by Chloe Jacobs
Greta glanced out the window. Night had fallen, the moons were full. “Oh, goody.” She crossed her arms and cocked her hip. “So that’s it? I don’t even get a last meal? You’re here to escort me to the gallows?”
“The process may not result in your death.” She had the good grace to at least look ashamed of herself.
“Gee, don’t sound so confident.”
Siona didn’t blink. “It will go easier if you cooperate.”
“I’m sure that’s what you tell all your helpless sacrifices.”
She crossed her arms. “Don’t profess to say that you have ever been helpless in your entire life. I have never met a stronger, more capable…or more honorable person.”
She opened her mouth, but the snarky comeback she’d planned wouldn’t come. Why give her a compliment now? Did Siona really think that would compel her compliance?
Greta swallowed back the bitterness that threatened to become a tidal wave of regret.
Even if Greta could overcome the prejudices of the Mylean people and force them to accept that she wasn’t weaker or inherently evil or whatever bullshit they got it into their heads to believe about humans, it would never change a thing. They would never see her as one of their own. If Siona could so easily sacrifice Greta when she was supposed to be one of the ones who cared, then why should anyone else feel differently about her?
The more she’d fought for her place in Mylena, the more she seemed to be losing everything she’d decided to stay here for.
It was time she stopped trying to be all the things that everyone else seemed to want her to be and showed them that she was a force to be reckoned with all on her own. It was time Mylena realized just how strong humankind could be.
And if that left her alone again when all was said and done…so be it.
The door opened and Dryden stood outside with lots of backup. Greta lifted her chin and went to meet them. One of the faerie warriors moved to tie her hands again, but Siona stopped him. “Don’t bother. She isn’t going to try anything.”
But Greta returned the warrior’s wary look with an evil grin. “Do you really want to risk it?”
Siona pushed her forward. “Do not antagonize them, danem,” she hissed in Greta’s ear.
Greta was led back down the long staircase. She’d expected to be escorted to some kind of great hall, so when they actually left the castle and started wandering along a meandering path on the grounds, she was surprised.
“Um, this is a nice tour and everything, but where exactly are we going?” Had someone decided to have her taken out back and shot?
Of course, nobody answered, and she got a jab between the shoulder blades when she slowed down.
Finally, they entered a courtyard with a large stone structure at the opposite side of it that looked like some kind of mausoleum. Leila and Byron stood in front of it. For the first time since she had met them, they were dressed in something other than gauzy, flowing robes. Both of them wore leather and steel just like real faerie warriors.
She lifted her brows at the blades strapped to their waists. “I hope you actually know how to use those. It would be such a shame if you hurt yourselves,” she said, dripping sarcasm. “Let me give you a tip. Keep the pointy end facing up, would you? It’ll save me time later if you’ve already stabbed yourselves.”
Greta was glad to see the smug complacency on their faces waver just enough to be noticeable.
She looked over their heads at the monstrous tomb. The double doors were two stories high, made from solid granite. They’d been polished and etched, and something was written above them in an ancient Mylean script.
“What does that say?”
Siona said, “It’s the equivalent of ���None shall pass.’”
She turned back to Leila. “It doesn’t sound as if your queen wants to be disturbed.”
“Our queen has hidden herself away on the other side of these doors for too long. She has abandoned the faerie race, consigned all of us to rot right along with her, and no longer has any right to the throne.”
“The faerie people aren’t going to let you just take over as long as there’s a glimmer of hope that she might kick this thing and return some day.”
“They will if that hope is removed.” Leila glanced at Siona.
“So why do you need me to open the door?” Greta prodded. “And how do you even know I can do it? If none of you have been able to get the job done…”
“All our efforts to overcome the barrier spell have failed,” Leila admitted. “The only magick that has a chance of working is that of the black portal, which is so powerful, it opens doors to other worlds.”
She crossed her arms. “I’m not going to do it.”
Byron glanced up over her shoulder. “For their sake, I suggest you rethink your position,” he said. She jerked around at the sound of shuffling steps.
Wyatt, Ray, and all the rest of the boys were being led into the courtyard by a contingent of faerie warriors. Ray’s face was pulled back in a tight snarl, and his face was covered in bruises, but Wyatt looked worse. His eye was swollen shut, and he had a long, nasty gash cutting through his coat across his chest. Blood stained his clothes, making her wonder how deep those cuts went.
Thankfully, besides being put in chains, the others looked mostly unharmed. She drank in the sight of them with a heavy heart before turning to Siona with an accusing glare. “You promised Wyatt wouldn’t be hurt. And you knew the boys were here the whole time, didn’t you?”
Then again, maybe not. Siona looked bewildered and winced at the cold, dark look in Wyatt’s gaze before he pointedly turned away from her. She turned to Dryden then, her expression accusing and betrayed.
“It’s time.” Leila stepped forward, nodding toward the big mausoleum with a beatific smile. Greta was getting so sick and tired of that fake sweetness. If the opportunity arose before the end of all this, she wouldn’t think twice about wiping it off her face.
“I won’t do it,” she repeated.
