A Darker Shade of Magic (44 page)

Lila’s fingers shifted on her knife.

“Good-bye, Astrid,” she said, plunging the blade forward toward the queen’s chest.

But before the tip could tear the white tunic, a hand caught Lila’s wrist. She looked down to see Astrid Dane’s pale blue eyes staring up at her. Awake. The queen’s mouth drew into a thin, sharp smile.

“Bad little thief,” she whispered. And then Astrid’s grip tightened, and searing pain tore up Lila’s arm. She heard someone screaming, and it took her a moment to realize the sound was coming from her throat.

* * *

Blood streaked Athos’s cheek.

Kell gasped for breath.

The king’s white cloak was torn, and shallow gashes marred Kell’s leg, his wrist, his stomach. Half the statues in the courtyard around them lay toppled and broken as the magic clashed, striking against itself like flint.

“I will take that black eye of yours,” said Athos, “and wear it around my neck.”

He lashed out again, and Kell countered, will to will, stone to stone. But Kell was fighting two fights, one with the king, and the other with himself. The darkness kept spreading, claiming more of him with every moment, every motion. He could not win; at this rate, he would either lose the fight or lose himself. Something had to give.

Athos’s magic found a fissure in Kell’s shadow-drawn shield and hit him hard, cracking his ribs. Kell coughed, tasting blood as he fought to focus his vision on the king. He had to do something, and he had to do it soon. The royal half-sword glittered on the ground nearby. Athos lifted the stone to strike again.

“Is that all you have?” Kell goaded through gritted teeth. “The same, tired tricks? You lack your sister’s creativity.”

Athos’s eyes narrowed. And then he held out the stone and summoned something new.

Not a wall, or a blade, or a chain. No, the smoke coiled around him, shaping itself into a sinister curving shadow. A massive silver serpent with black eyes, its forked tongue flicking the air as it rose, taller than the king himself.

Kell forced himself to give a low, derisive laugh, even though it hurt his broken ribs. He fetched the royal half-sword from the ground. It was chipped and slick with dust and blood, but he could still make out the symbols running down its metal length. “I’ve been waiting for you to do that,” he said. “Create something strong enough to kill me. Since you clearly cannot do it yourself.”

Athos frowned. “What does it matter, the shape your death takes? It is still at my hand.”

“You said you wanted to kill me yourself,” countered Kell. “But I suppose this is as close as you can come. Go ahead and hide behind the stone’s magic. Call it your own.”

Athos let out a low growl. “You’re right,” he said. “Your death should—and will—be mine.”

He tightened his fingers around the stone, clearly intending to dispel the serpent. The snake, which had been slithering around the king, now stopped its course, but it did not dissolve. Instead, it turned its glossy black eyes on Athos, the way Kell’s mirror image had on Lila in her room. Athos glared up at the serpent, willing it away. When it did not obey his thought, he gave voice to the command.

“You submit to
me
,” ordered Athos as the serpent flicked its tongue. “You are my creation, and I am your—”

He never had the chance to finish.

The serpent reared back and struck. Its fanged jaws closed over the stone in Athos’s hand, and before the king could even scream, the snake had enveloped him. Its silver body coiled around his arms and chest, and then around his neck, snapping it with an audible crack.

Kell sucked in a breath as Athos Dane’s head slumped forward, the terrifying king reduced to nothing but a rag doll corpse. The serpent uncoiled, and the king’s body tumbled forward to the broken ground. And then the serpent turned its shining black eyes on Kell. It slithered toward him with frightening speed, but Kell was ready.

He drove the royal half-sword up into the serpent’s belly. It pierced the snake’s rough skin, the spellwork on the metal glowing for an instant before the creature’s thrashing broke the blade in two. The snake shuddered and fell, dispelled to nothing but a shadow at Kell’s feet.

A shadow, and in the midst of it, a broken piece of black stone.

IV

Lila’s back hit the pillar hard.

She crumpled to the stone floor of the throne room, and blood ran into her false eye as she struggled to push herself to her hands and knees. Her shoulder cried out with pain, but so did the rest of her. She tried not to think about it. Astrid, meanwhile, seemed to be having a grand time. She was smiling lazily at Lila, like a cat with a kitchen mouse.

“I am going to cut that smile off your face,” growled Lila as she staggered to her feet.

She had been in a lot of fights with a lot of people, but she’d never fought anyone like Astrid Dane. The woman moved with both jarring speed and awkward grace, one moment slow and smooth, the next striking so fast that it was all Lila could do to stay on her feet. Stay alive.

Lila knew she was going to lose.

Lila knew she was going to
die
.

But she’d be damned if it counted for nothing.

Judging by the rumbling of the castle grounds around them, Kell had his hands full. The least she could do was keep the number of Danes he had to fight to one. Buy him a little time.

Honestly, what had happened to her? The Lila Bard of south London looked out for herself. That Lila would never waste her life on someone else. She’d never choose right over wrong so long as wrong meant staying alive. She’d never have turned back to help the stranger who helped her. Lila spit a mouthful of blood and straightened. Perhaps she never should have stolen the damned stone, but even here, and now, facing death in the form of a pale queen, she didn’t regret it. She’d wanted freedom. She’d wanted adventure. And she didn’t think she minded dying for it. She only wished dying didn’t hurt so much.

“You’ve gotten in the way long enough,” said Astrid, raising her hands in front of her.

Lila’s mouth quirked. “I do seem to have a talent for that.”

