Wicked Crown (Shattered Kingdom Book 2)

by Angelina J. Steffort

  “It’s just a scratch.” Gandrett wondered if she would have noticed at all until long after the fighting. But Nehelon with his Fae senses had picked up on the scent of her blood. Gandrett raised an eyebrow as Nehelon placed his fingers by the wound, and it knitted back together, leaving nothing but the slightest scar and smeared blood. He was using magic. Right here in the palace. Right next to Brax … whose curses grew louder as he kept pushing against the door.

  So fast, Gandrett had trouble tracking his movements, Nehelon dropped her arm, smoothed over his face, and joined Brax at the door.

  “On the count of three,” he said and didn’t wait for Brax’s nod before he started counting.

  The door flew open at the impact of both their shoulders, without a doubt, Nehelon’s magic having helped their efforts. Gandrett could almost taste it in the air. Could Brax, too?

  It didn’t matter. Because a new cluster of guards was in their path, a bit further into the great hall. All of them wore the same determined faces, and Gandrett didn’t need to wonder for long if they would have to cut their way through those men, too, for they formed a narrow corridor at Nehelon’s approach, just wide enough to see to the end of the room.

  She didn’t need to lay a blade against anyone’s throat to inquire what was going on as she had feared would be that case. Gandrett, Nehelon, and Brax crossed the threshold, freezing right there as they beheld the trail of blood that led from the wide-open double doors, through the corridor of guards, all the way across the polished stone up to where Joshua Brenheran sat on a makeshift throne and grinned at them over the corpse of Lord Tyrem.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The night was stuffy somehow, driving sweat onto Armand’s forehead as he kept tossing on the bed, which seemed at least two sizes too big, considering the knowledge that it had been meant to be shared with Addie. As if Joshua had known that the slender shape, those sharp wits, and painfully blue eyes meant something more to Armand than he dared to admit to himself, he had put them up in this room together—

  It had been beneficial. Had they not been here together that first night, no one would have helped her with that strange pain in her scar, the chants in her mind she had described in detail with everything but the content, sent to her in a language of which she didn’t know its meaning, meant only for those who used it—and their vile use. The language the Shygon cult still used in their rituals.

  Armand wondered if Shygon himself understood what those mad people were saying when slicing up innocents. To what end were they praying to a devilish god whose creatures had almost destroyed Neredyn?

  Thank Vala, Joshua and Lord Tyrem both agreed that it was time to ban the Shygon cult again, to get them under control before they could build too large a following. He was even considering riding out there with his soldiers and mercenaries to hunt them down—as soon as the Prince of Sives released him back to Eedwood.

  Armand turned to the side with a sigh and ran his palm over his sweaty neck. The night alone wasn’t it. It was the uncanny feeling that something was amiss. So he kept rolling over until he could no longer stand the silent beauty of the moon he was now staring at, hoping that sleep would find him, then slipped out of bed, into his clothes, and made his way out the door. Maybe Joshua was still up. It wasn’t even midnight yet, and they had spent other evenings talking through the future of the kingdom over which he would one day be chancellor.

  The hallway was quiet as he cracked the door open and slid through, alert in the pale light painting the floor eerie patterns, and there was more that made his already sweaty hands even more slippery. One moment, the crickets were chirping; the next, a solid silence fell over the palace. Something that Armand had never experienced before.

  He made his way down the stairs, careful not to disturb the absence of sound with the slow steps of his boots on the polished stone beneath, when a mingle of voices filled the hallways. He halted, trying to make out the source in the corridors below, some of the meaning. But words got lost in the corners and turns of the palace, the stone structure multiplying them, making them impossible to decipher.

  So, Armand set in motion once more, following the buzz of voices that seemed to come from the general direction of the great hall.

  He hadn’t gotten far when a dark shape appeared at the bottom of the stairs, a deadly scythe hooked into the side of his belt, and stopped as he beheld Armand.

  “I thought you’d left,” he said to Taghi Saza Brina, the prince offering little more than a wry grin.

