The drumbeats vibrate through the walls, the floor, reverberating under my feet and into my bones. It feels strong enough to knock me off my balance, to send me crashing to the ground. But that’s only my imagination. I walk steadily, though my knees tremble and my gut roils with nervous tension.
I’m going to Vor. I’m sure of it. These great trolde guards have come to fetch me to him. And I will have to face him again, face his anger, his sorrow, his rage. His betrayal. All of those feelings, which will stab me like knives. Will there remain any trace of the peace I once knew in his presence? Have I ruined forever all chance of experiencing that peace again?
I grip my necklace hard, seeking comfort in its inner vibrations. It’s alive in my grasp, but with a pulse far more aggressive than I’m used to feeling from it. The waves rolling out from it call to stones buried deep in the walls around me. I hear them singing back, a silent yet unmistakable song of fear. My own fear, reflected back at me. But at least it drowns out whatever I might otherwise receive from my two stern guards.
They take me to a long tunnel, lit only by a few red lorst crystals, hung from the ceiling at intervals of twenty feet or more. The effect is hellish and harsh. The shadows between the crystals are so deep, I am blind as the guards hustle me onward. At the end of the tunnel, I see bright light. Too bright after this darkness.
The guards push me out through the opening, and I throw up both hands to shield my face from the intense white glow. A sense of huge, open space surrounds me, but before my vision has a chance to adjust, the guards grip my arms, dragging me forward. They wrench me painfully off my feet, carrying me between them. I struggle, kicking, desperate to find my balance. All the while, many, many unseen eyes rake over me until I feel more exposed and vulnerable than when I climbed nearly naked from the wedding pool.
My scalded eyes begin to make sense of shadows and shapes in the glare. I see what looks like a set of stairs rising before me. Before I have time to register this, the guards are carrying me up, my feet bumping and stumbling over every tread. We reach the top of a broad, circular platform. I can just discern a cluster of figures standing off to my right, their heads hooded, their faces indiscernible. In the glare of sheer white lorst light, all I can say for certain is that their robes are blue. It is they who beat the drums, which roll like thunder in my ears.
Bah-bah-boom.
Bah-bah-boom.
Bah-bah-boom.
The guards set me down hard. I stumble, stagger, sink to my knees. The next moment, a hand grips my arm, smaller than those huge rock-fingered fists that held me a moment before. “Faraine!”
I know that voice. “Lyria?” I blink again, turning my head and trying to force the blurry shadows into submission. My half-sister’s features come slowly into view. “Lyria, what’s going on? Are you all right?”
“Don’t worry, Faraine.” She drops her head, speaking close to my ear. “I’m going to stop this. I swear it.”
Her fear is so intense, it’s like she’s driving a heated iron rod straight into my temple. I yank away, the pain so great it momentarily blinds me. When I come back to myself, however, I’m able to see the world a little more clearly. The platform stands in the center of a great circular cavern. Rings of gallery seats rise many stories overhead, surrounding me. Hundreds of pale, beautiful trolde faces peer down at us with interest.
And directly in front of me, on a level with the platform itself, is an arched alcove carved into the cavern wall. It’s hung with shining silk curtains, drawn back to reveal a great stone seat in the center. There sits Vor. My husband. Wearing a crown of black stone, his chest and shoulders bare.
My heart lurches at the sight. For an instant I feel hope. But no, that’s wrong. There is no hope in that stern face of his, which is turned away, refusing to look directly at me. His expression is something I’ve never before seen, not even in those awful moments in the bridal chamber when he discovered my betrayal. Then he still looked like himself. Now, though his features are the same handsome, strong features I’ve come to know, his face is that of a stranger. Hard. Cruel.
I try again to form his name, to call out to him across that empty space between us. In that moment, movement draws my eye. More figures appear at the top of a stair opposite the one I’ve just climbed. Two trolde men wearing blue robes with hoods pulled up over their heads carry something between them: a heavy block with a curved indentation across one edge. Behind them comes a slender female trolde, also in blue and hooded. She carries a black box in her arms. The open lid reveals blue silk lining within.
Behind them follows a great, stone-hide mountain of a trolde. He climbs the stair slowly, ponderously. Each step makes the whole platform shake, as though the support beams will give out under his weight. He carries a huge virmaer silver ax over his shoulder.
My mind is dull. Stupid. I cannot comprehend what I’m seeing. It’s as though my spirit has stepped outside my body and retreated, observing all from a distance. Observing as that block with its indentation is placed in the center of the platform. Observing as the huge trolde with the ax takes up position beside it.
Bah-bah-boom.
Bah-bah-boom.
Bah-bah-boom.
