So not some mystical part of the ceremony? Right. “Hadlyn,” I supplied.
He cleared his throat. The silver sword quivered next to my cheek. “Tessana Hadlyn Allisand of the House of Extensia, are you the rightful heir to the Seat of Power? The one true wielder of the Crown of Nine?”
“Yes, I am Tessana Hadlyn Allisand of the House of Extensia, the rightful heir to the Seat of Power.” I knew that was the correct answer this time. The word bubbled up out of me and burst forth with a kind of pride and power I didn’t know I could deliver given the strange circumstances.
“And do you promise to rule the realm and your respective kingdom with justice and honor? Strength and grace? Fairness and mercy?”
“Yes,” I said again, my voice stronger and truer.
The ground beneath me began to vibrate gently as if a large company of horses was galloping toward us all at once. Tyrn stumbled down a step, his sword just barely missing my ear.
Suddenly he was at my side, kneeling beside me. “There are things you need to know,” he began quickly. “Lies I’ve told. Lies... lies that have been told to me.”
I dared a glance at him. The Crown of Nine dangled from his fingers, but he no longer seemed interested in it. “What do you mean, Uncle? Should we finish the ceremony?”
“I killed her.”
His words sent ice-cold dread spiraling through me. “Who?”
A ragged sob rattled out of him. “I didn’t know what I was doing. She’s had me under her control for so long that I didn’t know to fight her. To stop her.”
My trembling hand landed on his wrist, and I was surprised to find it gentle and comforting. Especially when my words were so steely. “Who did you kill, Tyrn? Tell me?”
He sobbed again, only this time there was blood mingled in the tear that slid down his cheek. And in his spittle. I wished I could feel sorry for him, call for help for him.
But the foreboding knowledge of what he was about to tell me had frozen me, and my good intentions, in place. I had been waiting to hear these words spoken for almost nine years. Had always known they would come from someone I knew. Someone my family had trusted. Had always known we had been betrayed for power and greed by someone we loved.
He started rocking back and forth again, cradling the crown against his chest. “She loved me, and I killed her. I killed her for... for...”
“Forwhat?” I raged, my touch no longer soft and soothing but punishing and fierce.
A whirring sound whooshed behind me, and I turned just in time to see another impossible thing become possible. A bird had flown into the throne room from one of the narrow vents near the top of the vaulted ceiling. A beady-eyed, black raven. Instinct beat against my breast and a memory exploded through my mind’s eye. The day my parents were murdered, the day my family was taken from me. A raven, just as sleek and beautiful as this one, standing over their dead bodies with satisfaction gleaming through its onyx eyes.
But as this one swooped toward the ground, it transformed from something fowl to something human. Ravanna Pressydia shook off the last effects of the animal she’d been and stepped onto the marble floor as graceful as could be, fully human.
And fully dressed—unlike Crenshaw. I suspected that had something to do with her inherent magic. The watching crowd of maids and guards, advisors and nobles shrieked and stammered at the sight. Noblemen cried out in terror. Burly men retreated to the corners of the room, spooked by a bird turned witch. Fear gripped everyone who witnessed the spectacle. Except for my mad uncle, who did not even blink.
“Me,” she said coolly, finishing Tyrn’s sentence for him. Her dark eyes found his. “You don’t look so good, brother. Not feeling well?”
The guards broke free from their terror and drew their swords at once. Metal clanged as steel was pulled from the scabbard. Seeming to have forgotten their training, they waved their weapons wildly back and forth while trying to make sense of how Ravanna Pressydia had been a bird just mere moments before. If they were also perplexed at her use of the word “brother” in reference to Tyrn, they still seemed to view her as a threat.
Caspian stepped toward me, but Ravanna suddenly had a sword in her own hand. She wasn’t the aloof, docile queen now, but something terrible and brutal. She marched over and pressed the tip to the center of my back. “Second sons always have the luxury of being heroes, don’t they?” Her sneer disappeared in a sober look of fury. “This time won’t get you the girl, spare heir. I would reconsider your heroics before you do something rash and find yourself dead. My men won’t miss this time.”
Her gaze moved to the ceiling again, where square vents were built into the room's foundation all the way around the narrow rectangular point at the top of the tapered roof. In each space was a big, fat raven. And across their bodies, tiny bows and arrows that looked no more harmful than a child’s toy wielded by wings.
At our looks of mingled astonishment and distrust, Ravanna snapped a finger. “Release.”
The ravens obeyed, making quick work of the arrows as they effortlessly shot circles around Caspian. The arrows, which looked so small and unbothersome up above, pierced the marble floor with subsequent thwacks. And as they flew through the air, they grew to be long and large and dangerous enough to kill anything in their paths. Their steal tips dove straight through the hard floor, each point of entry displaying cracking spiderwebs of destroyed marble.
It made no logical sense.
Caspian slowly set his left foot down from where it had been held aloft, midstep, while arrows shot by birds rained down from the ceiling—without harming him. At least this time.
“How?” I asked the Cold Queen, desperate for answers. But even more so, desperate for a motive. Something to explain all of this. The birds. What was wrong with Tyrn? Who had killed my parents? I needed to answer these questions. No matter what the outcome might bring.
“Magic, foolish child.” She laughed, the tip of the sword digging into the flesh at my back. “I told you all you had to do was get your mind to believe what your body could not. And it would be easy for you. But you’re too much like your mother after all. Too uptight and practical to appreciate the gift that has been born to you.”
For the first time since I’d discovered she was my aunt, I hated that she dared speak about my mother. Loathed that my mother’s name had ever been in her mouth.