  “I wish I had,” was all he said as Armand made it to the hallway and jerked his chin toward where guards were gathering near the entrance to the great hall. “I should have known coming here was going to bring trouble.”

  Armand raised an eyebrow. “What’s going on, Prince?”

  A scream tore the air, a roar of agony that froze the assembly of people in place.

  “Joshua,” Armand whispered, and Taghi nodded, all trace of a grin gone.

  Neither Taghi nor Armand looked back as they stormed to the great hall where the heir of Sives had been dining with his family earlier tonight, the only companion the sound of steel on steel of a deadly fight.

  Brax’s stomach turned at the sight of his father gutted and the knife, dripping with warm blood, in his brother’s hand.

  “By the gods, Josh, what have you done?” His words hung in the air for a suffocating, long moment, and all he got was Josh’s grin, wide and feral. A slap in the face would have been the kinder option.

  Joshua had merely been acting weird when Brax left the dinner table, not reacting in their conversation, biting at their father when he had addressed the topic of stopping the spreading of the Shygon cult. And then, he had started yelling in tongues that Brax had never heard before.

  Lord Tyrem had ordered his wife and Mckenzie out … along with all the courtiers, and Brax had understood his father’s look to mean to get help. Which Brax had done. First, by calling for guards, then by thundering up the stairs so fast his lung had threatened to jump out of his throat, his mission to get Gandrett, the best fighter he knew. The only fighter who had been able to rescue Josh from Eedwood.

  And when he returned—

  Brax’s eyes wandered from his brother to his father and back to his brother, his stomach turning at the sight of the bloodied corpse below the dais. Again.

  What had happened?

  He didn’t feel the pain yet. He didn’t allow himself to feel it. For now, all he felt was shock—cold and numbing shock.

  Somewhere behind him, voices grew louder, whispering, guessing, murmuring of what was going on in the great hall where the remains of their family dinner were still sprawled on the table, the smell of spices mixing with the salt and rust of blood. Fresh blood. His father’s blood, by the gods.

  Brax took a shaky step forward. Then another as he yelled, “What did you do?”

  An iron grip closed around his elbow, holding him back, and as he whipped his head around, he looked into the harsh face of the chancellor, who was simply shaking his head.

  Gandrett was beside him within an instant, positioning her body between him and the end of the room where Josh was staring at them with that grin that told of bloodlust. And as both the chancellor and Gandrett angled their swords before them, the few guards who hadn’t been fighting in the hallway drew their own weapons.

  “Stand down,” Nehelon barked from beside him, addressing the guards who had formed a corridor between them and Josh, their faces expressionless as if they weren’t really there.

  Brax recognized by their uniforms where they stood in the hierarchy, and they were all top level. Only the chancellor and his father outranked them. And now that Lord Tyrem was dead—

  “Stay where you are,” Josh said in a silver-smooth voice, causing the guards to tense after a moment of confusion at the chancellor’s order. “And you,” he addressed Brax directly, casually gesturing at him with the bloody knife, “bow to your king.”

  Gandre
tt suppressed the urge to let her magic unfold in tendrils to spear through the room and leash Joshua Brenheran’s bloody hand as he waved it at Brax as if he was directing a slave. What had gotten into the Prince of Sives to make him kill his own father? She saw it, the trail of blood that followed the long room up to the dais where Joshua was sitting and grinning like a figure made of nightmares, but she couldn’t believe it. He had to be under some sort of spell to do it. That was the only explanation.

  Gandrett surveilled the room, a professional assessment, trying to shove all the emotions back for now. This was no longer just wrong. It was a disaster. A man who had been the hope for the future of Sives had just killed his own father and crowned himself king while the blood was still warm on his fingers.

  “Bow,” Joshua repeated and laughed, shifting on the throne that was nothing more than a chair with a high, carved backrest set on the dais.

  Brax didn’t move, neither did Nehelon or Gandrett.

  Joshua growled. “So you want to be next.”

  Slowly, gracefully, he got out of his throne and took a step toward them, barely lifting his feet enough as he stepped over Lord Tyrem’s body. She felt Brax tense beside her.

