Dark scheme? That is so emo, Roue.
Whatever. I save my strength. I want so much to break free, but I’ll never get to Syl in time.
Agravaine stands over her, but his shark-black gaze turns to me, bathed in the moonlight. He knows he’s got us. Creep. Below, on the floor, the student body still sways, captive to Fiann’s spell, my stolen gramarye. When the solstice falls, he’ll call upon the Moribund in their bodies before he ignites it down the lines and blows their fuses, devouring their life-forces as the Moribund rips them apart from the inside out.
He’s waiting—we all are—for the solstice.
More moonbeams pierce the skylight. Agravaine jerks his chin toward the dance floor. I want to keep giving him my death-glare, but I look.
Damn it all.
The ley lines! Seven glowing blue lines cutting laser-like through the fake fog rolling onto the dance floor. They come from seven different directions, each making a beeline for me. I am the center of the spell, of Agravaine’s mass Glamoury. The ley lines will converge on this spot, the center of his circle of power, and then the solstice will energize it, the hearthstone will augment it, and we will all die.
And Syl…
Agravaine stands over her, berating her. “You’re nothing, Syl. You can’t save anyone. You can’t even save yourself.”
I grit my fangs so hard I’m surprised they don’t splinter. Don’t listen to him, Syl! Don’t listen! But I can’t call out, can’t scream.
Inside me, the hearthstone is breaking. I’ve reserved my strength for this, for one final push to break out. I can make it. I can save myself.
Or I can save Syl.
I don’t have the strength for both.
The ley lines glow brighter as they carve through the fog, racing up and then onto the stage. They are coming for me. If I am to break free, I have to do it now.
Do it! Break free! Run!
My every instinct ramps up into flight mode, and I let it, let the strength build up inside me. I grit my teeth, and a cry forces itself up from deep inside—filled with rage and power and all that is Rouen Rivoche, princess of the dark Fae and the Winter Court.
My muscles flex, forcing the Moribund in my body to obey, and with a monumental surge, I rip free of the black circuitry bonds. Moribund circuits scatter about me, pattering to the stage like scarabs falling.
Go, run! Go! My instincts drive me to flee, but my heart…
Syl…
All my love for her fills me up, overflows, and keeps me here. Oh, hell. Emo to the end, then.
I brush the remnants of clinging circuits from my shoulder and deliberately boot the ice castle column. Hard. The thing teeters, totters, and then falls with a crash between Fiann and Agravaine.
I smirk, showing just enough fang to really get his goat—“Oh, yoo-hoo!”—and as he looks up, I flying-kick him over the column, hitting him right in the kisser. Pow! Zowie! Down he goes—boom!—and away from Syl.
I’m on him in a murder’s moment, grinning wickedly, my raven-dark hair flying wild as I punch him in the jaw and then the cheekbone. A smattering of blood flies, and while he’s dazed, I glance back over my shoulder.
“Syl!” I find my voice and shout for her. She’s nearly taken over now, Moribund circuits crawling over her flesh. She struggles to rise at my voice and then collapses back to the stage, the circuits like insects feasting on her flesh, turning her into a creature of dark machinery.
Keep your head in the fight, Roue!
I turn back… Right into Agravaine’s fist.
Not my best moment.
His punch slams me backward, staggering, seeing stars. I shake off the pain, catch my balance in time to see him leap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Midair, he thrusts his fist out, and the Moribund circuits rush down his arm, making a black blade, sharp and glinting in the stage lights.
Barely, I dodge it and it slices into the stage, kicking up wood and splinters in the spot where I just was. My heart is throbbing in my chest, the hearthstone failing, threatening to drag me down with it. “Syl! Fight!”
She’s our last chance. If only she could see it. If only she believed, she could Awaken. This has been her problem all along. In every one of our training sessions.
She doesn’t believe in herself.
Agravaine strides toward me. The Moribund expands along his chest, forming a thicker black carapace-armor over his body. Spikes thrust upward at his shoulders, jagged planes that glint razor-sharp. He lifts his blade-arm as he bears down on me. “Dumb move, Rouen.”
