Bile soured my throat. “Do you understand the price of magic?”
“Spare me the morality.”
“Have you learned nothing over the centuries? The magic will not grant forgiveness for your sins. Not for the arrogance and selfishness that led you to destroy your most precious gift for power.”
Needle-thin fangs sliced past her lower lip. The queen’s hand flexed, then twisted, and a blasting power threw me hard against the wall. The crack of something was dull in my ears; I couldn’t tell if it was my spine or my shoulder, but although lights flashed in my eyes, the pain was minimal, and I struggled to my feet.
“Do you fear compassion, Amal?”
“You think to trick me?”
“No trick.” I stared at the blood-drenched wall. At the wall and not at the man. A charnel scent still lingered in the air, more than charcoal burning in a brazier. My pulse pounded when I recognized that scent. Knew what she’d burned.
And because of that scent, I would seek vengeance on this queen. If this was my purpose for being what Fate desired, then I’d accept it.
My lips pulled back. “What did you burn in that bowl?”
“Parts of him.” Amal’s pleasure was throaty and utterly indifferent. The silver strands in her hair whipped like Medusa’s serpents. “No different from a funeral pyre.”
I reached through the bond for my mate, finding the hidden tether between us. Please, Grayson… can you get into her mind?
No answer. Not even a trembling tug of awareness. But Amal had approached to peer at his face.
“Don’t waste the time he has left.” The queen’s voice was gravelly from the fangs she hadn’t retracted. “Show me that rune stone.”
I withdrew the small gray stone from my pocket, opened my palm to let her see the dull black stains of her blood, the rune marks carved into the surface. Her hands jerked up before she hesitated.
While she stared, frost crept across the stone’s surface, rimming the runic markings with white.
I wasn’t sure what caused the frost, but I took advantage of it.
“The stone is growing cold,” I said to Amal. “Not much time to waste.”
“Another trick,” she snarled.
“You don’t think I have enough magic?” Let her wonder while, desperately, I whispered through the bond. Can you find memories of her wolf? Send them to me?
Grayson’s eyes were closed. His skin had the pale color of ash.
My mental voice shook. Please, help me. Use me as your weapon, my love. Your savior.
Amal’s lips tightened at my distraction. I shook my head, as if trying to clear my thoughts.
“What’s wrong?” she hissed. Behind her, the embers in the sacrificial bowl flared and popped, sending foul sparks into the air. That stench.
“I need your blood.” My jaw ached. “Rubbed on the stone.”
“Why my blood?”
“Your blood trapped your wolf. It will also free her if I sing the weaving song Pelonie sang when she cast the magic.”
The corners of Amal’s mouth flicked up once, twice, three times before she raised her wrist, used her fangs to rip her skin. Blood pooled.
“Rub it on the rune,” I said.
Hatred, laced with hope, scalded my skin as Amal did as I asked. I centered the stone on my palm. It would be easy for her to take it, but without the song, the stone was still a prison. I thought she was sly enough to realize it.
Please, please, please, Grayson.
