Page 104 of Starchaser
He stumbles to the left, where Sybil and Annie stand between us and Will’s family, blocking our escape. For a moment, I think Sybil might be frozen with fear, but when Lord Bludgrave attempts to grab Annie’s hand, Sybil takes a step back and, in a flash of steel, draws a dagger from her apron.
Annie throws off Sybil’s grip, retreating onto the dais, a wreath of shadows encircling her black ringlets like a crown. Her eyes glow red as she tilts her head to the side, a sinister grin tugging at her lips.
Horror, sharper than the pain, pierces me like a knife.
Mother’s Elysian Iron blade expelled Morana from Leo, but it appears as if the Underling queen has chosen a new host: Annie.
Her sharp trill of laughter sends a shiver down my spine.
“He tried to tell you, didn’t he?” Morana’s voice slithers out of Annie’s mouth, a vile, living thing snaking through the air all around us.
“Go!” Lord Bludgrave shouts at Will and me, taking a step toward Sybil, his hands raised, engulfed in flames. “Leave, while you—”
Lord Bludgrave staggers, looking down at the shard of glass protruding from his chest. He coughs, thick crimson blood splattering the marble before he falls, his wide, vacant eyes fixed on me.
She’s doomed, boy, he once told Will.You can’t save her.
Owen appears behind him, two fingers outstretched, as if he used his affinity to levitate the jagged piece of glass that stabbed Lord Bludgrave through the heart.
I think I hear Lady Isabelle scream, but a moment later, Will and I are surrounded by Bloodknights, their weapons all pointed in our direction.
“I’ve been dying to try that,” Owen says as he steps over Lord Bludgrave’s body, joining Annie on the dais.
Seizing the momentary distraction, Titus tackles Will from behind, knocking me from Will’s grasp, and I land in a heap beside Leo, watching through a haze of smoke as Titus lands blow after blow to Will’s face.
“He—” Leo wheezes, her voice so soft, so small, I think I’ve imagined it. But when I crane my neck to look at her, I notice the faint rise and fall of her chest. She’s still in there—therealLeo—clinging to life. “He’s—good—” She whimpers, her body twitching as she stretches a hand toward me.
I attempt to reach for her, my fingers outstretched, but pain radiates from my abdomen through my limbs, and I fall short of her grasp.
“Glad he—found you—” Leo manages to say, her voice a dull gurgle. “Trusts…”
Her head lolls to the side, eyes vacant.
Gone.
I watch from the ground, my vision skewed, as Annie brings her fingers to her mouth and whistles, shrill and piercing. A moment later, a large, hairless wolf soars through the broken window on black webbed wings like that of a bat—unlike any Myth I’ve ever seen in Elsie’s books.
Owen helps Annie onto the creature’s back, then makes to climb up after her—hesitates.
“What about her?” he asks, his expression neutral as he cuts a glance at me. “We’ve come all this way—”
“This form is too weak!” Annie hisses, causing Owen to wince.“We must go, now!”
Sybil bows, and as she kneels, she transforms—her hair shorter, turning a dark shade of purple, her eyes glowing red. She looks at once ten years older, her frail body now lean with muscle. She smiles up at Annie, and I realize that’s not Sybil—it’s a Shifter. She might have always been a Shifter, and no one ever knew. We knew Morana had an accomplice, but I would have never expected Sybil.
You’ve become far too trusting for your own good, Owen said to me that night on the train. He was right. I trusted all the wrong people, and now, I’m going to pay for it with my life.
“Go, my queen,” she says. “I will ensure their safe passage to your kingdom.”
TheStarchaserlaunches another cannonball at the castle, and the floor trembles underfoot as the wolfish Myth carries Owen and Annie out of the throne room, vanishing into the mist.
Titus saunters onto the dais then, two Bloodknights stepping out of formation to stand at his side. He takes his seat on his father’s throne, staring at the bloody pool where the king lies dead.
My head swims as I try to make out his features—try to see him—but darkness edges my vision, and he sounds so far away, so unlike himself when he speaks, that I can’t be sure what he says. Still, my mind attempts to latch onto the words, even as the world implodes around me.
“Take them to the dungeons.”
I wake to the soundof my own screams.
