Page 185 of Death of a Mortal

From the back of the room, Sevrin moved toward Malvina. Maybe since he had deception magic, he was immune to her mind control. Or maybe he knew how to fight her off. A small bubble of hope formed in my chest.

But then he turned to face us from next to Malvina with a smile on his face.

“Sevrin played a part too. It was he who infiltrated your court, Caedryn, and worsened the queen’s condition to open the vacancy of Ashenholt’s queen to me. He also ensured you all made it here, today. On my request though, not the rebellion’s.”

“Sevrin, you piece of shit! I’ll kill you!” It was Drayce. His rage felt like a static charge around us.

If Sevrin was working with Malvina, then I had to assume she knew everything he knew about me and my magic. And the rebellion…

He was a traitor.

The world was both very still and spinning very fast. I had never liked Sevrin, but to betray us? To have been working with Malvina this whole time? I felt like I was going to be sick.

With immense effort, I twisted my face into a sneer at the filthy betrayer and clenched my fist. Malvina noticed this as a bead of sweat dripped down her brow and a muscle ticked in her jaw.

My defiance of her umbra magic seemed to be costing her, though she did her best not to show it.

So her magicdidhave limitations. I filed that information away.

“Any last words, Caedryn?” she continued. “I have some business here with Miss Corren.”

“You…bitch!” he sputtered, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth.

The way Nella had looked, too, that night.

“I reallyhatethat word,” Malvina said.

Then his sword plunged all the way into his chest, straightthrough his heart and out his back. He gurgled and fell to the ground at Varyn’s feet, deep-red blood seeping out rapidly around him and pooling around the prince.

Holy shit…the king was dead. I’d wanted that for so long, but now that he was, like this, it felt wrong.

Varyn screamed as he fought against Malvina’s magic to try and reach for his dead father.

“Do you understand yet, Naci?” Malvina asked in my head.

Everything made cruel sense now. Every tingling sensation, every wave of calm that I couldn’t explain, every time I overshared facts about my life and family to the queen that I hadn’t wanted to. Malvina was a mind-controlling Umbrathren. She made us transform from our vey to our fae forms. She made my shadows avoid her. She made Caedryn take his own life.

Gods...this entire time, we had been trying to kill the wrong villain.

Chapter 42

All of it was Her

I was panicking,trying desperately to think of a way out of this throne room. I was so used to fearing my shadows. But this fear from not being able to reach out to them or use them was far worse.

Malvina just stood there in front of Caedryn’s throne with a wicked smile. And then it hit me where I knew that smile, why she looked familiar. But there was no way. It couldn’t be. I had to be wrong…

“Thank you, Sevrin, you’ve served me well over the years, and it all led to this moment.” Malvina smiled at the Arcanum leader I had spent months with. I thought back to our first meeting when he said he’d been expecting me…Malvina was why. She must have positioned him at the base as an informant. The thought made my blood boil.

Zareth walked to stand by Malvina’s other side. His face was unreadable, impossible to tell whether he was shocked by the king’s death or in on it.

But if he wasn’t under Malvina’s control, then I had to assume he wasin on this coup too.

“She’s breathing!” Bramick’s teary-eyed shout from where he held a too-still Aerie was the single greatest thing I had ever heard. We were still in a horrible situation, but at least she was alive. Bramick had been frozen by Malvina’s magic while holding Aerie just like the rest of us, but it seemed he was breaking through her magic enough to pull Aerie closer to him.

I’d made a sneer over the shock and anger over Sevrin’s betrayal. He pulled Aerie closer in his relief she was alive. Maybe there was a pattern here…any time someone could resist her mind control, it came during an emotional outburst. Powerful emotions might just be the key. It seemed to resist her magic or at least wear her down.

“I can see you are all in shock. You have some catching up to do.” Malvina stepped over one of Caedryn’s outstretched, motionless legs as she walked straight past Varyn toward me. The prince’s tears and anger made him look deranged, but she paid him no mind.