“We have no quarrel with humans, Danem Greta. If you fulfill your promise to give the queen your dark magick, we would be happy to release your friends and ensure that all of you are returned to your world.”
Siona stepped forward and shoved Greta until she stood in front of the massive chamber door.
“Don’t do it, Siona. I can’t stress how very bad this is going to be,” she begged in a low voice. “If the magick gets out of hand and my friends are caught in the middle, make no mistake, I will come after you,” she warned.
It was already crawling up her throat, sensing danger, sensing opportunity. She tried to tamp it down, but it wouldn’t be held back. It was stronger than ever…stronger than Greta.
“You have to trust me,” Siona murmured. “The queen will set everything to rights once she has been freed.”
She couldn’t bring herself to trust the faeries, but she wanted to trust Siona.
She had no choice. It didn’t take much now, and the magick would not be denied. She focused on the mausoleum as the least deadly option. The massive doors had no handles to grip. No visible lock to pick. Nothing was getting through until the right person said, “Open sesame.” She flattened her hand over the seam and stood there for a long moment.
There was…something. Some kind of resonance coming up from the ground, infusing every stone that had been used to build the faerie queen’s tomb. The vibration compelled her, taking all of her concentration. It was a little like music—there was a beat to it. It traveled up her arm into her chest and became the beat of her heart, connecting her to the rhythmic thumping coming from the other side of the door.
It called to that other consciousness inside her and sent it rolling up from the pit of her stomach into her throat and her head until her whole body shook.
She understood somehow that it wasn’t really the door that was locked, but the queen herself. The frustration and rage coming from the other side was almost as oily and black as the thing inside
Greta. The queen was definitely alive. Alive and angry enough to punish the world. To rain fiery destruction over everyone.
Did Siona realize that her mother had gone insane? Did she realize that the thing that had awakened inside that chamber had no ties to family, to the faerie race, or to Mylena? This creature only cared about escaping this prison and making sure that no one could ever lock her up again.
She couldn’t do it. There was no way she could let her out. She’d rather hand over the faerie kingdom to Byron and Leila.
As she pulled back, the queen’s impotent fury bowled Greta over both physically and mentally.
She barely registered the hands on her arms. They were the only thing keeping her on her feet, but the jolt against her mind left her vulnerable to the black cloud that clogged her throat. She choked on so much dark black magick that she tasted it in her mouth. She tried to push it back, but it became obvious that Siona was actively preventing her from doing anything other than overloading the spell.
The queen was drawing the magick out of her now. It felt like razor blades dragging through her veins, and she couldn’t even slow it down. Hopelessness brought hot tears to her eyes, but then she sensed something else.
It was powerful and fierce. Familiar.
It fortified her, infused her with added strength. She felt as if she could actually do this.
Greta could see the spell now, like a coating over the inside walls of the tomb, with deep claw marks everywhere as if a caged animal had been let loose within. Perhaps the queen would be able to break the spell down all by herself if given a little more strength and a little more time, but Greta understood why Leila and Byron couldn’t allow that to happen.
Queen Minetta might have been a good mother and a decent leader at one time, but that person was gone now. This was no loving mother who just wanted to be reunited with her child, no unfortunate faerie who was only grateful to be free. Queen Minetta was crazy. Homicidally crazy. The kind of crazy that made mass murderers.
How could Siona not sense it? Was she so blinded by guilt and the fantasy of getting her mother back that she refused to see what the seclusion and incarceration had done to her?
She hated to take Leila and Byron’s side, but they’d been right to want to end her, no matter their motives. Now it was up to Greta to take down Queen Minetta before she opened those doors.
A crash of steel filtered through the struggle going on inside her. The sense of reinforcement heightened. Exhilaration pumped through her veins, fighting off the darkness.
Thank goodness, she wasn’t alone anymore.
Isaac.
Isaac was here.
The thing inside her took advantage of her distraction. The eye opened wider, glowing, eager, its endless blackness threatening to swallow her up again. Then it surged full speed ahead, a runaway snowball that continued to grow as it rolled over onto itself again and again.
Her chest constricted with shock and worry. Nothing would stop it now—not even Siona could get in the way of this.
It was stronger than ever before. It had fed off her long enough to build enough strength not only to free the faerie queen, but to free itself. It didn’t want to hide inside her anymore, it wanted to seize control once and for all.
Of her. Of this world. Of every world.
Agramon.
She screamed as the truth became obvious, desperately throwing barriers up as fast as she could, but it was no use. They were torn right back down again.
“Siona, stop.” She couldn’t speak above a whisper, but the goblin hunter heard. She just wouldn’t allow anything to put a lid on the magick until her mother had been released.
“Don’t do it!” Every word was torture to get out, and in the end there was no time to warn her about the epic firestorm that was about to be unleashed on Mylena.
Because Agramon was already here.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Siona,” she called again, struggling weakly to claw her way out of the darkness. “We have to stop it.” Even while saying the words, she knew it was impossible. Siona could no more put a halt to the black storm anymore than she could. Agramon had all the control.
