by Everly Frost
“Satch…el.”
“Cassian?”
His eyelashes flicker against my cheek. “Satchel.”
Finally managing to slide his wings to either side of me, I lean his head against my shoulder and pat the floor, unable to really see the satchel, finally feeling its strap so I can pull it up from the floor. Shards of wood poke out from it and I don’t want to drag it into the space between us.
Cassian seems to understand my dilemma. His hands rattle against mine, weak, but he takes the satchel, splinters and all, and reaches into it.
He pulls a smaller leather bag out of it and lets the rest of the satchel and shards drop back to the floor. He breathes heavily with the effort but drags the little bag into my lap. “I brought this… for you.”
“Cassian, I need to get you out of here. Llion can hold Howl for now. You’re hurt. You’re…” Dying. My voice chokes up as blood drips onto my hands, dropping onto the little bag resting in them. It’s falling from his mouth, telling me he has internal injuries. “You’re badly hurt.”
“I’m not going to make it. We both know that.” He tilts his head up a little, his forehead against my cheek, his shoulder against mine. “Please… open it.”
What could be so important that he would rather give it to me than get help? As he slumps against my shoulder, I pull apart the cords holding the leather bag closed.
He says, “Now, tip it… into my hands.” He pushes his shaking palms together, cupping them above my lap, ready to receive whatever is in the bag.
I don’t question him. I stopped questioning him a long time ago. He saved my life, my dignity, and didn’t take anything from me. I trust him. But as I tip the bag… I realize that I shouldn’t.
He lied to me.
He lied to me because he thinks he can help me, because he thinks that he can help his people and make up for what he did in the past. He lied to me because he believes something that can’t be true. He lied to me and he’s about to accept death into his hands and I don’t want that.
I don’t want him to die.
My muscles fire. My hand flexes upward, intent on reversing what I’ve done—to stop the object falling from the bag into his waiting hands, but he anticipates my move. One of his hands flies upward, grasping mine in an iron, determined grip, and by then it’s too late.
The brilliant white diamond—the Queen’s heart—drops into his other palm.
There’s a moment of silence, a heartbeat in which he pulls the Queen’s Heartstone to his chest, covers it with his fist, and says, “Hold on to me.”
I throw my arms and legs around him, he wraps his wings around me, and the cocoon he creates fills with a blast so pure it rips through every part of me, lifting us both upward, suspending us in the quiet eye of a different storm.
He told me that his wings were just like his ancestor’s. That they can form a barrier against deep magic. Now he’s sealing the stone’s awakening inside his wings with us so that nobody else will feel it.
“Cassian…”
His blue eyes blaze at me. His free arm wraps around me, stroking my back and tangling in my hair as we remain suspended. I don’t know how long it lasts. It could be seconds or a lifetime as he says, “I need to tell you what you smell like.”
He presses his cheek against mine, inhaling deeply before he draws back to cup the cheek he just pressed against. “You smell like the Queen whose home I grew up in. You smell like her daughter who died when we were young. I don’t know how but you carry the blood of the Supreme Incorruptible.”
The fist he holds between us containing the Queen’s heart pushes at me. “Take it. Her heart is awake now and it belongs to you.”
A sob builds in my chest. “I’m not what you think I am, Cassian. I’m not a gargoyle.”
“You are to me…” His eyes begin to close. “Take it, Princess. Take it and strike.”
Gravity returns and we fall together. I hit the ground with Cassian beneath me, my knees knocking the ground, the heartstone rattling between us. He cushions my fall, holding me safe in his wings so I don’t hit my head even though his back cracks against the hard floor and his body finally goes limp.
His free hand slides away from my hair, stroking down my neck, falling. A final breath sighs out of him. “Maybe in another life… Marbella…”
It’s the way he says my name that breaks me.
Sobs tear out of me as his fist opens and the stone remains very still on his chest. Tears pour out of me, blurring my vision. He wanted me to take the stone. He wanted me to believe him. And now he’s gone.
