“So what are they going to do? The dragons that were burned out?”
“I brought them here,” he said. “They’ll stay at the aerie.”
“Good.” I swallowed again and reached for him. “That’s good. Not the whole burning of Dramera but that they’re here now. That they’re safe.”
“It is.” Winston pulled me close and buried his head in my neck. “Now are you sure you’re okay? You looked like you’d seen your own ghost when I came in here.”
“Yeah, yep, I mean, yes. I’m fine, just nervous.” I was talking too fast, and I knew it. Winston pulled back and narrowed his eyes at me. “Going into battle and that sort of thing.”
“Allie.” His voice was soft as he reached out to wrap his arms around me. “What is it?”
“Nothing. Nothing.” And it wasn’t. When I compared one scary vision in a glass ball to what he’d found at Dramera then the vision was nothing. Just a bad dream trapped inside a crystal ball.
“Allie?” He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’ve never lied to me before. You’ve kept things from me, but you’ve never actually lied. So don’t do it now. Tell me what’s bothering you.”
“Have you ever wanted something that you know is wrong? Even though you know it’s bad and that you shouldn’t want it, have you still wanted it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you ever wanted revenge?” I asked. “I mean, for everything that’s been done to us. The stuff that’s been done to Nerissette. Have you ever wanted to just get even? Forget right and wrong and what’s best for the people here. Have you ever wanted to get back at the people who have caused us all this pain?”
“Every day,” Winston said as he pushed my head gently down to rest against his shoulder. “Every time I see you sitting on that throne, trying to figure out the right thing to do, I want to scream and howl and hurt someone. Every time I see ruined fields and refugees, I want to turn into a dragon and burn the whole world to the ground. I want revenge for all the things that have been done to us. I want to dredge the Fate Maker up out of his prison in the Bleak and come up with new ways to hurt him.”
“You do?”
“Of course I do. This isn’t meant to be our life. We’re supposed to be worrying about things like prom and college applications and who’s throwing a party this weekend. Not ogres, wizards, or crazy queens.”
“I know.”
“I love you, Allie, and every time I see you hurt or upset, I just want to destroy the people that hurt you.”
“I love you, too,” I said as he pulled me tighter against his chest.
“Then trust me. Talk to me.”
“I looked into the Orb of Fate.”
“So what’s your fate besides being the most beloved warrior queen Nerissette has ever seen? Are you going to figure out trigonometry next?”
“I killed the Fate Maker and Bavasama. I took out a sword and chopped off their heads. Everyone was there, watching, and Talia told me it didn’t change anything, but Mercedes told me the roses needed a sacrifice. So I did it. Bavasama—she begged me for mercy, but I cut off her head instead.”
“It’s okay,” Winston said quietly in my ear, still holding me close.
“Then I went to, you know, cut off the Fate Maker’s head next, and he looked up at me and told me I was the Rose he’d always wanted me to be. I was going to cut off his head, and he was proud of me. People were terrified of me, and I was going to kill him, and he was proud. He was proud of the woman I’d become. Of the queen I was going to be. I was a monster…and he was proud.”
“Allie—”
“The Orb of Fate shows you the future you most desire, and in mine, I was a killer. I wanted to be a murderer.”
“No.” He put a hand on each side of my face and brushed his lips against mine. “It showed you Talia. It showed you the woman, the queen, you respect most trying to stop you.”
“But—”
“I don’t know a lot about magic”—Winston kissed me again—“but even I know it’s never straightforward, especially the stuff Esmeralda comes up with. What her spell showed you is what you want, but it may not be in the way you wanted to see it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“All you’ve got to understand is that when this is all over, no matter what happens, I promise that I’ll pull you back from that edge,” Winston said.
“Win, it’s not—”
“I promise you that when the time comes, I’ll be there.” He tightened his grip on my waist and pulled me close enough that his lips were against my ear. “I won’t let you become that person.”
“Thank you,” I said softly into his hair.
There was the rough cough of a man clearing his throat, and I pulled away from Winston and looked at my father standing in the door to the tower.
“Dreary place to sneak away to, isn’t it?” He kept his voice light. “Or did you think I wouldn’t come up here and catch you kissing?”
“I was just…”
“This is where we came through the book,” Winston said. “When we came to Nerissette, this is where the Fate Maker brought us.”
John nodded. “This is where he used to bring me to watch you and your mother going about your lives.”
“He did?” I asked, my voice cracking.
“Oh, yes.” My father shifted from one foot to another. “Used to let me watch you to my heart’s content as long as I didn’t oppose him in the Council of Nobles. If I protested one of his edicts, then he kept me away. He used to have this glass ball, the Orb of Fate—he’d never let me near it, though.”
“Why? I thought everyone was supposed to touch the Orb of Fate. That’s how he could see what you were supposed to be.”
“People are only meant to touch the Orb once,” he said. “One touch to see your fate and then never again.”
“What did you see?” Winston asked.
John kept his eyes on me. “Kissing your mother.”
“What did the Fate Maker do then? I mean, when he saw you kissing the woman he’d claimed Fate had meant for him?”
