XXIII
I saw my father first. His hands were bound behind his back and his mouth was gagged. The cuts and bruises I could see were a thousand times worse than I ever could have imagined. My mother stumbled in behind him, and when one of the guards shoved her from behind, she nearly tripped over the shackles that weighed down her ankles.
I belatedly realized that the gasp I heard was my own as I watched Aron being dragged in. Dragged, because he was incapable of walking on his own, as his feet dangled limply behind him and his head lolled forward, sagging uselessly against his chest. Even from where I stood, I could hear his jagged breaths; they were difficult to listen to.
He was dumped on the floor like refuse, as if his very presence was distasteful.
I didn’t wait for a signal that it was okay for me to move. There wasn’t enough willpower in the world to stop me from running to my parents. I couldn’t reach them fast enough and didn’t care who might try to stop me. They were barely through the doorway when I was hugging each one of them in turn. I was careful not to squeeze too tight, since I didn’t know how badly they were injured.
It pained me not to go to Aron, but I knew he wasn’t even aware of his surroundings. He was brought only as a message to me: The queen had shown restraint with my parents.
“Are you okay?” I whispered in Parshon, slipping the filthy cloth from my mother’s cracked and bleeding lips. Her breath smelled sour, a combination of hunger and bile; I could no longer find the sweet scent of warm bread coming from her skin.
She nodded, her eyes filled with remorse. “What are you doing here, Charlaina? We told you to stay away, to keep your sister safe at all costs.”
I glanced back to the queen, grateful that I’d left Angelina behind. “She’s safe,” I assured my mother softly. Speaking to the guards, I ordered, “Untie them.” I unbound my father’s mouth and used the dirty rag to blot fresh blood that oozed from a wound at his scalp. I wondered how recently he’d been abused, and the thought made my stomach clench.
Neither of the guards moved, so I turned to the old woman in the throne. “Please, they’re not going anywhere. What harm could it do?”
The queen lifted an eyebrow and nodded, a silent consent to my request, and my parents were freed.
My father wasn’t as gentle as I’d been. His arms reached around me, crushing me against him. “I’m so sorry we didn’t tell you, Charlaina, about who you were. We worried for your safety.” He pulled back to gaze at me, and I could see the sorrow in his swollen, bloodshot eyes. “We couldn’t risk that she find out you existed.” He squeezed me once more, and this time his words came out on the quietest breath, meant only for my ears. “Don’t do anything she wishes. Do whatever it takes to get out of here alive, Charlaina. Leave us behind if you must.” Ku m; His grip tightened, ensuring that I understood the significance of what he’d just asked of me.
But before I could formulate a denial of my own, the queen’s voice struck like a flash of lightning, causing goose bumps to ripple over my skin and the hair at the back of my neck to bristle. “She will do no such thing! If she does, she’ll have no parents to return to.”
My mother reached for my hand, clutching it so hard that I could feel the tears she was unwilling to shed. “Don’t listen to her, Charlie. You need to stay alive. Angelina needs you to stay alive.”
And then the world around me exploded as my father’s entire body convulsed, seizing as he fell to his knees, his eyes widening with panic, his fingers clutching at his throat.
From behind me, Max’s voice rang out in fury. “Stop it! Release him!” I turned to see him hurtling toward the throne, toward his own grandmother—the queen—where she stood, her balled fist lifted, pointing directly at my father. Xander intercepted one of the royal guards who moved to stop his brother, and his fist crashed into the man’s nose. The crushing sound was revolting, and the guard dropped forward, cupping his bloodied face in his hands.
But Max never made it to the throne.
It was the rifle’s blast that stilled everything. My blood stopped pumping as ceiling plaster clattered in chunks over the polished marble floor at our feet, a consequence of the warning shot. But we all watched in horror as the guard holding the firearm dropped the nose of his weapon and directed it at Max.
No one moved. No one blinked.
Yet it was my father for whom I feared most.
He couldn’t breathe. Somehow the queen was blocking his airway as he writhed on the floor, struggling against her spell.
I stood frozen, watching it all, yet unable to move from my spot on the floor. I turned to the old woman who was showing me just how ruthless she could be. “Please, don’t do this! Don’t hurt him!” I implored.
The queen, indifferent to the weapon aimed at her grandson, quivered as she stared down at me, her fist still extended in front of her. “You can stop it, Charlaina. All you have to do is offer yourself in their place.” She pursed her already thinned lips.
I turned to look at my father. Blood began to drip from his nose and seep from his ears. My mother saw too, but her words were determined. “Don’t do it, Charlie. No matter what. Do you hear me? Never. Never!”
Then she, too, fell to her knees, gasping at first . . . and then desperately silent as she, also, fought for air.
My entire body shook as I turned back to Sabara, seeing her for what she truly was . . . the quintessence of evil. It was the hardest decision I’d ever had to make. She was asking me for my life. Or to forfeit my parents.
I thought of Angelina, of what my decision would mean for her.
Scalding tears burned my cheeks as I searched for my voice. At last I closed my eyes and answered, “I won’t do it.”
