Exiled Queen (The Thief's Talisman Book 3)

by Emma L. Adams

  “Go,” she said to Aspen. “Prepare the soldiers for war.”

  He left silently, and I was alone with her, the sceptre, and my secret.

  I held my breath as she turned the talisman over in her hands, searching for clues. She wouldn’t find them. Anticipation burned inside me. Go on. I knew you’d take it back. But you gave it up. I remained loyal to it, in the end. I promised.

  Her brow furrowed. “You unlocked its magic the first time by using it in conjunction with your little friend, didn’t you?”

  “It’s dead,” I told her. “No magic left.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.” She waved a hand, and the small room disappeared, to be replaced by an empty hall. Wooden floor, high ceiling. Like the true Sidhe, she could make the world bend to her whims. “Thief,” she called. “Come to me.”

  Nobody answered. I held my breath.

  “Aspen,” she said sharply. “I know you’re here, too. Come and stand where I can see you.”

  Aspen swaggered over to us from an open door. “I told the soldiers to be ready. They’re waiting for you to give the word, Lady.”

  “Let this be dealt with first,” she said. “Thief, there’s no use resisting. Come here. Now.”

  I couldn’t sense the vow binding them, but a similar ache caught at my chest all the same. Aspen and I were no longer bound. He didn’t even seem to have noticed. It’d be so easy to strike him down—

  “I wouldn’t, daughter,” she said. “In fact—Aspen, you make sure she doesn’t.”

  He grinned again and held the pan pipes. “My pleasure.”

  As he played the first note, Cedar appeared in the doorway where Aspen had walked in. His eyes were glazed and he stared ahead without speaking, without looking at me.

  The pan pipes’ notes jammed in my head, and I bit down on my lip, tasting blood. My hands swayed, and so did my feet. I won’t let it control me. I can’t. Not again.

  But for all the notes, I remained in control of my own mind, watching Cedar approach Lady Whitefall.

  “I need you to unlock this talisman,” she said, holding it out. “I don’t need to tell you what will happen to you if you try to take it for your own.”

  Cedar took it from her without speaking. Green light flared, and my heart sank again. If it worked—if his magic forced the god’s magic to awaken again, and she could claim it… then it was over. I’d lost.

  “Give it back.” She all but snatched the sceptre away from him. “No… it’s not working. Why?”

  “Might I suggest using the conduit instead?” said Aspen. “She’s clearly messed with that one.”

  She flashed me a glare, pulling the thin glass rod-shaped contraption from her pocket. There it is. The source of her immortality, the power of the Death goddess contained within. I tensed, ready to throw myself at her and snatch it from her hands, but I’d expected the talisman to reject her, and then her to turn on me. Instead, we were stuck in a weird standoff. Aspen winked at me.

  What the hell is going on? Cedar wasn’t looking at me, but Aspen was, and not at all like he was angry I’d broken his vow. Something was messed up here—and my mother wasn’t in on it.

  Aspen turned to face me again. Wait… he didn’t look right. His eyes hadn’t been hazel last time I’d seen him. They were Sidhe green. Not like…

  My breath caught. Cedar. Cedar was pretending to be Aspen. It didn’t even take much glamour. Aspen must be under a compulsion spell. Or a vow. No wonder the pan pipes hadn’t worked on me.

  He did have a plan after all. Or the beginnings of one. But he didn’t know my plan, and chances were, we’d unintentionally sabotage one another if we made any sudden movements. Lady Whitefall held the conduit over the real sceptre, eyes narrowed.

  Then I threw myself at her. We hit the wall in a crash, and Lady Whitefall screamed in rage. A word burst from her lips, forcing us to our knees—the invocation, Ivy had called it. Except not-Aspen was already behind her, and magic arced from his hands, not aimed at my mother, but at the weapon in her hands.

  A jet of blue light poured from the conduit and my mother hit the wall with the force of a car collision. Dust stung my eyes, and someone slammed into me, knocking me away from the explosion. My hands burned, scraped raw, only for healing magic to seal the wounds as they opened. Cedar—wearing his own face again—looked down at me, and mouthed, you shouldn’t have come.

  Like I’d leave you with her, I mouthed back.

