Heir to the Throne (The Wardbreaker Book 4)

by Katerina Martinez

  “It’s cozy, right? If you don’t mind all the cold.”

  “I guess.”

  “My point is, don’t beat yourself up about that, okay? I was a thief. I was bound to get caught by someone sooner or later. I’m glad it was you.” Axel smiled, softly, and I returned it.

  Despite the coffee in my hands, though, I felt my energy levels fall like a rock from the sky. My head started to hurt, and I had to struggle to keep my eyes open.

  “Damn,” I said, “Becket didn’t say it would be this fast.”

  “What would be this fast?”

  I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. I just really need to get to bed.” I looked over at him. “Join me?”

  Axel nodded, took my hand, and led me up to my room where I passed out almost as soon as I hit the pillow.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Wake up.

  I opened my eyes to a flood of bright light that forced them shut again. Warm sunlight caressed my skin, I could hear seagulls cawing in the skies nearby, and around me, the flowery scent of exotic perfumes mingled with the salty smell of the ocean. Slowly, I opened my eyes, allowing them to adjust to the light.

  Around me, a strange, ancient world of white marble and sandy cobblestones unfolded. Tall structures and columns glinted against the sunlight. Many of them were adorned with hand carved designs, each unique and different; from birds, to roses, to octopi with their many legs.

  Beyond the buildings nearest to me, though, were much larger structures—domes of moss green glass and tall, golden spires with burning balls of turquoise fire burning at their tips. The most impressive building of them all, though, was directly ahead of me, at the crest of a set of huge, marble stairs.

  It was a temple, I thought, with a domed roof and five enormous pillars—one on each corner, and one jutting out of the center of the structure. The entire building was covered in winding patterns and shapes that looked hand carved, adorned with golden fixtures and decorations, and lorded over by tiny statues of dragons, more of them than I could count.

  And in the sky?

  A shimmer, barely visible but there all the same, soft puddles of light rippling across its surface. That was the shield that protected the shining city, the dome that could be seen for miles and miles, the thing that gave this place its namesake. I was here, in Ashelor; the drowned city.

  Ifrit stood beside me, the fire Godling not sitting on my shoulder, but standing tall—taller than I was—and burning bright.

  “What am I doing here?” I asked, feeling strangely calm.

  “I don’t know,” he said, his voice low, but powerful. “We should be careful.”

  “Where even is this? Are we in the Tempest again?”

  “I can’t be sure.” He turned to look at me, his face now no longer a little thing with beady eyes, but a fully formed face, with wide eyes of fire, a nose, a mouth and even horns. “We should expect this place to be hostile to us.”

  “Hostile?” I asked, “There’s no one here.”

  The paths were deserted. There wasn’t a soul in sight, unless you counted the seagulls roaming overhead. “All the same, I don’t trust this. I don’t trust our senses. Tread lightly.”

  “Tread where?”

  Ifrit pointed directly ahead, at the set of stairs leading to the dragon temple. “There,” he said, “That’s where we must go.”

  “How do you know?”

  A pause. “Because I have been here before.”

  “You… have?”

  Ifrit started walking. I followed, choosing not to spend too much time trying to understand how or why he was walking away from me. He was meant to be my Guardian, but lately he’d been acting a little weirdly; a little distantly. It couldn’t have been Becket’s demon at work, not so soon. And anyway, Ifrit’s change in behavior had started the moment I put the crown on.

  This was her work.

  It was almost dreamlike the way I arrived at the door to the temple. I hadn’t noticed the passage of time. It hadn’t felt like I’d been walking at all. I was just there, now, standing in front of a giant, golden door decorated with mesmerizing magical glyphs and runes and carvings of dragons with jewels encrusted into their eyes.

  Written across the doors, in Draconian, were the words Only the Mighty Ascend.

