The only light comes from …
The Queen.
She stands in the middle of the room, radiating like she was born a part of the night sky.
They did it. Caspian and Farron fucking did it.
“Annie?” George struggles to his feet, pushing me off him. He blinks at his wife. “Annie!”
“George.”
He runs to her, engulfing her in his arms. She curls into him. It’s a strange thing; the Queen always seemed like an immense, otherworldly entity in my mind, but she appears small in George’s embrace.
He kisses her, a man kept in darkness who has finally found the light. Their love emanates all around. Sparks fly from Anya, a tiny star shower illuminating even the darkest pit of the Below.
Every nerve in my body is alight. An ice dagger appears in both my hands. “George, I’m so sorry. We have to go now, or it will be too late.”
George pulls away from Anya, frantically pushing her hair back from her face. “I can’t. I won’t. If you’re not coming with us, then I’m not going either. I’ll stay with you.” He turns to me. “Kel, you’re a good man. I trust you and after our time together, I love you as a son. Take care of our daughter. Tell her I love her—”
Anya smacks George on the side of his head. “Don’t be a fool! You’re not staying here. Go. Sira will have felt this destruction across every corner of the Below, and I’ll be the first thing she secures. Leave now, while you still have the chance!”
“There is nothing that can tear me away from your side again,” he says.
I hop from foot to foot, swinging my daggers in my hands. “George, come on.”
“You’re going,” Anya snarls.
“I’m not!”
I feel it before I see it. A creeping, slithering sensation at my back. I whip around and swing my ice dagger. A ghastly cry erupts out as it connects; the shine of my dagger illuminates a twisting creature, a shadowy wraith with hollow eyes and a gaping mouth.
“We’re not alone!” I call. That didn’t take long. Sira’s already sent her servants.
“Run, George!” Anya pushes on his chest.
Another shiver trembles at my left side, and I spin, dagger flying. Another wraith cries out, crumbling beneath my blade. How many are there? I can barely see. This whole place could be crawling with them.
He grabs her tight to him, pinning her arms to her sides. “I’m staying with you. Nothing can change my mind.”
“We have another daughter!” Anya screams.
George lets her go. Staggers back. Quickly, I run and skid along the floor, dragging my daggers through a wraith hovering at George’s back. My mind can only concentrate on detecting the shivers and the slight bits of movements in Anya’s light, indicating a wraith. But did she say … another daughter?
Rosalina has a sister?
“What … what do you mean?” George whispers
Anya’s chest heaves. She looks down at her arms, glowing with light, then shoves her hand to the left. A huge beam of light illuminates the quadrant. Three shadowy wraiths screech and wither. But more erupt up from the ground, taking their place. “I was pregnant,” she growls, “when Sira took me to the Below. I didn’t know! I didn’t know, George!”
Another cluster of wraiths spin into being. My daggers cut one, two, three, but a fourth emerges at my side. I don’t have time to cut it down before it wraps two shadowy tendrils around my body. I gasp, everything in me goes ice cold. A sense of hopelessness washes over me, every happy memory drained from my mind.
Anya cries out and a javelin of light shoots forward, stabbing through the monster. I collapse to the ground, freed, clutchingmy chest. She turns back to George. “I had to birth the baby in this prison. And then … and then Sira invoked the bargain again.”
I try to make sense of it as I stagger back up to my feet, daggers at the ready. She once again loved someone more than George: a mother’s love for her second child.
“She took the baby,” Anya breathes. “I had nothing left to trade. Our second daughter belongs to her now.”
George stumbles back again, eyes unblinking.
