“I’m here for my father,” I say, my voice carrying clearly through the vast space. “To return the crown to the rightful owner. The one you’re trying to kill in front of his people. The one this kingdom still belongs to.”
Lucelle rises slowly from the throne, every movement calculated for maximum drama. Her gown pools around her feet like spilled blood. Her hands hang empty at her sides, but I feel danger radiate from her fingers like heat from a forge. She smiles, her teeth are too white, too sharp, and her eyes glitter with malicious delight.
“You should’ve died on that mountain,” she says, her voice rich with venom that seems to coat each word in poison. “I gave you to Goddess Ourea, practically dropped you at her feet like asacrificial lamb. That trial should have devoured you, torn you apart piece by piece until nothing remained but screams and ash, and yet,” her lip curls in disgust, revealing those predator’s teeth, “here you stand. Alive. Breathing. Defiant.”
“You sound disappointed.” I hold back any emotion from my voice, keeping it level and cold as winter steel.
“I’m furious!” she shouts, the word echoing off the stone columns like thunder. Her shadows writhe behind her like living serpents, coiling and uncoiling in patterns that hurt to look at directly. “You weren’t supposed to survive. I opened that portal specifically so your father could watch you die. I wanted to see the exact moment hope left his eyes, wanted to watch his spirit break as his daughter was torn to pieces before him. Instead, imagine my surprise seeing you alive and dripping with power that should never have been yours to claim.”
My chest burns as anger churns from deep within me, golden light crackling beneath my skin like electricity in my blood. The magic responds to my fury, eager to be unleashed, to burn away the shadows and lies. “You talk like I was some mistake. Like I didn’t earn every mark, every scar, every moment of agony. Every inch of power I carry is mine, paid for in blood and pain and choices that nearly destroyed me.”
“You didn’t earn anything,” she spits, taking a step down from the dais with predatory grace. “You were given too much by forces that should have known better. You’re an abomination! Fae and witch and something else entirely, something that shouldn’t exist in any realm. Your coven should never have been allowed to flourish. You should never have been born.” She points an accusatory finger in my direction, the gesture sharp enough to cut. The court around us erupts into soft whispers and gasps, but with a single raise of her hand, everyone goes silent once more, cowed by her obvious power.
Honestly curious now, I step forward across the marble. “You’re afraid of what I am.” I don’t understand what she means about my coven, about us not having the right to exist, but her fear is obvious in every line of her body.
“I’m disgusted by what you are.” Her nostrils flare as if my very presence offends her delicate sensibilities. “Do you even know the truth of your precious goddess? Of Ourea’s real origin, her actual history?”
My eyes narrow as I wait for her to continue, my magic coiling tighter beneath my skin.
“Why do you think there was a portal between the Blue Mountains and Vanir?” Lucelle demands, circling the dais like a predator stalking prey. “Why do you think your mother fell into our realm so easily, as if the barriers meant nothing? Why were you born able to carry both human and fae magic without being torn apart by the conflicting energies? Because Goddess Ourea wasn’t always a goddess, child. She was once fae, just like us.”
The revelation hits me like a physical blow, and I feel my eyes widen despite my efforts to remain impassive. Lucelle’s smile widens at my obvious shock, her delight in my surprise clear as crystal.
“Oh yes,” she continues, her voice taking on a storyteller’s cadence, “she lived here, in this very court, thousands of years ago, before your father’s bloodline even existed. Until she was banished for crimes against the crown, treason, I believe the records state. The sentence was death, handed down by the ancient court that would one day birth your father’s bloodline, but she was clever. She fled to the Mortal Realm instead of facing execution, declared herself divine to a handful of desperate humans, and built a temple in her own image. That coven, your beloved witches of the Blue Mountain, they’re nothing more than her legacy. Twisted, half-blood daughters of a condemned exile.”
I swallow hard, my throat suddenly dry as parchment. “So, you’ve known. All this time, you’ve known exactly what I am.”