  It’s okay, Brax, she wanted to say, I am here. I won’t let him hurt you. But it wasn’t okay. No.

  Distraction. She needed a distraction so either Nehelon or she could sneak up on the misguided prince and contain him so they could figure out what was wrong.

  A sideways glance at Nehelon told her that the Fae was in shock as much as Brax was.

  Okay. No distraction then.

  Gandrett took a deep breath and stepped forward, her own sword firmly grasped in one hand, the sword she had retrieved from the guard in the hallway like a crutch in the other.

  “I didn’t get you out of Eedwood just so you could murder your own father, Joshua,” she said, hitting right where it hurt and waiting for the realization on Joshua’s face.

  But the man at the end of the room just smiled, his features becoming clearer as he took one slow, lethal stride off the dais until he stood on the polished stone, right where the blood trail ended in … it was a symbol there on the floor, wasn’t it? A familiar symbol, Gandrett realized. And the next moment, she knew that this wasn’t Joshua Brenheran grinning at her from the prince’s skin. This was something ancient, powerful, and dangerous. Her magic felt it, recoiled from it as if burnt by its mere presence.

  “And what wondrous ways fate has to put us on the board at the right time—” The man was no longer studying Gandrett. His gaze had turned to Nehelon, gaze promising violence and a slow death.

  Nehelon’s face betrayed nothing of whether or not he recognized the man speaking with Joshua’s lips, features stone-cold, sword drawn, cords of muscle playing in his forearm as he angled the blade. No longer the chancellor—the warrior incarnate.

  “Who are you?” Gandrett demanded, standing so close—too close to the creature inhabiting the Prince of Sives’s skin for Nehelon to be able to not feel that urge to grab her and pull her behind him. But that would bring too much attention to the girl he so desperately wanted to disappear from the room and out of harm’s way.

  Oh, he recognized the bastard hiding in there, wearing the prince’s face, making everything—everything—he had worked toward go to shit.

  Nehelon held in the roar he had been dying to loose, kept his features schooled into that mask of calculated calm that he needed to survive seeing Gandrett in the path between Brax and Joshua—whatever of Joshua was left in there. Every last bit of him was ready to tear apart the creature before him…

  He held the stare with preternatural stillness, not allowing one thought onto his features. Not one single thought.

  “It’s been a while,” Joshua—the demon inside Joshua spoke, something like humor flickering in those evil eyes as he, thank the gods, ignored Gandrett and focused on him instead.

  A while. Yes. “Not long enough.” Nehelon shifted his posture just an inch to put his shoulder between Gandrett and the monster. Not much. Not enough. As much as he dared without bringing the monster’s attention on the girl. “I thought you were rotting somewhere deep in the forests of Ulfray.” He spat the words more than speaking them, enjoying every second of watching the rage spread on Joshua’s face.

  “What are you talking about?” Brax demanded from the back, the second Brenheran son exuding the odor of fear as he shifted behind Nehelon and Gandrett.

  Shut up, and walk out, child. Nehelon almost said the words as he stared down the monster, ready for the attack that would surely come. “I think you might benefit from some fresh air, Brax,” Nehelon said instead, not glancing back at the boy whom he had envied of Gandrett’s company mere weeks ago. “Gandrett will go with you.” He put all the authority he had in their court as a chancellor in his tone, hoping that it would be enough to get them both to leave.

  But Gandrett took a step forward—of course she took a step forward; when had she ever listened to him?—right past Nehelon’s shoulder, ordering Brax to leave with as much determination. “I don’t know what’s going on here, yet,” she said as she raised her sword before her chest, angling it in a way that Nehelon had seen her do before in training when she was about to use it as a balance in order to knock out her opponent with her feet, “but I am pretty certain I don’t want you anywhere near your brother until I know.”

  “The boy is staying,” Joshua’s voice bit through the room like a gust of icy wind, making Nehelon’s muscles tighten. He shoved the bloody knife into his belt and wriggled his crimson-stained fingers before his face. “I might have some use for him.” And his eyes wandered back to Nehelon.

