Page 186 of Death of a Mortal

“It’s me you want, Malvina,” I said. “Let the rest go, and we can talk about whatever you want.” I had to do anything I could to get my crew to safety and away from her. I had no idea what she was capable of at this point.

“Do you see a way out, Noxie?”

I didn’t get a response.

“Noxie?” Now my panic was becoming all-consuming. Why couldn’t I reach him?

Something fundamental shifted in me at the thought of his death. I’d be permanently changed forever. I couldn’t feel our bond, but surely I’d have felt it break if he were…

Extreme emotions…I leaned into it and lunged for the queen from ten paces away.

Her momentary shock wore off too quickly. She shouted, “Stop!” directly into my mind, and I froze once more with my dagger raised in one hand, the black flames now back to orange.

She fixed her face, took a deep breath, and continued. “We have two important matters to discuss, Naci. Which shall I start with? Who I am to you, or who you are to me?”

I was trying to process too many things at once to even speak.

“Let’s start with who you are to me.” She knelt next to Caedryn, and what I thought would be a remorseful or even sad gesture toward her dead husband turned out to be far more sinister.

She grabbed the crown from his head and removed her own, throwing hers unceremoniously aside, placing the king’s crown of thorns upon her own head.

I saw where this was going, and I was helpless to stop it. My heart raced faster.

“You see, I amtheQueen of Ashenholt now.” She crossed to Varyn and lifted his chin to look at her. “You will legitimize my claim over yours to the throne.”

“Why would I ever do that, you murderous bitch?” He sounded as angry as I felt.

“Silence!” She backhanded him, a small drop of blood forming on his cheek where one of her sharp red nails cut him. She seemed to really hate being called a bitch. “This is Naci’s party, not yours. Do not ruin it for her.”

Varyn fell silent, with a heaving chest, making me wonder if she was using mind control on him to keep him quiet now too.

“Where you come into this, Naci, is quite delicious. You’re a powerful Umbrathren not unlike me—”

“I’mnothinglike you!”

“Silence!” This command settled into my brain, leaving me with a pounding headache, and I was forced to obey. “Will the interruptions ever stop? As I was saying… You and I would make a great team, you know? Together, we could conquer more than just Ashenholt, more than just the continents, even.”

Gods…she wanted to rule all of Caelia. And evenmorethan Caelia? I couldn’t fathom what that meant—she wanted to conquer other realms too? The gods’ realm?

And she wanted to use me to do it.

She paused her speech for dramatic effect, making me wonder how many times she’d rehearsed it. My hatred for this woman grewwith every word she spoke. She was so different now than she had been when I was a prisoner here. It had all been a lie, a facade.

She’d been biding her time. Planning from the shadows.

I’d gotten funny feelings around her, and now it all made sense. How many times had she mind-controlled me already? I’d felt the tingling in my scalp at least thrice that I could recall—once during the dinner after which everything changed, when I’d been imprisoned and Caedryn revealed that he’d killed my mother. That night, Varyn had just stared silently at his glass.

Gods, maybe she had been controlling him, too, that night.

“Sevrin and I have a theory about you,” she continued before I could go down that path in my mind. “That unique sight of yours. Do you know the story of the fallen goddess?”

I didn’t know what she was talking about. I’d never heard such a story.

She looked around as if she were waiting for an answer, even though she knew none of us could speak, before continuing. “Legend says that one goddess bestowed a powerful gift upon a fae child and was banished from the gods’ realm for it. Gods are not supposed to interfere in the affairs of our realm. Around the same time that this rumor began among the Umbrathren scholars, a prophecy was made. Sevrin?”

His eyes turned white, and his voice was…inhuman when he spoke, as if he were reciting something in a voice not entirely his own. “Born now, under a blood moon, is One with the power to save or end all of Caelia. Her duality and circumstances will determine whether the former or the latter comes to pass. She will toe the line between good and evil. The connections she makes, or the bonds that will break, will determine her—and Caelia’s—fate.”

There was no way. No, it didn’t make sense. What they were suggesting was preposterous.