My magic splintered on impact, but I didn’t expect it to kill the queen without a brutal fight. I just wanted her attention, wanted to break her concentration. Still, air choked in my chest when her rapid flow of words cut off and her head dropped slowly, eyes finding me across the tiny island she stood on, across the river. I swore we made direct eye contact.
I held Varidian’s words close to my chest and struck again, bracing my feet in the muck, wrapping one hand around the amulet full of healing magic. I let the power rage through me, let its force meet mine and coalesce into something as old as day and night, as old as fear and hope. And when my next spike of deathfyre struck, I saw the drop of life at its heart.
“Ameirah,”Nabil screamed, slamming into me and sending us both sliding through the mud.
Scalding heat hit my face, made my skin tingle and tighten. I slammed my eyes shut on instinct to protect my vision. I took a breath, and another, but even as my ears buzzed, I realised the fire had missed us.
“Holy shit,” I panted, shaking there in the mud with Nabil splayed half across me. “Are you burned? Are you hurt?”
“If I was hit by that fire, I’d be dead,” Nabil replied, breathless. He scrambled out of the dirt and helped me up too, his panic turning to the hardness I saw in the faces of experienced legions, the battle calm I was still learning. “Are you—”
Nabil stumbled back so abruptly that I searched him for injuries. He clutched his chest, but there was no blood, no gaping wounds caused by spikes of glittering black magic. But if she’d used that dark magic to grip his heart, to control him as she controlled the soldiers…
My next wave of deathfyre was hotter, the core burning white like the heart of an explosion. The helmed pretender queen wore no medallion, but I swore my power was absorbed into that dark crown and I bared my teeth.
“Buchra,” Nabil rasped, making me jump in surprise.
“Buchra?”
“She’s back,” he said in a strangled, gutted voice. “But she’s—”
I threw a quick glance his way, following his stare to the sky as a shadow wheeled overhead. It wasn’t Buchra; it was a wyvern made entirely of blackened bones.
“Nabil…”
“I cansenseher,” he said through gritted teeth. “That’s my wyvern.”
“But she’s…” I couldn’t think of a kind way to say it. “Nabil, she’s dead.”
“I know,” he snapped, “but—” He grabbed my shoulder and threw us across the riverbank as the skeletal wyvern’s jaws parted, a stream of crimson fire painting flames across the mud. The heart of that fire was black, as Varidian described. Nabil was right; if it hit us, we’d be dead in an instant.
“I’m sorry,” I breathed to my friend as we skidded through the muck. I threw my hands overhead, aiming a pulse of deathfyre at the wyvern.
I should have known it would do nothing, should have realised the creature was already dead.
“She’s coming towards us,” Nabil said urgently, drawing his sword and flicking the water droplets off the tip. “I’ll keep us from being burned alive. You make sure we don’t get murdered bythatpsychopath.”
“Deal.” I sank deep into my rage, letting it fuel me as I remembered every hateful thing this woman had done to me, everything her ancestor did to Ithanys, and everythingshehaddone to our people. The little boy killed at Last Guard, Masuma fleeing with her mother at Wyfell, scarred for life if she even managed to survive, Buchra murdered while trying to protect Daurith. The war with Kalder that had raged for hundreds of years because it servedherto divide us.
All those old tales of cruelty and death and monsters in this area—they never came from the wall. They came from the river, from Zalaam magic, from this so-called queen.
I didn’t want to think about what plunging so deep into the water that I’d swallowed it would do to me. But I was already twisted by Zalaam corruption, and had been since long before I could remember.
I waited until she was close enough, shutting out my fear at the way she walkedacrossthe water rather than through, traversing the river as if it was solid. Then I let my mouth curl in a smile designed to infuriate and said, “Hello, Xiu. Having fun playing queen?”
I didn’t recognise her with that helm hiding her face, but the sneer that contorted her mouth was as familiar as my own face. And those eyes, visible through slits in the metal, belonged to the woman who’d made me feel small, insignificant, and unwanted all my life. She wanted me broken, so I couldn’t harbour the lightning soul.
“This didn’t work out quite the way you planned, did it?” I laughed, pummelling her with a wave of dark fire so hot it made the air shudder. “All your hard work, and here I am, stronger than ever. Stronger thanyou.”
“You loathsome, worthless brat,” she hissed, spittle flying from her lips, and there it was—the final confirmation. It washer,without a single doubt.
“I should thank you,” I remarked, keeping my attention on her with effort when a shadow passed over us. The back of my neck itched. I had to trust Nabil to keep me safe from that fire,but it went against every instinct. “Without you, I’d never have all this deathfyre. I certainly wouldn’t have enough magic to kill you. Funny how things work out, isn’t it?”
Xiu snarled, a deep, rattling sound not even remotely fae, and jumped across the last distance between us. As it did in Cirestia, her magic formed in dark shards, this time extending from her hand like a fragment of a broken window. Too damn similar to the magic that pierced Mingyue. At the sight of it, my fear was swiftly engulfed by rage, hotter than anything.
“You tried to kill my grandmother,” I spat, slamming my hand forward in a punch. I opened my fist at the last moment to release enough magic to make the mud beneath our feet boil.
“Shame I didn’t succeed,” she replied, batting aside the flames, unaffected. I eyed the crown on her head, my heart settling into a deeper beat.