He slashes, and I dodge. The columns next to me tilt and shear off in the middle, their tops crashing down to the stage. Still, Fiann and the band play on. Still, Syl fights.
“Syl!”
Behind me, a blue glow ignites the fog, lighting up the room, the ley lines gleaming like diamond spiderweb strands as they all come to a point.
A bright flash, and a column of blue energy surges upward through the ceiling to the sky. The solstice, the ley lines… Everything is ready. His Grimmacle needs only one more thing.
Me.
He steps in, swiping at me with his blade, backing me up. “You’re going into that column.”
“Screw you, buddy-boy.” But I can’t help moving back before the swipes of his huge blade.
His black eyes gleam, and his voice grows heavy with Command. “Step into the column of light, Rouen.”
The Command slams into me harder than his fist. I fight back. “Screw. You.” Immediately, a rush of pain stabs into my head, lighting up my body in agony. Blood rushes from my nose, but I fight.
No way am I going down like a chump.
He extends his finger, and a blade shoots out, all Terminator-like. He aims it at Syl, but before I can react, he pulls back an inch from her throat. The Moribund holds her there, his captive, her throat exposed.
“The column, Rouen, or she dies.”
“You won’t kill her.” Damn it all to the Harrowing, he will. He doesn’t need her any more. He’s got me, the Moribund, the trolley circle, the ley lines. Syl is…icing on the cake.
And that icing is about to get bloody.
He watches me figure it out and raises one perfect white eyebrow.
Seriously. I hate losing to this guy, but what choice do I have? Eventually, I’ll lose against his Command, and he’ll have my power anyway.
At least with Syl alive…
I stop struggling. At least with her alive, we have a chance in hell. Okay, it’s a snowball’s chance in hell, but I’ll take it.
I step into the column of blue light. Instantly, it numbs me, and my body seizes. The drain and draw from the Moribund was nothing compared to this. I feel the power of winter solstice slicing into me, as though the column is a blade of light. It cuts deep, to the heart of the hearthstone.
My heartbeat riots, hard and fast, and for a moment, the hearthstone hangs in my mind’s eye, a cracked and imperfect jewel.
And then, the cracks light up with guttering, glowing darkness, the infections and flaws running over it like rivulets of water, creaking, cracking, opening the faults into gaps.
I fall to my knees, racked with pain, all my strength fleeing.
Instead of fighting, I use my last breath before the breaking. I use it to call out to her.
“Syl, I believe in you.”
And then in the darkness of UnderHollow, the hearthstone shatters.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Syl
Clap if you believe in fairies
-Glamma’s Grimm
It’s over.
I want to keep fighting, but the Moribund takes me over. It drains me of my strength, my will, everything. I feel Agravaine looming over me, see his hobnailed boots on either side of my head. His words are cutting, cutting deep into my soul.
“You can’t save anyone. You can’t even save yourself. Sleeper-princess—ha! Who do you think you are? You’re nothing special. No one.”
Is he right? Have I failed?
The M
oribund infecting me whispers, Yes. Just let go, let it all end in peaceful numbness.
I don’t want to, but holding on seems so hard, and in the next moment, I am falling, failing. The music becomes a low, dim throb, the Moribund within me, pulsing, growing stronger as it eats away at me.
From the corner of my eye, I see the glowing blue lines. The ley lines have all intersected on the stage, making a seven-pointed star. A column of light stands in the middle, so crazy-bright my vision blurs and I have to look away. I know all this is important, but for the life of me I can’t remember why.
Euphoria told you, my tired mind pokes me. Euphoria. Remember her?
Agravaine’s laughter is vicious and somehow soothing. “It will all be over in a moment, and you can die as plain old Syl Skye.”
Old Syl. Is that who I am? Every cell, every pore, every nerve ending is on fire, aching, hurting. I know in my heart I have to fight, but my body is breaking, becoming Moribund.
In my mind, I hear Glamma Gentry, her voice sharp and commanding. Syl. Syl, get up. Stand up. Don’t give up.
