The Shadow Queen (Ravenspire)

by C. J. Redwine

  But Leo hadn’t been safe. She shoved another bite into her mouth and forced herself to focus on the task in front of her.

  Lorelai swallowed her last mouthful of beans and something hard and bright filled her chest as a plan came to her. The plan was bold and daring, like Leo, but used the battle strategy that came naturally to Lorelai. She’d send the kind of dramatic message that would have put a sparkle in Leo’s eyes, but she’d plan down to the last detail to make sure every single risk she took brought Irina one step closer to total destruction.

  And at the end of it, Lorelai would pit her will—her heart—against the heart of Ravenspire’s queen, and only one of them would survive.

  Minutes later, they were ready to leave. Gabril turned east, but Lorelai put a hand on his arm.

  “We’re going to the far northwest mountain.”

  He frowned. “That’s Duchess Waldina’s land. She’s loyal to Irina.”

  “I’m counting on it.” Lorelai’s voice was cold.

  “I thought we had another six months of working our way through the mountain villages, robbing the queen’s treasury offices and building loyalty by giving it back to the people.”

  “I’m done being cautious and safe, Gabril. Irina has destroyed my family and my kingdom. It’s time I repaid the favor.”

  A fierce light burned in his eyes. “Agreed. How does Duchess Waldina factor into your plan?”

  “She’s loyal to Irina and often stays at the castle. I need to know the gossip. The rumors. Anything that will show me a weakness I can use against Irina as I form a battle strategy for taking her down.”

  “I’m not sure the duchess will be willing to give you that information.”

  Lorelai’s jaw clenched until her teeth ached. “She’d better rethink that position before I get there.” Flexing her gloved hands, she said, “Once I have what I need, I’m going after Irina. No waiting. No hiding. Just a full-force attack that will end with one of us dead. It will be dangerous. Risky even by Leo’s standards.” Her voice broke, and she made herself look away so he wouldn’t see how desperately she wanted him to ignore her next words. “You don’t have to come with me. You’ve already risked so much. I release you from your service.”

  He took two steps forward and pulled her against his chest. “You aren’t releasing me from anything. Where you go, I go.” She gripped his coat with desperate hands as relief warmed the pit of ice that had been forming in her stomach at the thought of facing the rest of her journey alone.

  “What about Ada?” she asked as she released him and stepped back. “I didn’t mean to pry into your thoughts, but . . . is she your wife? Were those your boys?”

  The loneliness that clung to him when he didn’t think she was watching filled his eyes, but his voice was composed. “Yes, that’s my family.”

  “You never told us about them.” She tried hard not to make it sound like an accusation.

  “Because you’d just lost everything. My choices, my grief, weren’t yours to bear.”

  “Where are they? Do you ever see them?”

  “They’re still in the capital. I got a message to her as I fled with you and Leo, and we’ve managed to exchange a few messages since then, but, no, I don’t see them. She buried me—the entrance hall collapsed on all the guards who were on duty that night. She simply claimed that I had died along with the others and held a funeral. Irina attended. I’ve stayed away because as long as Irina believes I’m dead, Ada and the boys are safe.”

  Lorelai’s hands curled into fists. “You should have your family back.”

  “So should you,” he said gently.

  Her eyes burned with unshed tears, but she lifted her chin. “It’s too late for mine, but it isn’t too late for yours. Let’s get moving. We have a lot of ground to cover, and I have a lot of planning to do if I want to have a chance against Irina.”

  “Oh, you have more than a chance.” He picked up her travel pack and handed it to her. “Do you know why I’m willing to follow you into this battle without hesitation?”

  “Because I’m Arlen’s oldest child, and that makes the throne of Ravenspire rightfully mine.”

  “Wrong.” He held her gaze, his eyes fierce. “Bloodlines and birthrights don’t make someone worth following. Neither does the appearance of power. I follow you because you have the courage of a true warrior.”