“He banished me to the farthest reaches of the Leavenwald.” John smirked. “I didn’t go, though. The Orb had declared that Fate wanted me to kiss your mother, and so that’s what I did. I snuck back to the palace and climbed in her window. I kissed her just like the orb had shown, and that was that. Fate sealed.”
“The Orb doesn’t actually—” I started.
“Do you want to touch it again?” Winston interrupted.
“What?” John and I asked at the same time.
“Here.” Winston pulled away from me and reached for the Orb. He snagged it in one hand and stood up before handing it to my father. “Look into it, and tell me what you see.”
“Show me the will of the Pleiades,” John said, his eyes fixed on the blue smoke filling the ball. “Show me the will of Fate.”
“What do you see?” Winston asked.
“Allie.” John smiled then and looked up at me. “Very, very old and still sitting on the Rose Throne, the most beloved and celebrated Golden Rose that Nerissette has ever seen. The people in the throne room are celebrating because she’s brought our country a hundred years of peace. I see you very old and very happy, and it’s the most beautiful thing.”
“I-I-I…” I stammered as Winston reached over to grab my hand, lacing our fingers together. I had seen myself as a monster, and my father had seen me as a savior. Whose version of queen would I end up being? I hoped that somehow my father’s vision was right and mine was wrong, that I would be the queen my people deserved.
“That sounds like a fate worth fighting for,” Winston said as John pulled his gaze away from the ball and handed it back to Winston.
“It does.” I squeezed Winston’s fingers. “As long as we’re doing it together.”
“Always,” he mouthed.
I looked over to see my father staring at us, his lips quirked up in a smile. “I did not see you in my vision.” John
waved a finger at Winston’s nose. “It may be because I killed you, but I’m not sure yet.”
“Nah.” Winston smiled. “I was probably just going for punch or something. No worries.”
“I’d worry less if I’d shot you the first time I saw you,” John muttered.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Be nice.”
“I am nice.” My father held his hands out to his sides. “I didn’t even bring a bow with me. I left it with the horses instead.”
“The horses?” I asked, my stomach clenching.
“Yes.” He nodded slowly. “The men and the beasts are ready, Allie. It’s time.”
“Well, then.” I swallowed. “After you, I guess.”
Chapter Fourteen
I followed my father and Winston down the stairs from the West Tower, bypassing the portal stones that would take me directly outside so that I could stall for time and get my head together. We reached the main hallway, and Winston glanced back and offered me his hand.
“Are you ready?”
“No.” I took his hand in mine and squeezed it. “But we have to go anyway. Don’t we?”
“Yeah.” He nodded, and then we started down one of the halls. I remembered my first time there, hopelessly lost and trying to figure out how to get around. Everything had looked the same then. The same walls, the same carpets, but now, knowing the palace like I did, I knew it wasn’t the same anymore.
The hallway beneath the West Tower was filled with portraits of mythological creatures, and the corridor closest to the main entry hall full of family portraits of various Golden Roses and their successors. My favorite was one that showed the grandmother I’d never met fitting a tiara on my mother’s head as they both stared in the mirror that had once been in my tower.
My mother had looked so indescribably lovely that every time I saw it I wanted to cry. I couldn’t meet her eyes in the portrait because all I could think was that she looked so young and alive that it hurt to know how it would all end.
This palace should have been my home from the start. It was my home. More than any other place that Mom and I had floated through, this was my home, the one place where I belonged. I was terrified to walk away again. What if we never came back?
I trailed my fingers along the banister of the grand staircase and thought about the night of my first ball. I had been dressed in a formal gown, nervous that I was going to fall down the stairs and make a fool of myself. I’d been gripping the banister so tightly that the raised part of the wood had made an impression in my hand. At the bottom of the stairs had been a different boy than the one walking in front of me.
Jesse. I swallowed. He’d looked amazing standing at the bottom of the stairs, waiting like a fairy-tale prince as I came down the stairs to meet him. He’d been dressed in a white-and-gold jacket, and he’d been gorgeous. So handsome I’d thought I wouldn’t be able to breathe even though he’d never been my type before that.
Then, suddenly, there’d been Winston, dressed all in black, his dark skin gleaming and his eyes bright. Jesse’s sunny features had been shrouded in Winston’s otherworldly beauty. It was like everything had finally clicked into place in that moment, and all I had been able to think was, Oh, there you are.
“Allie?” Winston interrupted my thoughts, and I looked up and realized that I’d been standing halfway down the stairs, running my fingertips over the banister, lost in my own head.
“Sorry, I was just thinking about the night of our first ball. We met at the stairs that night, right there.” I pointed at the spot where the two of us had stood.
“I remember,” he whispered, coming over to wrap an arm around my shoulders and lead me down the stairs. “You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
John cleared his throat, and I could see that he was doing his best not to glare.
“I don’t want to go,” I whispered.
“Neither do I.” Winston let go of my shoulders and grabbed my hand, pulling me close.
“This is our home,” I said.
“I know, and that’s why we’re going to finish this war, and then we’re coming back here—me and you and everyone else. We’re going to come back here, and this is going to be our home forever.”