How could she have known? She’d left the demon helpless and alone in the nothingness between worlds. And yet, she should have known. This oily black magick had come from the portal spell he’d created. She shouldn’t be surprised that he would find a way to use it against her again.
He wanted to turn Greta into the instrument of his rise to power, just like the faerie queen. Except this time he wouldn’t simply kill her…he would eradicate her soul and defile her body by taking it for his own.
Energy continued to flow from her through the stone of the mausoleum. Inside, the queen paced back and forth, silk robes slipping across the floor. Greta could see it as if the walls were made of glass. Suddenly she stopped and looked up. Her silver eyes were threaded with ice blue—nothing like Siona’s eyes—and they stared right through the stone. Then she smiled.
Greta bit her lip. She wanted to call for Isaac so badly, but refused to do it. He was almost here, fighting his way to her, but if she distracted him, he could be in more danger.
Siona squeezed her hand. “I was wrong. Very wrong,” she whispered. “The woman in there is not my mother.”
The pain and grief in her eyes spoke volumes about what she must have been hearing, seeing, or feeling from Queen Minetta as the cracks in the spell keeping her contained widened. “There’s no saving her, is there?”
Greta shook her head. “I’m sorry. I wish there was, but—”
Pain slashed through her belly, bowling her over. She fell to her knees. Siona still had her hand, and Greta gripped it tightly.
“What is it?”
She clenched her teeth, fighting for consciousness. “Agramon,” she spat. “The source of the portal magick. The demon’s inside me, and he…wants…out.”
Isaac howled. He sounded so close.
And then he was there. Big and alive, and kneeling at her side. He pulled her into him, and not a single claw dug into her skin. Her whole body melted at his gentleness.
She looked up. His eyes were beautifully clear and full of pride, faith, and love.
“You’re here.” She sobbed with relief, thankful to see him again before…
He squeezed. “This is not the end,” he promised with a growl that brooked no argument. “If your love can save me from the moons, then mine will protect you from the demon.”
Leila and Byron were busy fighting for their lives as Isaac’s soldiers flooded the courtyard.
Goblin warriors, dwarves, sprites, even ogres and gnomes, they had all come. He’d led an army against the faerie gates!
She glanced up just as Wyatt spun around and wrapped his chains around the neck of one of the faerie guards. The look in his eyes chilled her to the bone.
What have I done to him? The lengths he’d been forced to in such a short time, all because of his association with her. She shuddered.
Siona stood over them, hand covering her mouth, shock and guilt etched on her face as she looked at Isaac. “How is this possible?”
Isaac turned to her with a snarl, but Greta clutched his hand. “Don’t,” she whispered. “She’s suffered enough.”
Agramon flexed inside her skin…pushing.
The pain ratcheted up again, and she gasped, holding her stomach. It was happening. He was seizing control, cutting her off. She felt it in every organ of her body, every nerve and vein and blood vessel. Would she simply wink out of existence, or would she remain trapped inside her own shell, unable to do anything about it? No, she doubted Agramon would allow any part of her to remain. He wouldn’t want to share his new body.
“Isaac,” she gasped, afraid.
“I’m here.” He sent reassurance and strength through the bond. “I came back for you. You must fight this for me.” He glanced up at Siona. “Can you do anything?”
It must be so hard for him to ask her for hel
p. He was still so angry with her. Greta should be angry, too, shouldn’t she? But it didn’t matter. She couldn’t waste energy feeling hate when these could be her last moments.
Isaac would hate. He would hate to hear her think like that. He would hate to think she was giving up. He would hate to say good-bye. She had to make sure that didn’t happen.
“She’s human,” Siona said. “She was never built for the kind of power the demon burdened her with. If she could focus long enough and hard enough, her body’s natural reaction would be to expel it from her body…”
“And he’ll follow. He’ll go where the magick is,” Greta choked out, certain of it. “Agramon won’t bother taking over a body that has no power.”
The trick would be regaining control of it long enough to get the job done, and hoping she didn’t kill herself in the process, since the more she opened herself up to the magick, the more Agramon’s evil spread into all the nooks and crannies of her being.
Then the double doors of the mausoleum creaked open…and there was no more time.
She looked up to see Wyatt and Ray herding the boys in her direction. Both of them had divested themselves of their bonds and procured weapons. Greta leaned on Isaac as she struggled to her feet.
“We may have a small window of opportunity to take down two birds with one stone,” she said to everyone.
She couldn’t do it alone, but she could do it with them. Her friends supported her. These people cared whether she lived or died today. These people accepted her for the flawed but determined fighter she was, and didn’t care where she’d come from, only that she was here now, working with them to preserve the goodness in this world.
“I can help,” Siona said in a tight voice.
Greta nodded. “Okay, good. Because I’m going to need you to help me focus.”
“I will not leave your side,” Isaac said, as if he expected her to make him go.
She nodded and squeezed his hand. She couldn’t imagine him being anywhere else. “The magick has always reacted to threats against me. If the demon thinks its replacement body is in danger, it will be too busy fighting off the threat to realize that I’m siphoning everything I’ve got into the faerie queen behind its back.”