The Queen’s heart is deadly to everyone. Only a gargoyle of royal blood can touch it. It killed Cassian, ended his suffering, and he was one of the strongest gargoyles I know.
I reach over to close his eyes, my palms brushing across his cheekbones. Sobbing, I take hold of his left wing and pull it over his body, covering the stone at the same time.
I’m reaching for his other wing when something slams into my back. I’m thrown forward against Cassian’s chest, the force pushing all the air out of my lungs. Pain rips across my back as if a hook just raked over the top of me. Screaming out the fire in my spine, I look up just in time to see Llion tumble through the air over me, his left wing damaged and dangling.
It was his wing that clipped me. If it wasn’t for my armor, it would have ripped my back open. But he never would have done that deliberately. He’s hurt.
Ducking, I slide off Cassian, crouching beside him as the fight rages around me. With a savage roar, Howl takes flight after Llion, spearing through the air, doing everything he can to kill him. Llion reaches the side of the Court and angles left but another bolt hits him. Death bolts. Just like the one that hurt Cassian. Only the Prime Heartstone is keeping Llion alive.
On my left, Jasper fights three guards at once. Two of the guards who kept him from reaching me before are dead at his feet. As one of the guards dislodges Jasper’s weapon, he ducks, rolls, and grabs a sword from a dead guard, spinning right back into the fight. Welsian and Liliana fight side by side nearby, bodies building up around them, but more guards keep coming. Roar and Badenoch hold position on the far side, and Erit and Arlo fight further away from the mountain side. All of them are cut and bleeding. There are many bodies on the floor and not all of them are guards. The miners are fighting as hard as they can, but the next wave of guards will soon arrive.
The only way to end this is to defeat Howl.
Another blast hits Llion right where his hurt wing meets his shoulder. He’s close enough to me that I hear the bone snap. Unable to fly, he loses elevation and drops to the ground several paces away from me, shouting in agony.
“Llion!”
His tortured eyes meet mine. He’s trying to heal, but he’s still learning how to control the heartstone’s power. Howl has had much longer to master the deep magic.
I jolt backward as Howl flies over my head and hovers over me with a sneer, his wings beating the air around me, sending tornados swirling around my body.
“You will watch all of your friends die today, little doll.” He soars over my head and grabs hold of Llion’s shoulder with one clawed foot and his broken wing with the other. Llion thumps at him, tries to get up, pushing at Howl with all the force he can muster, but Howl doesn’t budge.
His feet shift, one pulling and the other pushing.
He’s going to rip Llion’s wing right off.
Howl’s focus is on me. His threat is for me. “When the Prime Heartstone is mine, you will be too. Watch, little doll. Watch and understand there’s nothing you can do.”
I can’t let it happen. I can’t let him hurt anyone else. He hasn’t seen the Queen’s heart hidden under Cassian’s wing. He didn’t feel the blast when it awoke because Cassian’s wings sealed it in. It was another gift Cassian gave me—concealing the heart’s awakening from Howl.
Cassian held the Queen’s heart for more than a few seconds before it killed him. If I pick it up, I’ll have that
long to use it against Howl before it kills me. All I have to do is make sure he holds it too.
My gift to Howl.
I tell myself it’s simple. I push all thoughts of Baelen and freedom out of my mind as I dive under Cassian’s wing, feeling his weight around me for the last time, one last cocoon to keep me safe before I throw myself into the path of danger, before I challenge death to claim me.
If I had time to find the bag Cassian carried the stone in, I would. If I had time to pick it up safely, I would. But Llion’s scream of agony tells me he won’t be alive long enough for me to find a way.
I can do this. It’s only four steps, one after the other, simple: pick up the stone, run, jump, shove it into Howl’s harness. It will lock into the place he saved for Prime’s heart. And then he’ll die.
Don’t think.