Glamma, it’s so hard…
Don’t be whiny-pants, Syl. Don’t give in.
A tiny flame ignites within me.
There are still people who love you, who need you.
Really, Glamma. Who? I know there is someone, but the Moribund won’t let me remember.
And then from far off. “I believe in you, Syl. I believe in you.”
That voice… It can’t be. Euphoria?
Euphoria! She is nearby and she needs me. I look up, struggling to see through the black circuits that clog my vision like scales, that try hard to turn me into a dark Moribund machine. My Fae-sight stutters. Come on, come on!
I fight, give it a vicious push, and the world lights up in auras. Oranges and reds and yellows, blues and greys. I see Agravaine surrounded by indigo-black ick—more machine than man, not even half of him warm, living flesh. Fiann all red and bleeding, the students a cold grey, washed out and caught in the gramarye of her stolen magic.
And Euphoria.
I see her in the column of light now, her aura suffocated in a growing black shroud, the ley lines a muted blue all around her. She is racking and jerking, her strength pulled from her veins by the Moribund.
Our gazes meet, her blue eyes ringed in gold, glowing wildly, and then that glow, that fight fades. A sad smile curves her full lips.
“I believe in you, Syl.”
And then she is lost to her agony.
I believe in you.
Euphoria believes, but did I ever? It all flashes before me—the train, the accident, my struggles to Awaken. I never believed I was anything but ordinary Syl Skye. On top of the building, I’d argued with Euphoria. “This is crazy. I’m only human,” were my exact words to her.
But you’re not. For the first time, the sleeper-princess in me whispers. You’re extraordinary, Syl, and it’s time to embrace it.
Time to embrace it. Time to embrace the new Syl. Like you promised. New Syl and new Rouen. Together.
I take a deep breath. I steel myself.
I believe in you, Syl.
I breathe out. And believe.
Instantly, the power within me sparks to fiery life, summer’s heat fanned to flame. It swells inside my chest, blistering, burning, burning away all my fear and doubt—a massive sheet of fire about to sweep down upon me and ignite me, body and soul. I’m caught up in the power, in the terror and exhilaration, all wrapped up in my belief.
And my love for Euphoria. That is there, too, blazing in my heart.
I have denied it for too long—all of it.
No more. No more being whiny-pants.
This time, instead of shying away from my power, my love for her, I dive in. I dive into the deep end.
New Syl and new Rouen.
Summer’s heat bursts inside me, hot and wild, a runaway bonfire blazing in my heart and soul. With my next breath, I am filled with fire and purest sunlight, with power and newfound strength. I slough off the Moribund circuits, a dark snake shedding its skin.
The circuits ignite at my touch, burning away in white-hot flame. My entire body is on fire, with power, with…Awakening.
I stand before my enemies, Syl Skye reborn.
My belief, my love for Euphoria makes me powerful, a force to be reckoned with. In fury and anger I turn to Agravaine. His eyes are wide, wild. He sees his precious plans going to crap all around him. He strides toward me, his white hair flowing like a movie villain’s, his arm elongating into a wickedly curved Moribund blade the size of a steel girder.
“You really think that’s going to help you?” I smirk, all drunk with power. “You’re so done, pal.”
“You won’t stop me. You can’t!” He lunges at me, throwing his arm out, that Moribund blade sweeping in to make me a head shorter.
As if. I lift my hand, contort it.
White flame burns from my fingertips, cutting through the stage smoke. And when the blade touches my fingers, it scorches away like paper in the wind. Cinders, ash—that is what the Moribund becomes—and Agravaine staggers away, my white flame eating down that blade, down his arm.
Now who’s the Happy Meal, jerk?
And yeah, now that it’s had a taste, my sleeper-princess power ignites even brighter, hungry for more. Can’t stop, won’t stop, it consumes the Moribund down his arm to the shoulder before he finally makes a second blade with his good arm and chops off the first.
Whoa. Now that is next-level crazy.
