Infinity (13 page)

Chapter Seventeen

I hit the water with a loud crack, and all the air in my body rushed out of my lungs in one solid push. My back burned from the sting of the impact, and when I tried to scream, water filled my mouth, and I swallowed it into my lungs. Flailing, I tried to kick myself to the surface, but the heavy weight of my sword pulled me down, dragging me toward the bottom. I scrambled upward but everything hurt, and my arms didn’t want to move. Nothing wanted to move.

Then there were strong arms wrapped around me and bodies pressed against my sides, and I was going up, being dragged to the surface by people I couldn’t see inside the murky, green depths.

“Breathe now, sister queen,” a familiar voice crooned as we broke the surface, and I sucked in a lung full of air. “Breathe easy now. You’re safe.”

I pulled in more air and let it out in a sob as Talia and two other mermaids began to swim me toward the grassy bank that surrounded their pool. “Talia? What are you—” I stared at her, my eyes wide and my heart pounding as Talia fought to lift me onto the cool grass. “Oh my God, I thought you were dead.”

“No.” She reached out to stroke my cheek, and I crumpled onto my side, dropping my head into her hand and letting it hang there.

“The wizards—” I coughed, spitting up water.

“Took us prisoner,” Talia said softly, still stroking my cheek and occasionally bringing her hand down over my wet hair. “Timbago and the rest of your staff were fighting bravely to protect us, but they were outnumbered. They couldn’t have protected us any more than they already had. There were too many of them, and when Timbago and the others were distracted by the Fate Maker’s army, the wizards surrounded us, and we didn’t have a chance.”

“Timbago…” I felt light-headed, as though I was going to be sick, at the thought of the goblin who’d been my friend, the goblin who’d died to protect me and my throne. He’d come back to me once—briefly—in death to share with me the secret of the Dragon’s Tear. He had been its keeper, its guardian.

“Is a fierce enemy when he’s riled,” Talia said and then smiled. “I watched him take on two wizards all by him—”

“He’s dead,” I whispered.

I heard the mermaids around us suck in their breath, and it was like the entire world had stopped as they stared at me. I struggled to sit back up and pushed my hair off my face. “He died at the labyrinth. They all died. The entire household staff.”

“All of them?” Talia asked, her face paling.

“The Fate Maker and Bavasama’s combined army killed them all,” I said, my voice trembling.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered into my hair.

“I thought you were dead, too. I went to the palace, and they were all dead and you were gone, and I thought you’d died with them.”

“Allie—”

“So many people have died,” I whispered. “Timbago and Darinda and all the dryads. My half brother Eamon. The village of Socastia. The Firas. I thought you were dead, too. I cried for you.”

“I know.” She cradled me close and patted my hair. “There was no way to send you word, no way to let you know that we had been taken prisoner. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.” I nodded, stunned. “I’m just glad you’re safe. Or as safe as any of us can actually be right now.”

“It will all be fine,” Talia said as she patted my head again. “Your army will come and save us, and we’ll all be home before you know it.”

“No, we won’t,” I said. “My aunt is going to kill me. She said that she’s going to use me as a bargaining chip to keep her throne, but I’m not stupid. She can’t risk me raising another army against her. She’ll kill me to keep from losing the throne. Just like she should have done with my mother.”

“She tried,” Talia said. “To kill your mother… But it didn’t work. Just like it won’t work if she tries to kill you.”

I looked at her, wide-eyed. “What?”

“You are the Golden Rose of Nerissette. You wear the crown. Life flows through you. From you. You are the reason this world blooms again, and the magic of this world won’t let her kill you.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, stunned.

“Haven’t you ever been curious?” she asked. “Fallen off the back of a dragon, faced the Fate Maker, and yet you’ve managed to survive with little more than a scratch. Don’t you wonder how you keep surviving things that would kill other people?”

“I…” I swallowed as I stared at her.

“You are the guardian of the First Leaf,” Talia explained.

“What?” I gaped at her. “But that’s the missing Relic…”

“Yes. The First Leaf, the key to perpetual life. You are its guardian.”

