Page 101 of Shifting Winds
But Ethan’s hands wrapped around me next, his grip punishing. Vines tore from the ground, but Titania pushed them away with little effort. Thorvin approached carrying something glittering and covered in bone.
His steps were jerky and halting, his eyes glowing burnished gold. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, hands rising to place the crown atop my head.
I didn’t understand what the fuck was happening, and why she was so insistent I take the crown. It didn’t matter if I did today or tomorrow or two years from now, did it?
A flash of silver blew past us and slammed into Titania.Tess. The fae’s mouth opened wide, her eyes glowing a familiar icy pale shade. She swayed on her feet, Titania’s golden beautyin stark contrast to the death that had invaded her bones. Her cheeks hollowed and sank into her skull. Pale skin turned the gray of death, and her mouth opened, Tess’s banshee scream shaking the world.
“Oh,” Mom breathed, eyes wide as she watched a fae queen die right before her eyes.
Tess’s flickering form appeared from the ruins of Titania’s body, relief spearing through me, but when she lifted her head and opened her mouth, her form went transparent before disappearing in a pop of sound. The rest of Titania’s skin flaked off, blowing away like ash in the wind, and just as her bones sank to the ground, I realized it was too late.
Thorvin slammed the crown atop my head.
Betrayal. I remembered Thalia’s prophetic words as the crown’s magic snaked into my soul.
Chapter
Thirty-One
The World Tree sang through my mind, its staggering power colliding with my blood stream. I sank to my knees, trying to push the magic into the ground, but it was too intense, too much. Magic poured from every orifice in my body, bubbling up through my skin.
It took me a moment to realize what was happening.
Titania exploded into ash, releasing Thorvin from her strange hold. His eyes went wide with horror, and he reached for me, trying to remove the crown. Mom grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away. Once he was safe, Mom hurried over and sank to her knees before me.
She placed her hands on either side of my face. “You have to conquer the magic.”
“Can’t,” I said through clenched teeth. “Too much.”
Caelan, Soren, Rowan, and Ben had come back and gathered around, as close as they could while the magic roared through me. This crown and the tree were inexorably linked, but we couldn’t rule side by side. This was not the path my father had chosen for me. This was something else. Something corrupt.
The World Tree planned to absorb me, the magic it had left me with no gift at all. It’d been a path back to claim me.Cernunnos might have expelled the seed, but he’d failed to wipe all the traces from my body, but he’d failed to wipe all the traces from my body and maybe couldn’t have even if he’d wanted to.
The tree wanted all of me, every bit of its power back and every bit of my magic. I might have made the snap decision to swallow it to keep it from those who wanted to misuse it, but looking back maybe that’s not what my mother had been trying to do at all. Maybe, in her own way, she’d been trying to save me from myself. But once the seed had spent time inside me, it liked what I had to offer. With me, it could expand its power, could claim all the realms and control who entered them at will.
The fae had never truly had control over this astonishing power, but they’d leashed it to their will. Until I made the choice to expose it to my very essence.
Hindsight, as the humans would say, was always twenty-twenty.
“Help her,” Caelan begged.
“Tess,” I whimpered, even as fae magic tore me apart.
“She’s fine,” Mom said, cool fingers pressed against my brow. “Banshees do not die. They…” She pressed her lips together. “She will be back, I swear to you.”
Tears slipped down my face. I held my hands against my abdomen, the weak spot there caused by the initial rupture flaring with pain. Taking the crown off, even if I could remove it, was futile. The spell had already triggered and buried its way through my psyche.
“Who?”
Mom knew what I wanted to know immediately. “I do not know, but I plan to find out.”
Caelan crouched beside me, his warm hand splayed on my back. “Why didn’t you do anything?” he asked Cliona.
Mom’s skin pulled tight against her bones. “We cannot harm one of our own. It is one of our oldest laws.”
“Even if she’s killing your daughter?” Caelan snarled.
Mom closed her eyes for a brief moment. “It is our oldest law,” she whispered, but I saw the grief swimming in her eyes.
