Chapter
Thirty-Three
ry it again.”“T
“I’ve tried it ten times.”
“So try it an eleventh.”
“I tried it twenty times yesterday. And the day before that, and the day before that. It’s not working.”
“Then you need to try harder.”
“Oh, is that all? Why didn’t you just say so?”
Taran and I scowled at each other from across the dungeon. My magic training sessions had been going poorly, to put it mildly. They hadn’t really been going at all. After countless daily sessions, I hadn’t been able to manifest a single spark.
Initially, Taran and Alixe had been supportive, dismissing it as a consequence of my grief, but their patience—and mine— had begun to wear thin. Taran had changed tack, deciding to force an outburst of power by provoking me in increasingly juvenile ways, and I had been responding in kind.
Luther continued to attend, though he kept a careful distance. At first, he had offered occasional advice, but every word from him only pushed me further into my head. Eventually, he took up a silent vigil, always watching but never speaking.
I wanted to beg him to leave. I wanted to tell him that every time I stumbled in front of him, every time he watched me dig into myself and come up empty-handed, it was an excruciating reminder of his words at the ball—the peace-bringing Queen he believed me destined to become—and the smothering heaviness of my own inadequacy. Failing was embarrassing, but failing in his eyes was almost more than I could take.
But, true to form, my stubborn pride won out, and instead of being honest, I retreated deeper into my own foul mood. So Luther watched, Taran teased, I sulked, and Alixe just tried to keep the peace.
“Maybe you need motivation,” she offered, scratching the shorn side of her midnight blue bob. “Perhaps we need to give you something to fight for.”
“If I can’t make my magic work, I die,” I said flatly. “I doubt you’ll find better motivation than that.”
“That will motivate you in the Challenging itself—”
“We hope,” Taran muttered.
“—but it may not be enough to trigger your magic in these training sessions,” she continued.
“Just imagine the target is Aemonn’s face,” Taran said. “That’s what I do.”
“What is it with you two?” I asked, propping my hands on my hips. “He’s not that bad. You’re brothers, you should put this feud behind you.”
“Never going to happen. Not all of us fall for his tricks just because he bats his eyes and kisses our hand.”
“Taran,” Luther warned.
“I’m not an idiot,” I shot back. “I’m giving him a fair chance. That doesn’t mean I don’t see his flirting for what it is.”
“So you give ‘fair chances’ to the people who use you while you punish the ones who actually care?”
“I have an idea,” Alixe offered, stepping between the two of us. “I could use my illusions to take on the appearance of someone you want to fight. Perhaps that would put you in the right mindset to attack.”
“How are you at replicating Taran?” I grumbled, drawing a smirk from the man himself.
“Maybe we should invite Iléana to one of these sessions to spar with you,” he said.
I mirrored his smug look. “Finally, an idea I can agree with.”
He stepped around Alixe and came nose to nose with me, angling his head and grinning savagely in my face. “But then again, why would Iléana’s presence bother you, when you’re so happy with your mortal boy?”
“Taran,” Luther barked as he pushed off the wall. “Back off.”
“You back off,” I snapped back at Luther, halting him in place. “I can defend myself.”
“Not against anyone with magic, you can’t,” Taran mocked. To prove his point, he shot a cloud of dark spikes at my feet, forcing me to jump out of the way to avoid them.
I growled and launched myself forward, shoving my palms into Taran’s chest. My emotions made my form sloppy, and he
spun easily out of my grasp and sent me sprawling to the floor.
He stared down at me, brows raised. “Is that the best you can do?”
I scowled and held out a hand to him. “Quit gloating and help me up.”
He flashed me a victorious grin as he reached for me, but before he could haul me to my feet, I hooked an ankle around his knee, throwing him onto his back with a loud thump.
I climbed to my feet and brushed the dust from my clothes. “Honestly Taran, that’s the oldest trick in the book. I’m disappoi —”
A boot slammed into my back and sent me staggering forward. Before I could turn around, Taran had an arm around my neck and another circling my waist, pinning my wrists to my sides.
“Lu said you were a good fighter.” Taran laughed as I squirmed against his grip. “All I see is a puny little girl.”
“Use your magic,” Alixe scolded. “Both of you.”
I wriggled one arm free and jammed my elbow into his ribs, forcing him to release me as he coughed for air. He managed to snatch my arm as I jumped away, but I twisted until his wrist bent awkwardly, and he let go with a curse.
“Having some trouble with the ‘puny little girl’?” I mocked.
He let out another raucous burst of laughter, then threw a fist out toward me. He was too far away to land the punch, but a shockwave of serrated darkness raced my way, barely missing me as I ducked out of its path. I had no time to recover before he launched another series of blasts that I had to dive, lunge, and roll to avoid.
