Neither did I.
After a solid minute, his wings opened, slowly. I lifted my face from his chest. We were both alive. Unhurt.
My eyes adjusted to the moonlight flooding back in. “Hadrien?” I whispered, sounding astonished even to myself.
He released a relieved laugh, still holding me tight. “Are you okay?”
“Ye-yesss,” I stammered.
I pulled my gaze across the courtyard to where the queen had been standing. Mireille stood where I’d last seen her. Same posture. Same piercing, hate-filled eyes. Same expression of cold fury, preserved in every excruciating detail.
Gray. Every inch of her.
Stone.
I gaped at her for several seconds before my gaze traveled to Hadrien. The marble lines in his gray skin were—fading. They drew back across his chest, his arms, his abs, retreating the way frost melts beneath the morning sun.
“Hadrien,” I breathed out. “Your skin.”
CHAPTER 27
HADRIEN
Istared at Mireille for several seconds. At the outstretched hand. The cruel twist of her mouth.
“Hadrien,” Lilia said. “Your skin.”
I glanced down and saw it—the veins of her dark magic fading beneath my skin.
The soldiers closed in with spears raised, snapping my attention to them. Three men, younger than I’d expected, who reminded me of myself before experience had hardened me. One had a scar along his jaw. Their leader’s gaze traveled between the stone figure of his queen and back to me with an expression I recognized. He was calculating what was true.
The scarred soldier demanded, “What have you done?”
My muscles tightened. It wasn’t over yet.
I curled my wings tighter around Lilia. “That was the queen’s magic,” I explained. “You saw it with your own eyes.” I motioned with my chin toward the statues of my soldiers dotted around my castle. “The same as she’d used on my soldiers when we’drefused to follow her illegal orders,” I added with a sneer. “It turned back on her.” My voice carried low but steady across the grounds of Valgarde.
The commander stared at me with cool assessment. His gaze traveled over the stone soldiers and back to Mireille. A rumbling sound shook within it, like a fault line breaking apart, and then her stone form vibrated. It shattered with an explosive sound. Fragments scattered through the air, and I used my body to shield Lilia from the falling rocks. But they didn’t reach us. I blinked and stared as the fragments dissipated into dust, then vanished before they touched the earth.
“Whatever she bound you with—whatever she promised or threatened—it died with her magic.” I held the commander’s gaze.
Before he could utter a word in response, another rumbling sound followed, like ice cracking. The frost that had covered the tips of the greenery melted. And beyond it, along the fringes of Valgarde, the stone statues of my soldiers…dissolved.
They didn’t break apart violently like the queen’s stone form. No, the stone released gently, each one appearing to soften at its edges, before the slate gray dissolved into stone dust and dispersed up into the air above the castle, like smoke from an extinguished candle. The temperature in the air warmed and the scent of the air changed, smelling clean and fresh, as it did after a cleansing rain. I took a deep, shuddering breath. Something monumental had just happened across the land.
I turned with Lilia, ensuring she stood behind me where I could still protect her with my form.
Dust to dust.
“Forgive me,” I said to my soldiers in a soft voice. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you from her wrath. I’m sorry this took so long. I hope you are finally at peace.” I bowed my head in respect.
Then I snapped to attention and saluted my soldiers’ vanishing forms. I watched each of them go—one by one, yet all at once. The dust of their remains rose and spread before the moonlight, glittering silver-gray against the dark sky, before vanishing and becoming one with it.
“It’s over.” I exhaled. “All of it.”
The commander stared at the stone dust of my men, floating up to the heavens. For several seconds, he said nothing. Then he snapped to attention and led his men to salute. The three of them offered their respects to my soldiers, and emotions gripped me so hard I could barely keep from bursting forth like a fountain.
Their commander lowered his hand to his side. “We leave in peace.” He nodded and led them back toward La Forêt de Veillepierre with their weapons lowered, and soon they disappeared into the tree line.
