Reign of the Stone Queen Read online

  Jasper lunged at Finvarra, who’d sprang from the bed, the yellow blade drawn back. The Unseelie High King was naked. All Jasper had to do was nick Finvarra’s skin. I wanted to help, but if I got in the way, Jasper might accidentally cut me.

  Magic flashed at my back, and I whirled to find Melusine creating a blockade across the open doorway. There was a crash behind me. The two struggling men had fallen to the floor, Jasper on top. The hand holding Gae Buide was raised, but Finvarra had a hold of Jasper’s wrist. Finvarra wasn’t an Old One, but he was very old. Age meant strength in Faerie.

  Deciding it was more important to try to finish the job than keep my cover, I drew Aurora and moved closer to the fight. If I could injure Finvarra, it would make Jasper’s job easier.

  “Drop the knife on him!” I said to Jasper. “You only need a small cut.”

  Following my suggestion, Jasper let the knife go. I froze, watching as the blade left his hand. It was point-down, heading for Finvarra’s upper chest.

  Just as the blade would have made contact, a nearby window shattered inward and a dark shroud of shadow rushed in and surrounded Finvarra. And then the shadow disappeared, Finvarra along with it. Jasper fell forward, catching himself on his hands. The dagger had clattered to the floor.

  I whirled. “Where the hell did he go?” I shouted.

  A familiar prickling began to creep into my skin and work its way deeper. Jasper’s glamour was gone. A glance down told me mine had dissolved, too.

  “Melusine, it’s Eldon,” I said, turning to the Fae witch. Her disguise had disappeared as well. “He’s trying to take control of me.”

  I managed to get the words out just before magic sealed my lips. My gaze swung to the window as Eldon appeared there, standing on the sill and nearly filling the space.

  I saw his face as he caught sight of Melusine. His eyes widened, and then the strangest expression swept over his face. For a split second, his normally stoic demeanor cracked. He looked oddly captivated.

  “My lady Fae witch,” he said, one corner of his mouth quirking.

  I could only see Melusine’s disguise, but Eldon must have been able to see through it.

  Then his hands whipped up, palms out, and the gloaming began streaming toward us. Dark as the deepest forest shadows, it surrounded me, blinding me and choking off my air.

  Melusine cackled from somewhere off to my left. “Oh Eldon, you and your ridiculous shadows.”

  A blinding flash cut through the gloaming. Moisture and the smell of singing mold billowed up my nostrils as the darkness began to retract in curling tendrils. My eyes watering from the bright light and offending scent, I backpedaled to get out of the way of the magic hurling through the air.

  From Melusine’s hands, pure yellow-white light flooded into the room, driving back the gloaming. Eldon was still standing in the window, and in a break in the shadows, I saw a small smile curling his mouth. His lips moved as he whispered chants, and his fingers flicked through the air so fast they nearly blurred.

  It was a clash of Old Ones, Melusine’s light power against Eldon’s shadow magic. The air seemed to electrify, saturated and alive with magic. Pressing my back against the wall, I could only watch, open-mouthed for a second or two.

  “Are we going to die?”

  I looked to my right, where the woman who’d been keeping Finvarra company cowered against the wall. Her green eyes were wide with terror, and she clutched the bedsheet against her chest in a white-knuckled grip. I’d never seen her before we’d burst into the room.

  “I sure as hell hope not,” I said. I slid down the wall into a crouch, just in case any stray magic came flying my way. The woman did the same.

  Holding up a hand to shade my eyes, I squinted through the room, looking for Jasper. He’d ended up on the other side of the four-poster bed but was military-crawling under it toward me.

  He stood and brushed himself off, watching first Melusine and then Eldon.

  “She’s losing,” he said, kneeling next to me. His face was tight with anger, but I knew it had nothing to do with the magical battle that was waging in front of us. Finvarra was gone. We’d lost our chance.

  I frowned. I thought Melusine had been holding her own just fine against the Fae sorcerer. If anything, she seemed to be genuinely enjoying the battle, tittering to herself every few seconds.

  “Petra, get that portal jewel ready.” Jasper’s voice was thick with warning.