“No, I’m not. I mean, I have the leafy orb thingy…or I did. Bavasama gave it to me, and I gave it to Mercedes and she brought it with us, along with the rest of the relics, but there’s no magic in it. I mean”—I swallowed—“there’s obviously magic in it, but it’s like the Orb of Fate. It’s an illusion. It’s not like the Dragon’s Tear or the Mirror of Nerissette. There’s no magic there that I can touch, or use.”

“That’s because the First Leaf isn’t inside the Orb of the Dryads,” Talia said softly.

“What?” I asked. “But if the Orb of the Dryads—”

“Your crown,” Talia whispered, brushing her fingers over my forehead, just underneath the silver leaf at its center. “The Pleiades hid the First Leaf inside your crown.”

“My—”

“Then they locked that crown in a box that could only be opened in your presence. A Relic that only the rightful Golden Rose could touch.”

I stared at her. “You’re saying that my crown holds the Key to Eternal Life?”

“Yes,” she said. “When you wear your crown, the power of life itself flows through you, protecting you.”

“No.” I shook my head. “But other Roses have died. My grandmother, for one. We don’t have a room full of former queens hidden away inside the Palace. If the crown actually kept us from dying then—”

“The Rose Crown is given to the heir to the throne on her Five Thousandth day. The day you were brought to Nerissette from your world was yours. The crown is passed from the previous Rose to the new one to show her right to rule,” Talia said.

“So what? The previous queen just gives up the job and what? Goes and dies?”

“No.” She smiled at me. “The queen continues to rule until she’s no longer able, teaching the heir how to be a just and kind ruler. Then when her mortal life is at an end, she goes the way of all people of Nerissette and takes her place among the light of the Pleiades.”

“But my mother isn’t—”

“Your mother,” Talia said softly, “is a special case. Trapped in the World That Is, locked in an eternal sleep, she’s not able to rule, and so the throne passes to you even though she still lives.”

“But I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said quietly. “All I’ve done is thrown my people into war after war. First with the Fate Maker for my throne and then again for the Tear. When I trapped him in the Bleak, I thought that would end it. I had the Mirror of Nerissette destroyed, and I wear the Dragon’s Tear all the time, hidden under my shirt, just to make sure no one else can find a way to get to it. I thought that would end it, but it hasn’t. The fighting, the killing, it just won’t end.”

“The Mirror was destroyed?” Talia asked. “All of it? Every single piece was ground to dust?”

I swallowed. Should I lie to her? Only a few people knew that I’d kept a shard of the Mirror, that it still existed, hidden in my trouser pocket. A window between this world and The World That Is hidden with the key to this world’s greatest prison.

“Allie?” Talia stared at me, waiting for my answer.

“No.” I shook my head. “I kept a small piece of it. I let them grind the rest to dust, but I kept one small shard.”

“Oh, Allie.” She sighed.

“I had to,” I protested. “I couldn’t just leave her alone in The World That Is and not check on her. If it were your mother and you could see her again—even if you couldn’t save her—”

“I would have done the same thing,” she said quietly. “For even one more day with my mother, one more moment before she met her end, I would have given up the world. My throne. My people. All of it.”

“So what should I do?” I asked.

“When the time comes,” Talia whispered as she brought her hands up to cradle my cheeks. “When your army has marched into Bathune and taken the Palace of Night and you have your aunt kneeling at your feet, you’ll need the relics. All of them.”

“Why?”

“To end the fighting. To heal this world. To make the World of Dreams whole again,” she said.

“And how do I do that?” I asked.

“When the time comes,” Talia said, “you’ll know.”

“But I don’t know,” I said. “Why does everyone keep saying that?”

“You will,” she said. “You will know. But for right now you have to keep safe. Stay quiet and wait for your army to come so that we can end this once and for all.”

“I will.” I nodded as I pushed myself out of their tiny pool and onto the bank beside it. “You stay safe, too, okay?”

“We will,” she agreed.

I skirted away from the mermaids’ pool and tried to stay close to the high, black stone wall that surrounded the Palace of Night. Guards were posted every few feet on top of it—all of them armed, swords in hand as they watched me making my way through the small courtyard surrounding the mermaid’s prison. I was surprised they were letting me walk around alone like this.

Glancing up at the dark, imposing castle on my other side, I swallowed. If anyone ever needed an explanation of the differences between Nerissette and Bathune, all I’d have to do is show them this place.

