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As if reading my thoughts, Preston strolled closer, a sneer across his face. He glanced back toward the catacombs, where a rumbling began as skeletons erupted from their coffins, spilling toward the entrance of our room. Cutting off any means of escape—or my reinforcements’ route through. “I know why you try to stall,” he said. “But whatever plans you think you’ve made...you’re alone. No one is coming, Snowflake. It’s just your little human self and your half-brother against us and our death magic. You can’t kill us.” The rotten stench of his breath enveloped me like a cage.
I stared at the skeletons standing like sentinels, prepared to fight and hold back anyone who tried to come to us. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end at the unnatural sight. Countless empty eye sockets and gaping jaws grinned back at me, their finger bones clinking together as they fisted their hands.
My stomach sank. There would never be enough time then, not for Charles. I had only one choice.
“I love you, Charlie,” I said, and then I stepped forward. Stale air from the underworld filled my lungs as I approached its door. I could taste it on my tongue: coppery with the scent of blood and despair. Terror made my knees tremble as I held out my hand toward Nerissa, prepared to accept the dagger she clutched.
She gave me a smile that was all teeth. “You don’t need to spill your blood to open it, not when you live. It’s there, inside of you.Thiswas merely for if you didn’t cooperate.”
I frowned, absorbing her words. When I’d fought off underworld creatures in the past, I’d had to use my blood to repel them, but perhaps that was because my magic had been frail from forget-me-nots and little practice. All along, I hadn’t needed to weaken myself.
Inhaling sharply, I pressed my palm against the door, feeling the scrape of rough stone against my skin. It was cold—colder than the frost and ice and snow my magic could summon. Colder than death. The sensation sank all the way to my bones, a sharp ache of pain from the shock of such a loss of warmth in my body. I shuddered, squeezing my eyes shut as I attempted to concentrate.
Open,I thought. My body quaked, muscles spasming with cold and fear and overcoming despair. Every ounce of me rebelled, instinctively knowing that nothing good could come out from behind the door.
Gritting my teeth, I thought of the light that flared from my very blood.Starlight.But I wasn’t trying to repel the demons this time; I needed to force the door to harken to my will. There was power flowing through my veins that could command this entrance, could determine the fate of the world itself. I mustered every ounce of authority, every piece of me that ached to protect Charles.
“Open,” I ordered, and my voice didn’t even seem like my own anymore. It was that of an uncompromising queen, confident in her power and her strength. It was low and yet loud, echoing in the chamber.
With an anticlimactic creak, the entrance swung further and further inward, until I stood before nothing but gaping blackness. The scents of decay and blood poured forth, as if welcoming me into an icy embrace. And then—approaching sounds filled the air. The rattling of bones, the scraping of claws, the snapping of teeth.
The creatures of the underworld were coming.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Everything happened at once. Cries erupted behind us as my friends and allies collided with the skeleton army Preston had summoned. I spun toward Charles, finding that the guards who’d been restraining him were already retreating on shaking legs, overwhelmed by terror at the noise of demons approaching. Apparently, when danger was actually nearing, their trust in the siblings’ protection was fragile, too.
A long, pincer-like limb lashed out through the yawning entrance, and I leapt back just as one of the guards hurled a dagger at the creature.
“Traitor,” Nerissa snapped, and with a single gesture, she yanked the flesh off the screaming man’s bones.
Charles vomited, but I had already seen such horrors, and my mind was preoccupied with survival. The creature lurched forth from the underworld, same as the type Garrick and I had fought only a few nights ago in the castle halls. It swung one of its claws for me, and I ducked, trying to concentrate on the power in my blood. All I needed was to draw close enough to risk one touch, and I should be able to repel it. Perhaps I could force it back into the underworld, force all the demons back before they could rip the kingdom to shreds.
With ear-splitting shrieks, more creatures burst through the entryway, shattering my hope. One bore the skeletal head of the demon I’d faced in the bowels of the fortress, its empty eyesockets stirring terror and despair as soon as it turned its head in my direction. Others varied, but were no less terrifying: a monster with fangs too large for its jaws and eyes too large for its head thundered forward, shaking the floor. One of the guards attempted to meet it with a sword, only to be pummeled with its fist and then, in a single bite, lose his head. Another creature didn’t look quite corporeal, flitting through bodies and objects only to take its victims by surprise, sinking teeth into throats or tightening long, slender fingers around necks to snap them.
I screamed, unleashing a blast of cold air and hail that formed at a mere thought, reacting to the riot of emotions churning inside me. The ice pelted against the demons, slowing but not stopping them.
“I knew you’d break your bargain,” Preston said, startling me with how near he was.
Spinning, I found him behind me, grasping Charlie with one strong hand while the other hung loosely at his side, free for him to do whatever he wished. It was a silent threat. One motion, one snap of his fingers, and he could strip my half-brother of his flesh the same way Nerissa had just done to one of the fae. My stomach roiled.
“You were never going to let me live anyway,” I protested. “I’m the only one who can send back the demons and seal off the underworld. The only one who could ruin your plans.” A dagger of ice formed between my fingers, and I swung it toward his face, lodging it in his blood-red eye.
Preston sneered. “You’re right,” he said, loosening his grasp on Charles, who, weak from hunger or fear or both, collapsed to his knees. He slid the blade from his eye as if he felt nothing at all. Maybe he didn’t—maybe pain was but a distant memory for him and Nerissa. Maybe their borrowed half-lives didn’t offer nearly as much sensation or true life as they hoped. I cringed when he cast off the ice, his eye still attached. Nothing buta bloody, gaping hole remained in that socket as he stepped forward, lifting a hand toward me. He was like something from a nightmare, as awful as the demons surrounding us, clashing with the guards, slaughtering and consuming them. As terrifying as the animated skeletons using their bodies to fend off my friends. His remaining red eye glared at me with decades’ worth of hatred and bloodlust. “Part of our revenge on Silverfrost is ensuring none of the royal family live, that all taste death. You are our vengeance incomplete. But not now. You’ve served our purpose, and now you can watch in despair as your kingdom falls. We’ll leave your family for the beasts to feed on.” He kicked Charles, who gave a dull grunt in response, his glassy eyes staring up at me in horror.