Astrid began to speak in that guttural tongue Lila had heard in the streets. But in the queen’s mouth, the words sounded different. Strange and harsh and beautiful, they poured from her lips, rustling like a breeze through rotting leaves. They reminded Lila of the music blanketing the crowd in Rhy’s parade, sound made physical.
Powerful.

And Lila wasn’t foolish enough to stand there and listen to it. Her pistol, now empty, lay discarded several feet away, her newest knife at the foot of the throne. She still had one dagger at her back and she went for it, sliding the weapon free. But before the blade could leave her fingers, Astrid finished the incantation, and a wave of energy slammed into Lila, knocking the wind out of her lungs as she hit the floor and slid several feet.

She rolled up into a crouch, gasping for air. The queen was toying with her.

Astrid’s fingers rose as she prepared to strike again, and Lila knew it was her only chance. Her fingers tightened on the dagger, and she threw it, hard and fast and straight, at the queen’s heart. It flew right at Astrid, but instead of dodging, she simply reached out and plucked the metal out of the air. With her bare hand. Lila’s heart sank as the queen snapped the blade in two and tossed the pieces aside, all without interrupting her spell.

Shit
, thought Lila, right before the stone floor beneath her began to rumble and shake. She fought to keep her footing and very nearly missed the wave of broken stone cresting over her head. Pebbles rained from above, and she dove out of the way just as the whole thing came crashing down. She was fast, but not fast enough. Pain tore up her right side, her leg, from heel to knee, which was trapped beneath the rubble, pale stone flecked with fragments of whitened rock.

No, not whitened rock
, realized Lila with horror.

Bones.

Lila scrambled to free her leg, but Astrid was there, wrenching her onto her back and kneeling on her chest. Astrid reached down and ripped the horned mask from Lila’s facs, tossing it aside. She took hold of Lila’s jaw and wrenched her face up to hers.

“Pretty little thing,” said the queen. “Under all that blood.”

“Burn in hell,” spat Lila.

Astrid only smiled. And then the nails of her other hand sank into Lila’s wounded shoulder. Lila bit back a scream and thrashed under the queen’s grip, but it was no use.

“If you’re going to kill me,” she snapped, “just do it already.”

“Oh, I will,” said Astrid, withdrawing her fingers from Lila’s throbbing shoulder. “But not yet. When I have finished with Kell, I shall come back for you, and I shall take my time divesting you of your life. And when I’m done, I’ll add you to my floor.” She held up her hand between them, showing Lila her fingertips, now stained with blood. It was such a vivid red against the queen’s pale skin. “But first …” Astrid brought a bloody finger to the place between Lila’s eyes, tracing a pattern there.

Lila fought as hard as she could to get free, but Astrid was an unmovable force on top of her, pinning her down as she drew a bloody mark on her own pale forehead.

Astrid began to speak, low and fast and in that other tongue. Lila struggled frantically now, and tried to scream, attempting to interrupt the spell, but the queen’s long fingers clamped over her mouth, and Astrid’s spell spilled out, taking shape in the air around them. A spike of ice shot through Lila, her skin prickling as the magic rippled over her. And above her, the queen’s face began to
change
.

Her chin sharpened, and her cheeks warmed from porcelain to a healthier hue. Her lips reddened, and her eyes darkened from blue to brown—two different shades—and her hair, once as white as snow and wound about her head, now fell down onto her face, chestnut brown and chopped in a sharp line along her jaw. Even her clothes rippled and shifted and took on an all-too-familiar form. The queen smiled a knifelike grin, and Lila gazed up in horror not at Astrid Dane, but at the mirror image of herself.

When Astrid spoke, Lila’s own voice poured out. “I better go,” she said. “I’m sure Kell could use a hand.”

Lila swung a last, desperate punch, but Astrid caught her wrist as if it were nothing more than a nuisance, and pinned it against the floor. She bent her head over Lila’s, bringing her lips to her ear. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I’ll give him your regards.”

And then Astrid slammed Lila’s head back against the ruined floor, and Lila’s world went dark.

* * *

Kell stood in the stone courtyard, surrounded by broken statues, a dead king, and a jagged piece of black stone. He was bleeding, and broken, but he was still alive. He let the ruined royal sword slip through this fingers and clatter to the ground and drew a shuddering breath, the cold air burning his lungs and fogging in front of his bloody lips. Something was moving through him, warm and cool, lulling and dangerous. He wanted to stop fighting, wanted to give in, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t over yet.

Half of the stone pulsed against his palm. The other half glinted on the ground where the serpent had dropped it. It called to him, and Kell’s body moved of its own accord toward the missing piece. The stone guided his fingers down to the splintered ground and closed them around the fragment of rock waiting there. The moment the two pieces met, Kell felt words form on his lips.

“As Hasari,”
he said, the command spilling out on its own in a voice that was and wasn’t his. In his hand, the two halves of the stone began to
heal
. The pieces fused back together, the cracks untracing themselves until the surface was a smooth, unblemished black, and in its wake an immense power—clear, beautiful, and sweet—poured through Kell’s body, bringing with it a sense of right. A sense of
whole
. It filled him with calm. With quiet. The simple steady rhythm of magic pulled him down like sleep. All Kell wanted to do was to let go, to disappear into the power and darkness and peace.

Give in
, said a voice in his head. His eyes drifted shut, and he swayed on his feet.

And then he heard Lila’s voice calling his name.