by Jocelyn Fox
I grabbed Murtagh’s hands, placed them on my shoulders, and reached through his arms into his taebramh, drawing it into mine. He shuddered but his fingers tightened their grip as I drew together the next blow. This time, I used the taebramh as a sledgehammer, and the manacle sprang open, but the pain still hit me, reverberating through me into Murtagh. But we moved to Titania’s other ankle. After we burst the iron, Titania stirred. Her Walker-form gained color. Murtagh turned his head and retched. I threw the ruined manacles to the other side of the cell and took his hands from my shoulders, ears ringing.
“Get us back,” I said, voice no more than a raw rasp. “After this last one. Drag us if you have to.”
A steely determination hardened Murtagh’s face. He nodded. I gathered the little taebramh I had left, drew it back and hammered it down with all my strength onto the last manacle. Blackness laced the edge of my vision. Murtagh knelt by Titania’s wrist, tying something to her. I heard the scrape of the grate. Dully I thought that must mean something was coming into the cell. I touched Titania’s blistered wrist, and then something jerked us hard into the ether.
Chapter 37
We slowed halfway down the path in the ether, spinning with our own momentum. I felt the cord tethering me to someone, and another presence. Echoes of pain still radiated through my Walker-form. I wanted to let go, allowing the shining stars to sing to me forever. But the cord tightened, drawing me onward doggedly, dragging us all back.
Back to where? I wondered. What was so important that we had to leave this silent beauty?
The cord cut into my wrist. The sharp bright pain sliced into the fog, just as I felt the whirlpool pull of my physical body. The cord slackened as the gravity of our bodies overtook us, and we fell like stricken birds from the ether, slamming back into our physical forms. Someone slapped me. I gasped. I heard a high, bright scream. Sounds warped around me as though I was underwater. I rolled to my hands and knees, went to stand but a tug on my wrist led my gaze down the cord to Murtagh, who lay trembling, eyes rolled back, foam lacing his lips.
An unearthly roar shook the carved pillars of the throne room. I shook my head, grabbed my dagger and cut the cord from my wrist. Blood spattered the delicate pearl and jade inlays of the floor. A column of darkness rippling with flames lashed out at a small figure. I stumbled to my feet, ears ringing.
“Tess!” Vell’s shout barely penetrated the fog still clogging my head. “It followed you back! You have to use the Sword!”
She thrust the Caedbranr into my hands and then ran toward the Dark creature. I reached for the power of the Sword, stripped its bonds. “Mind my blood,” I whispered through cracked and bleeding lips, and I loosed it on the creature.
But the creature’s heat drank in the flames of the Sword’s power. It bellowed in challenge. My breath caught in my throat. I stumbled drunkenly toward the diais. Through my blurred vision I saw Titania, still on her throne but doubled over, and her Three stirring, lifting their heads. Gwyneth’s pendant flashed hot against my neck. “I know,” I croaked at it. “Blood.”
I tripped over one of the Three as he rose to his hands and knees. I caught myself and staggered up the steps to the diais, dagger still in one hand, reaching for my beltpurse with the other. I could feel the pulse of the great ruby like a living thing. The Caedbranr was in its wolf-form now, holding the horned Dark creature at bay with the three wolves, Calliea plying her whip from one knee, blood soaking her side. The creature howled.
I pulled the Crown of Bones from its wrapping just as I reached Titania. She shuddered and raised her head at my touch. A slight smile curved her lips and she raised a hand, brushing her thumb over my cheekbone. Wordlessly I held out the Crown of Bones, glowing now with its own light. Her smile widened, she took my dagger, and sliced her own arm, cutting deep. Dark blood splashed onto the Crown of Bones, and its power rose up in a whirling wind. I fell to my knees, watching the vaulted ceiling become the night sky and the dawning day, sunset and midnight, coalescing and separating and seeking.
“Go to her,” Titania commanded, staunching the flow of blood from her arm. An echo of raw blisters laced her wrists.
The spiraling power of the Crown pulled me; my own legs had no strength left. I crossed the gore-patterned floor of the throne room and fell to my knees when the Crown released me from its compulsion. “Vell!” I screamed, my voice high and raw. My hands blistered where they held the Crown, but I clutched it, clamping down on the pain. It had to happen. I had to crown her. She was the only one left with the right blood.
Vell appeared through the smoke and wind, golden eyes wide. I held up the Crown. She slid her bow up onto her shoulder, moving as if sleepwalking. I could barely breathe with the weight of the power pressing down on us. The whirlwind spun faster. I screamed. Vell placed her hands on the Crown of Bones, and a strange high keening added another voice to the maelstrom.
