Heir to the Throne (The Wardbreaker Book 4)

by Katerina Martinez

  “Then I’ll destroy it,” Axel said.

  “No. You can’t.”

  “The hell I can’t.” He went to reach for the crown, but I lunged at him and stopped him from touching it. There was no telling what would happen if I’d let him touch it. For all I knew, she’d be able to reach him—or worse, kill him.

  “We’ll find another way,” I said, “But we’ll do it tomorrow, when we both have level heads.”

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty level.”

  “Okay, but this isn’t the way to do it. Tomorrow, in the morning, we’ll get everyone on this. We’ll figure out a way to destroy it safely, together. We’re stronger as a team.”

  I took Axel’s hand and led him toward the bed, away from the crown. He sat down on the edge of the bed, staring at his feet. Running his fingers through his hair, he sighed. “I don’t like the thought of spending another night with that thing still in one piece.”

  “I’ve spent a few nights with it already. One more won’t hurt.”

  I walked over to the dresser, picked up my cup of cocoa, and brought it over to him. “I think you can use this more than I can right now.”

  The gesture got him smiling. He took the cup, sipped it, and then licked his lips. “Alright… we’ll get some sleep,” he said, standing up.

  I placed a hand on his shoulder and gently urged him back down. “No,” I said. “Stay with me.”

  Axel searched my eyes with his, then nodded. We settled into bed together; Axel the big spoon, and me the little spoon. It felt good to have him nearby, to allow myself to open up to him again, but sleep still escaped me that night. For the most part, at least.

  I couldn’t help but feel like the crown itself was watching me, somehow.

  But that was insane… right?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Karim stared at the crown with all the attentiveness of a cat eyeing up a fish in a bowl as it swims. Scratching his chin, he gave off an audible hmmmm that caught everyone’s attention. I perked up. He’d been staring at the crown for almost five straight minutes and had insisted on total silence. This was the first time he’d done anything interesting.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  Karim shot me a dirty look. “Did I say you could speak?” he hissed. “This is incredibly delicate work I’m doing, or do you want me to bugger it up?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “Then speak only when I say you can.” Frowning, at me for a moment longer, Karim returned to his investigation of the crown, studying it carefully as if he were trying to find bacteria living on it with his naked eyes.

  We were gathered in the living room of Becket’s place. The sky was bright outside, the birds chirping. It looked glorious and warm beyond the doors to the house, but in here we were wrapped up in layers of clothes, anything to fight that persistent, demonic cold.

  Across from us, coming down the stairs, I caught sight of Becket entering the living room to join us. He didn’t get too close, though. He kept his distance, his arms folded in front of his chest, his red gaze fixed on the crown.

  “Okay,” Karim finally said, “There aren’t any ghosts here.”

  “That’s it?” Danvers asked, “It’s taken you this long just to tell us there aren’t any ghosts here? Some Necromancer you are.”

  “Necromancy is a subtle art I wouldn’t expect your underdeveloped brain to be able to grasp. If you wanted someone to tell you whether there were any ghosts about, you could’ve have gone out and found one of those frilly vest wearing séance hosts. What I mean when I say there aren’t any ghosts here, is that the crown has no ectoplasmic residue on it, nor has it any link to any dead person, nor is it a conduit for the dead to communicate through.”

  “Why couldn’t you have said that?” RJ asked, “could’ve saved us a bunch of time.”

  “Yes, well, I can see that now.”

  “So, okay, that thing doesn’t belong to a ghost,” I said, “What if that means the drowned Queen is real, and alive, somewhere in the Tempest?”

  “Do you have any idea how many crazy things you’ve just said?” Danvers asked.

  “I think I get the idea.”

  “How is this woman even still alive? We aren’t meant to live in the Tempest. It’s not exactly a hospitable place.”

  “You’re right, it’s hardly a vacation home. But I don’t think she chose to spend her time there. I think she was punished.”

  “By who?”