  I couldn’t see any locking mechanism, or handles to pull the door open with. I didn’t think I’d have a chance at pulling it open with my own hands, in any case. It was easily two stories tall, and above the door was a dragon’s head, its mouth opened wide, a massive sapphire wedged in its throat.

  “How am I supposed to get inside?” I asked.

  “Only the mighty ascend,” Ifrit said, gesturing toward the door.

  A series of warm tingles moved through me, making my body vibrate. “Magic?” I asked. I shook my head. “No, I can’t. She’ll find me if I do.”

  “She’s already found you, Izzy,” Ifrit said, “But without your magic, you don’t stand a chance. Show her just how mighty you are.”

  Yes, show me, Isabella.

  I frowned. I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to be here. But this was the hand I was dealt, and now it was time to play. Concentrating, I reached for the Tempest, drawing power from it as easily as breathing. Far too easily, in fact. It usually took a moment for the magic to reach me, especially powerful magic, but this was instantaneous.

  I grabbed hold of the door with my mind and pulled, making it slowly grind open. Using magic had never been this easy, or this freeing. I had gotten better at drawing magic from the Tempest ever since I found Ifrit, but even then, there was always a little resistance to deal with as the magic crossed from one realm to another.

  This was… wonderful, as easy and as invigorating as taking a lungful of fresh, clean, air at the peak of spring, when the flowers are blooming. Not that you got much of that in New York, but I remembered a trip once, when I was much younger. My mom had taken us both to a lake upstate, away from the city.

  It was beautiful up there, so much greenery. This place reminded me of her now, somehow; reminded me of that trip. I couldn’t understand why, but finding the answer to that question wasn’t as important as what lay on the other side of the door I’d just opened.

  “Holy hell,” I said, my mouth falling open slightly.

  It was a throne room, flush with golds and whites. Open archways lined the farthest edges of the walls, letting the sunlight and sea breeze circulate through the room. Columns rose from the floor all the way up to the vaulted ceiling, which was painted to depict dragons clashing amongst each other while lightning roared above them.

  The dragons seemed to move slowly as I watched, the lightning strobing as if in slow motion. I’d only ever seen something like this once before, in Asmodius’ compound. Some of the pieces of art he used to own moved the same way the art on the ceiling moved, only this was on a much, much larger scale.

  The throne itself, however, was the centerpiece of the entire room. Sitting on a raised dais, it was large, elaborately carved, and made of perfectly sculpted marble. It, too, was covered in many of the same designs and glyphs I’d seen on the door to this place, on the buildings, on the columns. The seat and backrest were lined with plush, sea blue cushions, and on the arm rests, more dragons.

  One of them roaring, with rubies for eyes; the other with its mouth shut, and sapphires for eyes.

  “Ifrit…” I said, my voice falling away from me. “Is this real?”

  “It’s real enough,” he said, “We should be cautious.”

  “There’s no need for caution here,” a voice echoed into the vaulted ceiling.

  The hairs on my spine stood at attention. “Who said that?”

  “You know well who I am.”

  The voice was coming from the throne, I thought, but there was nobody there. “Show yourself.”

  “I don’t need to do that. I’m already here.”

  “Why am I here?”

  “Isn’t it obvious by now?”

/>   “Send me back. I want to go back.”

  “Come closer, instead… I have something for you.”

  I wanted to resist, I didn’t want to walk closer to the throne, but I also couldn’t help myself. One foot after the other, slowly, I approached. I was powerless to stop my limbs from moving, even though I wanted to more than anything. All I could do was speak.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “It’s not about what I want, my child. It’s about what you want… what you’re destined for. The throne.”

  Strangely, I started thinking about my old life. The life I’d led before I became a thief; the life I’d led before even Kandi arrived on the scene. I hadn’t grown up in luxury, I hadn’t had authority, or even power during my adolescence. There were a hundred and one reasons I gave myself to justify my time as a dancer, even though I didn’t have to give anyone even a single reason.

  I danced because I wanted to.