“She needs her Three.”
Somehow Titania’s voice cut through the chaos. My vision darkened at the edges. I couldn’t feel my hands. But I held the Crown. I felt the Sword funneling its power back into me, bolstering me. A pair of hands covered Vell’s on the Crown, scarred at the knuckles. Finnead. Then another hand, slender but still calloused. Through the haze I recognized Gray. And then, on top of them all, a child’s hand. Arcana.
The moment the Evermage’s hand touched the Crown, a golden fire suffused Vell and raced to each of her Three. With a thunderous roar, the Dark creature charged. A rope of golden fire lassoed it, wrapped its neck and brought it to the ground, thrashing. The whirling wind picked it up and smashed it into a column. The throne room groaned.
The fire filled Vell, reaching her eyes, and then a liquid line of flames painted a halo above her head. The flames spun, collapsed on themselves, became a golden circlet spinning wildly in the wind. Titania reached up, grasped the circlet, and crowned Vell.
A great shudder rippled through the ground and the wind died instantly, leaving a suspended silence. I swayed on my knees, still clutching the Crown of Bones. I stared at the great ruby, now blackened, and it crumbled to ash beneath Vell’s hands. She blinked, jerked and looked wildly at Titania, as if awakening from a dream.
“The last of the Three Queens to be crowned,” said Titania.
I dropped my blistered hands to my knees. Dust filtered down from the great vaulted ceiling as another tremor shook the throne room. With the last of my strength, I checked the strap of the Sword across my chest, my hand checking its hilt just over my shoulder.
One of the columns cracked with a great boom. Figures ran through the dust: Calliea, blood-soaked but grimly on her feet; Titania’s Three, surprisingly recovered, helping Murtagh and Tristan; Chael, amethyst eye blazing. Luca appeared by my side.
“Can’t stand,” I said numbly, staring at my ugly, blistered hands.
He said nothing, sliding his arms around me and lifting me as if I weighed no more than a child.
“Murtagh,” I pleaded, remembering his convulsing body.
“The Vaelanbrigh has him,” Luca said shortly.
The floor bucked beneath Luca’s feet, nearly throwing him to the ground, but he held me and leapt over the widening chasm. We were running, a different way than we’d came, Titania leading us. The wolves flowed around us. My hands hurt. My head bounced against Luca’s shoulder until he tucked his scarred hand against my cheek. Brightvale shuddered again, quaking in its death throes. I felt a detached sadness at the thought of all the lovely tapestries in the throne room, buried beneath rubble. My breath rasped in my throat.
“Stay awake, Tess,” said Luca, something like pleading in his voice.
We burst out into a courtyard, bright sunlight blurring my vision even more. I saw out of the corner of my eye a blue starburst erupt into the sky. I glimpsed the gleam of the golden circlet against Vell’s hair and felt a tired satisfaction. I’d solved the riddle. I’d freed Titania, and I’d crowned the new Queen.
Well done, my Bearer.
About the Author
Jocelyn A. Fox is the author of the epic fantasy novel The Iron Sword, the first book in The Fae War Chronicles. The Crown of Bones is her second novel.
Jocelyn was born near Philadelphia, and spent her childhood in the idyllic setting of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. After reading The Chronicles of Narnia in the second grade, she devoured every book in the school library and began creating elaborate games based in fantasy worlds that she and her younger brother and sister would play out in the back yard. While she played field hockey, ran on the track team and played flute in the school band, she always made time for a good book and, as she grew older, for writing her own stories. She entertained her friends in middle school and high school by writing epic fantasy stories, which still reside in black-and-white handwritten journals in her closet.
Her thirst for real-life adventure led her to the United States Naval Academy, where she chose to study English amidst the rigors of military training. The duality of analyzing Shakespeare, Whitman and Emerson while learning the basics of martial arts, military strategy and leadership helped form the foundation for the strong female characters in her writing. Jocelyn continued to read throughout her time at the Academy, using books as an escape from the stress of the demanding institution.
After graduation, she reported onboard an East Coast-based destroyer, where she completed training as part of the security reaction force and the Visit, Board, Search and Seizure team. She also graduated from the Navy’s Surface Search and Rescue Swimmer school and serves as a rescue swimmer for her ship. She is constantly awed and humbled by the courage, tenacity and sacrifice of the men and women with whom she has the privilege of serving. Their fighting spirit and sense of fellowship inspire her every day, and her military experiences provide her with ample material to ground her fantasy world in the reality of the modern warrior.
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