The stone sarcophagi rumbled once more, and the force of it sent another wave of rage washing through me. I winced and pressed my hand to my head.
“Ever since that comet arrived in the sky,” the queen continued, “they’ve been…shifting.”
“Shifting?” Toryn’s alarmed voice rang against the stone but was soon drowned out by another deep rumble. “What do you mean,shifting?”
“If I were to guess?” she said with an arched brow. “I’d say it means they’re awakening.”
“I think we need to have this conversation somewhere else,” I said through gritted teeth. The pounding in my skull was growing louder, that dread growing even more oppressive. The longer we stood here, the worse it got. And I didn’t want to be in this cave to find out what happened if the gods inside these coffins truly did wake.
“They were banished,” Kalen said from behind me, a steady presence amid the heavy gloom. “Even my mother agreed with that, and she went to Talaven to ask them questions about the gods. The humans told her this directly. She would have been able to scent if they were lying.”
“Oh, yes, they were banished.” The queen’s eyes flicked to the coffins. “But to where? Did they tell her that?”
I could tell by the tensing of his body that no, the humans hadn’t divulged the details to Queen Bellicent Denare. They’d only told her just enough to convince her to force her son into a vow against an enemy she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—name.
“There’s no killing the gods, you see,” Queen Tatiana continued, reaching up to touch her necklace with a shaking finger. “There’s no ridding this world of them or forcing them off these lands. They’re too powerful. We’re too weak. All we could do was force them in those stone coffins and separate them from Andromeda. Because when she gets near them, they grow stronger. Soon, they’ll be strong enough to break free, no matter what wards we’ve put into place to prevent them from escaping.”
I glanced at the onyx gemstone necklace, understanding at once. Itwasn’ta sign of loyalty to the gods at all. It was a way for the queen to protect herself and her people from the influence of them, and to stop the gods from leaving their coffins. But if what she said was true—and the rumbles indicated that it was—none of that would matter soon.
Shoving down my blinding rage, I stepped to the edge of the dais to meet her steady gaze. “You need to get out of here. You need to take all the people of Gailfean and run.”
“I cannot,” she said with a sad smile. “I told you, I swore a vow when I learned of this place. I have to stay here in Gailfean and stand guard against the enemies when they rise. My power may not be strong enough to kill them, but it will slow them down. It will be enough foryouto get my people out of here in time.”
“Mother,” Toryn said, his voice hoarse. “You don’t mean that. You can’t just stay here and die.”
“I can, and I will.” She motioned Toryn forward. “Someone needs to hold them back long enough to get the people of Gailfean safely out of this city. I’m only glad that you sought out this place. Deep down, I knew you were still the stubborn, curious boy you’ve always been.”
Toryn shook his head and jogged down the steps. When he reached his mother, he took her hands in his and dropped his forehead to hers. “Mother. I’m so sorry I doubted you all this time. I should have listened to you. I should have—”
“Shh, my son,” she whispered, staring up at him with glassy eyes. “How were you to know? I was tasked with keeping this a secret from everyone, including you. You had no reason to suspect anything more was going on than what you knew.”
“This isn’t fair,” he ground out. “You can’t do this. You can’t sacrifice yourself, not like this. I’ve spent the last four hundred years angry with you. And now that I know the truth…we need moretime.”
She smiled up at him and palmed his scarred cheek. “It is a gift to have any time at all. Take what is given to you and use it wisely, just as I will now. Get our people out of here, Toryn. Make certain you wear the onyx and pass around as many gemstones as you can to everyone else. There’s a stash of them in my quarters. They will protect you from the influence of the gods.”
She lifted her necklace over her head and hung it around his neck.
“I can’t take this from you,” he said.
“You must. I’ve seen what happens to fae who are not protected from the influence of the gods. They become a twisted version of themselves.”
“Owen,” Toryn said.
She palmed his scarred face. “I am so sorry for what he did to you. Now, go. Hurry. We don’t know how much longer we have before the gods awake and tear this city down.”
As if angered by her words, the ground beneath our feet jolted us sideways. Kalen took my gloved hand and pulled me along behind him, rushing down the steps. Toryn was embracing his mother when we reached the cave floor, while Nellie looked on with a sad, distant look in her eyes, no doubt remembering the last times we’d seen our mother and father.
After Queen Tatiana pulled away from Toryn and motioned him toward the tunnel, she caught my arm before I could follow. There was a knowing glint in her eye. “I’ve spent a lot of time in this cave and a lot of time near these gods. They even tried tempting me to their side by gifting me with these claws and a host of other powers. Bribes, you see. So I know what they smell like, and you reek of them.”
Heart thundering, I opened my mouth to try to explain, but she cut me off before I could find the words. And then she took my gloved hand in hers and lifted it before her eyes.
“I did wonder when Oberon got so obsessed with getting you back to Albyria,” she murmured, a line pinched between her brow. “He was quite frantic, really. Far more concerned about you than he’d ever been about those other brides of his. Why, I couldn’t help but wonder. Was there something special about you? You’ve appeared normal enough so far, though your smell is a tad off. At first, I couldn’t put my finger on it. Not until just now when I found one of my beloved flowers covered in a layer of dust. Dead.”
“I…that was an accident.”
“I’m certain it was,” she said in a tight voice, reaching out to brush a few wayward strands of my golden hair away from my face, though she was careful not to touch my skin. “I heard a prophecy once upon a time. It said the gods will one day return, and they will crush this world beneath their boots unless we find a way to turn their own power against them. It also said there is only one person strong enough to do that. I wonder, could that one person be you?”
I let out a tense laugh. “If there’s one person strong enough to do that, it’s Kalen Denare. Even his own mother thought so.”
