Marissa was in the center of the room trading magical blows with the king, and Solana was using all her might to stretch her protective shield so that it encompassed herself, Clarke, and now the two boys he plucked out of the crib. Ayden and Ariyon wailed, and Marissa directed her attention that way. Marissa pivoted to the sound of the children and raised her hands as if to strike out at them with her magic.
“No!” Solana cried, pulling even more power into her shields. Marissa tossed a purple-and-orange ball of Undying Fire right at Clarke, who held the twins, and my heart leaped into my throat as fear consumed Solana and me in tandem. The fireball splashed across the shield as if hitting glass. Solanawanted to kill Marissa right then, but she was using all her magic to protect the boys.
Clarke grunted as he used his telekinesis magic to open a secret bookcase at the back wall and carry the boys inside.
Marissa peered at Clarke as he tried to leave. There was so much hatred in her gaze, it confused me.
“This is all your fault,” Marissa sneered at him.
Clarke looked like he’d been kicked in the stomach. “I tried to save you from yourself,” he muttered.
Clarke’s fault? I felt Solana’s confusion as well, but Marissa was insane and not making sense, so she let it go.
Solana peered at Marissa’s stomach then and noticed it was flat. “Where is the baby?” Solana asked, her maternal instinct welling up. Did she kill her baby? Solana wouldn’t put it past her.
“If anyone alive today or their descendants kills my daughter, then the next Madden heir will drop dead!” Marissa spat in the king’s direction, and her snake familiar struck. The king had positioned himself in front of the queen and had been preoccupied making sure that Clarke got the boys out. The snake hit him right in the chest, where his heart was.
No. Another curse.
Solana snapped then. But so did Queen Rune. They both ran at Marissa, magic filled in their palms and battle cries on their lips. But Ayden and Ariyon’s mother never even had a chance. She had barely taken a few steps toward Marissa when my birth mother reached out and grabbed Rune by the throat, unleashing the destructive magic I’d once used on Solana’s very own guard’s blade. One second, Rune was there—the next, she was ash.
Shock and fury filled Solana, and she exploded, literally. White light formed in a concentrated beam and slammed into Marissa’s chest, knocking her backward onto the floor. Hersnake familiar fell limp to the ground, and Marissa’s eyes rolled back in her head. In the center of my birth mother’s chest was a hole the size of a melon, blood freely pouring out.
She was dead.
“Arkin!” Solana sobbed as she fell onto the bed where the king lay. A trail of poison-black veins grew up his neck to his eyes, white foam on his lips, no more life in his eyes.
“Rune!” Solana made her way to where the queen was just a pile of ash on the floor.
They were both dead, and Solana was losing her grip on reality, the horror of everything sinking in. She heaved huge lungsful of air in and out, but the panic wouldn’t subside.
A guard rushed in with his blade drawn and stared in shock at the scene before him.
“Princess Solana. What…”
She was wailing, and I felt her grief into the very core of my being. Her brother who she loved deeply. She didn’t have many friends growing up, and Avis and Arkin were all she had. Her best friends. Now he was gone. She couldn’t accept it. She wouldn’t. Propriety demanded that she be stone-faced and bark orders at the guard and take up position as the next reigning monarch, but she couldn’t. All she could do was sob as the agony poured out of her.
“The twins?” The guard looked frantically around the room.
That shut the waterworks off immediately. Her nephews.
Solana flew into protective aunt mode.
“They escaped with Clarke through the tunnel.” She rushed to the bookcase and threw it open. I felt her mind spiral out of control. Her brother and sister-in-law were dead. She couldn’t be queen without an heir, and she was barren. The princes were the only thing keeping the Madden monarchy alive. She loved them so much, but she thought they wouldn’t be safe here at the palace with her. If there was another attack, it was too easyto take the entire bloodline out, with all three of them living together. No, she would get a nanny and raise them outside the palace, and—
I was yanked from the memory as Solana pulled the crown off my head. Being so immersed in that horrific scene and then being torn away from it so suddenly caused me to gasp.
I reached up to feel that my cheeks were wet. The pain in my heart from feeling what Solana felt was so raw. It had been like I was there, like IwasSolana.
The queen returned the crowns to the box quietly and then sat down on the chair next to me, folding her hands in her lap and staring at them.
I didn’t know what to say.
Did Marissa’s behavior excuse the queen for cursing me? No.
But could I now understand why Solana had done it? Yeah, I suppose I could.
Knowing that she was there when her brother and sister-in-law died, that she saw it all, softened my heart to her fully.
