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“I object,” I said, only because I didn’t know what else to say.
The entire room turned to me, holding their breath. I stepped up next to Dagda, who watched me with blank eyes that slowly filled with recognition. Keelin gaped at me.
Badb’s lip curled the slightest bit. “Guards.”
They moved out from the wall. I pulled the emerald from my dress, lifting it above my head and dropping it too to the floor.
A collective gasp rippled through the room as my appearance became my own.
“Stand down,” I said to the guard. I lifted my chin and leveled a challenging gaze at Badb. “You won’t lay a hand on your queen.”
Chapter 38
The guards froze, gaping between me and Badb in confusion. Keelin had gone pale, and Dagda’s blank stare sharpened.
Badb blinked. She gazed down at the scepter in her hand. The supposed only way in or out of the Otherworld. “I see. I should have made more of a strenuous effort to put down that Chimera.” Her chin lifted. “Guards, make our faerie queen fall.”
The guards stood there in indecision. Badb may have made new allies on the court but now, with their faerie queen standing before them, when it was clear this fight for the throne might land them on the wrong side, they hesitated.
A snarl ripped out of Badb. She pointed the scepter at one of the guards and the blue stone on the end began to glow. The man cried out as his skin took on a grayish hue. He burst into ash.
The other guards’ eyes widened with terror.
That wasn’t falling. Badb had just killed that guard. Most of the room stood, in frozen horror at what Badb had done.
Panic gripped me. She could use the scepter. The scepter only I was supposed to be able to use.
“Who is next?” Badb demanded.
The guards scrambled into action, swords drawn. Members of the court backed up pressing toward the exit rushing out the throne room door.
Suddenly a giant molten man rose between me and the guards. They paused, eyes wide as the creature of fire and magma swung a long flaming arm toward them and they scattered, taking up defensive positions trying to move around Dagda’s faerie guardian. Keelin leapt into action, sword at the ready to engage the guards. He released his werewolf. It rose up on two legs, jaws flashing. The poor guards looked horrified, caught between Badb’s threat of utter destruction and Dagda and Keelin’s deadly faerie guardians.
Glass shattering brought screams of panic as shards speared into the room, hitting the few remaining onlookers. Two large green vines slammed forward, shooting straight toward Dagda and Keelin.
My gaze jerked to the hooded figure next to the throne. Her hand was raised, fingers curled grotesquely. Her hood dropped and I stared into the ice blue eyes of my second incarnation. Macha sneered at me before turning her attention back to the fight. Her vines gripped Keelin’s faerie guardian, wrapping it up tight, before doing battle with Dagda’s lava monster.
Badb laughed as if it were no big thing. I gripped my crossbow off my back and leveled it at Badb only to find that she had the scepter pointed at my chest. She took a slow, deliberate step down from the throne.
“You know I always pay attention. Do you not think that I would not notice the way Illya hesitated when you asked him about whether we could access the scepter? Or the look he gave you?”
I stumbled back, the crossbow shaking in my sweaty hands. “He said you can’t access it.”
If I fired my crossbow on Badb, I’d wound her. If Badb fired the scepter on me, I’d be dead.
“No doubt he hoped I couldn’t access it. But we are sisters, Morrigan, blood of my blood. Speaking of, it was fortuitous that I gave Ornan your blood.” She tapped the scepter. “The enchantments guarding this thing were more discerning than the scepter itself. But no matter, because Ornan lent me a bit of the blood I gave him and it got me right past the wards protecting it.”
I let out a breath. “Ornan’s demons are loose?”
“They shall be soon.”
The blue stone at the tip of the scepter glowed a brilliant blue. I fired two arrows in quick succession, Badb easily dodged them with a laugh as she rushed forward. She slammed the scepter against the crossbow, knocking it from my hands, the string snapped as it cracked against the stone floor.
Shit. I fell back another couple of steps, searching for an escape, but Badb placed herself between me and the throne room door.
Badb kept coming in a relentless pursuit. She rammed the tip of the scepter into my chest as she threw me up against the wall, my head rearing back and pain shooting through my vision.
“I loved you once,” Badb snarled. “I would have let the world burn, but kept you safe. And you turned on me, on us.”