His severed arm falls to the stage, bursting into ashes as my white flames eat up the rest of it. Like Glamma always said, What goes around comes around.
And hoo-boy, it’s coming around.
Agravaine shakes his white mane, his face screwed up in pain. “No,” he growls, and I know he’s going to say something totally villainesque like, Oh my beautiful wickedness! or some such nonsense.
Ridiculous to the end, he totally does. “You can’t win. You’re nothing. You’re no one. No one!”
“Wrong,” I tell him, straightening to my full five-foot-six. “I’m Syl Skye, the last sleeper-princess.”
And with that, the final barrier breaks. I Awaken in all my power and glory. White fire lights me up inside and out. I am burning, but I am unharmed.
I am on fire. I am the fire. The white flame.
Hell yeah.
I stride toward him, and he backs up fast, panic on his face as he calls to all his little Moribund circuits—the ones I haven’t totally burned to blackness. The circuits that lie on the floor jigger and jerk and leap to him, building and rebuilding his arm, stacking up until his blade arm and shoulder are a black map of teeming circuitry and jagged spikes.
He turns to me, leering. “See if you can defeat me now, sleeper-princess.”
I snort. “You should really quit while you’re ahead.” My hands ignite in white flame. He comes on, spikes and spears of Moribund slicing in to pierce me. I stand there, and as they wing in, with a small gesture, my white-flame power burns them all. Black Moribund goes up in smoke.
Ashes rain down. The stench of ozone ripples in the air, and through all the smoke, I can barely see the stage, the floor, the students. Somewhere, Fiann is sawing wildly at the bow, freaking out because she literally can’t stop. Euphoria is somewhere behind me, the ley lines lighting her up in a blare of blue.
Euphoria! I turn to go to her, but Agravaine gets in my way, rebuilding himself again.
“You’re not saving her,” he snarls, doubling down on his stupidity.
Seriously? I’ve got no more time for this clown.
I step forward. “It’s time, Agravaine.” I barely recognize my own voice. The sleeper-princess in me sleeps no more. I am fully Awakened, all the fire and fury of summer pulsing through my limbs. In one last-ditch effort, he charges. He strikes and strikes at me, but the white flame burns and burns and burns.
Finally, I clench my fist and dim my fire.
His body a smoking ru
in, Agravaine lies there on the stage. I stride toward him all casual-like, and he scooches back on his butt like a washed-up comic-book villain. I keep coming, white flame trailing a garland in my wake.
Fear swallows his smugness, but Jerky McJerkface has more tricks up his sleeve. “What about Rouen?” he asks. “She has only a few more moments before the Moribund consumes her.”
He gestures, and finally some of the smoke clears. I turn to see her racked with pain, spasming inside the seven-star ley lines. “Euphoria!” I take a step, but I feel him loom up, a Moribund blade like the one Fiann used on me in his hot little hand.
I whip around and grab his wrist, the sound of my hand slapping on his like a gunshot. He struggles to dagger me, the knife an inch from my face. But I’m stronger than him now, fully Awakened.
I hold him easily.
“That’s…impossible!” he grits out, totally losing whatever cool he had left.
I can’t help smirking in his face. “It’s not impossible if you believe. And I do.”
Okay, I might just said I believe in fairies, but whatever.
Alarm and panic flicker in his eyes, and I kind of love it. Yeah, you got this coming, pal. He throws another punch, and I catch that hand too. I’m like Jet Li and Jackie Chan all rolled into one badass chick. I hold him there, by both his wrists.
“You can’t…” He struggles, trying his best to pull away, but I have him.
“Agravaine…” I hold his wrists and then slam his hands together again and again. “Clap if you believe in fairies.” I keep him there for a sec, making him clap like a baby harp seal, and then I slam my forehead into his nose.
Blood gushes, and he falls to the stage in a heap. Jerk.
I turn and rush to Euphoria.
She’s burning up in blue. I go to reach for her, but as soon as my hand gets close, the white flame ignites on my fingers like brilliant fireflies. An alarm screams in my mind. Don’t! You’ll kill her.
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