Then, she was gone. Tumbling over the edge of the marble floor, tilting toward the mountains below, tendrils of ghostly shadows fluttering in her wake.
When the light finally faded, Barrett and I rushed to the ledge.
There was no body. The queen had vanished.
My knees gave out, the ground hard beneath them as I crashed to it.
“What the hell was that?” Barrett asked, kneeling next to me. He picked up my arm, looking over the wound without touching it. The world was becoming fuzzy, but the concern and hurt were clear in the prince’s voice.
“I—I don’t…” My voice trailed off, the words tasting funny on my tongue. I had a theory, but the details were slipping away as my vision narrowed.
Barrett dragged me into his arms and stood, striding for the door.
I shuddered into the warmth. In the gaps between my heavy breaths, clashes of battle echoed up to us. Those were my people down there—dying for me.
My father, the council…their deaths all stained my hands. I couldn’t let anyone else suffer a fate meant for me.
Looking over Barrett’s shoulder through heavy lids, my eyes fellon the burnt ring of oil from Kakias’s ritual as it glowed—a physical confirmation of the impossible that had occurred tonight. A mortal warrior becoming immortal and disappearing into thin air.
I didn’t know what it meant for the rest of us, but the chill lingering in my bones promised darkness.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Ophelia
The farther Barrett carried me,the more my thoughts scattered. The entire night melted together.
I told him of the ritual and his mother’s dagger as best I could, hoping he could pass along the information. We swept down the palace steps, toward Santorina’s workshop.
Storms of battle mounted again as we passed the entryway, and something like a roll of thunder echoed in my blood. My eyes snapped open fully.
Thatwas where I was needed. Not in a sickbed.
“Put me down.” I swatted Barrett’s arm, a lazy brush of a slap he likely barely felt. Screeches reached my ears; iron coated the air.
“You can barely open your eyes,” he argued, arms tightening beneath my back and legs.
But aboomechoed in the distance. It sounded like one I’d heard earlier. I wracked my wrung-out brain. It sounded like?—
“Tol!” I burst, summoning all of my strength to push out of Barrett’s arms.
When I staggered on my feet, he gripped my good wrist. “Where in the damned Spirits are you going?”
“Tol,” I muttered again, the only word I was able to form. I tugged out of his grip. Blood spotted the floor as I reached for my weapons, and I cradled my injured arm to my chest again. Barrett held them out of my reach.
My head cleared a bit more as another explosion rattled. Though the queen was gone, the Engrossians didn’t relent.
I looked over my shoulder, out toward the grounds. Night was quickly shifting into dawn, and through my hazy gaze I could make out the spikes of the golden gates against a pale sky.
My heart twisted at the thought of Tol somewhere out there, broken and bleeding.
Please let him be okay, I begged.
But Barrett lifted my weapons farther out of my reach.
“Listen, Your Royal Highness,” I snapped with as much strength as I could muster. Though I was standing through force of will alone, I’d been through worse and survived. “Hand me my damn weapons and get out of my way or send the Revered of the Mystique Warriors into a battle defenseless, but I have someone I need to find.”
He sighed, but handed over my spear, switching it from his back to mine. I slid my dagger into its holster at my thigh and gripped my sword in my hand.