My hand closes over the Queen’s heart. Its surface is smooth beneath my fingers, tingling. I’m ready for the pain, channeling it into speed. My body’s already moving, rising up, muscles firing. Howl is only five paces away. The hardest part will be rising to his height, but Llion can help me there. He’s crouched, one knee bent. It’s the same technique I used to tangle with Arlo: knee, shoulder, up. It’s going to hurt him because of the way Howl’s gripping him but I have no other option.
“Llion! Up!” I don’t have time to scream anything else. My right foot hits his knee, then my left hits the shoulder Howl isn’t clutching. Llion rises at the same time. He can’t move much, but it’s enough to give me a lift.
I launch myself at Howl. Even if I don’t place the stone exactly in the harness, as long as I can wedge it against his skin, it will work.
He thinks I’m trying to fight him, to push him away from Llion. As I slam into his chest, he catches me in his thick arms, the momentum tipping him backward. Mentally, I beg Llion to tip with us because Howl’s feet are still attached to his wing and shoulder and a sudden wrench backward will rip him apart. At the last moment, Howl lets go, releasing Llion from his claws and flying up into the high ceiling with me in his arms.
I swing my legs around his hips and wrap them tight because the last time he held me in the air—the first time I met him—he drained the air right out of me by squeezing my lungs.
As my legs wind around him, a chuckle rumbles out of his throat. “Little doll, you surprise me.”
Yes, I’ve wrapped my legs around you, you asshole. But I won’t have to stomach it for long.
My chest heaves, my heart hurts, and my hand burns like I plunged it into fire. I’m shaking, rattling so hard I won’t be able to function soon. I only have a moment before everything ends. I have nothing I want to say to him and no time even if I did.
The Queen’s heart clicks neatly into the harness around Howl’s neck. The sound echoes around and around inside my head.
Click.
The effect is instantaneous. Not like Cassian at all. White light shoots through Howl’s chest, through the corded muscles in his arms and shoulders, through his wing bones, and all the way to his wing daggers. It spreads, grows, ripples, and then… it starts shredding.
Terror fills his eyes and a scream of pain blasts from his mouth. His hands close around my waist, squeezing my rib cage painfully tight. His fingers claw at me while his skin visibly boils.
“What did you do?!”
I don’t answer. I’ll never have to answer him again.
It is rapid and ruthless. Over in seconds. Like acid, the light burns through his wings and cuts them to pieces before my eyes. His bones pop, crack, and implode from the inside. We lose altitude as his wings disintegrate and he can’t stay airborne. It wouldn’t matter if he tried.
A final streak of light shoots up his thick neck, reaches his eyes, and lights them up. For a moment, everything he did, everything he is, every cruel act he committed presses in on me. Then there’s a crack…
… and his neck breaks.
His head sinks forward and we plummet toward the ground, tipping the wrong way so that I’ll hit the floor beneath him.
It doesn’t matter.
I did what I needed to do. Howl is dead. He can’t hurt the gargoyles anymore, can’t threaten, torture, or imprison them. Cassian’s death wasn’t for nothing. I did what he asked me to do.
Now I can let myself feel what I need to feel. Sadness that I won’t see Baelen’s eyes open, that I won’t be there when he wakes. Faith that Jasper will find a way to open the deep springs and heal him. Fear for my family and my Storm Command—for the elves who are loyal to me—because I can’t help them now. But Baelen will. He’ll discover the power he now holds and he’ll use it to free them. I trust him to.
Baelen, I love you. I always will.
Howl’s dead hands open, releasing me into the air like a butterfly into a hurricane. The Queen’s heart floats up and away from his shoulders as his body plummets down on top of me. At the last moment, my floating finger rises up to tap the stone.
A glow ripples out from me like dying sunlight and a hiss fills my ears: Choose.
Choose what, I wonder?
Choose life or death.
It’s too late to choose life. My world is already darkness.