  “No, she’s doing okay,” I said. But I dug into my pocket and my hand closed around the pouch, just in case Jasper knew something I didn’t. “We need to find Finvarra. What’d Eldon do with him?”

  His brow wrinkled in confusion, and he flicked a quick glance at me. “Eldon only provided the cover. Finvarra shifted into a very small bird. Maybe a hummingbird. I couldn’t see very well through the gloaming. He escaped out the window.” His face darkened in frustration, and he pounded a fist against his thigh. “Gods damn it, he’s gone. I had my chance, and I lost it.”

  I swore under my breath. I wanted to say something comforting, to make a joke about how we’d reduced the Unseelie High King to a barely more than a moth, but Jasper was right. We probably wouldn’t get a shot like that again, and that was very, very bad. But it was done, and I needed to get on with the business of saving my own realm. First, we had to make it out alive. My gaze fixed on Melusine.

  “She’s tiring,” I said tightly. “She’s holding the shield back at the Summerlands, too.”

  Jasper gave his head a shake. “Damn, that’s right. We need to get her out of here. Let’s get closer.”

  Jasper and I began crawling toward Melusine, but I wasn’t sure she even noticed us. She had begun gleefully shouting insults at Eldon.

  “White-haired mushroom eater!” she hollered. “Fern sniffing grub lover!”

  Her name-calling seemed to have a theme. For four hundred, what are things you find in dark pockets of the forest, Alex?

  We got behind her and gingerly rose. I stuck my fingers into the velvet envelope and plucked out the jewel and was just about to try to get her attention when a shrieking form came running at us.

  “Don’t leave me here!” the woman in the sheet pleaded. “He thinks I aided you. He’ll kill me!”

  She crashed into me, and the jewel went flying up into the air.

  “Say the words, quick,” Jasper bellowed.

  I gasped and then began chanting. Light was already bursting from the jewel.

  He grabbed my hand and dove at Melusine, grasping her wrist with his other hand. We all had to be in contact in order to go through the jewel’s doorway together. His impact interrupted her magic, and the gloaming rushed in. A jet of it, meant for Melusine, pummeled against Jasper’s temple. His head jerked to one side, and then I lost my sight in the brightness of the jewel.

  Something clipped my ankle, and I stumbled. I couldn’t see a thing. I only felt Jasper’s hand in mine, and something tugging at my foot, and then I lost all physical sense as we fell into the void of the netherwhere.

  We reentered the world in a tangle, tumbling and separating onto the grass of the Summerlands grounds. I jumped to my feet. Melusine rose and began brushing green blades off her dress. The woman from Finvarra’s room had somehow become rolled up in her sheet.

  Wait, what?

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded.

  But I forgot all about the hitchhiker when I caught sight of Jasper’s still form sprawled on the other side of the woman.

  I rushed to him and landed next to his shoulder. His face was pale and slack, his eyelids half closed. He wasn’t breathing. I pressed my fingers to the side of his neck.

  Nothing. My heart tumbled.

  “No, no, no,” I whispered.

  Fear seared through me in a bolt of lightning, and I realized that I could lose both my father and Jasper. I was fairly certain Oliver was dead, though I’d done my damnedest to not allow myself to think about it. If Jasper died, if I lost both him and
my father, I would never, ever recover.

  Tipping Jasper’s head back, I frantically tried to remember the correct steps for CPR. I pinched his nose and lowered my mouth to his and began rescue breathing.

  Chapter 4

  MELUSINE SNORTED DERISIVELY behind me, and anger laced my veins.

  I glared up at her through tears as I stacked my hands and began chest compressions on Jasper’s sternum.

  “Move,” she commanded.

  Her fingers made nimble gestures, and jets of sunlight shot from her fingertips. Heat singed my arm as it zipped past me.

  I slapped my hand over the slice in my shirt and fell back on my butt. “Ow.”

  “Told you to move.”

  Melusine’s magic split into tendrils that wound to Jasper’s head, entering his nostrils, mouth, ears, and even his eyes. Just like Eldon had done with his shadow magic when he’d tried to revive King Sebastian. That hadn’t worked, though.

  I sat perfectly still, my breath dead in my dry throat and my eyes glued to Jasper’s chest.