  “Magic itself, the Tempest,” RJ said, “One of the first things the Magistrate taught me was to respect the Magus Codice, and don’t paint outside the lines. Bad things happen to people who do.”

  “We are Mages,” Karim proudly said. “We’re supposed to paint outside the lines and break the walls of knowledge down. That sounds like religious nonsense to me.”

  “Because it is,” Becket said, “The Magus Codice is the closest thing we have to a magic rulebook.”

  “Humbug. The Codice was designed to keep lesser Mages at the bottom and powermongers at the top. I would know. My ancestors invented that trick.”

  Becket shook his head. “The Codice is more than that. It is a book written over several millennia by Mages from various different religious backgrounds. Monotheists, Pantheists, Animists, these people were masters of magic, from all walks of life who gave their unique perspectives to help write the literal book of all knowledge. The only problem is, that incredible diversity has created a fractured society.”

  “Fractured?” I asked.

  “There is no central, unifying myth that binds all of Mage kind together,” Becket said. “Vampires believe they all came from a single progenitor, and the vast majority of Werewolves revere the moon as a maternal figure. Though we are an enlightened race, we are also broken by the weight of our own opinions and biases. That’s why Western Magistrates cling to more Roman traditions, while others follow Pagan traditions, and so forth. The Codice gives us rules to follow, but no two Magistrates interpret them the same way.”

  “That’s the price of intellectual freedom, I guess,” Axel said.

  “One of them, yes,” Becket agreed. “I’m sure there are many Mages out there who would rather study the crown. Others might revere it as a gift from God. Others, still, would want to destroy it.”

  I looked at the crown. Part of me didn’t want to destroy it. Part of me wanted to tell him I’d changed my mind, that we were going to keep it and maybe put it somewhere safe. But my rational mind knew that wasn’t the right path to take. We had to get rid of it. It was the only way.

  “I don’t want to use magic,” I said, shaking my head. “Maybe I’m just being paranoid about what I felt last night, but if I’m not… I don’t want to risk it. Danvers, you’re a Tempest and that thing came from the Tempest. Any ideas?”

  Danvers stood, walked over to the crown which was sitting on the living room table, and carefully examined it the same way Karim had. Only she didn’t take an obnoxiously long time of it. “Hard to say,” she said, “It did come from the Tempest, but I’m getting strange vibes from it.”

  “Strange? How so?”

  She straightened out and turned to look at me. “Well… in the same way Karim can sense ghosts, I can sense magic. But I can go deeper than just sensing it. I can pick apart its essence, identify where it came from, who brought it here from the Tempest. Everything has some kind of magical resonance, even stuff that isn’t magic.”

  “Let me guess,” Axel said, “The crown doesn’t have any magical essence.”

  “Oh, no, this thing’s packed with magic. If magic were radioactive, we’d all have been killed seconds after Izzy called it out of the Tempest.”

  “So, what’s the problem?” I asked.

  “That’s just it. I wouldn’t even know where to start chipping away at this thing. It’s not gonna be as easy as hitting it with a brick. The alchemist in me wants to try and take this thing apart molecule by molecule, as carefully as possible. But the r
ealist in me knows we don’t have that kind of time.”

  I shook my head. “Not hearing a lot of solutions there.”

  “I can try to take it apart in a hurry, but it’s not gonna be pretty, and I’m gonna need help.”

  “How ugly is it gonna get?”

  Danvers scoffed. “If I mess this up… boom.”

  A pensive silence pushed through the room. “Can we take it outside, then?” Karim asked, “We just got done fixing things in here.”

  “Yeah, if this thing blows up, Manhattan will feel the blast, let alone this house.”

  “Jesus… that bad?” Axel asked. “This doesn’t sound like a good idea.”

  “We need to destroy it,” I said, “It’s the only way of stopping the Queen… I can hear her, Axel. All the time. She’s always there, getting closer and closer. She wants me to use the crown, to put it on and go to her, and I don’t know how much longer I can fight her off.”

