Witch Queen (23 page)

“Impossible,” exclaimed the witch king. His
entire focus was on me once again. But in his black eyes, I saw a
flash of fear that might take him over the edge.

“I am what Fawkes says. I’m a steel maiden,
like my mother before me,” I said, and then added, “witch
king.”

“Yes, I can see that,” said the witch
king.

His eyes showed the same adoring and
disturbing gaze I had seen before.

“And so much like your mother, you are.”

Something I didn’t understand also showed in
his face.
Was it attraction? Hope?
And by the way the witch
queen shot daggers at me, I knew she had seen it too.

“My king,” said the witch queen, a light
tremor in her voice, “you can’t possibly believe this trick? She’s
no steel maiden. I can smell the human stink on her. She’s an
imposter. Kill her. I demand that you kill her.”

But the witch king ignored her, and his eyes
never left my face.

“What is your name?”

I raised my chin. “Elena, witch king.”

“Elena,” repeated the king, letting my name
run over his lips slowly. It made me feel like throwing up.

“And where are you from, Elena.”

I struggled not to react violently to his
oily stare. “From Anglia. From the Pit.”

“She’s no better than a rabid dog,”
exclaimed the witch queen.

I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of
looking at her this time.

The witch king looked as if my answer had
disgusted him. My hatred for him intensified.

“A jewel of Witchdom, born in the very slums
of the human waste,” he said. “How unfortunate.”

I straightened and looked him straight in
the eye.

“I’ve come to ask for your help,” I said
quickly before he decided to blast me with his magic again.

The witch king motioned for me to continue,
and I told him about the Great Race and the devastating power of
the stone, the Heart of Arcania.

He looked surprised at the mention of the
stone.

I kept a straight face as I moved on to the
high priests and told him that they were really necromancers, and
that they were responsible for the black blight.

I wasn’t sure if the witch king was really
hearing what I was saying because he kept staring at me with that
same dreamlike expression. It made my skin crawl.

“Which is why we’ve come to ask for your
help,” I finished. “If we don’t stop the priests, there’ll be
nothing left of Arcania. I’ve seen what they’re capable of, how
their black magic infects people and the land. It affects every
living thing. They’ll spread their evil, their blackness until
there is nothing but ash and death.
Fight magic with magic,
the high witch Ada said to me.”

I saw a flicker of anger in the king’s eyes
at the mention of her name, but I continued, “… which is why it’s
essential that we have an abundance of magic. We need an army of
witches to help us defeat the necromancer priests.”

“Is that so?” said the witch king, but I had
the feeling he wasn’t listening, or that he didn’t care.

“In my court for only a few minutes and
already making demands.”

I glanced nervously at Fawkes, but he was
looking at the king. My stomach clenched. I didn’t doubt that the
merciless witch king could have had me burned on the spot just for
talking out of line. But he hadn’t killed me yet.

“Necromancers,” said the witch king, “are a
thing of the past. There haven’t been any necromancers for hundreds
of years. They were destroyed long before humans came to
Arcania.”

“Maybe so,” I said. “But now they’re
back.”

The witch king was silent for a while. “This
stone, this Heart of Arcania,” said the witch king. “For what
purpose is it sought?”

“I was told that the stone had awakened, and
that it was some sort of conduit for magic. If the stone was used
by a dark force, like the necromancers, then it would magnify their
powers so they could unmake or remake the worlds. It could also
open doorways to other dimensions.”

“Magic stones are unpredictable.” The witch
king watched me without expression. “They yield wild, untamable
magic. Smaller stones are more easily manipulated than big ones.
The power of a stone the size of the Heart of Arcania would be
limitless.”

His dark eyes flashed. “What is
your
purpose in all this? With the stone?”

I shifted my weight. “Once we regain the
stone from the priests, we will destroy it or return it to its
dormant state.”

“What a shame to waste such power.”

He studied me thoughtfully. “A steel maiden
again in my court, I would never have believed it.”

I looked unflinchingly into his eyes and
said in my most controlled voice, “Will you help us?”

The witch king smiled at me. Then he turned
on his heel, his long hair trailing behind him like waves, climbed
the dais, and sat back down on his throne.

I could feel the witch queen’s eyes on me,
but I forced myself to look at the king. I couldn’t falter now. I
had to be strong.

“Will you help us, witch king?” I repeated
again, my throat tight.

The king watched me for a moment.

“I care nothing for what happens in Arcania.
I would consider it a favor if all the humans died. If these
so-called priests were capable of such magic, why would I want stop
them?”

I frowned at his blatant disregard for human
life, and I thought of Jon, and Rose, and all the lives of those we
came here to protect, our families and loved ones.

“But the black blight will reach Witchdom,”
I countered.

My voice rose, and I addressed the entire
Coven Council.

“The necromancer priests will not stop at
the borders of our world. They will come for Witchdom. They will
come for us all, witch or human, it won’t matter. You must see
that. Those who seek power will never stop wanting more until
they’ve conquered everything.”

I felt that I’d overstepped my boundaries
and stopped speaking.

The members of the Coven Council huddled in
deep conversation.

The king smiled, but his eyes stayed cold.
“I admire your boldness, Elena. Your mother had it, too, and I
always found it rather charming.”

I could see that the queen was grimacing,
and her swollen lips looked like they were about to burst.