  Seconds ticked by, but he didn’t move.

  “Please,” I exhaled, slumping. “Please, wake up.”

  “Hush,” Melusine hissed irritably.

  Magic like ribbons of sunlight continued to stream from the Fae witch to Jasper.

  I started to shake my head and sucked in a breath that was more of a sob. It’d been too long. It wasn’t going to work. Jasper was gone, and—

  His eyes popped wide, his back arched in an impossible angle, and he drank a loud lungful of air through his mouth. His body went limp, and he lay staring up at the sky, breathing hard. I crawled over to him, let my forehead fall to his chest, and lost it for a few seconds as I felt the glorious rise and fall of his breastbone and the thump of his heart.

  His hand found my hair. “Hey. Why are you crying?”

  I lifted my head and looked into his tri-colored eyes. “Because you were dead for about five minutes.” I swiped the backs of my hands across my cheeks, but a fresh wave of tears filled my eyes. “I was sure I’d lost . . .”

  I couldn’t finish the sentence. Jasper sat up and folded me into his arms.

  A ground-shaking blast jolted me from my misery. I looked up just in time to see a giant flaming ball of neon-yellow spitfire land only about ten yards away.

  “Up with you,” Melusine barked, already gathering her skirts in her hands. “I didn’t bring you back from death only to have you die by spitfire.”

  She lifted her hem and ran ahead of us toward the white castle of the Summerlands. Jasper and I scrambled to our feet and took off after Melusine. Finvarra’s lover abandoned modesty and joined us, sprinting naked with her sheet trailing behind her like a banner. She let out little shrieks each time a boom erupted through the air.

  The portal jewel had brought us to the unprotected grounds surrounding Oberon and Titania’s stronghold, and we had about a quarter of a mile to go to reach the drawbridge that would take us into safety.

  I stayed close to Jasper, fearing that after his ordeal this sudden strenuous burst might cause him to collapse. But he seemed as strong as ever. I wanted so badly to reach for his hand, but it would have slowed us down.

  I kept Jasper in my line of vision while shouting over at the naked woman running next to me. “What’s your name?”

  I flicked a glance at her when she didn’t respond. She looked wild-eyed and pale, her attention fully on the drawbridge ahead.

  “Hey,” I said. “You’re going to be okay.”

  She tore her gaze from the lowering doorway of salvation long enough to lock eyes with me. “Eunice.”

  “Well, it’s your lucky day, Eunice,” I said, breathing hard. “You’re about to enter the protection of the High King Oberon.”

  She let out a little relieved sob.

  Avian screeches sounded overhead, and I looked up to find an impossibly huge hawk circling directly above us. I drew Aurora and pushed magic over my skin and into my weapon. Violet flames of power lit my fist, and the sword’s sunrise colors swelled. It wasn’t the same kind of connection I had with Mort, but pushing magic into Aurora seemed to heighten my strength and reflexes when I wielded it. The great sword almost seemed to anticipate my actions. I looked up again and stumbled. The hawk was at least twice as large as any Great Raven I’d ever seen. And its predatory, beady eyes were trained on us.

  “What the hell is that?” I shouted.

  Jasper had twisted to look up at the bird. His eyes narrowed.

  “It’s Finvarra,” he said, his voice low. “He must have somehow figured out we came here. He’s coming for me.”

  We’d lost our disguises at the hands of Eldon’s magic. Finvarra knew who we were. All of the terror I’d felt while Jasper had lay dead in the grass flooded through me anew, but now I transformed it into fury and focus.

  “Oh no he’s not,” I growled.

  The bird folded its wings against its body and dove, a feathered missile aiming straight for us.

  All of the emotions I’d shoved down over the past several days seemed to spring to life and pour into my veins. Mentally calculating the hawk’s trajectory, I sped up, darting ahead toward one of the many small rises that formed a field of little hills on the grounds. I let my armor fall away so I’d be lighter for a jump. I raced up the hill, and with a wild yell, I hurled off the top, using all of my inborn stone blood strength to gain unnatural height in the air.