  Cedar pushed to his feet, colliding with the real Aspen. Now I looked into the false Cedar’s eyes, I saw his eyes were definitely the wrong colour. She hadn’t noticed… because she didn’t need to. He wasn’t on her radar as a threat, even when she realised he had the magic she needed.

  “I’ll take that,” I said, and grabbed the sceptre from where it’d fallen to the floor.

  “It’ll wear off,” said Cedar. “We need to move before the army realises—” He cut off in a choked gasp as Aspen lunged and seized him, one arm wrapped around his neck. The two were within inches of one another in height but Aspen was bigger, trained as a soldier rather than a thief.

  “Hey!” I leaped at Aspen, wishing I had a better weapon than my own fist. I missed his jaw but hit his neck, giving Cedar the chance to break free.

  “Stop there,” growled Aspen. He didn’t look remotely like Cedar anymore, his own glamour gone. “Take my knife, and cut your lover’s throat.”

  He still thinks I’m under the vow.

  Aspen’s mouth twisted in a smile. “Take the knife, Raine.”

  I took it. And he was still grinning at me when I plunged the blade to the hilt in his chest. Blood dribbled from the wound, and from the corners of his mouth. He gasped something—maybe my name—and I yanked out the knife and I cut his throat for good measure.

  An alarmed shout drew my attention to Cedar. He backed away from the place where the blast that’d hit Lady Whitefall had blown out a chunk of the wall. Get back, he mouthed at me. Run.

  The hole in the wall shimmered oddly, and my skin prickled at the sensation of an unfamiliar magic. The sceptre vibrated in my hands, alarmingly. As it had when I’d ‘spoken’ to it in the witches’ forest, pleading for help.

  It’s been a while… It was more a sensation than a voice. The sceptre vibrated so hard my teeth chattered, drawn in the direction of the shimmering void like a magnet.

  Then the shimmering light shifted, revealing a dark shape. Like a shaggy black dog, a bigger form than a hellhound. Its magic hummed in the air, in a realm where magic wasn’t supposed to function at all.

  Lady Whitefall didn’t do things by halves. She’d woken one of the gods.

  Chapter 24

  The beast looked at me, eyes brimming with dark intelligence. Barely leashed rage churned inside those dark depths. Hate, too deep to comprehend. Lady Whitefall stood at its side.

  “So I take it your plan to take down the Courts without bloodshed is in ruins,” I said.

  She rested a hand on the creature’s head. “That was never the plan, daughter. And your talisman was merely one option.”

  No kidding. She had a backup plan, all right. “I knew I didn’t mean that much to you.”

  “No,” she said, “you didn’t. Kill her.”

  The sceptre’s magic rushed through me, claimed as mine once more. Magic arced from my hand, but bounced off the beast’s hide.

  “No!” June screamed. “Stop—please.”

  The god-creature lunged, slapping June sideways into the wall. She hit the stone hard, falling to the ground. “Please,” she moaned. “I’m your daughter.”

  “Believe me,” said my mother icily, “I regret the pair of you. Your father, too. His magic did come in handy, but he ultimately proved more of a hindrance than a help.”

  Your father. He must have been half-blood—like mine. She hadn’t seduced humans alone, but had kidnapped half-bloods to steal their magic and use it. How many ruined lives had she left behind?

  Before I could move, s
he spoke a single word: Kneel. All of us fell under her command—all of us but the god-creature. Cedar shouted my name, and the world burst apart as blackness exploded from the gaping hole in the world behind her.

  Warm blood trickled down my back. I’d hit something hard, but my vision was too blurred to see. I tried to move, and pain racked my body. Agony spiked, then disappeared in a warm rush of magic. I twisted around to thank Cedar, but found myself face to face with a wall of stone and dust. There was no sign of the god-creature… or Cedar. I couldn’t sense his magic anymore, even with the sceptre back in my hands. The remaining piece of the god’s consciousness rested within it, where I’d persuaded it to hide while I’d been in the Summer Court. Of course, Summer wouldn’t be pleased if they knew, but I’d suspected the odds of me surviving this fight were low. And now, with another god on the loose… even Lord Lyle’s army wouldn’t be prepared.

