I couldn’t think clearly, but even from the haze I was in, I saw the moment when Elena sensed Sabara slipping into place. When she felt the black soul—Sabara’s Essence—taking control. Elena’s expression clouded over, and then her mouth formed an alarmed O, as she recognized, at last, what she’d done. What was happening to her. I hadn’t witnessed it before, when Sabara’s—or rather Layla’s—Essence had made its exchange to me, so watching now was . . . fascinating . . . horrifying . . . exhilarating.
Behind me I heard shouts coming from the entrance, and a scuffle, but I didn’t turn to see who it was or what was going on. Brook was shouting too, and still struggling to break free, but I ignored them all.
And then, right before the light faded from Elena’s eyes, she gasped a single name, “Sage?”
At no point did I turn to gauge Niko’s reaction to any of this, because I knew he cared nothing about the dying queen before him. All he cared about was the new one who was coming back to life—Sabara.
Sabara, I thought vaguely, still aware of the fray taking place behind me. Sabara was coming back to life.
An explosion rang through the space of the tent, clearing my mind, just enough.
I was here, still alive. Still whole.
Everything clicked into place then, as I realized what I needed to do.
I reached for the knife at my back at the same time that I saw Sabara take full and complete control of her new body. Cinnamon-colored eyes that had once belonged to Elena, queen of Astonia, now blazed with the fire of their new resident as they lit on me.
I had only seconds, if that, to stop her, and I launched myself at her, my blade ready. My will determined.
But halfway to her, I felt it.
My airway . . . shutting in on itself.
Sabara was strong enough already, and she had every intention of killing me first. Her hand raised, her fist closed, and she unleashed her powers on me.
The result was instantaneous, and debilitating.
My eyes grew huge as I gasped, greedily sucking in as much air as I could. I was ravenous for it. Insatiable. Terror seized me all at once, and I told myself to keep going.
And I tried, willing myself to stab her . . . to stab her . . . to stab her . . .
But ultimately I did what everyone did when under Sabara’s spell. I panicked while I choked and gagged and gulped for my last few precious breaths. I released the knife, let it fall to the ground as my hands closed around my own throat. I opened my mouth as wide as I could. And when none of that worked, when I could feel Sabara’s choke hold growing, intensifying, I dropped to my knees as my vision began to blur around the edges.
I hadn’t been fast enough, I admitted.
I’d been bested by a ghost.
sage
Caspar had left Xander and Sage outside the encampment, warning them to stay put, to keep away from the fighting. But Xander had been insistent. Despite his injuries, he’d refused to just sit back and watch, knowing Charlie was in there somewhere, being held hostage by Elena.
Sage hadn’t disagreed. She knew her sister, and what she was capable of.
So she and Xander had done what anyone in their situation would have: they’d killed every soldier who’d gotten in their way. Or at least Sage had, diverting as much notice as she could away from Xander, who’d moved more slowly than she had, and more tentatively, guarding his bandaged arm to keep it from being jostled and jarred.
Even with only one hand, and a fever that continued to keep him weak on his feet, he’d proven to be deadly. His aim was true, and he’d saved her butt more than once. At least until his gun had jammed and he’d thrown it aside.
Somehow they’d made it to the centrally located tent with the biggest banners waving from the top of it—the one where she’d known she’d find her sister, cowering from the fighting, the way a good queen did. Elena preferred to let her soldiers die in her stead.
Sage had never understood such nonsense. To her, a good queen belonged on the battlefield with her troops. Taking up arms and leading them into war only when war couldn’t be avoided.
Unlike her sister, who preferred to kill by proxy, Sage knew what it was like to wash blood from her hands.
She and Xander had much in common in that regard.
“Stay here,” she whisper-shouted above the battle that continued to storm around them.
She didn’t expect him to obey, any more than she would have if he had given her the order. And when she slipped through the tent flaps, her knife drawn in the hopes of offing at least one of her sister’s guards before she was noticed, she could feel him breathing down the back of her neck.
Her blade moved like hot metal through butter as it slid across the first guard’s throat. She might’ve dropped the bird-masked woman without so much as a single sound, if it hadn’t been for the one last sputtering noise that erupted from the bloodied wound. But that was enough, and the second guard saw her, and threw himself at her.
Sage tried to brace herself, but it was no good. She was already hunched over, trying to relieve the first guard of her weapon—a rifle with a strap that had been secured around the woman’s shoulder. When the second guard crashed into her, she went down hard, landing on top of the dead woman, the beak of the mask grazing the side of her cheek.
She lifted her head, and that was when she heard her sister calling her name. Her voice was so weak, so distant . . . so pitiable. “Sage?”
She wanted to feel something for Elena, but she couldn’t muster anything.
This was the sister who’d used her as a weapon. The sister who’d envied her to the point of suspicion. She’d worried that Sage would someday usurp her position on the throne, that Sage could never be happy being only a princess of the realm.
So Elena had put her in harm’s way again and again, always with the purpose of serving her queendom. But Sage had always suspected the truth. That her sister had secretly hoped she would never return.
