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“So are you,” she nodded, with a polite curtsy.
My mind was clearer now, but I couldn’t remember why we were fighting. We’d left her in a cage, but only after she’d kept us trapped in her illusion for days. With the king dead, wouldn’t she want to see her son on the throne?
“I must say, I was surprised to find this memory. It’s one of mine. But I get it,” she said, looking around the room. “This was before it all started. The last time I loved my husband. When he left me, he took samples of my blood. By isolating and replicating that memory, he got to keep those feelings, and weaponize them. All the chosen are loyal to their personal elite in principal, but harboring some love, my love, for their king as well.”
“Well it didn’t work. Not on me.”
“And you killed him,” she purred.
“Are you here to avenge him?” I asked.
“Your business with him is your own. He probably deserved it. We would have had our own issues, if we’d ever had the chance to meet and discuss our grievances. Plus, his absence allowed for my welcome. Nigel has been most gracious.”
“He’s not your friend,” I said. “He’s using you.”
“It’s nice to feel useful, after all these years. But don’t worry about Nigel, he’s nothing to me.”
“Then why do all this?”
“My husband ruled long enough; now it’s my turn,” she shrugged. “I’ll wear his face if I have to. Damien is too young, too fragile. I need to protect him. He never wanted any of this anyway. It’s my burden to bear.”
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Two things,” she said. “You’ve taken my son, so I’ll take yours. I’ll raise him well, a proper king. You don’t need to worry about anything. Come, take your prize, but leave my kingdom.”
“My son?” I asked, feeling my stomach. The dagger wound was deep, but already healing from the elixir in my system.
“You’re pregnant. I can taste it in your blood.”
“This child is already promised.”
“I assume you’ll be married,” she pushed on, ignoring me. “I’d like to come. After all it would only be appropriate, for the new queen to attend. You’ll be my daughter-in-law. When my grandson is born, we can rule together. Damien needs a mother. You can’t care for him alone, you can’t give him what he needs.”
“I can try,” I said.
“Don’t be silly. It was your helplessness and frailty that charmed my son in the first place, no doubt. I like to think that’s a legacy I left him; he needed someone to protect. One person to excuse all his sins, to love him anyway, and it was you. A surrogate mother of sorts. But you’re no longer needed.”
“And if I refuse?”
“I’ll put you in a cage, until your womb is ripe, and then leave you to rot.”
“So, an evil queen instead of a vampire tyrant.”
The threat was galvanizing, and I felt a burst of power rush through me, the last of the elixir in my system flaring like sparks, before dying out. I used it to break out from her illusion, just for a moment, but it was enough. Now that the spell was broken, I could see the strain as she kept the others entranced, the sweat on her brow. She lashed her twin blades playfully, but she was no fighter. She’d never had to be. Even so, there was nobody else strong enough to stop her. It had to be me.
“Let them go,” I said.
“Or what?” she asked, tightening her grip on her weapons.
I smiled at her, feeling the tension between us. She was using some of her focus on holding the others still, but the majority of it was on me as I fought to resist her compulsion.
So I stopped resisting.
She stumbled forward, and I felt her mind grow like an icy cage around me, deep and impenetrable. But just before it went dark, I focused all of my will on Camina’s arm, raising it like my own, and threw her spear. It was a single fluid motion, flinging the weapon a dozen paces to my left in an ally’s hand. It missed, sailing by her and clattering against the stone walls, but it was only a distraction anyway. As it flew, I shifted Luke’s body to aim his crossbow, and squeezed my finger around an invisible trigger. The bolt sank deep into her chest.
It all happened in a second, but then the curtain dropped. Weapons clattered to the ground. Nigel’s remaining chosen were frozen in place. I nodded to Tobias, his face pale and his arms trembling. He’d seized control of them all, for now.
The queen was slumped over, breathing shallowly with the bolt still embedded in her body, her fingers sticky with blood as she pawed at the wound. Even so, Penelope held a firm grip on her shoulders, a knife at her throat. I picked up my sword, rounding on Nigel and stretching my neck.