  But the truth, I know, went deeper than that. My father ruled over our house like a tyrant; he, the King who gets what he wants, my mom the Queen who shouldn’t get in his way. That left me as the Princess who was better not seen, and not heard. I never had a say in what happened to me or my family, and that lack of confidence bled into the rest of my life.

  I didn’t keep long-term friends, and I never could never a relationship with… well, anyone. You can call them commitment issues, you can call them trust issues, but at their core, they were insecurities. Insecurity was what drove many of my life’s choices up until the day I decided to become a thief; but I’d always wanted more than that.

  I’d always wanted to be the best dancer.

  The best thief.

  The best Mage.

  Greatness, it seemed, was always just out of reach. But now, here, even though every inch of my body, my soul, knew that taking this throne, accepting its power, was wrong on just about every level imaginable, there was one thing I knew it could do for me. It would allow me to finally find that greatness, to achieve that potential.

  I walked up to the throne, taking the steps around the dais one by one, feeling the weight of the moment pressing down against my shoulders. I’d committed, now. I was going to do it, and ride the waves wherever they took me. I wanted to be important, I wanted to be respected, I wanted to be loved, and the answer was right in front of me.

  All I had to do was sell my soul.

  A sharp jolt of pain struck my chest. My heart gave a hammering thud against my ribs, and in the back of my mind, something utterly inhuman, gave a chilling hiss.

  “No!” it snarled, “Your soul is mine.”

  I staggered back like I’d just had the wind knocked out of me. In the blink of an eye, the grandiose splendor of the throne room was gone; the serene, golden light replaced by a somber gloom.

  What had once been a pristine room of perfect marble structures and a ceiling of shifting light was now a cracked and broken ruin quickly filling with water. It came roaring into the room, flooding in through the open archways on both sides of the throne.

  “Isabella!” Ifrit yelled, but I almost couldn’t hear him.

  Panic filled my mind with static. I could hear the ceiling giving way and cracking apart. Pieces of marble started to fall, forcing me to move if I wanted to avoid getting hit. It was only when the water reached my feet that I managed to grab hold of my thoughts.

  I reached out to the Tempest and wrapped myself in a bubble of telekinetic energy that pushed the water away. I was underwater in a manner of seconds, my bubble of magic completely submerged. It was because of Ifrit that I was able to see anything at all, and his light gave me comfort, but then I started to see things moving around in the water.

  At first, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. They were shapes, dark and formless, but they didn’t stay that way. There, in the dark beyond my bubble of magic, reflective eyes watched me, hungrily. I thought they were fish, but they weren’t fish. They were people, corpses, drifting slowly toward me. Bloated, rotting, pale corpses, their mouths black and filled with moss, their bodies covered in glyphs and sigils that had been carved into their flesh.

  Murderous sharks, skull crushing squids, giant crabs… anything would’ve been better than what was actually coming for me.

  “Ifrit…” I said, “How do we get out of here?”

  “You have to wake up,” he said.

  “But I’m awake!”

  “Wake up.”

  I shut my eyes hard, shook my head, and then I opened them again. I wasn’t underwater anymore. It was still dark out here, but I soon realized I was standing in a park somewhere. There were trees nearby, the air was filled with the dewy scent of wet grass, and somewhere, toads were croaking the night away. The distant howl of a dog, followed by the quick rushing of a siren speeding down some street, placed me back in New York City.

  Awake.

  Alive.

  And somehow, holding the Queen’s crown in my hand.

  I stared at the crown, my heart hammering. I had no idea where Becket had put it when he’d hidden it. He’d seemed pretty confident I wouldn’t have been able to find it, and yet, unless I was dreaming, here it was, gleaming against the moonlight. I sucked in a deep breath through my teeth.

  “Holy shi—” a bolt of magic struck me in the back. My entire body went numb, my knees gave out, and I started to collapse onto the wet earth beneath my feet.