And now here she was, watching all of her sister’s hopes and dreams come true.
Except they weren’t, it seemed. Not from the look of abject horror on her sister’s face.
Not from the fading expression in her eyes.
Yet Sage felt nothing. Not for her sister.
The soldier on top of Sage punched her in the jaw. Her teeth clattered together, but it wasn’t a solid blow, and she didn’t see stars the way she had in the past when she’d been clocked in that same spot. She wriggled out from under him and grappled for the rifle of the lifeless soldier lying beside her. At the same time, with the knife in her other hand, she sawed at the strap restraining it.
The rifle came free with a snap, and she scurried away from the dead woman, moving just far enough so she could leverage the gun against her shoulder. She aimed it at the soldier who had attacked her.
He paused. And then she pulled the trigger.
His mask, and everything behind it, exploded.
That was when she saw Queen Charlaina, whom she’d met at the ball in Vannova. Sage couldn’t see exactly what was happening, but it looked as if the queen had a weapon—a small sword or a knife of some sort—and that she meant to kill Elena.
Sage clambered to her feet to get a better look, but what she saw made her stand stock-still.
Elena—or whoever she was now, because she was no longer the sister she’d always known; she stood wrong, and her expression was all wrong—lifted her fist and pointed it at Charlaina, stopping the queen of Ludania in her tracks.
The younger queen dropped her knife and fell to her knees. Her eyes bulged as she dug at her neck like there was a noose secured around it.
“Charlie,” she heard the dark-haired girl, the one with the huge brown eyes, shout as she was held back by two more soldiers in the tent with them. “Breathe, Charlie! Breathe!”
Charlaina’s eyes grew wider for a moment, and then they relaxed, everything about her going limp, and the dark-haired girl screamed, “Kill her! Kill Queen Elena!”
But as it turned out, she wasn’t the one the dark-haired girl was shouting at, because Xander was there, moving so fast, he was practically a blur in her vision.
He swooped in like a bird of prey, seeming to come from nowhere as he snatched up Charlaina’s discarded knife. And before Elena or either of the remaining two guards could stop him, his blade was buried five inches deep in Elena’s chest.
niko
Everything he’d ever wanted was within his grasp.
He and Sabara—his Layla—were going to be together again, at long last.
He watched her move from one queen to the next, holding his breath, the way he had so many times before. The way she transitioned was so smooth. Effortless. Like watching a dancer.
He heard the commotion behind him, and he turned in time to see Sage cutting the throat of one of the guards who stood watch. The other guard, caught unaware, was unprepared with his weapon, but he tackled the troublesome princess.
It was no matter; she was too late.
And then everything went wrong. And it all happened so fast.
The gunshot booming through the tent and echoing in his head.
Charlaina falling to her knees. Almost finished . . . almost . . .
And then Xander . . . Xander appeared from nowhere, and before Niko could move, or breathe, Xander had the knife. . . .
And blood. So much blood. Elena’s . . . Sabara’s . . . Layla’s . . . all intertwined now.
The whole thing was all over in a blink.
He heard himself before he heard anything else, his cry a sharp keening sound, louder, surely, than the gunshot or any bomb had been. Dropping to his hands and knees, he hovered above Layla’s new form and stared down at her face, wondering at the fragility of her life. “No, no, no, no, no . . .” He couldn’t say anything else, and he couldn’t find the strength to touch her as he watched her—the real her, the her he’d been waiting for all these years—flicker, and then fade, behind those new soft brown eyes.
He knew the moment she was gone. The moment the body was nothing more than an empty husk, its stare fixed skyward on the tent’s canvas ceiling.
He felt as empty as that body he gazed down upon.
“NO!” he screamed. But this time he leveled his rage at Xander, who still held the bloodied weapon in his only hand. “We should’ve killed you,” he screeched.
The two guards who had been restraining Brooklynn released her, and they all stood there watching as Niko jumped to his feet and threw himself at Xander, ramming him with his shoulder. The two of them went sprawling, and he heard the knife land somewhere too far away from them to be of any use.
He didn’t care. He planned to beat the life out of Xander with his fists.
When he heard the blast, he knew that definitively it had come from a firearm. That it had without a doubt come from behind him. But the sensation, the one centered between his shoulder blades, was indescribable.
It was as if he’d been stung . . . or impaled by a fire-tipped arrow.
But he knew neither was true, because he knew exactly what had happened.
He’d been shot.
xvii
I was confused about where I was, but that confusion lasted only a moment.
It was the gunshot that had awakened me—if “awakened” was the right word, since surely I hadn’t been asleep. It had been more like I’d been swimming in a black abyss of nothingness, where I’d been alone—truly alone for the first time in so very long.
It felt strange to hear the silence inside my own head. To hear my thoughts, and my thoughts alone.
I blinked as I tried to assess the situation through bleary eyes.
It seemed I’d missed quite a lot while I’d been . . . indisposed.