  How was this possible? Nehelon had been there seven-hundred years ago when the armies of the last Dragon King had terrorized the lands. He had been there when his legions had been slain by the Alliance—in times when human and Fae had fought side by side to defeat the terror wielding swords and magic alike. He had fought there, in the forests of Ulfray, where the Dragon King had spilled Fae and human blood alike on the sacred lands around the Heart of Ulfray. And Nehelon had spilled the blood of the legions with a smile on his face at the sweet revenge for each Fae, for each human that had fallen victim to the Dragon King’s spell. And together with his brother, he had beheaded the Dragon King and buried his body by the Heart of Ulfray, where Fae magic was strongest, so the merciless conqueror may never rise again.

  Yet there was the Dragon King, standing in the palace of Ackwood, his vicious grin mocking the kind prince whose skin he was wearing as if it was some costume.

  Chapter Forty

  “The boy is staying. I might have some use for him.” Joshua’s words were as calm as they were inhumanly cold.

  Gandrett watched as Nehelon and the Prince of Sives, who obviously wasn’t the Prince of Sives, stared at each other, something more than hatred thickening the air between them.

  “How did you get out?” Nehelon asked, his lips about the only part of him that was moving as he stared down the creature a couple of long strides away from him at the other end of the corridor the guards were forming with their swords at the ready.

  It was clear that Nehelon knew that creature and wasn’t amused it had put on Joshua’s skin. Gandrett shuddered as she watched the false Joshua’s reaction—which was an icy stare.

  Brainwashed… Maybe he had been brainwashed again. Maybe he was under the spell of the Shygon cult just like he had been with Linniue. Gandrett strained to see something familiar in Joshua’s demeanor, but there wasn’t anything but the body that was the same. From the way his face had turned into a mask of cruel cold down to how he carried himself … there was no Joshua there. Even when he had been under Linniue’s spell, he had been somehow like Joshua … cold, threatening, yes, but nothing like the monster before them.

  “I won’t ask again,” Nehelon said, his voice like daggers, and Gandrett felt it as the air changed, a cool breeze rushing down the corridor—

  Toward them.


  Gandrett braced herself as the breeze turned into a storm, temperature dropping so low that her breath fogged before her face. She knew that cold—

  A glance at Nehelon was enough to confirm that it hadn’t been him sending the wind.

  “After seven-hundred years of sleep, I was quite rested,” the man who wasn’t Joshua said and took a step forward, making the guards beside him shudder at his presence. Gandrett wondered if Joshua was the source of the cold itself.

  Something in the way Nehelon shifted beside her was even more alarming than the stillness from before.

  Joshua took another step toward them, the temperature dropping with the approach, and held out his arms to the sides, eyeing them with mild interest. “It will take some time getting used to this body.” He grimaced as he turned his hands over. “Quite weak, this one.” Behind Gandrett, Brax growled, and she reached one hand toward him, grabbing him by the tunic—without losing the grip on her sword—to make sure he remained where he was. Brax didn’t object. “I quite liked my old body, Nehelon.” Joshua looked the Fae right in the eye. “Such a shame you severed its head.”

  What were they talking about? Gandrett tightened her grip on Brax, grateful that he was smart enough not to ask any questions about how Nehelon was supposed to know someone who had been dead for seven hundred years—and was now inhabiting the Prince of Sives’s body. Nehelon would have to tell the whole story later; she would see to that. But for now, Gandrett pinned her focus on the mystery before them, ready to stand her ground if it came to a fight.

  As if he felt her stare, Joshua turned to Gandrett, making Nehelon take another step closer, muscles feathering in the Fae’s jaw. “Raynar Leyon.” The man who was not Joshua bowed to Gandrett. “You may know me as King Raynar Leyon, the last Dragon King.” He smirked at Gandrett. “I might like my new home after all…” He glanced sideways at Nehelon for a heartbeat before he took another step toward Gandrett, who couldn’t believe what was happening. Not until Nehelon gave her a hidden look that told her that he believed it.