I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of
relationship my mother had had with this king. Whatever it was, I
had a feeling it was the reason she’d fled Witchdom. It had to
be.

But why? What had happened between
them?
I could tell that the witch king had loved my mother. It
was obvious in his eyes. The witch king had loved her, and still
she’d left.

But the witch queen’s violet eyes haunted
me. And if my mother and this king had had an affair, it would have
been recently. That would explain the hate in the witch queen’s
eyes. The hate she felt for my mother was now directed at me.

“Witchdom is well protected from humans and
from magic,” continued the witch king. “These priests will die
before they enter
my
world. There are far worse things than
mere familiars that patrol our borders. There is old magic there
that cannot be undone, magic that was here before the arrival of
the humans.”

I couldn’t help but notice how he said
my
world
like he owned Witchdom. Maybe he did. My face burned with
anger, and I felt myself losing control.

“Please, will you help us?”

The king frowned at my lack of formality and
for forgetting my place once again.

“Will you help us, witch king?”

I was not about to beg. King or not, I still
had my pride, but if it meant losing Jon…

“No, I will not.”

It took a few moments, a few breaths, to
register what had just happened. My heart felt as if he had stabbed
it, as though he had killed the ones I held dear there.

“I can see this displeases you,” said the
witch king.

His gaze raked over me again, and I felt
myself go numb with disgust. He didn’t care.

I felt Fawkes’ eyes burning a hole in the
side of my temple. The men shifted nervously behind me. I couldn’t
look at them and see the despair that mirrored my own. We had come
all this way, lost our friends, and it was all for nothing.

My rage returned as bright as fire in my
eyes, and I blinked back the tears.

“But—but you must. You have to help. We came
all this way,” I urged, straining to find a good argument, but I
found nothing.

I had been foolish to think a king would
listen to me…me, a skinny, wretched young woman from the Pit. Of
course he wouldn’t. I had been a fool.

I could almost feel the witches in the
chamber closing in on us, as though they couldn’t wait to get their
fingers on us and rip us apart limb for limb.

If he wouldn’t help us, what were the odds
he’d let us go?

I could see the same fear haunted Fawkes,
but I could see rage in his eyes as well. Whatever happened now, I
knew Fawkes would fight for us. It was too late for regrets. I let
out a shaky breath and braced myself for what was coming.

I felt the witch queen watching me.

The witch king leaned back into his
human-hide throne.

“I’ll make you a deal,” said the witch
king.

“If you stay here and train as a steel
maiden, if you prove to me and to my court that you really are the
last steel maiden, you can have your army.”

I didn’t have to look at Fawkes to sense his
skepticism.

“Elena, don’t,” he whispered so that only I
could hear. “You don’t know him like I do…you don’t know what he’ll
do…what he’s capable of.”

“What choice do I have,” I whispered back.
“If there’s a slight chance he will help us, I
have
to take
it. You know I have to. It’s not like I have any other choice.
Unless you know of another way to get an army of witches?”

I took his silence as a
no
.

The way the witch king looked at me made me
realize that he wouldn’t let us go anyway, especially not the men.
And I couldn’t let anything happen to them, not after they had come
all this way with me.

I took a deep breath. “And what about my
friends?” I asked. “Will they remain safe with me for the duration
of this training?”

It was a long shot, but I could play this
game too.

The witch king looked at the men. And for a
moment he said nothing.

“I will let them live,” he said. “But if you
do not pass the tests, if you do not prove to me that you are the
last of the Steel Maiden clan—they will die. Just like you.”

I swallowed hard and tried to keep my face
blank. “What kind of tests?”

The witch king smiled and bared his white
teeth.

“Witch trials,” he said as if he were
tasting a fine wine. “You must pass tests that prove you are what
you say you are, despite your disadvantage.”

“And what disadvantage would that be?”

“Your
human
blood.”

The witches in the court sneered and laughed
as the king continued, “That in itself is a liability. It remains
to be seen if you can overcome it.”

I tensed at his slight, and I bit back the
cusses I wanted to shout at him.

The witch king narrowed his eyes. “If you
truly are a steel maiden, then prove it. Prove it, and you will
have your army. Do we have an agreement?”

I looked to Fawkes and saw grief and anger
in his eyes. I glanced around the chamber, beyond the coven guards
to the witches, and I saw indifference, disgust, and curiosity.

Every soul in the chamber waited on me.

I watched the king for a moment. My heart
was beating as fast as it had during the fight with the familiars.
He knew I was going to say
yes
. He knew he’d trapped me.

“Fine, I’ll do your witch trials,” I
answered.

I heard the release of breaths behind me as
the men relaxed a little.

The witch king studied me intently, but his
expression was stony and unreadable.

“Very well, Elena. But let me warn you. If
you’re caught trying to leave during the trials, if you attempt to
escape me
again
,” he paused, and the witch queen’s pale face
darkened.

What the hell was the king talking
about?

“If you try to escape before the witch
trials are over,” continued the king, unaware of the slip of his
tongue, “I will kill you. And this time you will stay dead.”

CHAPTER 19

A
FTER WE HAD BEEN disarmed, six of
the coven guards led us down a large black granite hallway lit with
fire sconces. Large paintings and tapestries adorned the walls. I
peeked through long, thin windows at a red sky and a setting sun,
and I could see a lake that mirrored the black fortress. But we
were moving too quickly for me to really get my bearings.