Page 96 of The Flame King's Queen

The net of magic explodes, and we’re all flung off our feet.

My back hits a rock and I’m winded for a moment. When I open my eyes, I look around for Isavelle and see her and Fiala helping Dusan to his feet. The warlocks are all sprawled beside me, and they stand up, dazedly brushing dirt from themselves and testing sore wrists and ribs for broken bones. I can’t see their faces, but their bodies are stooped with exhaustion after exerting so much magic, and two of them seem to be whimpering in pain.

There’s no sign of the fluttering piece of soul anywhere. The lich has vanished. I feel no confidence that we have seen the last of it. Without a body it will be unstable, but it has been in this state before and it was still able to possess Emmeric.

“Failure,” one of them mutters darkly under his breath, echoing my own thoughts.

The metal bottle has rolled over to me, and I pick it up. This bottle is so heavy that I wonder if it’s made from lead. It reminds me of something, and for a moment I can’t think what, but then I remember. The phylactery that my sister Mirelle brought out from the lich’s den in the mountains, but this one has different markings on it.

“A phylactery?” I ask the warlocks.

But while I was focused on the bottle, the warlocks vanished.

“They were right here,” Ashton says indignantly, turning on the spot. “How did they leave without us noticing?”

“Magic,” Isavelle says, coming forward. “The warlocks are learning new spells.” She gazes at the bottle in my hand. “Not enough new spells. They couldn’t make the lich’s soul enter the phylactery, and I didn’t know how to do it either. Those symbols on the bottle look familiar. I think they’re binding runes. If the warlocks had managed to force the lich inside, I think it would have been trapped.”

I give her the bottle. “Then this should go with you. Perhaps Master Gaun will know how to return it to our warlock friends so they may try again, though the gods know where the lich’s soul will be now.”

“I would like to speak with Master Gaun at the archives as soon as possible.” In a softer voice, she asks me, “Are you all right, Zabriel?”

I feel many things. Relieved that I will never be confronted with what my brother became ever again and that he can no longer hurt people. Disappointed and worried that the lich is still out there. And there’s a small knot of grief as well, that any of this had to happen. I press a kiss to her forehead. “I will be well.”

“Ma’len, what shall we do with Emmeric’s body?” Fiala asks me quietly.

I glance at the bloody corpse. Emmeric’s lightless eyes are fixed on the gray skies. The anger I feel over him resurrecting my mother has not dimmed after all these weeks. Neither has the torment he inflicted on my sister. Emmeric deserves neither Maledinni last rites nor a Brethren burial.

I take a long, slow look around the rocky valley. “This is a barren landscape and the wild animals must have little to eat. They can pick over his carcass, and he can serve an unselfish purpose for the last act of his miserable existence.”

I don’t feelmyself again until I have taken off my armor, bathed, and I’m holding Sylvi in my arms. Her sweet, sleeping face banishes the ghastly memories of my haggard brother as I thrust the sword through his chest.

Isavelle, dressed in a soft white robe, has taken her hair out of its plait, and is combing through it. She comes up beside me and presses kisses to Sylvi’s head and my cheek.

“I’m sorry it’s still not over, Zabriel.”

I sigh, letting go of the last of my disappointment. “It was a good plan the warlocks had. I suppose they just weren’t strong enough for him.”

“Or perhaps not as clever yet. There’s something we’re missing. There must be a way for the undead to die.”

“Then you and Master Gaun will find it. I wonder who those warlocks were.”

Isavelle blinks up at me, also mystified, but apparently it’s by my ignorance. “Do you truly not know?”

“You mean you do?”

She purses her lips in thought. “I have my suspicions about three of them, but I will confirm them first. I would like to thank them, and discuss how we might ensorcell and trap the lich’s soul.”

“Maybe we never will. I’m not able to run a piece of a soul through with a sword.”

“Don’t say never, Zabriel, because we must defeat it. The lich holds grudges. It won’t forget the humiliation it has suffered at the hands of the King of Maledin, let alone the rest of us, and it has all the time in the world to plan its revenge.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so gloomy,” I say. “I just wish for once we could have a straightforward victory. Our successes must always be tempered by failure, and it never seems to end.”

“…sowatch out for a fluttering ball of green light. You are on the lich’s list for revenge. It may try to kill you.”

I’m standing on the dragongrounds with Stesha while he polishes Nilak’s gleaming scales. He hunkers down on his heels and peers at Nilak’s belly, an enormous soft cloth wadded up in his hand. “Kill me? I thought it wanted to make me suffer.”

“We’ve made it angrier than ever, and I think murder is likely. Zenevieve isn’t safe either. Have you seen anything strange since yesterday morning?”

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