Queen of Air and Darkness
Page 79

They watched as Eochaid handed over his gleaming bronze-gold sword. It was far too big for Ash, who took it with the grip of someone who was used to handling weapons, but not ones this big and heavy. He stared at the King with shocked eyes.
“Cut Kieran’s throat, Ash Morgenstern,” said the King.
He isn’t even pretending, Emma thought. He doesn’t care if we know exactly who Ash is or not.
“No!” cried Mark. He lunged toward Ash and Kieran, but the redcaps cut him off. They were incredibly quick, and angry now—he had hurt one of their own.
Clary gasped. Emma could hear Cristina whispering frantically beside her, though not the individual words. Kieran stayed where he was, gazing flatly into the distance as if the King hadn’t spoken.
“Why?” said Ash. His voice shook. Emma wondered if it was real or faked for sympathy.
“You must spill royal blood,” said the King, “and Kieran’s is the most expendable.”
“You are a bastard!” Mark shouted, struggling against his manacles and the grip of the redcaps.
“This is too much,” Annabel cried. “He’s just a child.”
“Which is why this must be done now,” said the King. “The Dark Artifices would kill an older child.” He leaned forward to look Ash in the face, a parody of a concerned adult. “Kieran will die regardless,” he said, “whether your hand wields the blade or not. And if you do not do it, he will die slowly, in howling pain.”
Kieran’s gaze tracked slowly across the room—but not toward Ash. He looked at Cristina, who was gazing helplessly at him, and then at Mark, struggling in the redcaps’ grip.
He smiled.
Ash took a step forward. The sword hung loose in his hand and he was biting his lip. At last Kieran glanced at him.
“Do what you must, child,” he said, his voice kind and quiet. “I know what it is to be given no good choice by the King of the Unseelie Court.”
“Ungrateful whelp!” barked the King, sneering at Kieran. “Ash—now!”
Emma looked wildly toward Julian and the others. Adaon couldn’t help them; there were too many redcaps, and the Riders were impossible to fight—
More redcaps spilled into the room. It took Emma a moment to realize they were running. Fleeing in terror from the storm that followed—a slender figure blazing in scarlet and gold, with red hair flowing around her like spilled blood.
The Seelie Queen.
An expression of surprise crossed the Unseelie King’s face, followed swiftly by rage. Ash dropped the sword he was holding with a clatter, backing away from Kieran as the Queen approached.
Emma had never seen the Seelie Queen like this. Her eyes were brilliant, blazing with unfaerie-like emotion. She was like a tidal wave, rushing toward her son.
“No!” Annabel’s screech was almost inhuman. Thrusting the Black Volume into her jacket, she bolted toward Ash, her arms held out.
The Seelie Queen turned in one smooth motion and flung out her hand; Annabel sailed into the air and slammed into the rock wall of the chamber. She slid to the floor, gasping for breath.
She had given the Riders time, though, to gather around Ash. The Queen strode toward them, her face radiant with power and rage.
“You cannot touch him,” said Ethna, her voice shimmering with a metallic hum. “He belongs to the King.”
“He is my son,” said the Queen with contempt. Her gaze flickered between the two Riders. “You are of the oldest magic, the magic of the elements. You deserve better than to lick the boots of the Unseelie King like dogs.”
She tore her gaze from Ash and stalked up to the King, light flickering in her hair like tiny flames. “You,” she said. “Deceiver. Your words of an alliance were so many dried leaves blown on the empty air.”
The King set the copy of the Black Volume on the arm of his throne and rose to his feet. Emma felt a bolt of wonder go down her spine. The King and Queen of Faerie, facing off before her. It was like a scene out of legend.
Her fingers itched almost unbearably for a sword.
“I do what I do because I must,” said the King. “No one else has the strength to do it! The Nephilim are our single greatest enemy. They always have been. Yet you would make treaties with them, seek peace with them, live alongside them.” He sneered. “Give your body to them.”
Emma’s mouth dropped open. So rude, she mouthed at Cristina.
The Queen straightened her back. She was still thin and wan, but the power of her Queenship seemed to radiate through her like light through a lamp. “You had your chance with our child, and because you did not believe a woman could be strong, you threw it away. I will not give you another of my children for your careless slaughter!”
The First Heir, Emma thought. So it’s true.
There was a murmur of shock in the room—not from the human prisoners, but from the Riders and redcaps. A dark flush of rage went over the King’s face. He flung out his arm, sheathed to the elbow in a golden gauntlet, toward the roiling Portal on the north wall.
“Gaze upon this Portal, glorious Queen,” he said through his teeth, and the image in the Portal began to change. Where before the desert landscape had been deserted, it was possible now to see darting figures among the poison-colored whirls of sand. The sky above the landscape had turned to a scorched rust and gold.
Emma heard Clary make a strange choking noise.
“I have torn a hole through to another world,” said the King. “A world whose very substance is poisonous to Nephilim. Already our lands are protected by its earth, and already the poison begins to spread in Idris.”
“It’s not the ley lines,” Cristina whispered. “It’s the blight.”
They spun to stare at the Portal. The scene had changed again. It now showed the same desert in the aftermath of a battle. Blood stained the sand red. Bodies were strewn everywhere, twisted and blackened by the sun. Faint screams and wailing could be heard, dim as the memory of something horrible.
Jace whirled on the King. “What is this? What is this world? What have you done?”
Clary’s hand circled Emma’s wrist, gripping tightly. Her voice was a bare whisper. “That’s me.”
Emma stared through the Portal. Wind blew the sand in harsh gusts, uncovering a body in black Shadowhunter gear, the chest torn open and white bone showing. A spill of red hair threaded through the sand, mixing with blood.
“That was my dream,” Clary whispered. Her voice was choked with tears. Emma stood frozen, staring at Clary’s dead body. “That’s what I saw.”
The sand blew again, and Clary’s body vanished from view just as Jace turned back around. “What world is this?” he demanded.
“Pray you never have to find out,” said the King. “The land of Thule is death, and it will rain down death in your world. In Ash’s hands it will be the greatest weapon ever known.”
“And what will be the cost to Ash?” demanded the Queen. “What will be the cost to him? Already you have placed spells upon him. Already you have bled him. You wear his blood around your throat! Deny it, if you can!”
Emma stared at the vial around the King’s throat: She had thought it was a scarlet potion. It was not. She remembered the scar on Ash’s throat and felt sick.
The King chuckled. “I have no wish to deny it. His blood is unique—Nephilim blood and demonic blood, mixed with the blood of the fey. I draw power from it, though only a fraction of the power Ash could have if you allow me to keep the Black Volume.”
The Queen’s face twisted. “You are bound by your oath to return it to me, King—”
The King tensed; Emma didn’t understand as much about faeries as Cristina did, but she knew that if the King had sworn he would return the book to the Queen at dawn, he would have no choice but to do it. “It will bring us both indescribable power. Just let me show you—”
“No!” A streak of gray linen and dark hair shot across the room and caught hold of Ash, whirling him off his feet.
Ash cried out as Annabel seized him. She flew with him across the room, Ash’s wrist gripped tightly in her hand. The Riders rushed after her, the redcaps circling from the door. Whirling like a trapped rabbit, she bared her teeth, Ash’s wrist still caught in hers.