The drums beat faster, faster, reaching a roaring crescendo. Then, abruptly, they cease. The drummers stand poised, hands in the air, the sleeves of their robes rolled back, baring their arms. Lyria squeezes my elbow so tight, her fingers threaten to pierce bone. I feel it, feel the pain, but cannot quite comprehend that it belongs to me.
One of the hooded figures separates from the rest. He steps to the front of the platform in the space between the block and the king’s gallery. He puts back his hood, revealing a stern face lined with deep crevices of cruelty. His long white hair is streaked with black and swept back from his forehead. A wave ripples out from him, crawling along the floor of the platform, spreading like an ugly stain. When it reaches me, I struggle for a moment to recognize it. It’s too strange, too unexpected, too horrible in a moment like this: pleasure.
My spine shudders. Lyria takes hold of me again and helps me to my feet. I fear I’m going to crumple and drag her down with me. With an effort, I brace my feet.
“Tog Morar tor Grakanak,” the trolde man intones.
“Morar tor Grakanak,” voices from the gallery echo in thundering chorus. It’s eerily similar to the wedding ceremony of just a few hours ago.
The trolde man begins to speak in rumbling, rolling troldish. I don’t recognize a single word. But that pleasure pulsing from his core continues unabated. I glance around, searching for the two different stairs. What are the odds that I could reach either of them if I made a dart for freedom? Nonexistent, I should think.
“Be brave, Fairie,” Lyria hisses suddenly in my ear. I wince away from the assault of her terror just as she lets go of me and steps forward. In a clear, strong voice she cries out, “Princess Ilsevel Cyhorn of Gavaria requires whatever is spoken in her presence to be stated in her own language or a translation provided.”
The trolde man breaks off abruptly in the middle of his speech. He looks up to the gallery where his king sits. Vor does not look at him. His face is turned off to one side, his expression strangely blank. I can only see one of his eyes from this angle. It narrows slightly.
A figure steps from the shadows behind the throne and kneels beside him. It’s Sul, his half-brother. He inclines his head, whispers in the king’s ear. Vor’s lips move in answer. Sul offers some response. Vor nods, speaks a few short words, and motions sharply.
Sul rises, steps to stand beneath the open arch. He barks something in troldish. The man in the robes sneers but offers a deep bow. Then he turns to Lyria, his eyes never once shifting to look at me. “Princess Faraine Cyhorn is charged with conspiring against Mythanar,” he says in perfectly clear Gavarian. “She has perpetrated treachery against Mythanar’s king in both falseness of intention and falseness of deed. She has broken the sacred alliance of brotherhood between Mythanar and her own nation of Gavaria, sowing rancor between our worlds. For this, she must face retribution.”
Lyria tosses back her head and barks a laugh. It echoes strangely against the towering stone walls. “There must be some mistake! This is not Faraine Cyhorn who stands before you. By the will of Larongar, by the blood of Gavaria’s king and consort queen, she is Ilsevel Cyhorn. There has been no treachery.”
The trolde man sneers at Lyria. “Only humans would dare twist the truth with such audacity.”
“Who cares so long as it is the truth?” Lyria takes a step toward the man. The two guards on either side of us shift ominously. She stops, glancing at them, then draws herself straighter. “You see before you Princess Ilsevel. The name is hers the same as though it were given to her upon the day of her christening. She had no say over the giving, any more than any of you chose the names you now bear. Thus, there is no betrayal. Ilsevel Cyhorn is innocent. Her only hope, her only desire, is to fulfill the will of her royal father and to please the Shadow King of Mythanar.”
“She is a witch.” The trolde man spits the word with vicious delight. “A human witch. She has entangled all Mythanar in her spell. The king must protect his people from her wickedness.”
Lyria growls, then steps swiftly to one side, looking around the man to the king’s gallery. “Vor of Mythanar, you cannot mean to do this! You know perfectly well your bride is innocent. Your grievance is with Larongar, not his daughter. Do not punish her for her father’s choices.”
Vor leans to one side, whispering to his brother. Sul bends his head to listen, then straightens and calls out a string of short, sharp words in troldish. The man in the long blue robe inclines his head, then rounds on Lyria. “You will not address the king directly. You will keep your lying human tongue behind your teeth and observe with dignity what must take place.”
“Like hells I will.” Lyria plants one foot and leans back in a defensive stance. I realize suddenly that all the while she spoke, she was drawing sigils in the air with her fingers. Sudden magic sparks to life, summoned at her call. The two guards lunge at her, but she holds up both hands. Starbursts of red light erupt around her fists, forming two broad shields. She holds one out to each side, blocking the guards, and slowly backs up, taking position in front of me. “Stand down!” she cries. “Or I’ll burn you to a crisp!”
I crouch behind her shoulders, sheltering in her spell. It’s certainly strong, but it doesn’t feel lasting. I know little about magic, but this spell gives the impression of a firecracker burning out, bright and furious, but too quickly over.