  “It’s good to see you again, Isabella,” Asmodius said. “Take her.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I had doled out my fair share of stunning spells in my life. Mostly to humans, sometimes to things who weren’t exactly human. But I’d made it a point in my life to avoid confrontation with other Mages as much as possible because, honestly, being stunned sucked.

  Being stunned by a mage like Asmodius sucked even more than most.

  He was an incredibly capable Mage. His stunning spell had thrown my mind into a deep, dark hole. I couldn’t see the world around me, couldn’t hear what was happening, couldn’t move. I knew I was awake, but it was as if my brain had been shut off from the rest of my body. All I had were my thoughts, and they weren’t exactly great company.

  How had he found me?

  Shit, he has the crown.

  But how did he find me?

  Do the others know what’s happened?

  Axel.

  Axel.

  Axel.

  The worst part about having been thrown into this dark hole of the mind, where not even Ifrit could reach me for comfort? I didn’t feel like I was alone. Something lurked in the dark with me, at the very edge of my senses, always out of reach but only just. Like a shadow, a perfectly camouflaged predator.

  Add that to my list of problems.

  I blinked hard, trying to focus on my surroundings. I was in a brightly lit room, with a light shining directly into my face. It was quiet in here, save for perhaps the buzzing of the light in front of me. I tried to move, but my hands were tied behind my back. So were my feet. I was sitting on a chair, and I’d been strapped to it. A blurry figure moved in front of me and dropped something heavy on my lap. As my eyes regained the ability to focus, I saw it was the crown. It glinted against the light coming off the lamp shining only a few feet away from me.

  “Why doesn’t it work?” Asmodius asked. I couldn’t see him, but it had to have been him. That deep tone, that inflection, it could only have been him.

  I looked up at him, slowly, shrugging. “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”

  Someone grabbed my face and pinched my mouth shut. I couldn’t see who it was that had me, but they weren’t playing around.

  “I’m going to warn you only once,” Asmodius said. “Don’t play games with me, don’t mouth off, and don’t even think about trying to be smart. Nobody’s coming for you here, nobody can hear you down here. You aren’t going anywhere unless I say so, and that means you’re going to do as I ask. Nod if you understand.”

  I didn’t nod.

&
nbsp; Asmodius glanced at the man behind me, who squeezed my cheeks even harder. Pain flared, forcing my eyes to shut for just an instant, but I willed them back open. I didn’t want Asmodius to see even an ounce of weakness in me. The man behind me released my jaw, but only slightly. Enough for me to be able to talk.

  “Do you think I don’t know what that is?” Asmodius asked.

  “It’s just a stupid crown.”

  “A crown that happens to belong to an ancient Mage. Don’t insult my intelligence, Isabella. It’s only because of my orders that the crown is even in this realm again. I know exactly what it is. What I cannot seem to do, is use it. You, however, have.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh? Am I to believe you haven’t used this crown to travel back to the Tempest?”

  I kept my mouth shut.

  Asmodius slammed the light aside, sending it hurtling into a stone wall where it shattered, plunging the room into darkness. He advanced quickly on me, pressing his hands against the chair and tipping it onto its back legs. I could feel his breath on my face, I could hear the growl in his throat.

  “I’m getting bored of this,” he said, his voice a low rumble, “I’ve chosen to be lenient with you, but my patience is starting to run thin. I could reach into your mind, pry it open, and take the information I want from you. I can promise you, the experience would be harrowing, even if I would enjoy nothing more. But I like to think I’m a civilized man, and so I’m giving you the choice to cooperate of your own free will. Tell me how to make it work.”

  “No.”

  “Last chance. You and your friends made me lose my estate and killed my crows. As far as I’m concerned, I’m owed a little restitution, and I’m happy to start with you.”

  I stared at him, my jaw clenched tightly. “It doesn’t work because it’s not meant for you,” I hissed, “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Explain.”