“Yeah?” My voice is a rasp. “Well, I’m the Queen now.”
I am the Daughter of Gaia. The Goddess chose me. Not him. I may not understand why but she put me in this position but I’m not going to let some delusional, power hungry male stop me. Not like he did with Nova.
She deserves justice. Castara deserves justice.
I lunge to the side when he hurls a fireball in my direction, leaving a sear mark across the wall where I had just been. Embers rain down around us like dying stars.
Advancing towards me, his eyes flashing with murderous intent. They appear almost completely black, absent of the gleam that normally lights his eyes.
The tingling in my fingertips sync with my heartbeat. I plead to the stones. And they respond. A tremor shudders above him. Chunks of rock rain down — but he dissolves into smoke before they hit.
I curse as the sound of rock on rock rumble through the room. I jerk my head around for a moment but when I don’t see him materialize, I crawl for the door. Climbing over cracked and broken rocks that are shattered across the floor from their impact.
I have to get Ophe and get us out of here.
My fingers barely brush the doorknob before an arm snakes around my throat, lifting me off my knees. Acrid smoke floods my lungs, clawing down my windpipe. I cough, choking. Desperate to expel it, but his grip seals off the air way as he drags me back.
“Uh uh uh,” he whispers against my ear. The tone is soft, intimate, worst than a shout. My ribcage convulses against his hold, the smoke searing through my chest, trapped with nowhere to escape.
He flings my weakened body onto the mattress and I curl into myself in a coughing fit. Smoke and dust plume around me tainting the wind I am able to pull in.
My lungs burn, smoke still curling around me like a serpent. He straddles me, binding my wrists. I buck, but my limbs feel weighted with lead.
I can’t let him constrain me.The panic coursing through me fuels my energy. Ijustgot my happy ending. There is a reason I am still here.A divine reason.
Searching out the edge of the mattress, I take my foot and slam it down onto the stones. Shards of rock explode from the wall, knocking him backwards. He groans, still partially on top of me as I try to push him off with my half bound hands.
As he sits up, his blood drips warm onto my skin. His eyes alight with murder. Baring his teeth, he rips a spike from his stomach.
I scramble backwards towards the wall but he wraps his burning hands around my ankle, yanking me back down onto the mattress.
“Caspien stop,” I yell, my kick doing little more than taking his wind away.
His chuckle is a broken, simmering sound. He leans close, his words hot against my ear. “No,” is all he says before he plunges the blade into my stomach.
Pain floods everything but I won’t let it take me down.Not yet. The taste of iron,and something else,spreads thick across my tongue.“What… was on… that blade?” I sputter the words, blood spilling out of me.
In the next breath, my body is no longer mine to command. The taste of soil replaces the iron tang of blood and a floral scent fills my nostrils, offering me a momentarily reprieve from the pain that had taken over.
Suddenly my back arches off the mattress, as my magic erupts within me. A power I’ve never felt before taking root inside me, branching out through my blood. Exploding outward, unbidden.
A deep groan reverberates from the earth beneath. The sound is low and primal, like the world itself is awakening from adeep sleep. The edges of my vision blur to black but through the haze I still see the room being torn apart.
Stones scream as roots spear through them, splitting the walls in jagged fractures. Vines burst through the cracks in a frenzy, writhing, coiling and spreading like veins across the walls. Dust and shards rain down, the stone beneath us shivering as though it is afraid.
Caspien staggers backwards, slipping to his knees. His head jerks up, eyes wide. Not from the pain but something sharper.Fear. His breath catches as the ground beneath him heaves and splits, threatening to swallow him whole.
And in that moment, before the black edges finally move in, he looks at me. Not as prey. Not as broken.
But as the Daughter of Gaia.
Chapter
Thirty-Eight
CILLIAN
Enzo leaves with Ophe. Niko and I follow shortly after with Nissa. Entering the castle with her tucked tightly in my arms, I’m escorted to the herbalists’ wing of the castle. Ophe is alert now, and they’re tending to a cut on the side of her head. Caspien must have hit her pretty hard.
