My chest felt hollow, inexplicably empty. Amal had forsaken her throne to peer into a scrying bowl, another brass monstrosity filled with water and not the sizzling coals she kept in a second bowl—the bowl where she tossed bits of my flesh with the command that I watch and breathe in what was lost to me.
A dread lord, paying for the sins of the kings.
And here we were, only on day three, with centuries of sins waiting for some fucking atonement.
My crusted eyelids itched with dried blood. I forced them upward. Forced myself to focus on my enemy.
The blood queen. Part wolf, part vampire, entirely evil.
She’d once been a beautiful woman, Amal. Gracefully slender, she was the enchanted dancer twirling for a captive audience and demanding appreciation. Her hair, darker than spilled ink, turned luminous with that wave of silver. Her skin was smoother than a polished stone, her smile as lifeless and hard. But insanity sparkled in her eyes and not with any joy or love.
Her curse held the madness of centuries, honed by loss and retribution, and little hope. After the first hours where I fought her torture and she laughed, I’d been too battered to resist. I’d pretended resignation, waiting for the moment Amal grew complacent. The moment I would seize to bring about the good death Arra Sona requested. It would not be my death, though. I wanted to end Amal before Noa even got close.
And now Noa was here, somewhere in this gods-forsaken fortress. I tried summoning the dread lord’s power, the thunder that had so easily rolled in the distance. Some enchantment protected this fortress. This throne room. It blunted every move I made.
Instead of remaining still, my foot jerked. My body rocked against the stone, my arms twisting with my hands tight in the shackles. The movement drew Amal’s attention, although not intentionally.
“You should see this,” the blood queen mocked. “Oh, wait… you can’t. I’ll tell you, then. They’re like ants rushing across the bridge, finding the cracks and sneaking in—oh, I hope none of them are important to you. To watch them die is so defeating.”
I pulled back bloody lips and offered an alpha smile.
“I’ve broken too many like you.” She shrugged and turned away. “It becomes boring.”
Her feet glided across the stone floor. She wore a long gown, cinched tight at her narrow waist, the material a soulless black. Light died in the folds as she moved. I bent my head, listened to the whispering. We were alone, so the sound drifted from my imagination or her gown. Or whatever magic ruled her.
Amal spent hours weaving spells with a magic nothing like the magic wielded by the King of the Forest. No burst of light, of growing things, protective. A promise and acceptance. Amal’s magic held a caustic chaos. Annihilating all light. I’d never encountered madness and confusion like hers and couldn’t counter the bedlam. Some spells were brittle and fell apart each time I resisted. Others pierced like hot pincers, grasping on to the wolf and not me. I’d been unable to help him, and he’d been howling in pain for hours. Then he’d fallen silent and hadn’t roused.
On the table, I studied the objects Amal used: polished stones, short sticks with blunt ends. She’d carved runes on the surfaces, rubbed my blood into the crevices. Burned scented herbs and weeds and fanned the smoke into her lungs as she screamed. Or sang scathing notes as if she dragged the melody from a dark underworld.
Sweat dripped from my forehead, slicked the skin on my chest as she stoked her malignant fires—one in the brass bowl, the other in the massive stone fireplace.
“Soon,” she murmured. “This will end soon.”
Then she laughed, and a black void yawned before me.
I closed my eyes against the memory.
A memory of the first time I saw Noa.
She’d been fire frozen in ice. Breakable, and yet resilient.
An obsidian abyss. An endless sky.
Wolf and not wolf. Human and not human.
I’d never felt anything like her before.
Lightning in a bottle.
And if fate demanded a good death—I would die for her.
CHAPTER 38
Noa
Vampires thudded into the great hall: Barend, followed by Set and three others. From his position on the floor, Antoine held out a shaking hand, fingers splayed. He’d healed enough to speak, although his gravelly voice sent tremors along my spine. Death would use such a voice, nerve-jangling and arousing a shivery terror.
The Cariboo conscript lay unconscious at Antoine’s feet, still alive, although what waited for him might be something to avoid.