28
Baelen Rath
Waiting should be peaceful but it’s hell. Rain drips down my hair and neck. A field of wild grass stretches out a hundred paces in front of me, its scorched blades flattened by endless, crimson raindrops. I hold a sword in my hand, blood-tainted water trickling from its blade onto the patch of dirt where I stand. Waiting.
I never get tired. I never get hungry. I don’t need to sleep.
At the edge of the field is a different view, a different sky, made up of moving pictures. I search for Marbella in the images, waiting for a glimpse of her auburn hair, her determined eyes, waiting for her to tell me it’s time to stop waiting.
I see everything beyond the rain. I see her drive a golden knife through the thread that connects us. I see her collapse, dragged away, not fighting. I see the gargoyle king claim another heartstone and I try to warn her, wherever she is, but I don’t know if she hears my voice. I see her later, forced to eat beside our enemies, to swallow their food and their twisted conversation, their threats…
I see her hunched beside my cage.
Still she doesn’t call me.
Still I wait in this scorched field, dripping blood onto my sword, the weight of the rain driving my head toward my chest.
I want to act, but I have to trust her.
I have to wait for her voice.
Baelen, I love you. I always will.
My head shoots up. I search the images beyond me but I don’t see her. I see only an empty room. “Marbella!”
A new image forms in front of me, but it’s not inside the room, it’s here with me in this field: a female with pure white hair and eyes like blue crystals, glittering wings and a dress made of diamonds dragging through the mud. She stops one step away from me.
“Baelen Rath, you called me.”
She speaks with Marbella’s voice, her gorgeous, strong, sweet voice, but she’s not my love.
I demand, “Who are you?”
“I am Incorruptible.”
My eyes narrow, assessing her for possible threats. “Where is Marbella?”
“She is…” The female turns her head slightly as if she’s checking something behind her. There’s a hiss. A hum. A distant clatter and a far-off scream. “…avenging the life of someone who loved her.”
My jaw clenches. Someone has lost their life and it’s caused Marbella pain. Too much pain. Cold fingers wrap around my heart. Fear shoots through me. For the first time in all my waiting, my fingers twitch around my weapon. Marbella, what have you done?
“Don’t worry. She didn’t love him like she loves you.”
That’s not what I’m concerned about. I know Marbella’s heart is true and I trust her with my own heart, without question. My fear is because I can’t sense her. My fear is because there is a female gargoyle stan
ding here in Marbella’s place. “Why do you speak with her voice?”
“Because I don’t have a voice of my own anymore.”
“If you’ve hurt her…”
Her chin shoots up, outraged, as if I’ve insulted her. Her mouth purses with a retort, but at the last moment, it softens. “You love her.”
“More than anything.”
“Ah… Just like Rath loved Mercy. I knew him, you know—your ancestor. He was just as strong-willed, the protector of his people, but his love always came first.” She widens her eyes at me with a self-assured smile. “He was never afraid to show it either. I envied that. Much like I envy you.”
Another raindrop slides down the back of my neck, following the angry chill racing down my spine. “Then you know I mean it when I say that if you’ve hurt her, I will hunt you to the ends of our world and beyond.”
“Don’t worry, Wrathful One. Marbella is unharmed.” She leans forward into my anger, daring me to step toward her. “But when you wake, you need to be prepared.”
“Prepared for what?”
“For what she has become.”
Her image blurs and fades. Her voice becomes a whispered warning inside my mind. Within moments, the female is gone, leaving me with the rain and the dead field.
I won’t wait anymore. I force my legs to move, muscles screaming against the force that opposes me.
I have to go to her.
I will go to Marbella.
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgements from Jaymin:
Thank you to everyone that has embraced the storm with us. Marbella and Bae have touched a special place in my heart, and I adore that it’s Everly I get to share this journey with.
Thanks so much, Everly, for being the most amazing co-author. It’s more than just fun writing with you, it’s an adventure.