  “If you wish to destroy it,” Becket said, “Then we will do what we can. If something goes wrong and the crown is about to detonate, I could take it somewhere safe with a portal.”

  “Portals and teleportation are tricky magic,” RJ said, “You think you can open one in time?”

  “I can.”

  I nodded, and stood. “Alright, let’s do this.”

  Danvers stepped up to the crown again, squaring up to it as if it were a monster she was about to fight. Axel came up on my right, Karim moved behind me, and RJ took up a position to my left. Becket stood a few paces away from Danvers, one hand slightly raised, his palm glowing with deep red light.

  “Here goes,” Danvers said, and with a flick of her wrists, both of her hands ignited with pale, blue lightning that crackled between them. A phantom wind encircled us, sending her hair whipping around in a wild frenzy. The light was mesmerizing, but I was drawn to the shadow she was leaving on the floor.

  It looked like her own shadow, but… it had wings, and it was much bigger built than she was.

  Ifrit, I thought, and my little fire Godling sprang to life on my shoulder. “What am I seeing?” I asked.

  “Her Guardian,” he said.

  “How is that possible?”

  “She’s a Tempest. Their Guardians are strong enough to have a slight presence on Earth, unlike the rest of us.”

  Danvers hands started closing, the magic lightning arching between them. Becket was ready if something went wrong and he had to dispose of the crown, but something was going wrong, and it had nothing to do with the crown, and everything to do with me.

  A sharp pain drilled into the side of my head, making me wince. I tried to ignore it, but the pain persisted. It was like I’d been hit with a dart—something that had happened to me once before at a bar in Brooklyn—only back then I’d been able to turn around and deck the asshole with the bad aim. There was nothing on my head, or in my head.

  Axel gave me a quizzical look. “Are you okay?” he mouthed.

  I looked at him, my eyebrows wide. “I don’t know,” I whispered, but then the pain hit me again, this time harder. Someone had pulled the dart out and driven an ice pick into my brain. I felt numb, my knees gave out, and I fell to the floor in a heap of myself, and screaming. But it wasn’t just me who was screaming.

  It was her.

  I could hear her, wailing into the back of my head like a banshee, roaring over the sound of the lightning. Karim took a step back, giving Axel and RJ enough space to look me over. They were talking to me, but I couldn’t hear them. All I could do was cover my ears with my hands and howl from the pain.

  “Stop!” I yelled, “You have to stop now!”

  The lightning died down, the wind ceased, and the Queen’s wailing started to fall away, but the pain remained where it was like an awful, terrible migraine that didn’t want to leave. It felt like my skull was caving in on itself, and shards of bone were digging into the soft tissue of my brain.

  It took a while for the pain to subside and for me to regain my ability to breathe properly. If RJ hadn’t been there to lay his hands on me and deliver his Vivimantic healing magic directly onto my body, I didn’t think I would be able to think properly for days; maybe even longer.

  RJ helped me get back on my feet, then he guided me over to a chair for me to sit upright on. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Like I’ve been hit in the head with a hammer,” I said, rubbing my temples.

  “What the hell was that?” Karim asked.

  “It was her,” I said, “Whatever Danvers was doing, she hated it. I shook my head. “She lashed out at me… I felt like I was gonna die.”

  “You might have if Cass hadn’t stopped,” RJ said. “Your vitals are all over the place right now.”

  “It’s that fucking psychic link you were talking about,” Danvers said, “I was worried something like this would happen. Isn’t there anything you can do?” she asked Axel, “You’re a Psionic; psychic stuff is your ballgame.”

  “Don’t you think I’ve thought of that?” Axel snapped. “I know I’m not strong enough to break that link, just like you’re probably not strong enough to destroy the crown. None of us are.”

  “Great, so what are we supposed to do now?” Karim asked. “We have to destroy it so the Queen can’t get to Izzy, but we can’t because destroying it will hurt—or maybe kill—her. But the longer that bloody thing exists, the closer the Queen gets to her anyway.”