  Cedar climbed out of the wreckage. Blood spattered his armoured coat, but he was alive.

  “Thank the Sidhe.” I ran to him, wrapping my arms around him. “I thought it was too late.”

  “That creature—it vanished. It went with her to the borderlands. Or the Courts.”

  “Sidhe’s blood.” I cursed. “I warned Lord Lyle to be prepared for another attack on Winter, and the Hornbeam army will be ready, but none of them are prepared for that.”

  “What is it?” Cedar drew back from me. “You know what that creature is? It isn’t fae.”

  “No.” I swallowed. “I don’t know exactly what it is, but I’ll bet I know where she worked out how to summon it. And being immortal, it can’t harm her. That’s the probably the only reason she’s keeping it leashed. Her hypnosis can’t work on something like that forever.”

  “It’s a Vale beast,” said June, staggering into view. Blood covered her arms and she didn’t appear to be carrying a weapon. “A true Vale beast. I heard her talking about them, but I never—I never thought she’d go ahead and summon it. They were kicked out of Faerie for a reason.”

  “Shit.” I looked at Cedar. “Wait—speaking of power. Where’s the conduit?”

  “Dead,” he said, holding up two pieces of the glass rod. “Her magic, though—whatever the new magic she got is, she took it out first. I saw her do it.”

  “Oh hell. It was the Morrigan’s magic. No wonder she didn’t fight hard enough to keep hold of the conduit. She took it into herself.”

  “She would have killed you,” Cedar said softly. “I can’t believe you followed me here.”

  I folded my arms. “I’m not going to attempt a counter-argument after what you pulled. You almost gave her the real sceptre.”

  “I had it covered. I trusted you.”

  I scowled. “You played a major gamble. And is Denzel alive? If you were the one who went after him?”

  “He’s alive,” Cedar confirmed. “He’s cowering in half-blood territory. And help is on the way. She might find us first, but we need to get off this territory if we want to track her down.”

  “Who… wait. Not Ivy Lane?”

  “Got it.” He gave me a faint smile. “She didn’t buy my act at first. Even as a spirit without a body, she was deadly. But she’s on our side.”

  “Damn right she is,” said a voice.

  I spun around. “Looks like I got here just in time.” Ivy lowered her sword. And beside her, very much, alive, stood Viola.

  “Hey,” said Viola, with a grin. “Guess who came back from the dead?”

  I gasped. Then I ran to hug her. “I thought we were too late.”

  “You almost were,” Ivy remarked, stepping up behind her. “Where’s Lady Whitefall?”

  “Gone into Faerie.” I let go of Viola. “I’m sorry I left you.”

  “Not your fault,” Viola said. “I was rude to the Morrigan. She tricked me into thinking you were dead, and I lost it.”

  “You’ve no idea how glad I am that you two made it out.” I looked at Ivy. “I thought I’d doomed both of you.”

  “Happy to help,” said Ivy. “I don’t know about you, but this place gives me the serious creeps. What do you say to a change of scenery?”

  “Definitely,” I said, and Cedar dipped his head in agreement.

  “What about her?” asked Ivy, jerking her head in my sister’s direction.

  June said, “You can’t leave me behind.”

  “I could.” She’d done more than enough to merit being left here with the other exiles forever. But I had enough enemies. “Let her come. If she turns on us later, I’ll take care of it.”

  Ivy nodded. “Right. Let’s move. You mentioned a way into Faerie from here? I can take us into the mortal realm, but I’d need an invite to whichever Court’s territory you need to get to.”

  “I think we’re too late for pleasantries,” I said. “But I know the way. It’s my palace, too.” With the talisman mine again, it was, anyway.

  I took the lead out of the ruins. As it turned out, the path remained where it was, as did the door itself, sitting alone between the trees.

  I held my talisman tight. Ready? I asked the magic. Want to fight with me again?

  The talisman hummed in agreement, and I opened the door.

  “Nice,” said Viola, eying the gold-plated corridor inside. “I did wonder how she crawled up that tunnel.”

  “One mystery solved,” I said, with a glance at Cedar. “Watch it. She might be in the palace, waiting for me.”

  We stepped into the corridor, and I turned to Viola. “By the way,” I said. “There’s something you should know.”