The silence of a queen is deafening and can stretch into eternity and back. Standing before her, I understood the meaning of forever as I waited for her response.
“I was hoping we could do this the easy way, Charlaina,” she finally stated, demanding everyone’s attention as she made a show of slowly, deliberately, opening her fist and then dropping her hand to her side.
The gasps for air that came from behind me were enough to let me know that she’d just released my parents from her grip, but I was afraid to take my eyes away from the queen.
“Take them away,” she said, ordering their removal. They were nothing more than trash to her.
As if on cue, the huge gilded doors opened from the outside, and she added, “I can see you’ve opted to make things difficult.”
As my parents and Aron were being dragged away, a woman I almost didn’t recognize through the bloodied bruises that mangled her face was carried inside by two guards and dropped onto the marble floor in front of me. Her lower lip was torn, the flesh hanging limply, ineffectively from her mouth, baring her teeth in an eternal sneer. Had it not been for the spikes of blue hair visible through the blood-soaked scalp, I would never have realized that it was Eden I was staring at.
At least not until Angelina was escorted inside.
XXIV
The look on Angelina’s face terrified me almost as much as her presence in this room. She was far too calm for what she must have witnessed.
Xander’s screams were primal as he clawed his way to Eden’s discarded body. There were several guards around him, yet no one moved to stop him. The sob that escaped his lips, as he lifted Eden’s head, was heartbreaking, and I was unable to look away, even when Angelina silently found her way to my side, her hand clasping mine.
I searched the room, feeling the air for something—that tangible charge that Eden always carried with her, the energy that would tell me she was still with us. But the space around me was empty, devoid of any indication that Eden was alive. It was a terrifying sensation.
Xander clutched Eden to his chest and shrieked at the elderly woman atop the throne. “How could you? Why would you do this to her?”
She looked at no one in particular when she said, “You think you’re the only one with spies, Alexander
? Did you think I wouldn’t find your underground hideaway eventually? You can’t defeat a queen.” Her voice was so majestic, so filled with self-assurance, that it was hard to imagine anyone else ever taking her place on the throne. And then her gaze fell to Xander as she ordered, “Get him away from her.”
It took five of her guards to separate him from Eden, and he was spared no brutality as he fought to stay by her side. He was struck in the ribs, the stomach, the face, the back, yet he still struggled when the queen’s men dragged him away.
And Max shouted after them. “Get your hands off of him! Leave him be!” His voice was chilling, filled with menace and the guarantee of retribution. I feared for those he’d set his sights on.
Khei
From somewhere outside, on the vast lawns of the palace, there was the distant sounds of popping. Gunfire, I thought, although I barely had time to consider it, to wonder what was happening outside these walls. Not when there was a war waging within this very room.
But the queen heard it too, and her head snapped up as she gestured—an unspoken command—to the st
out man at her side. He rushed out of the room, eager to do her bidding.
Yet it was Angelina who drew my attention as she knelt down to the woman at my feet. I worried that someone else might see her, might notice what she was doing as she brushed her small hand, ever so lightly, across Eden’s bloodied forehead. Just the whisper of a touch, and over so quickly that I doubted anyone else had even seen it.
I waited, my eyes wide, for something to happen.
And then I heard it. Just the barest rattle of breath escaping Eden’s mouth, the sole indicator that she wasn’t yet dead. It was quite possibly the sweetest sound imaginable. I wished with all my heart that Xander could have heard it too.
“Well, well, well.” The cutting voice of the queen interrupted my moment of satisfaction. “It seems we have not one princess . . . but two.” Her milky eyes looked from me to Angelina, who moved back to my side. “And I certainly don’t have need for the both of you.”
I would have expected Angelina to cower in the presence of the powerful woman, but she remained where she was, watching the queen through untroubled, crystalline eyes.
But I was worried. And I woul
d never take a chance that any harm would come to my little sister. Not ever. I couldn’t risk the queen taking possession of Angelina.
“You win,” I breathed at last, stepping into the path of her gaze and forcing her to take her eyes away from my sister. “Take me instead.”
THE QUEEN
Anticipation coursed through Sabara, invigorating her with renewed energy, making her feel more alive than she had in years. Possibly decades.
Everything she wanted was within her grasp.
She had found the girl’s weakness when she’d discovered the child. Charlaina would do anything to protect her sister. And without even realizing it, she’d spoken the words. She’d inadvertently started the process.
She could hear Maxmillian yelling at the girl to change her mind as he struggled to be released, but his words were in vain. Still, he’d overstepped his bounds, and family or not, he would have to die for his transgressions. Not now, of course. She would bide her time, find a way to make his death appear accidental.
For now she had other matters to attend to.
Sabara concentrated on shutting out the sounds around her as she moved deeper into herself, calling forth her life force—her Essence—in preparation to make the transfer.
Soon she would have a new body. A beautiful, young body.
XXV
“No, Charlie! No!” I heard Max shouting over and over again. His voice was loud and clear and inescapable.
But already my skin tingled with an energy that wasn’t my own. The pattern of my breathing felt off, and the rhythm of my heartbeat no longer belonged to me.