For the moment, however, the guards draw back. The man in blue grimaces, the light of her spell casting his face in harsh relief. “You cannot hope to stop all of Mythanar. Douse your magic at once or meet the same fate as the princess.”
“Fine!” Lyria waves her right arm in an arc, her star-shield flaring bright. “Execute me too if you like! But I’ll take out a good dozen or more of you first, starting with you!”
Such brave words. Gods on high, I never realized what strength of spirit my half-sister possesses! And to think she would put herself at risk for me. Sure, we were friends once. But that friendship died long ago. I’ve done nothing to deserve this loyalty now. Yet here she stands between me and my killers, her fear wafting out of her in powerful waves, her shoulders set, her jaw grim and determined.
I look around her, over her upraised arm and through the gleaming glare of her spell. All the way to where Vor sits. He does not look at Lyria. His face is still firmly turned away. From her. From me. From what he has ordered to take place here and now.
So this is it. This is the end.
I never truly believed Vor would kill me. I knew it was a possibility, but when I considered the man I knew—the man who had saved me from the unicorn riders, who had treated me with such courtesy, such gallantry—the man who had, so short a time ago, melted my heart with the warmth of his kisses, the heat of his touch—it simply did not seem possible this same man could order my death. I’d feared imprisonment or exile. Not this. Not public execution.
I turn my gaze back to Lyria. To that terrible snarl on her face as she whirls this way and that, trying to keep her eye on all our approaching attackers at once. Her fear is spiking, terrible stabs as violent as any blades. She’s going to die. And she knows it. She won’t submit to the block, so she’ll be torn to pieces by these troldes. Still fighting. Still screaming. A terrible death.
I lick my dry lips.
Then, gripping my crystal hard, I take a single step forward and place a hand on Lyria’s neck.
Everything rushes into me. All of her fear, bursting inside of me like an explosion, ready to rip me to pieces. But I close my eyes, centering on the vibration deep in my stone. I take hold of that explosion and simply . . . stand. Holding it. Cradling it in that space of connection between the two of us. I pull it out further, further, deeper into me. The pain of it rocks my soul, but I stand firm. Just a little more. Just a little deeper. Boring into me like a stake driven through my chest.
Then, when I feel I cannot bear a single instant more, I grasp hold of that connection and send back through the only thing I know how to send—calm.
Lyria goes limp. Her arms drop to her sides, the magic dissipating into the air in little sizzling pops. Knees buckling, she collapses. I have enough awareness left to catch her, to let her fall against me, dragging us both to the ground. I’m still shuddering from all that horror and fear I’ve pulled into me, but I manage to cry out, “Help her! For gods’ sake, help her!”
Lyria turns in my grasp, looking up at me. Her face has gone slack, her brow blank. “Fairie?” she manages softly.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’ve lost two sisters already. Please, please make it home. Make it home and live. For all of us.”
A whimper burbles on her lips. I see her trying to form a weak, “No!” But the troldes are upon us already. They rip her from my arms, drag her away from me. She hangs limp in their grasp, her head bent, her long fair hair hanging over her face and shoulders. “Gently!” I urge them, afraid they’ll break her arms.
My crystal surges, emitting an audible hum. One of the blue-robed figures springs to my side, grabs my wrist, and pries my fingers open. I try to protest as my necklace is snatched away, but what’s the use? I have no power here. Not anymore.
But I had enough to save Lyria. If that is to be my final act of will in this life, so be it.
Without my crystal to steady me, I have no barrier against the hatred and bloodlust raining down on me from those high galleries. It’s like a thundershower, driving with relentless force. I cannot find my feet, and the trolde guards are obliged to drag me upright.
The drums beat their terrible rhythm: Bah-bah-boom. Bah-bah-boom. We move in time to that beat. They drop me before the block, and I sink heavily to my knees. The drums beat on: Bah-bah-boom. Bah-bah-boom. Faster now. Keeping time with my racing heart.
The hooded woman with the blue box glides gracefully to stand before me. She kneels, places the box in front of the block. I gaze down into that blue silk lining, cushioned and soft. Waiting.
Swallowing painfully, I lift my face to the gallery across from me. To the Shadow King on his chair.
He’s staring. Right at me.
Vor.
His name is there. On my tongue. I try to speak it, but my throat is too tight, my terror choking all breath out of me. I can do nothing but gaze into his eyes. And suddenly there is no one else present. Not a single other soul in this great, echoing, cavernous hall. Just him and me.
I cannot speak. So I throw everything I have into my spirit and send it flying across that space between us.
I loved you.
I believe I love you still.
Even now.
Even now.
A breath shudders through my lips.
Across from me, the hooded woman rises, folds her hands. She speaks in heavily accented Gavarian: “Princess Faraine Cyhorn. It is time.”
