Chapter Sixteen
Joy
Tension crackled through the air like electricity before a storm, making the fine hairs on my arms stand on end. My heart pounded against my ribs as I watched Queen Alanna's face darken like thunderclouds gathering for battle, while Ari maintained that galling smirk that never seemed to leave his lips. The temperature in the room had dropped twenty degrees.
I gripped the ornate arms of my chair, my palms slick with sweat. The velvet upholstery felt suffocating beneath my fingers as I pressed myself back into the cushions, desperate not to draw attention from either of these dangerous predators. Being caught between them was like sitting between two defensive tackles—one wrong move and I'd become a corpse.
The queen rose from her throne with deliberate, panther-like grace, each movement precise and deadly. She extended one jeweled hand, palm up. The afternoon light streaming through the tall windows caught the gems on her fingers, sending fractured rainbows dancing across the walls. "Give me the Anchoring Obsidian stone."
Her voice was deceptively calm, but I could hear the barely controlled fury that made my stomach clench with dread.
Ari's smile widened into something that belonged more on the Cheshire Cat than a man. He leaned back in his chair with exasperating ease, as if they were debating wine selections rather than a magical artifact that could change the fate of both worlds. "You don't think I would be foolish enough to bring it with me, do you, Your Majesty?" His tone was light, almost playful, but there was an edge beneath it sharp enough to cut glass. "I do value my head."
The silence that followed was heavy enough to crush me, thick with unspoken threats and simmering violence.
She glared at me with pure hatred. “Maybe I’ll cut your little prisoner’s head off.”
I put my hand against my throat. Panic twisted through my gut like a corkscrew. Tingles pumped through me, and shadows coiled around my feet like snakes, ready to strike.
Ari pointed toward my feet with obvious satisfaction. “I don’t think her shadows would want you to do that, Your Majesty.”
Queen Alanna’s face drained of all color as she sank back into her ornate throne. Her jeweled fingers gripped the armrests so tight her knuckles went white. The confident mask she’d worn earlier seemed to crack right before my eyes. “What is it that you want, Ari?”
I filed this moment away—proof the queen wasn't invulnerable, that Ari held something over her. But I couldn't celebrate her weakness, not when it meant Ari's power was even greater than I'd feared. Whatever game they were playing, I was just a piece on the board.
Ari leaned forward in his chair, and it looked like he was savoring her discomfort a little too much. “I’ve told you. I want to restore the Dark Demons back to power, but I need your armyto get it.” His fingers drummed against the leather armrest in a steady, hypnotic rhythm that made my heart stutter.
“And what do I get out of it?” Her eyes darted between Ari and the shadows still coiling protectively around my feet, and I could practically see her recalculating her options.
My shadows pulsed with protective energy, and part of me took comfort in that. They'd saved me before—they could save me again. But the queen was studying them with an intensity that made my stomach clench. She wasn't afraid. She wasassessing. And I had no idea what weapons she possessed, what magic she could wield that my shadows couldn't defend against.
He lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug that looked maddeningly casual. “Power, revenge. What is it that you want?”
She sat taller in her chair. “My brother dead for starters. And I want the Anchoring Obsidian stone.”
I shrank deeper into my chair, watching this negotiation unfold like a deadly game of chess. She seemed willing to do anything to preserve her reign—including cold-blooded murder.
“There’s a problem with the stone.” Ari’s tone shifted and was almost apologetic. “I didn’t realize it until I brought it back to St. Louis Cathedral.”
She narrowed her eyes to dangerous slits, and the temperature in the room dropped even colder to the point that my teeth chattered. “Problem? What problem?”
“According to my witch, the stone has lost some of its potency. She even suggested it was dying. Would being out of this dimension cause the stone to do this?”
I studied his face, searching for any tell—a flicker in his eyes, a twitch at the corner of his mouth—anything that would reveal whether this was truth or manipulation. Was the stone really dying, or was this another of Ari's games? He'd lie about anything if it served his purpose. But if itwastrue, if the stone was losing power...that changed everything.
“I’m not sure.”
She got out of her seat and headed over to the mirror. I shifted in my chair, my heart racing.
Ari appeared to be calm and curious. Curiosity was the last thing on my mind. I wanted to get out of this room, this kingdom, this world.
She stood in front of the mirror, her voice taking on an otherworldly resonance as she spoke in what sounded like ancient Latin. "Speculum, ostende mihi lapidem Obsidianus."
The mirror's surface shimmered and rippled outward like concentric circles from a stone thrown into still water. My breath hitched as the vision came into focus, revealing the familiar broken rose window of St. Louis Cathedral—but everything had gotten so much worse.
The vines circling the cathedral had grown monstrously thick since I'd been gone, their thorns now as long as daggers and sharp as razors. They formed an impenetrable viney wall that completely cocooned the sacred building, pulsing with dark energy that made my skin crawl even through the mirror's reflection. Spanish moss hung from the twisted branches like tattered burial shrouds, swaying in the humid bayou air.
Then the view slipped inside the cathedral, and I had to press my hand over my mouth to stifle a cry of horror. Valentin was still chained to that marble pillar, his head hanging forward in exhaustion or unconsciousness. Blood had dried on his wrists where the shackles had rubbed them raw. Gunnar and Ebony remained trapped in their respective cages, but even from this distance I could see how much paler and weaker they looked.