  For a couple of seconds, I flew, hurtling over Jasper and the woman as they ran past, ready to meet Finvarra in the air. The wind kicked up by the bird’s huge wings snatched at my clothes and hair. Everything seemed to slow as my sword appeared to be on a perfectly calculated collision course with the bird’s neck. At the last second, the hawk realized it was headed straight for my blade and wildly dipped one wing, trying to avoid me. I brought Aurora down like a hammer anyway.

  The sword flared with orange light and sliced through the wing, hitting about a third of the way from the end. The hawk let out a deafening shriek of fury. Feathers spewed everywhere.

  I fell, managing a clumsy roll to distribute the impact when I hit the ground. Aurora tore from my grasp. Pain screamed through my arm. In spite of my rolling landing, I still hit my shoulder hard enough to dislocate it.

  Muffling a screech behind pursed lips, I scrambled after my sword, scooped it up, and raced to catch up with the others.

  Jasper had skidded to a halt and was starting to run back toward me.

  “Go, go.” I waved my sword at him.

  He waited for me anyway.

  “Are you all right?” I asked through gritted teeth.

  He flashed me a tight smile, his tri-colored eyes sparking. “Aye, never better, Your Majesty.”

  I looked over my shoulder to see the hawk making a lopsided retreat. The severed piece of wing lay on the grass where it’d fallen. It wasn’t a mortal wound—only Jasper could have killed Finvarra—but it was serious enough to give us a chance to make it into the castle.

  Every step was jarring agony on my shoulder. I locked my eyes on the drawbridge and tried to block out everything else.

  The guards at the gate must have been expecting us. Either that, or they recognized Melusine, who’d pulled ahead by about twenty yards. The drawbridge lowered rapidly, making crashing contact with the cobblestones just as we reached the moat.

  Melusine and the Eunice made it into the castle first. Jasper and I crossed the bridge together. Once inside, I collapsed to my knees and let out an agonized cry through my teeth. Aurora fell from my hand.

  Jasper knelt next to me. “What? What’s wrong?”

  I cradled my damaged arm. “Dislocation.”

  He quickly shifted around to that side, braced one hand against my shoulder, and grabbed my dislocated arm above the elbow. Without hesitation, he yanked.

  I screamed and whacked him in the breastplate with my free fist. It hurt my knuckles enough to momentarily distract me from my shoulder. With heaving, ragged breaths
, I folded over on myself and squeezed my eyes closed. The pain was already retreating.

  “Sorry I punched you,” I mumbled.

  He chuckled. “It hurt you more than it hurt me.”

  With an arm slung around my lower back, he gently helped me stand.

  I took a long, shuddering breath and tipped my gaze up to meet his.

  “Don’t you ever, ever die on me again,” I said fiercely, my voice ragged with emotion.

  He lowered his head and covered my mouth with his. The warmth of his lips on mine was exactly the reassurance I needed.

  He pulled back, his golden eyes inches from mine. “I don’t plan to.”

  King Oberon was sweeping into the grand entry, so Jasper stepped away from me so he could bend at the waist in a bow.

  I swayed a little, feeling weak and lightheaded, but forced my spine straight. For gods’ sake, it was just a dislocated shoulder. Jasper was the one who’d come back from death.

  “Your Majesty,” I greeted Oberon.

  He looked grim. His gazes shifted to Eunice, and his eyes pinched with irritation. “Who is this? We cannot allow strangers within these walls.” He turned and beckoned to one of the guards. “Take her to the dungeon.”

  “No,” I said, skirting a glance at Eunice. I hoped she appreciated what I was about to do. “She was an innocent bystander. I’ve promised her protection.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me and brandished his index finger. “Then she is your responsibility. She will not be allowed to wander.”

  I nodded.

  “King Oberon, I regret that I failed in my mission to—” Jasper began.

  “I know,” Oberon said, cutting him off. “We don’t have time. I’ve news of more Unseelie forces on the move and heading here.” He looked at me. “You must go to the fortress and take the throne. You can’t wait any longer. It’s time to oust Periclase from your kingdom.”

  I inclined my head. I certainly couldn’t argue, though I didn’t have a plan for exactly how I would make things work back home.

  The High King turned his attention to Jasper. “You must continue the search for a weapon that can help us against Finvarra’s Stone of Fal.”