  “What is it?”

  “You’re free,” I whispered. “I gave up most of the talisman’s magic to the Seelie Court, and it caused every vow tied to my magic to reset. I know it doesn’t make a difference to the battle, but I wanted you to know.”

  Her eyes widened. “But I just saw you use magic.”

  “It’s not the same magic,” I said. “Not really. It’s sort of a long story, but I gave up my magic to remove the charges against me. So the Whitefall vow is gone now. I won’t force you to serve me. I wish I could say it lets you off the hook, but there’s a war on the other side of the door. Are you sure you want to join me?”

  “I wouldn’t be anywhere else.” She grinned at me. “Bring it.”

  We walked the short distance in silence. At the corridor’s end, the door into Lady Whitefall’s suite lay open, and beyond that, the entrance hall. Of course, she hadn’t come back this way, so the palace remained the way I’d left it.

  I crossed the entrance hall and opened the front door. Outside, not an inch of snow had been disturbed, but the sounds of fighting carried through the trees. Ivy took the lead, pulling her sword out, and we ran through the gates into pandemonium.

  Giants tore up trees, and wild fae ran for their lives. Ivy stepped out, cutting down a hobgoblin, while Viola ran past, wielding her own magic. Wraiths began to appear in the trees, fighting against… Sidhe. Lord Lyle’s army.

  Ivy carved her way through the fighting. Her talisman cut down the dead as easily as the living, relentless and deadly. But the forces kept on coming, and there was no sign of my mother. If she’d taken the Morrigan’s magic into herself, then the only option was to tear it out of her—but it was a goddess’s magic. Could mine stand up to it, considering all her other abilities? Maybe. After all, the Morrigan hadn’t given her all of her magic. She’d loaned her a kernel. A small sliver that might be stolen like any other magic.

  Cedar and I fought back to back, fending off any enemy who came near. We’d lost track of the others, but a humming sensation drew me forwards, almost unconsciously. The air itself sang with power, drawing out the magic in from my talisman.

  I cut down a shrieking hobgoblin and turned to Cedar. “It’s close. That creature. I can sense it.”

  He grimaced. “Your magic didn’t work against it. I’m not certain mine will. Are you sure you don’t want to leave it to the Sidhe?”

  “Little late,” I said, raising m
y sceptre.

  The god-beast appeared in a haze of shadows, gliding between the trees like a wraith. Its magic stirred mine, making my teeth chatter with the force of its power. My sceptre buzzed angrily, its rage rolling through me, but I held onto my own will, my gaze trained on Lady Whitefall. “Nice, mother. Hiding from the battlefield?”

  “Certainly not. The Courts are running scared.” She moved to the beast’s side, power rippling the air. A dark glow surrounded her body, and coldness radiated from her very being. Raw, metallic fear rose on my tongue. The same fear I’d felt when I’d been near the Morrigan. She and the creature stood side by side, a goddess and her pet, wreathed in primal, deadly magic.

  “I assume you’ve guessed the nature of the power which resides within that talisman of yours,” Lady Whitefall said. Even her voice sounded different, having cast its melodic cadence aside for a bone-deep, chilling whisper.

  “Yeah, I have.” I swallowed against my dry throat. “I prefer it in this form. That thing is ugly as hell.”

  The creature hissed and stomped its feet. Its huge shapeless form exuded dark, terrible power, like standing next to the talisman sword all over again. Maybe it’s a relation.

  I kept my gaze on a spot near Lady Whitefall’s feet, fighting the instinctive fear. It was just magic—ancient, terrifying magic, but a spell all the same. She was still my mother, with as many foibles and petty weaknesses as any of the Sidhe, however much they preferred to claim otherwise.

  “I have your magic to thank for its revival,” she said. “The talismans are a mere shadow of these creatures’ powers. And now I know how to get them to obey my every command.”

  “Because you failed to do the same for me,” I said. “You can’t win over human allies any more. You’re alone, Nessa.”

  Her expression didn’t change, but something in her demeanour shifted. Perhaps my words had broken through. Maybe deep inside her rotting core, some small part of her cowered at my harsh words. Nobody could hurt you like the ones you loved.