“I used it. Used her connection to you, used the ancient bonds she forged.” Her smile sharpens into something that could cut glass. “I fed your scent to the wraiths, tracked your every movement through the trials, manipulated the very fabric of your journey. All of it was orchestrated, planned, calculated to bring you here so I could watch you die. I could have had your precious Sam killed at any time, nothing in this court escapes my notice or my influence.”
“You used this opportunity to position yourself to take my father’s throne.” I take another step closer to her, close enough now to see madness glittering in her dark eyes.
“He’s dying,” she snaps, her composure cracking just slightly. “With him gone and you dead, the crown would’ve passed to me by right of marriage. As it should! I am Queen of Shadows, the only ruler this court deserves, the only one strong enough to lead us into the future.”
I raise my hand, golden magic spinning across my palm like liquid fire, casting dancing shadows on the walls. I’m tired of her bullshit monologuing, regardless of what revelations I’ve gleaned from it. There’s only one way this ends now.
“I’ll say this once,” I say, my voice dropping to barely above a whisper. “Release my father. Step down from that throne or die where you stand.”
“You dare threaten me?” Lucelle shouts, baring her teeth like a feral animal. “You think you can kill me, little girl? Then let’s see what you’re truly made of.”
The throne room erupts into chaos as chairs scrape across the marble floor with ear-splitting shrieks. Fae courtiers scramble to get out of the way as they press themselves against the walls. The queen steps down from the dais with fluid grace. Her shadows strike first, slashing through the air like bladesforged from pure darkness. I throw up my shield of golden light, feeling the impact reverberate through my bones as I brace against the blow. Behind me, Rue hurls daggers with deadly precision at shrieking wraiths that materialize from the darkness, their inhuman cries filling the air like breaking glass. Locke cuts a brutal path through soldiers emerging from the shadows, his sword singing as it cleaves through armor and bone with equal ease. Sam, my wolf, my soul, drops Rue’s borrowed cloak and shifts mid-leap, his massive brown form ripping through cloaked traitors with violent precision that paints the marble red.
Lucelle and I circle each other in the center of the chaos, magic pulsing from our bodies like twin storms preparing to collide. The air between us crackles with opposing energies, her darkness seeming to devour light itself, my golden fire burning away shadows wherever it touches.
She hurls void-fire at me, black flames shimmering with silver edges that burn cold as winter nights. I counter with a whip of icy water, the elemental magic responding to my will as I freeze the dark fire mid-air and shatter it into jagged shrapnel that rains down around us. Her shadows strike again, trying to bind my limbs like living ropes, but I twist away, spinning gold into the floor beneath her feet and blasting upward in a pillar of pure light.
“You’re nothing but a whisper,” I snarl, dodging another blast of void-fire. “A throne thief with delusions of grandeur.”
“And you,” she growls, shadows coiling around her like armor, “are the prophecy’s lie. A bastard child and a broken Tether. There is no true heir. Only stories whispered by fools afraid of my reign.”
Our magic collides in the air above the throne, gold and black clashing like suns and void, like the birth and death of stars compressed into a single moment. The whole throne roomtrembles beneath the weight of our battle, the ancient stones groaning in protest. Tiles crack and splinter beneath our feet, marble statues topple from their pedestals to shatter on the floor. Courtiers flee screaming as raw magic shreds through the rafters like a storm given flesh and fury.
The castle shakes and shudders, but it holds. I feel it then, the castle’s presence, its power simmering around me.
I feel it rise with me. Its ancient walls sing back the note of my power, echoing the same frequency. Not resisting but answering. A pulse of heat moves through the marble beneath me, as if the very foundations recognize their rightful heir, answering the girl born of this blood, forged beyond these walls. I step into that rhythm and feel it magnify me, hold me, lift me.
She teleports without warning, shadows swallowing her whole before she reappears behind me with a blade of pure darkness in hand. I’m faster now, my reflexes honed by trials and trust, spinning as she strikes.
The frozen edge sings through the air. It cuts clean across her ribs, parting silk and flesh with equal ease. She screams and backhands me with a concentrated blast of shadow magic that sends me flying into a shattered column with bone-jarring force.