  “I don’t feel courageous.” She turned toward the west. “I just see what needs to be done, and there’s no one else to do it. No one else who can fight Irina with the weapon she’s used to destroy Ravenspire. It has to be me. That doesn’t make me a warrior. That just makes me the best tool for a necessary job.”

  As they left the campsite behind and moved through a grove of trees with crumbling trunks and bare, shriveled branches, Gabril said, “A warrior doesn’t focus on the odds stacked against her. She focuses on her heart, on her will to face the evil in her world and defeat it, and then she finds a way to do it.”

  Lorelai grabbed his arm to help him over a fallen evergreen. She should’ve healed his leg when she healed his sickness, but she hadn’t been thinking clearly.

  She was thinking clearly now. The first order of business when they stopped for lunch would be restoring his left leg. She refused to hear an argument from him over it, either. His heart would submit to hers to make the cost of magic light enough to easily bear, or . . . well, she didn’t know what she’d do to overpower the will of the man who’d been like a father to her for the past nine years, but she’d think of something.

  “I want to tell you a story.” Gabril reached for her gloved hand, and she held on to him while the morning sun filtered in past the bare branches and hung in the air like pale gold dust.

  “Once upon a time, there was a princess who was unlike any other princess.”

  She made a sound of disbelief, and he glared at her. “You may be my queen, but I can still assign you an hour of land sprints if you aren’t listening.”

  She gave him her full attention.

  “Other princesses were raised in castles with maids to clean up after them, cooks to bake their favorite treats, closets full of fancy dresses, and parents to watch over them and love them.”

  Lorelai’s heart began to ache, thrumming in the hollow space that grief had carved into her. Other princesses also had brothers who were teasing them or starting arguments or defending them at any cost. She drew in a sharp breath and focused on Gabril’s words before the empty space inside could consume her.

  “Those princesses had soft hands and peaceful sleep. They had the luxury of knowing what every day would look like, since every day was the same as the one before it, and of knowing what their future would hold. They would grow up, dance at balls, flirt at royal functions, and then marry into another kingdom or assume the crown and rule their own.”

  “Sounds very exciting,” Lorelai said in a tone that implied the exact opposite.

  “We’ll pity those other princesses and send them our condolences for their boring, ball-filled lives later.” Gabril pressed a fist against his left leg as they began to climb the steep incline that would bring them back to the road that dipped and curved around the Falkrains, joining the eastern edge of the range with the lands in the west.

  “Now, the princess in our story didn’t live in a castle anymore. She’d lost her home, her family, and her kingdom to a wicked queen who wanted the world at her feet more than she wanted anything else. This wicked queen destroyed the princess’s life and broke her heart. For some princesses, all that pain, all that loss, would break their strength of will.”

  The ache in Lorelai’s chest spread, and she wrapped her arms around herself.

  Gabril leaned forward and captured her gaze with his. “Not this princess. For you see, it was the princess’s extraordinary strength of will that had first caught the attention of the wicked queen. The queen thought to bend that will to her own. To tempt that will into believing a lie. But the princess was not so easily deceived, even
when everyone else was. Though she was a child, and though she had no allies, no one to help her face the evil queen, she found the strength to do so on her own.”

  Lorelai bent her head and studied the leaf-covered ground as she walked.

  “She almost succeeded, and that terrified the wicked queen, for nothing scares the wicked so much as the realization that someone has chosen not to surrender, even when the cost of defiance is almost too much to bear.”

  “The cost was too much for others to bear too,” Lorelai whispered.

  “Who is telling this story?” Gabril demanded.

  “You.”

  “That’s right. Now, as I was saying, the wicked queen was terrified of the princess’s strength, and she did everything she could to break the princess’s will, but the princess refused to be broken. She stood up to the queen, revealed her for what she really was, and escaped the castle—”

  “Because you helped her.”

  “Interrupt me one more time, and you will have both cooking and cleanup duty for a month.”

  Lorelai pressed her lips closed.

