1
Death was never part of the plan. When I crossed the border into gargoyle territory, my goal was simple: heal Baelen and get the hell out of here. But the gargoyle king had different plans for me. Forced to work in his mine, I joined the enslaved gargoyles digging for heartstones to increase King Howl’s power. Finally finding a heartstone—the Prime Heartstone—we saw our chance to rise up against him.
I fought side by side with the miners against Howl’s army, fighting a battle for our lives. My friend, Llion, was badly injured and Cassian was killed, but not before he brought the Queen’s deadly heartstone to the battle: a weapon that only a gargoyle with royal blood can safely touch. In an act of desperation, I forced Howl to hold it. As Howl flew me high above the battle, I pressed the Queen’s heart into the harness around his neck where he kept the other stones that gave him the power to enslave his people.
Howl was anything but royal. The stone’s power shredded him before my eyes.
But I touched it too.
Now, I am about to die.
Released from his arms, I tip backward. The Queen’s heart floats up and away from me, defying the press of gravity. The tip of my finger taps the stone, a glow rippling out from it as if it was just dropped into water and we’re both sinking under the surface.
A thick cloud of debris fills the air above me where Howl used to be. The Queen’s heart burned him to ashes. Gusts of wind sweep his remains through the open sides of Crimson Court, past the pillars and the flags bearing the shadow panther crest, out over the cliff’s edge, blowing the dust away in a single, sharp burst. Howl is gone.
Darkness presses in on me from all sides and I’m falling. Falling to the floor of Crimson Court where I will break on the hard stone. The final light of the day shoots across the Court, warming me for the last time. A long time ago, the elven Queen gave her life to become the sun that lights our world. As her light bathes my body, I sense the rising of the distant moon. After the elven Queen became the sun, the gargoyle Queen became the moon. Her name was Incorruptible and it’s her heart that killed me.
The sunlight winks out.
I take one last breath and inhale the scent of battle, of blood and death. The fighting continues around me. Only the nearest soldiers saw Howl die, his death cry swallowed by the sounds of clashing swords and roaring gargoyles. Llion has collapsed to the ground, badly injured, one of his wings almost torn off. Liliana runs to him, crying his name.
Jasper fights his way to me, his clothing and weapon both bloody, his face cut and bruised. Welsian races toward me too, the bulky gargoyle moving faster than I’ve ever seen as he leaps over bodies trying to get to me. The leader of our mining team, Roar, took flight the moment I started falling, his blue-veined wings glowing in the new dark as he zooms toward me, desperately reaching out.
They think I’m falling because Howl dropped me. They think they can catch me. They don’t know the stone has already killed me. I close my eyes. My friends are free now. They will rebuild their lives and bring peace to their country. I know they will.
“Baelen…” I whisper his name one last time, exhaling my final breath as the ground rears up beneath me.
I brace for the final impact.
Out of nowhere, a gust of wind rushes under me, bursting upward and taking me with it, spinning me around, elevating me above the fight. I’m too stunned to fight its force, letting it take me and carry me high into the ceiling, pushing me upright so that my feet point downward and I stand on nothing but air.
Roar flies to my side, his wings beating hard, surprise shooting from every angle of his body. “Lady Storm!”
Welsian shouts from the floor, his face upturned to mine. He tries to approach me, clearly alarmed by this new force, but a tornado springs up between us. It buffets Roar backward too, pushing his wings around as if he’s a moth and not a massive warrior. He fights it, angling his wing daggers forward in an attempt to cut through the shield, but the gusty barrier forces him back again.
The tornado widens, extending all the way around me. It’s transparent so that I can see through it, but the way Roar rolls backward every time he tries to get to me tells me that the barrier around me is impassable. I’m completely separated from the rest of the battle.
I’m worried it will rip Roar’s wings off if he tries again. I push my hand out to tell him to stop, not daring to extend my arm into the whirlwind. “Stay back! It’s okay. I’m okay.”
I think.
I do a mental check of all my limbs. I’m still in one piece. I’d expected to be nothing more than dust by now. I’d expected to die a painful death like Cassian. To be torn apart like Howl. But for some reason, the Queen’s heart hasn’t shredded me into fragments.
What’s more, all four heartstones have gathered inside the eye of the tornado with me. The Queen’s diamond heart floats in front of my chest while the emerald Virtuous heart and sapphire Lightsworn heart drift on my left. On my right side, the golden Prime Heartstone gravitates toward the Queen’s heart, but that is not a surprise to me. When I read the Queen’s journal, I found out that Queen Incorruptible had been in love with Prime. She never acted on her love or betrayed her husband, King Supreme, but when she gave her life to become the moon, her heart fell from the sky to Prime’s resting place so their hearts could be together forever. We’d unearthed both of them.
A commotion draws my attention to the far end of the Court where Howl’s soldiers have herded all of the clan leaders and the old Priestess into a group. The soldiers hurry out of the way, shouting and trying to rally as another gust of air forces the group to part, creating a clear pathway from the Court entrance all the way to me.
A figure appears in the gap: a male silhouette, his armor catching the light of the moon and glinting across the space between us. From head to toe, he’s covered in finely sculpted metal plates, linked to protect his body and decorated in crimson and ochre markings. At his side, he carries a sword, its sharp blade pointed outward, handle gripped hard.
He towers over the nearest warriors while the air around him glows red like a bloody sunset. As he enters Crimson Court, the ground lights up beneath his boots and the stone floor blazes, leaving a scorched trail behind him. The scent of rain hits me. Acid rain.
The breath catches in my throat. My heart stops.
He is the most dangerous male I’ve ever seen.
He is the only male who ever held my heart in his hands.
“Baelen!”