“Use your magic, Diem,” Alixe shouted.
Taran crowed loudly like a clucking chicken. “Too scared to fight like a Descended? Never took you for a coward, Queenie.”
“Screw you,” I hissed. I waited to hear the voice call out to me and push me to fight, to kill, to destroy, but where the godhood had once pulsed like a volcano, I now felt only an empty cavern.
“Maybe we should train out on the roads, since all you seem to know how to do is run away,” Taran jeered.
Red filled my vision, my fury writhing like a serpent on a hot stone. I let out a hoarse, frustrated cry as I scraped inside myself, begging for some scrap of power to rise to the surface. Inside my head, I screamed in anger—at myself, mostly, and at the goddess Lumnos, demanding to know why she had given me power but not the ability to use it.
The cloud of my rage broke for a moment, giving me a good look at Taran’s devious grin. There was something false about it, something not quite sincere. Hiding in his bright blue eyes was a scared, desperate prayer.
Taran wasn’t picking on me. He was worried about me.
My anger instantly drained away.
Once again, I was a crumbling shell, held together by a glue of guilt and self-pity. Taran had been willing to make himself into a punching bag just to help me—all because I was too much of a failure to do it on my own.
“Session’s over,” I mumbled and turned away.
“Come on, Queenie,” Taran pleaded, following behind me. “I was just teasing. We can fight physical if you want. We’ll make it a bet: loser has to kiss Aemonn. Wait, no, that’s a lose-lose for me.”
I trudged up the stairs. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Come back, I have a much better idea. Winner gets a kiss from Luther!”
I slammed the door as I exited the dungeon. Even Taran’s jokes couldn’t bring a smile to my face.
Sometimes, I wasn’t sure anything ever would again.
“SHOULD I be worried you’re planning to assassinate me?”
I hovered on the edges of the lantern’s amber glow, arms crossed as I leaned a shoulder against the wall.
Vance threw a snide glance in my direction. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”
“If I wanted you dead, I would have just let you go through with your plan the night of the ball.”
He grunted, but said nothing more.
I strolled along the winding stone pathway lining the underground canal. The passage smelled of seawater and moss, the damp silence broken by the soft lapping of water. I feigned boredom, pretending to be engrossed in my nails, but my eyes never strayed far from the two men scouring the Crown’s personal boat.
Sneaking them in had been disturbingly easy. With a dropoff in the forest from Sorae to avoid being followed, and the old make-a-noise-and-sneak-in-while-they’re-investigating trick to distract the guards at the canal’s entrance, I’d led Henri and Vance to the royal dock with barely any effort.
Against their fervent protests, I’d forced them to wear blindfolds to conceal the exact location of the canal, an awkward
reminder for all three of us how little trust we shared.
Even now, a voice in my head was shouting at me, warning me that this was a bad idea, that every time I helped the Guardians, innocent people got hurt. I told myself things were different this time. I could be strategic, use my influence to temper their violence and prevent further bloodshed.
But I couldn’t stop wondering if I was making the same deadly mistake all over again.
“What are you looking for, anyway?” I asked.
The men shared a weighty look. Vance went back to his work without answering, and Henri grimaced at me with an apology in his eyes.
“If they find me here helping you, they won’t bother waiting for the Challenging to kill me,” I said archly. “The least you could do is tell me what I’m risking my life for.”
“Considering what happened the last time you discovered our plans, you should understand why we’re hesitant to share them again,” Vance grumbled.
“The only person allowed to use this boat is me. If you’re planning to load it with bombs and blow me to pieces, I’d really prefer to know that in advance.”
“She’s right,” Henri said to Vance. “She deserves to know.”
Vance sighed irritably. “We plan to borrow it. We need to transport some sensitive cargo, and the Crown’s boats are the only vessels the army patrol won’t stop and search.”
“We’re looking for hidden areas on the boat to store supplies and people,” Henri added.
My brows dipped. It seemed like a harmless enough plan, unlikely to get anyone hurt, as long as they didn’t get caught. But the Guardians always seemed to have a way of taking things too far.
“Am I going to be on board this boat when it’s ‘borrowed’?” I asked.
Henri started to answer, but Vance cut in. “You’ll just have to wait to find out.” His lips thinned. “Trust goes both ways.
We’re trusting you not to betray us. Now you have to do the same.”
I scowled. Vance seemed to see it for the reluctant acceptance that it was, because he shrugged and turned back to his searching.
Henri climbed out of the boat and onto the stone pathway, striding over to join me.
“I’m so happy you’re doing this.” He took me by the waist and dragged me close. “It means everything to me for you and the Guardians to work together. If they see you as their enemy...” His jaw ticked. “I never want that to happen again.”
