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“And how did that work out for him?” Musical, mocking laughter rings out through the cave. “My dear queen, you will soon see that it is all connected. Malachi had the right idea and also the wrong one. But he persevered, and now here we are. He has given my masters what they sought, and this will allow him what he longs for.”
“What did your masters want?”
“A Queen for All. You.” Her pretty face furrows. “Why do I sense such distress from Her Highness?”
How is someone so full of knowledge also so obtuse? “Because Malachi is a cruel god, and he wants to be king!”
“He is not our favorite, that is true, and yet there is no life without him.”
“There will be plenty of death with him. He releases daaknars for fun.” If this secret book from Shadowhelm that Gesine talks about is true, people suffered at his hands.
“Yes, he is powerful, and yes, he is cruel, but he must forgo some of that strength in order to walk this plane. Besides, you are also powerful. And while you are not cruel, you have an army who can behave as terribly as needed.”
“Islor is divided, and no one follows me. I have five hundred soldiers who will probably turn on me the second they find out about this.” Only an hour ago, I was beaming with triumph.
She waves off my words. “Not that army. They are useless. No … the one that awaits your call. The one that has been waiting in the void for two thousand years.”
Two thousand years. “You mean the Nulling.” I was so focused on how this could have happened, I forgot about what will happen next. “It will open.” Of course it will.
Jarek curses.
Lucretia cocks her head, as if confused by our reactions. “Why are you not pleased?”
“How could she be?” Gesine asks before I can. “The creatures from the Nulling serve no one but chaos.”
“Do they not?” Lucretia’s patronizing laugh makes me want to choke her. “Is that what your seers have told you?”
“No, that is what history tells us!” Gesine’s calm is wearing thin as well. “King Ailill and Caster Farren, under the guidance of Malachi, tore the barrier into the Nulling. It took fifty years and untold deaths to cleanse these lands from that mistake.”
“Because my masters were not here to help rein them in. But now my masters are coming, and they have found their queen.” She frowns curiously between Gesine and me. “Surely, the few that remain in this realm have sought you out by now.”
“Yeah. If ‘sought me out’ means tried to kill me.” First the nethertaur, then the grif.
Lucretia shrugs. “I did not say they weren’t without problems.”
Gesine’s brow furrows, as if she’s rifling through a catalog in her mind to compare Lucretia’s cryptic words with what she knows. Or thought she knew.
“Romeria!” Zander’s booming voice echoes with his footfalls down the winding stairwell. He comes to the base with a skid before taking in the secret vault with a cautious gaze. “Pan said you were down here. What is this place?”
“It’s where Lucretia has been waiting. She’s—” I turn back to find the sylx vanished. Not even the snake remains. I weave around the stone statues, but there’s no hint of her. “Where did she go?” There’s no way out except the stairs Zander just descended.
“It seems she’s unwilling to reveal herself for the moment,” Gesine says, also searching the shadows.
Zander slides a hand over the engraving in the stone wall. “What is this place?”
“Gesine found a book about an oracle named Lucretia who would have answers for me.” And she does. They’re just none that I expected.
And one that I dread.
It dawns on me then. “You knew, didn’t you? That’s what you’ve been searching for in the library, isn’t it? You kept saying we were running out of time. It wasn’t because of the change though, was it?”
The pained look in Gesine’s eyes answers me. “I suspected. I feared. And then when Elisaf mentioned the land outside the gates, the new blades of grass, the plants—”
“You suspected, but you didn’t say anything?” My shrill voice cracks over my anger.
“Because I did not want to alarm you needlessly.” She swallows. “I did not want to say anything until I knew for certain.”
“Knew what for certain?” Zander steps between us, alarm splashed across his face. “Would someone please enlighten me?”
Oh God. Zander … I press my hand against my roiling stomach. All this time, I’ve insisted I would never give Malachi what he wanted, I would never put Zander’s people in harm’s way, and yet I’ve done it, anyway. Stupidly, cluelessly. “We had it all wrong.”
“What do you mean?” He turns to Gesine. “What does she mean?”
“They’ve opened the nymphaeum door,” Jarek answers for us, his deep voice amplified in our hollow.
