Page 80 of The Sunbound Princess
Ezabell kept coming.
“I never meant for anyone to be hurt,” Corvus said. “I was only trying to protect what’s ours.”
Ezabell didn’t slow. Magic shimmered around her. Her sigils blazed. The sunstone in her fist cast a thousand glittering beams of light on the grass and the walls of the Grove.
Viraxes scrambled backward, abandoning his conspirator. Corvus turned defiant.
“You can’t kill me,” he said. “I’m a lord of the Summer Court.”
Ezabell plucked the crown from his head.
“No!” he cried, lunging for it, but she was already walking away. When Corvus scrambled after her, she flicked her wrist without looking back. A wall of golden light materialized between them, sending Corvus staggering backward with a pained yelp.
Ezabell stopped in the center of the Grove. Facing Dain and me, she pressed the sunstone into its mount. Then she settled the crown on her head.
Light flared, but it didn’t blind me this time. The sunstone glittered in the center of the crown. Ezabell lifted her arms away from her body. She tipped her head back, turning her face to the sun. Light streaked down her arms and into her hands. It danced in her palms, power waiting for its queen’s command.
Dain and I sank to our knees. My heart raced as light and magic swelled the air. The whispers intensified, and now I could hear them like a shout inside my head.
QUEEN EZABELL OF THE SUMMER COURT.
Like the sunstone, she was great and terrible—a radiant goddess of light who could unmake me.
Power crackling around her, she turned back to Corvus and Viraxes. She tilted her head, and bars of light burst from the ground, forming cages around them.
Viraxes stood in the center of his prison, his eyes flat and his face pale. Corvus grabbed the bars, then yanked his hands away when his flesh smoked.
Dain chuckled beside me. “Idiot.”
Ezabell turned back to us. A smile curved her lips—sweet and familiar and so utterlyherthat an ache bloomed in my chest. She walked toward us, and with each step, her radiance dimmed. Not fading, but gentling. Becoming something warmer.
She was still a queen. But now she wasourqueen. And she’d always been powerful enough to unmake me. I couldn’t think of a better way to unravel.
She reached us, taking our hands and pulling us to our feet.
“Is this your mother’s place?” Dain asked quietly.
She glanced around, her eyes softening. “Yes. This is where I used to come when I was lonely.”
I squeezed her fingers. “You don’t have to feel lonely anymore.”
Dain grunted. “Not with the way Nikolas talks.”
I shot him a look, but new worry wriggled to life inside me. Ezabell wasn’t just a queen. She possessed power beyond my comprehension. And she was immortal. What could she ever want with two ordinary thieves?
She looked down at herself suddenly. Then she looked between Dain and me. Releasing us and stepping back, shewaved a hand. Light wrapped around us, settling into clothing before I could blink. Sleeveless gold tunics. Loose trousers that brushed the grass. Another quick wave of her hand, and a matching golden gown hugged her curves.
“I like these new powers,” she said, studying her hands.
My heart clenched. Worry wormed into fear. She could bend the world to her whim now. Any second, she would thank us for our help and send us on our way.
Ezabell removed her crown and studied it. Gaze thoughtful, she turned the circlet in her hands, setting the sunstone winking. “It was here all along,” she said softly. “But I still had to find it.” She looked up. “And it’s not even what I was looking for.”
My heart thudded in my ears. Somehow, I pushed words past my suddenly dry throat. “What were you looking for?”
Her lips curved. Stepping close, she cupped my jaw. Fondness and exasperation danced in her eyes as she brushed her thumb over my cheek. “You really are slow sometimes, Nikolas Taniakes.”
Dain chuckled.
