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Amira's eyes went wide as the bluejay swept into the throne room straight at her. She screamed and struck with her hands, but the bird continued its avian attack. Finally, Amira gathered and batted the bird away, her eyes wide. I saw scratches on her face, but the horrified expression in her eyes, the slack-jawed stare, rankled me. She knew the jay, which only solidified my suspicions. The bird fluttered to the throne, his wing rifled, and I knew Amira had hurt him with her backhanded swipe.
“Know my jay, Amira?”
Her eyes were round, and her face pale. “It's impossible.” Amira kept glancing over her shoulder at the bird, which threw her off whatever games she'd planned.Good.
After a moment, the queen fixed her crown of blue gems and thorns haughtily and pursed her lips. Her eyes held a hard edge as they rested beyond us, to Sahlyn. Guards had yanked him up between them, still unconscious. He couldn’t even fight back, and everything in me spasmed with terror.
“I guess it's time to finish the male. His usefulness has run out.”
With a snarl, the queen lunged. Her blade trained for Sahlyn’s heart. It all happened in an instant. I pulled my blade free from its scabbard and met her sword, barely deflecting it from piercing Sahlyn’s skin. I don’t know whether she did it as a ploy or she’d really intended to cut him, but I didn’t want to find out.
Amira’s eyes ringed with fury as she pivoted and engaged me. Argen jumped to my back, occupying the guards that had held me. I’d not have to worry about a blade in my back with him near. A surge of affection burned through me, making me proud of who I was, proud of who he was.
My arms burned with the force of Amira’s attacks. She was a formidable swordswoman. I’d met very few women who would take up a blade aside from dwarven women. I felt a tiny shred of respect for the formidable warrior queen and wished her death wasn’t necessary. As she surged me back with her wild attacks, I felt the dwarven magic in my blade rise. My magic must have felt hers brimming to the surface. She had pushed me back with magic, with a force that was not her physical body, and I knew if I were to best her, I would need something inhuman too. I would need just a bit of sorcery. Thankfully, I had a magical blade,andwhatever the deals had done, or whatever magic Amira had allowed slip into Catalan, had granted me magic. I had always assumed it was just the magic to create blades, but Iro and Argen had taught me something about my magic. I could wield magical weapons I had not created and tap into their slumbering magic. The magic inside me reacted to this blade and the magic within its design. That’s why the forge flame of the mountain had risen when I’d touched the blade to its veins. I had made everyone think it was the blades doing, but I had my suspicions that it was just as much me as the legendary weapon.
A surge of molten fire swept up my core, wound around my heart, and then slithered across my arm and down to my hand. I felt the connection between my magic and the blade—a tether within my soul.
“Ye thought I would leave ye fully unprotected, blood of my blood?”
I cried out when Cabro’s voice filled the throne room. Golden light twined around my arm, fanned across my body, and into the blade.
The queen tipped her head, her eyes wide. “What is this?”
“I freed an iron dragon and broke the curse that plagued him. But, of course, you wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Amira?”
“Impossible.”
I saw a shot of fear through her violet eyes for the first time before she masked it with a dreadful calm. She didn’t know all the tricks, hadn’t discovered all the dwarves' secrets. It was clear she didn’t know who had spoken in the cave, didn’t know all the curses in the land. That gave me a bit of hope. Perhaps even if I failed tonight, the dwarves could survive.
With a snarl, she engaged me quickly with my mind on the dwarves' survival. But my own survival kicked in, and we twirled around the room in a dance as old as time. Where I should have been tired after the long journey here and all I had endured, the movements and attacks only energized my limbs. I assumed it was the blade doing most of the work. It was as if we were one. The golden sword seemed to anticipate Amira's moves as if she were an old foe.
“I will chain the Huntsman to my bed once you’re dead, you know,” her words were conversational. “Hewillgive me an heir.”
My heart lurched with her words, and the distraction cost me. Her blade sliced my thigh, and I hissed at the burning pain. I parried her next thrust, pulling my focus back to her. Amira was strong, and her attacks gathered in power. I could smell the sulfur in the air and knew she’d gathered magical energy to thrust at me. Amira didn’t fully know her magical power, and I hoped that I could use that to my advantage.
I had discovered that dark magic took much more out of the person harnassing it than ordinary magic. It took a well of energy with each bit of darkness used, and too much use of it could kill the host. Maybe if I continued to take the brunt of her attack, her own magic would eventually kill her.
I faked right, but she was there. Her blade swept in a mighty arc when another screech wrenched the air, and Iro banked and flew into Amira’s face again. I’d almost forgotten about the bird entirely, too immersed in anticipating the queen’s attacks and ushering her to expel her energy. The queen thrust her arm up to protect her face just in time and batted the bird away.
“No,” I yelled as he landed on the stone this time, just as the maid had. “Iro,” I whispered. But, again, the bird did not move.
My frantic eyes flew to the maid, and I realized Esme was there helping the girl to stand. Thank goodnessthe girl was not to be a casualty in all this. Then my gaze swung back to my bird with disbelief, as he still had not moved. I bit my lip to keep from breaking down. I had just gotten him back! For him to die protecting me—it was too much.
Amira and I stared at the blue body for a long moment before we engaged again. I was so furious, and I used it as fuel to push my body onward. We twisted around each other, and I felt the press of my injuries catching up with me. The queen pivoted and faked a lunge that I was unprepared for. My blade slammed to block, but I was just a second too late, and she sliced across my forearm. Then, in my split second of pain and distraction, her blade went for Sahlyn again. I hesitated because I really wasn’t sure if she would harm him, considering she had said she’d tie him to her bed. Amira would probably change her mind and kill him. I couldn't let that happen. I threw myself in front of him, landing on my knees, her blade piercing my shoulder, but it gave me a moment of recollection. Her shocked eyes looked upon my willing sacrifice, and I was able to swing my blade up. Just as she went to plunge her blade into me again, with the burning pain in my forearm, I lifted my sword and let her momentum carry her; just as I had done with the wolf in the wood. My blade erupted in a golden light again, filling the throne room. It shot from my hand and down the blade as its length plunged into the queen's chest. I felt her short sword pierce me, but I ignored the excruciating pain and lunged up from my knees, plunging the blade to the hilt. Through flesh and sinew, bone and organ. Her vile, stone heart very much felt like just another heart.
“Impossible,” the wicked queen breathed.
“I’ve heard that a lot tonight,” I hissed against the pain.
As we stared into each other’s eyes, a fine green mist curled up Amira’s body, shooting into her severed heart where my blade was embedded.
“The heart of stone can only be broken by a true heart, by the blade forged by sacrifice and made from the flame of the mountains. The heart of stone can only be broken by the one of blood from which the blade was forged.”Cabro’s deep brogue shuttered over me, and the queen’s eyes went wide.
That’s where the queen had underestimated me. By freeing Cabro, I had infused an already legendary blade into something extraordinary. When Cabro had left us at the entrance of the tunnels, I had felt the change in the atmosphere of the mountains. I hadn’t said anything about it because I hadn’t been sure what I felt.
By breaking a curse with that blade and calling flame to the mountains with which it was forged, I had revived the dwarven nation and the magic within the blade. Heartrender had always been a sword made to break curses, but my magic enabled the blade to kill the queen.
I knew that by breaking that curse, I had allowed magic to release in the Dunvar mountains and to all the dwarves. My display with the mountain flame had just been the tip of it.
