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Fuck.
The inferno continued to swirl around me. I couldn’t tell whether the castle even stood anymore. “I’m ready to die!” I roared.
“Not yet,” she echoed through my head.
“Please!” I begged. I wanted it to be over. I swore I began to burn hotter.
“This is not your time, daughter,” she called. “Lay your flames down, for there is much to do.” What could I possibly have to do? Had I not suffered enough? “Rest now, daughter,” she whispered. “The world needs you whole.”
“No!” I screamed into the fire, the flames licking up my throat, a lifetime of hurt pouring out of me in a blistering heat.
“The world needs you whole,” she repeated, her voice fading.
All at once the flames died out as my arms dropped to my sides. Fire still crackled around me before turning to embers and ash. The air calmed, the smoke dissipated as I heaved in a deep breath. My vision cleared as the incessant pounding of fury in my chest dimmed.Relief.I looked down at my hands, angry blisters bubbling over every inch.
What had I done?
Castemont and Kauvras were huddled in heaps, the sounds of pained whimpering becoming audible as the roaring in my ears quieted. Miles lay on his side, facing away from me, still masked. I couldn’t tell how badly they’d been burned, but the three of them still breathed. How had they survived? My mother sat with her head between her knees, covered in soot but otherwise unscathed, showing no reaction to what had just happened. The soldiers who’d held her had been reduced to ash. Turning to survey the rest of the throne room, I realized that I’d incinerated a number of guards.
Why couldn’t I have destroyed the fuckers I wanted to?
Every guard who still stood, who hadn’t been caught in my flames, had fallen to one knee, left arm across their bodies, hands on the hilt of their swords, heads lowered. “Daughter of Katia,” one of them murmured. The rest repeated. Over and over they chanted, my heartbeat raging to the time of their words.
And Calomyr.
His guards had fallen, and Calomyr stood straight up, soot-streaked but untouched by whatever the hell had just exploded from me. The same broad shoulders, the same calloused hands. The same Calomyr. But he wasn’t Calomyr. He never had been.
He dropped to one knee, dipping his head. “Daughter of Katia,” he breathed before standing again, taking a tentative step toward me.
“Don’t,” I whispered, stepping back and putting a blistered hand up. I was dizzy, the feeling of overexertion rolling through my body. He stopped in his tracks, his brows knit together. “Please don’t come near me.”
He nodded weakly. “It wasn’t my choice,” he whispered back. Tears welled in my eyes as I looked at him, his own lining with silver. “I prayed to every Saint there is that you would uncover the truth. I went back to the cave.” His words were spilling out, coming so quickly that I almost couldn’t understand him. “I left his cloak for you.”
The words crushed me. “Take him,” I called, unable to stand his presence, the command rolling off of my tongue. Three kneeling guards quickly rushed to his side. “Take them all.”
“You don’t give orders in my court.” Behind me, Kauvras stood straight, his clothing singed but his skin untouched by flame or wind or flying glass. The guards who had shuffled at my command paused, their gazes flickering between us. My heart lurched.
Taking a steadying breath, I planted my feet. I wouldn’t cower from this man, this man who had worked to orchestrate my entire life to get me to this point. “This doesn’t appear to be your court anymore,” I said evenly.
“At attention,” he barked, and the soldiers straightened. My stomach dropped as I felt my sliver of control slip away. Kauvras simply raised an eyebrow at me, his eyes burning far colder than his son’s.
“I will admit,” Castemont started, rising from his curled position, surcoat charred, “I was not expectingthat.” Neither was I.
Miles stepped to Castemont’s side. They did their best to straighten their blackened clothing and armor, soot covering every inch of exposed skin. I clenched my jaw, looking back and forth between the two men now staring at me, approaching me.
“Take the Invisible King and lock him up. Take her mother back to the barracks,” Kauvras ordered without breaking his stare with me, the guards once again moving. I fought the urge to turn to Calomyr as Kauvras stepped toward me slowly, his eyes suddenly wild. “Do you hear them?” he whispered, a finger in the air. One side of his mouth quirked up in a sickening smile, a dimple appeared, so thoroughly Calomyr. “They’re telling me it’syou.” His hands cupped my face and I winced as his grin deepened, the silence closing in on me as every one of my muscles tensed.
I… I had exploded. The white hot rage that had been brewing within me for so long hadn’t been rage at all…it had been whatever the hellthatwas. It had been flame and air and blinding light. And… I had heard her. I heard Katia, her voice soft and warm, making no sense at all yet somehow melding perfectly with my mind. Ispoketo her.
And then the words left Kauvras’ mouth, like tendrils of poisonous smoke that twisted around every inch of me. “My bride.”
The rage bubbled again as flames crackled against my fingertips, but they popped and fizzled into smoke as I cried out. Every spark sent blinding pain up my arms, the skin melting beneath the ghosts of flames. I stared at my gnarled skin as the last of the flames died out, trembling in pain as even more blisters formed.
“Castemont,” Kauvras murmured, “Please see my betrothed to her rooms. We wed tomorrow.”
I whipped my head to Castemont, to the man who was still my step-father by law. But all I saw in his face was cold, calculated indifference. In his eyes, I was nothing but a means to an end, a shot of whiskey as he grew drunk on power. He took my arm, leading me to the doors of the throne room. Words formed in my throat only to dissolve in my mouth.
The doors swung open to reveal a handful of masked and hundreds of unmasked soldiers, on bended knee, packed into the antechamber, shoulder to shoulder. “Daughter of Katia,” they chanted. The corridors off of the antechamber were packed with soldiers as well, their voices echoing off the stone walls. Either I shook all of Taitha, or word had traveled fast. “Daughter of Katia.” I stood at the head of a foreign army bowing for me.Holy fucking shit.
“Rise! At attention!” Kauvras shouted from inside of the destroyed throne room. And they did — they hopped to their feet, straight as arrows, eyes conflicted yet jaws set with resolve.
As Castemont paraded me through, I swore I felt every pair of eyes follow me.We see you,they seemed to say.Daughter of Katia, we see you.
