My fingers wrapped around the cold hilt before I concealed the dagger inside my skirts. It would do no good to have the Queen discover that I possessed the only weapon capable of destroying her.
Aveen wrapped me in a fierce hug. “I love you.”
“Love you too.”
Twenty or so guards remained standing; our men had surrounded the hill on which the Queen stood, her face a mask of fury as her hands spun in the air, words in a language I didn’t know pouring from her lips in a low hum.
Aveen gripped my hand once more, and we were off, falling through darkness, landing on a spot behind the Queen. “Glamour yourself,” I ordered. “Quickly! Before she sees you.”
With a nod, Aveen’s face became that of our cousin’s. Only her clear blue eyes remained the same.
By some miracle, Tadhg and Rían had reached the Queen. Rían threw out a glowing hand. The Queen’s arms snapped to her sides. She squirmed and cursed, bound by Rían’s magic.
“You weak, pathetic fool,” she spat at her son, the blackened veins in her arms swelling as she strained against the invisible bonds. “Your magic cannot hold me forever.”
Rían’s lips curved into a malevolent smile as he tapped his dagger against his thigh. “It doesn’t need to hold you forever. Just long enough.”
“You think I’m afraid of your blade?” she hissed at Tadhg where he extended his sword. She writhed and tugged, but to no avail. “I am the Phantom Queen. A true immortal. You cannotkillme.”
“I’m not going to kill you,” Tadhg said with a smirk before his gaze shifted to where I stood. When our eyes locked, the color drained from his cheeks.
The Queen’s piercing onyx eyes landed on me, flickering with confusion. And when I withdrew the dagger, I saw fear there.
With a deep inhale, I closed the distance between us and plunged the cursed dagger between her ribs. She let out a screeching wail, an unearthly sound that sent us all back a step as she collapsed to her knees. I stumbled away from her, and the dagger slipped from my grasp and tumbled into the grass. Tadhg caught me in his warm embrace. The smell of blood overwhelmed the scent of candied almonds still clinging to his shirt.
We’d done it. We’d won.
Tears flooded my eyes until suddenly, Tadhg was ripped away. Something tight gripped my throat, crushing my windpipe. I scraped at whatever it was, but the thing only tightened. Blackened shadows clawed at the edge of my vision. Tadhg’s face swam in and out of focus.
That’s when I saw them.
There had to be…oh god… there had to bethousands.
Shadow guards surrounded us on all sides of the hill. We were trapped.
The Queen laughed.
How could she laugh? She was dead.
Tadhg raced toward where I struggled, arms stretched toward me, but he was too slow. A gut-wrenching wail tore from his throat.
I heard a sharp snap. Felt a flicker of pain in my neck.
And everything faded to black.
53
TADHG
I lunged for Keelynn,catching her body before she hit the ground. “No, no, no, no, no.” Her head twisted at the wrong angle. Her gray eyes refused to focus on my face or the sky or anything else around us.
She couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t.
And yet here she was, lying in my arms. Not cursed. Not dying.Dead. Lifeless. No more.
The Queen had killed my wife.
My world had been stolen along with the breath from my lungs and the next beat of my heart and every beat thereafter. I remained frozen, unable to think or feel or understand the mayhem and carnage surrounding me.