. Now, I was drowning in it.
I pressed my palm against the window.
I could almost see her now—Mama, striding toward the cliff’s edge in her bloodstained gown. She’d seemed like a goddess then, untouchable. And maybe Salem was right. She’d sowed doubt in my mind about myself.
“Aenor?” Salem’s voice pulled me out of my reverie, and I turned to look at him. It was just us two now. Lyr had left the room.
Already, Salem had dressed—looking himself again, dapper as hell. He wore a dark gray sweater and black wool trousers, his hair pushed back. The sunlight streamed in through the window, shining over his skin.
“Where did you get the clothes?” I asked.
He nodded at the wardrobe. “There, but it’s only men’s things.” His eyes were searching mine. He grabbed me around the waist and pulled me closer to him. Warmth radiated from his body, and he pressed his forehead against mine. “Aenor, I need to explain about me leaving—”
I held a hand up to his mouth. “I can’t have a distraction now, Salem. I have to go before the people of Ys as their queen, and I can’t think about anything else.”
“I need to tell you the truth about the curse.”
“Why now? Why not after?”
His grip on me was possessive, like he never wanted to let me go. “Lyr suggested my head could end up on a platter. And while I am immortal, it would take me a long time to recover if they scattered pieces of me to all ends of the earth. I want to use this chance.”
“We’re not letting you get scattered.”
Sea Fae Trilogy Page 66