She’s killing you.
The realization rang clear in that same whispered voice I’d heard back in the valley. Dully, I registered it as someone other than my own, even as the room spiraled wildly.
Heliconia’s cruel smile swam in my vision.
I flung fire, anything, everything?—
It met a wall of ice and vanished.
Snuffed out, absorbed into that impossible, stolen power she’d taken from Concordia’s throne. She didn’t even flinch. It was as if I’d thrown sparks at the sea.
Heliconia’s fingers curled. The siphon tightened like a noose.
“You thought draining a camp of soulless pawns made you powerful?” she purred. “You drained bones. Dead things stitched together by my hand. What I took was agod’s essence.”
I couldn’t breathe.
She stepped closer, frost cracking beneath her feet like brittle bones.
My heart hammered once—twice?—
Stuttered.
I reached for my power again, clawing for it desperately. Furyfire flared… flickered… died. My Makarios screamed but couldn’t break free.
“Aurelia!” Thorne’s voice cut through the chaos as he surged forward, ley-line magic flaring bright across his palms like veins. A shimmering barrier went up between Heliconia and us.
For two heartbeats, it held.
Heliconia’s expression barely changed before she lifted onehand. Ice slammed into Thorne’s shield with a thunderous crack. It shattered—exploding into a spray of glittering shards.
Thorne was thrown backward. He hit the marble wall so hard it spiderwebbed behind him.
“Thorne!” I choked out, trying to crawl toward him, but Heliconia yanked the thread again, and pain ripped through my lungs.
Slade flickered into existence a dozen yards away, dragging five terrified courtiers with him out of the path of her spreading frost.
“Aurelia!” he shouted, but I couldn’t answer. His shadows reached for me?—
Heliconia swatted them aside like smoke.
She was toying with us.
“Good,” she said softly. “Bleed a little for me. Break a little. It makes the harvest that much sweeter.”
My blood chilled.
Callan moved—not much, not fast—but enough that Heliconia’s eyes flicked toward him.
“Stay,” she commanded, and ice laced his boots to the dais.
She turned back to me, eyes alight. Hungry.
“You come into my court,” she whispered, “my wedding, my throne room—and offer yourself up on your knees. What a beautiful sacrifice you’ve made. Unfortunately, a useless one.”
“Go to Hel,” I rasped.
She smiled. “Haven’t you heard? Hel came to me. And I learned what it takes to become a god.”