Beside me Niko’s wheezing drew my attention. I turned to see him lying facedown, his cheek resting on the tent floor as his glazed eyes watched but did not see me. He gasped and sputtered while his fingers clawed at the ground halfheartedly, as if he might have been making an effort at one time, but now it was only a reflex. Blood spread wide from a wound in the center of his back, and it was plain to anyone who looked—even someone who’d been out cold for the duration—that it was he who’d been shot.
He made a few more attempts to breathe, and then it was over, his eyes going blank. His fingers going still.
In front of me Elena’s body too was prone, and her skin was already turning an ashen shade that meant death had settled over her.
Which meant . . . Sabara . . .
She was gone too.
I wanted to rejoice, but before I had the chance to revel in those feelings, I saw Xander, and a different kind of joy coursed through me. Not one born of an enemy’s demise, but one of true, unadulterated relief.
“Xander,” I breathed, trying to sit upright.
Brook was still shackled but was no longer being restrained, and she rushed forward, helping me up.
Xander stood above me, grinning. “You’re alive.”
I took him in. His pale skin, the blood on his hand, the bandage where his other should have been. He’d never looked so good. “You, too.” I beamed.
And then he toppled over.
A girl shot forward then, rushing to Xander’s side. I tried to place her face—the freckles, the soft brown hair. There was something eerily familiar about her.
And then I knew. She was Elena’s sister. I’d met her once before, in Vannova.
“Sage,” I accused, glancing nervously to Brook. “She’s . . . she—”
“Saved you,” Brook finished. “Saved all of us.”
Sage eased Xander’s head down, gently, carefully. “He’s sick,” she said over her shoulder, ignoring my misgivings and the fact that we were talking about her. “His fever’s back.” She glanced to one of the soldiers who’d survived the massacre inside the tent. “Go. Fetch a doctor. And tell no one that my sister is dead. I still need to decide how to handle this.”
The soldier did as she instructed, and I wondered at how quickly the tides had turned. Unless I’d miscalculated, this girl was their queen now.
I thought of her sister, and how she’d conspired against me. I thought of Sabara, too, and how she’d only needed royal blood to make the transfer.
Sage had that blood.
I dropped my voice, not really caring if Sage overheard my question. “Are you sure she’s not . . . that Sabara didn’t . . .” I indicated the princess with a suspicious look, making it clear what I meant.
Brook shook her head, but it was Sage who answered. “Only my sister would be stupid enough to try something so reckless. She couldn’t bear the fact that she was—different from all the others. Niko played upon her weakness. He knew exactly which nerves to strike. He knew how to play on her insecurities.”
“Different? How?” I asked, getting to my feet now. The inside of my throat was irritated and felt bruised.
A sly smile spread over Sage’s lips, and I couldn’t help noticing that she wasn’t overly saddened by her sister’s demise. “You didn’t know? Sabara never shared my sister’s deep dark secret with you?” She didn’t wait for me to answer, but her impish smile grew. “My sister was impotent. She was an anomaly in the royal bloodline. She may as well have been born a male, for all the power she was blessed with.”
I frowned, trying to absorb the meaning of her words. “Are you saying . . . that she didn’t have any power at all?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. And it killed her. She tried to hide the fact for years, teaching herself parlor tricks and dabbling in the black arts, hoping to fool people into believing she’d been gifted with sorcery. But after a while, when it became clear she could do nothing useful, she stopped trying. She envied me, and every other royal who had an ability. She felt like a freak.” Sage shrugged. �
��Which I suppose she was. What kind of queen has no power?” She stopped talking then and knelt low, pressing her cheek to Xander’s, concern replacing her mischievous air. “He’s burning up.” She looked to the remaining soldier in the tent, as if he might know something. “Where’s that doctor?” she questioned.
When the tent flaps flew open, all eyes shot that way, but it wasn’t the doctor coming to nurse Xander back to health.
It was Max.
My heart stopped, and everything inside me strained to be near him.
I didn’t hesitate long enough to consider anything else, like whether he hated me for leaving in the middle of the night the way I had. All I knew was how badly I’d missed him, and how much I needed him. And that he was here. Now.
I crossed the space in one breath, and was in his arms in the next, practically throwing him off his feet as I hurled myself against him.
His scent was that of wet earth and pungent sulfur. It enveloped me, as did his arms.
His lips, however, tasted like home.
I got lost in that taste, wrapping myself around him in turn, and curling my fingers through the soft, damp hair at the base of his neck. His armor was rigid, but his body managed to find mine and fit itself against me. My entire body tingled, but in a whole new way. I suddenly wished we were all alone, away from here, so I could show him how badly I’d missed him.
When he drew away, it was just far enough so I could see the dirt and ash that covered his forehead and cheeks, and I was certain I’d been equally smudged by it.
“You look terrible,” I breathed, unable to keep a smile from my lips.
“And you,” he said, his mouth still so close to mine, “are the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.”
My heart hammered once at the sound of his words. And then once more when he lowered his head and kissed me again.
“Ahem,” I heard. And then again, but this time with a nudge to my side. “A-hem.” It was Brook, of course, waiting for us to notice her.
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