“Can you promise me that?”
“I promise, it will be just like John saw in the Orb of Fate. We’ll get old, and you’ll be Nerissette’s most beloved queen. They’ll tell stories about us, about you, one day. Stories about a wise and beautiful queen who fell through a book and saved the world. It’ll be a fairy tale.”
“Just so you know, I hate fairy tales. I always have. Even before Mr. Brinnegar made us start researching them for that group project. They’re totally unreasonable, and they lead to nothing but trouble. Fairy tales are nothing more than something to get girls to sit around pretending to be a princess while they wait for a man to save them.”
“Well, it’s a good thing that this fairy tale involves a self-saving princess then, isn’t it? I’d hate for you to be repressed in your own story.”
“This isn’t a fairy tale. If this were a fairy tale, then I’d have fallen in love with the handsome prince, not with the dragon.”
“Then I guess that it’s a good thing that you’ve decided this isn’t one of those stupid, completely sexist fairy tales.” Winston brushed his nose against mine. “Because I’d hate to have to start roasting princes to keep them away from my girl.”
“Ahem.” John coughed. I jerked back from Winston, surprised that I’d forgotten my father was still standing there and even more surprised that Winston had forgotten, too. “Not that this isn’t fascinating, but we do have a war to be getting on with.”
“Right. Let’s do this.” I straightened my shoulders and lifted my chin, trying to at least look like I was sure of myself even if I wasn’t.
Winston and John both stepped forward, reaching for the door handles, and began to pull on the heavy double doors. Once they were open all the way, I took a deep breath and stepped forward. I let my eyes travel over the seething mass of humans and mythic creatures standing in formation in front of my palace.
“Her Majesty Queen Alicia Wilhemina Munroe the First!” Kilvari roared and then banged his staff against the stone stairs. “Golden Rose of Nerissette, Divine Protector of the Pleiades, and Blessed of All the Light Touches!”
He dropped to one knee in front of me, and the soldiers behind him followed suit, the entire field dropping three feet in height as the sound of thousands of knees all hitting the ground at the same time echoed through the front garden like a gunshot. I looked out over the mass of people in front of me, their heads all bowed and their eyes focused on the dirt, and then shifted my gaze back to the dragons, who also had their heads bent low. Goblins and nymphs had both bowed, too, the latter with their hands pressed in front of them as if in prayer. The remaining seven Firas were on both knees, their long robes puddling about their legs as they lowered their heads to the ground in front of me.
“I—”
I heard a cough and turned to see my father and Winston both on down on one knee beside the patio. Behind them I could see Mercedes and Kitsuna on their knees as well, gripping each other’s hands tightly.
“Thank you,” I said quietly, humbled as I stared at all the people who had come forward, willing to fight for me. For our home.
“Thank you!” I yelled this time. “Thank you all.”
Winston lifted his head and winked at me before smiling and lowering his head again. Crap, I needed to say something besides thank you. I needed to say something inspiring or moving or something not stupid sounding at the very least.
“We’re leaving today to cross the White Mountains,” I said, immediately feeling dumb. This wasn’t at all inspiring. “We’re going to cross the mountains and enter Bavasama’s kingdom. I don’t know what we’re going to find there. There could be armies that stretch as far as the eye can see. There could be monst
ers. None of us can know what we’ll face when we get to the other side of those mountains.”
I stopped and looked over at Mercedes who was staring back at me. I took another deep, steadying breath and turned back to the crowd.
“We may not all come home. Maybe none of us will come home, but you should all know this: when the fighting is over, no enemy will cross our borders again. We are not going to be bullied. This is our home, and we will defend it and each other. We are a family, and no one kicks the crap out of this family. Not if they want to live to see the sun rise again.”
The soldiers in front of me stood almost as one and bayed in approval, rattling their swords and stomping their feet. The dragons roared, and I watched as the courtyard exploded in a brilliant riot of sounds.
“So.” I turned to look at Mercedes, remembering the first time we’d been in this position. Stuck on a roof, watching an army mass outside our walls. We’d listened to Rhys giving the army a pep talk, psyching them up to fight, and I’d asked Mercedes if it would inspire her to fight for him.
“So?” She looked at me.
“How did I do? Did I inspire you to fight for me?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Only an idiot is willing to die for pretty words.”
“So why are you? Fighting, I mean?”
“Because you’re right.” She nodded to the soldiers in front of us who were starting to quiet down. “We’re a family, and no one kicks the crap out of your family but you.”
“Precisely,” Rhys said as he bowed low before me. “The army is ready to move at your command.”
“Good. That’s…” I swallowed as I stared out at the seething mass of warriors, all prepared to do battle in my name.
“Allie?”
I turned to look at Winston.
“It’s time.”
“Right, um, do you intend to shift? Here, I mean? Or are you going to the aerie to shift and then come back?”
“I’ll shift here,” he said and then stepped into a cleared spot in the middle of the porch. A black light surrounded him, and I watched as the boy I loved shifted and grew, twisting inside the flames as he moved from human to dragon, stretching and changing as the flames flickered around him.
Infinity tcon-3 Page 11