  “Rock and a hard place,” RJ said, “We just need cool heads. We’ll think of something, right?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t think right now, not even if I wanted to. I need a break.” I also didn’t want to be near the crown right now. A couple of seconds of… whatever that had been… had crippled me.

  I was feeling raw, out of control, and more than a little vulnerable.

  “I may know of something we can do,” Becket said.

  I turned my eyes up at him. “You do?” I asked.

  “Perhaps, but you should rest, first. I need time to prepare.”

  “Prepare for what?” Axel asked, but Becket didn’t answer him. Instead, he walked over to the crown… and grabbed it.

  I didn’t stop him. I couldn’t have raised my voice to stop him if I’d wanted to. He took one look at us all, and then exited the living room by way of the stairs.

  “What do we do now?” Danvers asked.

  “Wait for Becket,” I said.

  “Oh, fantastic,” Karim said, “When it’s Becket, we wait. When it’s me, we complain. I see how it is.”

  Danvers rolled her eyes. “Don’t be jealous, Karim,” she said, “It ain’t a cute look.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  My head felt like I’d detached it from my shoulders and given it to a bunch of kids to play football with, but the real pain was in my back. It was like I was constantly on the verge of a panic attack, a hair trigger from flying off the rails and breaking down entirely; and that was her fault. Even if I couldn’t always hear her voice, she was always there, her presence triggering my senses like an invisible monster lurking over my shoulder.

  I didn’t know how much more I could take, but I knew—because she knew—that with every passing second, she was getting stronger. She’d made it clear, through this empathic connection we had, that her psychic link with me was directly why she was getting stronger. Somehow, I needed to break it, but I had no idea how I was going to do that.

  Becket summoned me to his study not a moment too soon. Another moment of quiet contemplation and I was likely to start pulling my own hair out. I wasn’t sure what exactly he’d been working on for the past hour or so, but what I hadn’t expected it to look like something of a ritual space.

  He’d pushed the chairs and his table back to create enough room for a summoning circle painted deep red. I stared at the circle, trying to make sense of all the different glyphs and intersecting lines, but finding none.

  “I really hope that isn’t blood,” I said.

  Becket turned his red eyes o
n me. “I’m not a savage,” he said, in a low voice. “Please, come in, but don’t break the circle… yet.”

  “Yet? Why don’t I like the sound of that?”

  “You’re wise to question what I’m doing, but don’t be alarmed. You’re quite safe.”

  I scanned the room for the crown, but I couldn’t find it. It wasn’t on his desk, nor on one of the chairs; it also wasn’t in the center of the summoning circle, which was going to be my next guess. I didn’t know a great deal about Becket’s powers or what he was capable of, but even I could say with at least some kind of certainty that he wasn’t planning on drawing the drowned Queen out of the Tempest.

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  Becket lowered his head, although he kept his eyes on me. “Hidden,” he said.

  “Hidden? Why?”

  “Because I know what you’re going through. I know you feel like you can’t trust yourself with it. It’s for the best that I hide it.”

  Pressure mounted against my temples. “You don’t have the right to do that,” I said in a low voice.

  “The crown doesn’t belong to you, Izzy. Does it?”

  The pressure released, all of a sudden. I blinked hard, staring at him. “No,” I said, shaking my head. “No, it doesn’t.”

  Becket nodded. “Good. You’ll forgive me if I don’t tell you where it is. I want it to be safe for as long as possible, at least until we figure out how to safely destroy it without hurting you.”

  “Do you think we’ll ever find a way?”

  “Perhaps… tell me, do you feel her presence right now?”

  I paused. “She’s always there. Always watching, waiting for her chance, for her moment.”

  “Does she speak to you clearly?”

  “Sometimes. Mostly it’s just whispers I hear, or feelings I get.”

  “I suspect that will change with time, as her power grows.”

  “Have you ever dealt with anything like this before?”

  Becket looked off to the side, as if remembering something. “Too many times…” he looked up at me again. “What you’re going through right now isn’t too different from what I see frequently in my line of work.”