“I never was their enemy,” I protested.
“I believe you,” he said quickly. “And I trust you.” He stroked a thumb along my hip, hope brightening his features. “We’re going to win this war together. We’re going to make up for everything we’ve lost.”
His mouth leaned down to mine, and a heavy feeling coated my stomach. I held still as he kissed me, pouring into me all his desires and dreams, his hands caressing my body in a way I thought I’d desperately longed for.
On paper, things were better between us than they’d ever been. We’d worked past our issues, and we’d recommitted to each other. I had once struggled with what our future might look like, whether our goals for our lives could align, and now, we had a perfect solution. A plan to do something meaningful—together.
I should have been grateful.
I should have been happy.
And yet I’d never felt worse.
“Someone’s coming,” Vance whispered. Henri pulled back abruptly. I swallowed a lump in my throat at the quick flash of relief I felt as his hands dropped from my side.
Vance scurried out of the boat to dim his lantern and join us in the alcove. We held our breath as the shuffle of approaching footsteps grew louder, the soft blue light of Descended magic dancing along the walls.
“It’s the guards,” I hissed.
Vance’s hand moved to the blade on his hip. “I’ll take care of it.”
I seized his arm. “No!”
Both men whipped their heads toward me. “You’d let us die to protect the lives of a few Descended guards?” Vance snarled.
“No one is dying,” I snarled right back. “Not every problem has to be solved with murder.”
I led them further down the canal to a nondescript wooden door with a black stone disc affixed to the handle. I unsheathed a small knife strapped to my forearm, then dragged the edge of the blade along the pad of my thumb.
“This lock only opens for me,” I said, swiping the blood onto the disc, “so don’t get any ideas about coming back here alone.” The onyx plaque glowed bright, and the door popped open.
The three of us piled into the stone staircase on the other side just in time for the guards to round the corner. I kept the door slightly ajar to watch them turn to the boat and inspect it for any sign of interference.
One guard’s attention turned our way, and I hurriedly yanked the door closed. We froze in heart-thumping silence as he
walked up and jiggled the handle, but mercifully, the lock held firm.
I pressed my ear to the wood and heard their footsteps move deeper into the canal. “We should go,” I whispered. “If we run, we can get out before they see us.”
Vance grunted. “I’m not done with the boat.”
“I can’t take you through the palace, and we might not be able to distract the guards again. We have to go now.”
I cracked the door open and confirmed my suspicion—the guards had followed a turn in the canal that put them out of sight.
I threw the door open and shoved Vance and Henri ahead of me, and the three of us took off at breakneck speed.
In our haste, we abandoned our lantern, and with only the faint light from my Crown to guide us, the walkway was nearly pitch black. One wrong step would send us tumbling to the ground or into the water. Both would cost us dearly.
“Is someone there?” a guard shouted behind us.
The sound of running grew louder. Orbs of magic-made light shot through the tunnel, lighting our way but putting us on clear display if the guards got close enough to spot us.
“Keep going,” I hissed. All my survival instincts roared in protest as I slowed my steps to distance myself from the two men. Getting caught alone, I could talk my way out of. Getting caught showing a secret palace entrance to two mortals was a death sentence—for me or for the guards, and that was a choice I had no desire to make.
Neither man looked back as they sprinted ahead and disappeared through the leafy curtain of weeping willow branches that
disguised the canal’s entrance.
“You there, stop!” a guard barked.
I picked up my pace and darted through the thick drape of vines, then shot toward a patch of brush that was still shaking with movement.
As my eyes adjusted to the dim moonlight, I caught sight of Vance and Henri running ahead. I followed in their path until the sounds of pursuit faded and my racing pulse soothed with the relief of a successful escape.
“Henri! Vance!” I whisper-shouted. “Come back, we lost them!”
But they didn’t slow.
“Stop running!” I called out, louder.
Vance threw me a look over his shoulder, and I saw it in his eyes. He was no longer running from them, but from me.
Because now, he knew my plan. He knew I would blindfold them again, take them on another winding path to disorient them, then drop them off somewhere far away so they couldn’t find their way back to the canal without me.
Vance had seen an opportunity to get more information from me than I was willing to give—and he was taking it.
“Stop,” I bellowed. “We had a deal!”
Vance sped up and vanished into a tangle of foliage, leaving me panting out a colorful string of swears. Henri followed fast
behind him.
“Henri—wait.”
He skidded to a stop, looking back at me, then at the spot where Vance had gone. Conflict simmered in his gaze.
“Don’t,” I warned, but my words were ripped away as my fiancé shot me an apologetic look and disappeared into the forest.