The Crystal Palace of Nerissette was nothing more than a very big house with lots of rooms and a glass dome at the top. Before the Fate Maker’s first attack, the architect hadn’t even bothered building walls. The Crystal Palace, the Palace of Light, of Day, had been open to all, shining on the top of a hill.

Meanwhile, the Palace of Night looked like the evil queen’s castle out of a cartoon, with its high walls and twisting towers piercing the sky. All the place needed was a couple of buzzards and some bats flying around and it would have been every villain’s fantasy lair.

I reached a small gate and pushed it open, listening as it creaked and then gave way. It hadn’t even been locked. Obviously, they weren’t concerned about the mermaids getting up and walking away from their pools. Maybe, if I got lucky, we’d be able to use my aunt’s—and her army’s—laziness to our advantage when the time came.

I stepped into the larger, main courtyard at the front of the palace and looked around. Soldiers were wandering about, swords on their hips, and when I glanced up, even more guards were on the walls. But none of them were paying attention to me. They thought I’d been caught, trapped, unable to escape and too broken to even try. Which showed how stupid and arrogant my aunt and her army really were. One of her henchman dropped me out that window, yet he hadn’t even told anyone to keep watch over me?

I glanced around, looking for some sort of weakness—a door, a gate, even a place to hide and wait for someone else to come in so that I could make my escape out. I spotted a break in the stone and hurried toward it. If I could get the gate open and slip out without being noticed, I could get out of here. I knew Winston and Rhys would be moving the army at full speed toward us, so if I just kept moving toward them we were bound to meet up at some point.

“You’ll never get the gate open,” a dry voice announced from behind me. “The bar across it takes three of the empress’s strongest guards to move. You’ll not be able to lift it.”

I straightened up, turning to face a young man with messy black hair and broad shoulders. He looked like he was only a few years older than me. He stood in front of me with his hands shoved in the pockets of his dirt-smudged black trousers.

“Go away.” I looked from side to side, staring at the guards who had all turned to stare at us. I guess they
had
been expecting me to try and escape, and instead of trying to stop me, they’d decided to wait and watch me humiliate myself.

“If you somehow got past all of us, you could try to climb the wall.” He looked up and narrowed his eyes at the top of the wall. “But it’s been sanded smooth so getting up will be difficult. Even if you did manage to make it to the top, it’s covered in broken glass so there’s no real solution there, either. Not to mention the thirty-foot drop on the other side with nothing but rocks to break your fall.”

“So what do you suggest then?” I asked sarcastically.

“Suggest?” He stepped closer, peering down at me. The sides of his mouth flickered upward, but his eyes were cold, filled with hate.

“Since I can’t open the gate and I can’t climb the wall, what do you think I should do? Just give up? Let my aunt take my throne? Get down on my knees and beg? That isn’t going to happen.”

He reached out for me, and I stepped back, pulling my sword from its scabbard and pointing it at him. “I won’t surrender to her. Or anyone else for that matter.”

“You should put that down before someone gets hurt,” he said, his voice low and even.

“Come closer to me and someone will.” I backed toward the door, putting it at my back so that no one could sneak up behind me.

“I doubt it.” He stepped closer again, and I jabbed the sword out slightly, trying to ignore the way the tip was shaking.

“I will hurt you,” I said quietly. “And anyone else who gets in my way.”

“No, you won’t.” He turned to look at the rest of the guards who’d made a semicircle behind him, forcing me back against the heavy wooden gate.

“I will,” I swore, twisting my head side to side, desperately looking for some way to escape. “I’ve done it before. I’ve fought in battle, killed my enemies.”

“I’m sure you have.” He stepped closer, and I watched as my sword point trembled. “But you’ve never killed anyone in cold blood. Now come with me.”

I steeled my expression. “Why?”

“Because if you don’t come willingly, we’ll drag you back into the palace by force. At least this way you can keep your dignity. Even if you are as soaked as a river nymph.”

“I’m being held hostage here,” I said angrily. “There’s no dignity in that.”

He stepped closer still, the tip of my sword now nestled underneath his chin, and I could feel my hands shake even harder. “Really? Then do it. Prove that you’re some sort of warrior queen. Reclaim your dignity.”