  “The princess could’ve let her grief turn into bitterness, but she turned it into kindness instead. She could’ve let her terror turn into paralysis, but she used it to fuel her courage. She learned how to climb walls, how to fall without being injured, how to disguise herself, how to sprint through the forest without leaving a sign—she learned how to survive, but she never allowed her own survival to mean more to her than the survival of others.”

  His voice grew husky. “She’d been trained to flee at the first sign of trouble, but instead, she stayed. She fought an entire group of soldiers because she didn’t look at her odds of winning; she looked at her reasons for fighting. She trekked through the forest to Nordenberg with her brother even though the entire northern army was looking for her because she didn’t look at the reasons not to risk the trip. She looked at her reasons for going.”

  Lorelai flinched at the mention of Nordenberg.

  “And when the princess realized that she and her brother were in terrible danger, she didn’t freeze. She didn’t surrender. She fought to save him, leaving herself open to attack.”

  Lorelai’s pulse pounded, and her palms burned as the wound where the vine had sunk its teeth into her chest throbbed faintly.

  “And when tragedy struck once again, the princess didn’t wallow in it. Didn’t let it break her. No, she came back to her mentor, saw that he was about to die, and”—his voice broke, and he cleared his throat—“she disobeyed his most important rule, knowing it might bring the wicked queen straight to her to finish what she’d tried to do nine years ago. The princess healed her mentor, at great cost to herself, because she didn’t look at her odds of survival. She looked at his.”

  Slowly Lorelai met Gabril’s gaze.

  “Now you tell me, Lorelai Rosalinde Tatiyana Diederich, does that sound like a courageous warrior to you?”

  She couldn’t speak.

  He took her hand again as they neared the top of the steep rise. “Thank you for saving my life, Lorelai.”

  “You’re welcome.” Her voice was small. The spot beside her that Leo would’ve filled with joking about what costumes they’d wear as they took the fight to Irina or with congratulating himself on surviving the seriousness of Gabril and Lorelai was achingly silent.

  Gabril’s voice was strong and sure. “I believe in you, and I’ve fought for you, because in a world full of people who crumble before an evil too terrifying to comprehend, you put up your fists and fight.”

  Before she could reply, a strange sound shook the forest—a steady thump-thump that reverberated from the air above and caused the trees to shiver. A shadow blocked the sun, and Lorelai looked up to see Irina’s red and gold dragon—longer than a horse-drawn carriage and twice as tall—fly over the top of the hill and plunge straight toward her.

  SEVENTEEN

  “DOWN!” LORELAI SHOVED Gabril to the right and took off running in the opposite direction. “Chase me. Come on, chase me,” she whispered as she dove between two thick-trunked pines and sprinted down the hill. Her heart thundered in her ears and a vise squeezed her chest as visions of Gabril being consumed by dragon’s fire or crushed between the creature’s monstrous jaws filled her mind.

  Branches exploded into the air, and a tree crashed to the ground and tumbled past her to disintegrate into chunks of debris at the bottom of the hill.

  She risked a glance over her shoulder as she tossed her travel pack to the ground and leaped between another pair of trees.

  The dragon had flown past Gabril, who was struggling to his feet, his face a mask of terrified fury. The beast was heading straight for her, its enormous wings shattering treetops as it came.

  “Run, Lorelai!” Gabril yelled.

  She was running—flat out sprinting faster than she ever had—and the dragon was closing the gap between them like it was nothing.

  Hurtling over a boulder, she dove beneath a low branch and whipped toward the left as the crackle of dragon’s fire exploded into the tree behind her and sent it plunging to the bottom of the hill.

  She couldn’t outrun a dragon. Couldn’t climb trees and leap through the forest when the dragon could just light her on fire the second she was in range.

  There was only one way out of this, and the power was already flooding her veins.

  She skidded down the rest of the hill, her pulse beating a frantic tempo against her skin as the dragon roared and fire strafed the ground behind her. The heat licked at her skin, and she rolled forward, coming to her feet at the bottom of the hill, where she was surrounded by smoking chunks of the trees the dragon had destroyed.