I glanced down at Angelina, relieved that she would be spared in all of this. She was the reason I’d made this unholy pact, and she would remain untouched by the darkness that I could already feel spilling into my veins.
In her blue eyes I could read her unspoken plea as she begged me not to do this. I had always understood my little sister’s silent language.
I turned away, unable to bear the pain I was about to cause her.
My head began to swell with memories that were not my own. There were lovers and battles and births and deaths. Faces, names, and places, none of which I recognized. Everything inside of me faded to black, as joy and love were conquered, and hate and sin burgeoned anew. Malevolence became my very nature.
When it all became too much, I opened my mouth to take it back, to undo what I’d started, but all that emerged were silent screams, unheard cries for help. I could feel the queen’s Essence smothering me, as her thoughts—not just her memories—began to take root and spread. It was she who stopped me from calling an end to this madness.
From outside, the sounds of gunfire, bombs, and the shouts of men grew louder. Closer. A full-scale battle was now underway. For what, I did not know.
I tried to concentrate, but the queen’s memories lingered amid my own, taking them over, making it difficult to distinguish reality from illusion.
There were other things I sensed now too. Things the queen could no longer hide from me. She was older than any of us could have imagined. Her spirit was ancient, having survived centuries and spanning the ages. Now that she was within me, she was unable to mask her secrets, even behind languages that were long since dead and forgotten.
I heard them.
And in those silent whispers, she unwittingly revealed the key to my survival.
Time. I had only to endure the transfer. I must resist the overpowering desire to surrender to her, to let go.
It was harder than it seemed. My grip grew weaker and my resolve faded.
A detonation shook the walls, and the ground beneath us quaked. I fell to my knees, and a chandelier exploded as it struck the polished floor, sending pieces of crystal rocketing all around me.
A second blast, coming immediately after the first, shattered a huge window, and shards of glass blew inward. Instinctively I reached for Angelina, wrapping myself around her as splinters of pain prickled everywhere over my exposed skin.
I felt the queen’s grip on my mind falter. But only for a moment.
And then she was back, black shadows moving around my soul, engulfing it like smoke, suffocating it until I felt myself—my true self—deteriorating.
Dy JHeame,g aring.
Max’s shouts grew more distant. I didn’t know how much longer I had, but I suspected there wasn’t much of me remaining.
This wasn’t a battle I could win, the one waging inside my own body. I knew, now that she was within me, that she was so much stronger than I was. I collapsed, feeling myself slipping away just as Angelina gripped my hands in hers.
At first my fingers tingled where Angelina touched them, and then they burned. And when I glanced up, I thought my eyesight must be failing me. Angelina’s skin glowed, softly at first, like a delicate, ethereal apparition. Then more intensely, like an inferno, raging and bright. Everywhere I looked—her skin, her hair, her blue eyes—smoldered.
And then I felt what she was doing. It was as if she was healing me, as if she was lending me her power—fusing it with mine and willing me to fight. And suddenly I knew what I wanted. It was all so clear.
I wanted the queen to die. I wanted to live.
In the hallways outside the throne room, there were more shouts, more rounds of gunfire. I could hear Brooklynn’s voice above all the others, and I knew that Xander’s forces were here at last.
Behind Angelina, Sabara rose from her throne, and I knew she was abandoning her body now, completing the transformation to inhabit mine.
Angelina squeezed my fingers as if she would never release me, and my entire body burned as if it had just been set ablaze. And then she spoke to me, her voice soft and childlike, just as I’d always ima
gined she would sound. “Don’t go, Charlie. I need you.”
I’d never heard anything more beautiful in all my life, and my heart soared as hot, wet tears dropped onto my cheeks. I didn’t know if they were hers or mine.
Across from me, I watched as the queen fell to the ground . . .
. . . and everything inside of me went black.
MAX
Max hardly noticed that Charlie’s skin was flickering where Angelina touched her. Tears streaked down the little girl’s cheeks as she clutched her sister’s hand, her eyes never leaving Charlie’s face, as if begging her to breathe, begging her to wake.
Everyone—guards and prisoners alike—stood motionless now, waiting to see which of the two women would die first. Max closed the distance in three long strides and knelt by Angelina’s side as he took Charlie’s other hand in his, pressing her icy fingers to his lips. His lungs ached, and his throat was tight.
Beside them all, at the foot of the dais, the queen lay equally still, with no one at her side beseeching her to live.
The gilded doors exploded open then, crashing so hard that they rattled the walls. Brook stormed in, followed by a coterie of soldiers whose weapons were as mismatched as their uniforms. Her face was lit by a triumphant grin.
She pointed the muzzle of her gun at the guards in the throne room. “Seize their weapons.” Her voice boomed as if she’d been born to lead. Then her eyes fell to Charlie, and JHea bla tri the victorious look crumpled. She rushed to her friend’s side, her eyes searching Max’s face. “Is she . . . ?”
Max shook his head, refusing to even consider the possibility. He bent closer to the lifeless girl before him as he released a ragged breath against her cool skin. “Charlie,” he whispered, begging her not to leave them . . . to leave him.