  She wasn’t going to die here—incinerated by Irina’s pet dragon while the queen stayed safe and sound in her castle, content in the knowledge that she’d destroyed the last of the Diederichs.

  Kill overgrown lizard. Eat the eyes, tear out the heart. Sasha’s thoughts, vibrating with rage, broke past the thunder of Lorelai’s heartbeat and sent a shaft of panic down the princess’s spine as the gyrfalcon, returning from her morning hunt, streaked through the air, heading straight for the dragon.

  No! Lorelai tore off her gloves as the beast reached the bottom of the hill, the wind from its wings slamming into Lorelai until it was hard to keep her footing. Don’t attack. Don’t come closer. He’ll kill you.

  Kill it first. Sasha shrieked and dove for the dragon.

  No! Lorelai screamed, but Sasha ignored her.

  Her bird was going to die, and then she was going to die unless she changed her odds. Lorelai locked eyes with the dragon, magic burning like lightning in her palms, and sprinted straight for the beast.

  The dragon’s eyes became slits as Sasha slammed into its head, and it shook her off as easily as a horse dislodges a fly.

  Smoke poured from the beast’s nostrils as Lorelai closed the distance between them, and it opened its mouth.

  Fear tore at her, threatening to turn her thoughts into a whirlwind of panic, but she was acting on instinct now. She twisted to the side, kicked off the ground, slammed her feet against the closest tree trunk, and launched herself into the air. Arcing, she flipped and landed on the dragon’s back, just behind its head.

  Sasha flew at the creature’s face, aiming for its eyes, and narrowly missed getting incinerated. Heat from the fire that poured out of the dragon’s mouth warmed the scales beneath Lorelai, and she grabbed its neck with her bare hands, her mind frantically scrambling for an incantor that would force the dragon’s heart to obey hers instead of Irina’s.

  The dragon’s skin shuddered, a ripple that nearly dislodged Lorelai.

  Sasha banked hard and shrieked as she came for the beast.

  Something crashed behind Lorelai, and she glanced back to find two additional dragons smashing through the trees—a silver and black dragon that was slightly smaller than the one Lorelai clung to and an enormous all-black dragon whose wingspan was wider than a peasant’s cottage.r />
  Sobbing a desperate prayer that she could somehow figure out how to defeat three dragons at once, Lorelai dug her fingers into the scales on the dragon’s neck, an incantor on the tip of her tongue.

  Except she wasn’t gripping scales.

  She was gripping skin that was rapidly softening into something human.

  The dragon dropped to the ground, sending Lorelai tumbling. Its ridges and wings receded, and its bones made an awful grinding sound as its body shrank.

  Sasha slammed into the dragon-turning-human and knocked him to his side. The silver dragon roared and lunged toward the bird, but then a boy with wild red-brown hair picked himself up off the ground and held up his hand, palm out.

  The other dragons slowly settled onto the ground, their eyes watchful.

  Sasha perched on a branch and watched them as if waiting for one of them to make a wrong move.

  The boy turned to face Lorelai, wearing nothing but a strange collar of thistle and bone. The breath left her body as the sun glinted against his wild hair. His amber eyes locked on hers, and the empty space carved into her by Leo’s death filled with fury as she stared at the Eldrian king she’d rescued from the mob in Tranke.

  “You!” She spat the word at him as she raised hands that shook with anger, power sparking in her palms and begging for an incantor that would send her magic into the boy and kill him where he stood.

  “You’re the princess?” He sounded shocked and horrified.

  She trembled, and there was a buzzing in her ears that made everything but the need to hurt him seem inconsequential. She stalked toward him, her eyes locked on his. “I should’ve let the villagers kill you. Or let you break the treaty by shifting into your dragon so that Irina would have nothing to do with you.”

  “I didn’t know when I agreed to hunt down the lost princess that it was you.” He held his hands up in a placating gesture as if somehow his words would make amends for anything.

  “You were with Irina in Nordenberg.” Magic burned against her skin, and incantors designed to punish and destroy balanced on the tip of her tongue, desperate for release. “You were hunting us there.”