Page 109 of The Last Wish of Bristol Keats
She swooped, plucking him from his horse, her teeth sinking in gently at first, feeling the snap of his ribs, his back, his agonized shriek echoing inside her mouth, and the surging bloodthirsty scream inside her wanted more.
New instincts will overtake you . . .
You’ll forget your other self . . .
But enough of her remembered who she still wanted to be. She didn’t need more than what she had already taken.
She released his broken body and watched him plummet to the earth.
Go to your glory, Mick, she said to him,and strut with your demons in hell.
She watched him land, a crushed blot on the ground, twisted and still, and she banked, turning toward home.
Dragons who had been in the distance soared closer, their work finished too, the skies finally clear.
Pengary didn’t speak aloud, but she understood the language of his nod. The language of his breath. The faint rumble in his throat. She was one of his kind.
I never forget my debts, and mine are paid. Farewell, Miss Keats. I wish you peace in this world. Pengary and his companion flew away, their strong wings swiftly carrying them north.
CHAPTER 82
Bristol heard shouts as she circled to land, and saw the knights below drawing swords and readying spears. Melizan and Cosette ran forward, their arms outspread. “Stand down!” they yelled. “Stand down!”
She heard other screams from the rim. Horrified ones.Avydra. Beast. Dragon. She landed some distance from the Mother Ring, giving her space to transform back into a woman with arms and legs and wounds. Her clothes were singed and shredded, but she didn’t feel the burns and cuts. Other wounds consumed her. She had won, but she had lost. Elphame was saved from a tyrant, the cauldron secure for both the fae and mortal world for another hundred years, but Bristol lost what she had come there for in the first place. The reason she left her sisters and Bowskeep. Her father.
She was numb again as she walked back to be with her mother.I’m bringing them both home. But she wasn’t. Stringent shouts nearby pulled her from her stupor.
“Kill her!” King Merriwind of Mistriven yelled to a knight as he pointed at Bristol. “Kill her now!”
The knight’s chin dipped as he sheepishly looked at Merriwind. “But, Your Majesty, the Stone just named her the new queen of Elphame.”
“It was a trick!” he yelled, the once timid king now emboldened by Kormick’s death. “She and the Darkland monster were working together all along!” He stepped into Bristol’s path to block her. “Arrest her! Her kind aren’t even legal in Elphame!” Bristol didn’t stop, prepared to walk through him.
But then the king of Mistriven was flying through the air, launched by Cael. “Shut up, Merriwind! A dozen other feet were planted in that ring, including mine and Tyghan’s, when the Stone called out. It could have waited for any one of us to step up, but it didn’t.It chose her. It’s not a trick! She’s the new queen of Elphame! Bend your knee!”
Bristol registered surprise that it was Cael defending her. In fact, he even looked relieved.
“That’s right,” the queen of Cernunnos agreed, and bowed her head to Bristol. “Your Majesty.”
The king of Greymarch did the same, as did many of those who were starting to gather now that the battle was over.
Cael followed suit, dropping to one knee. “Your Majesty.”
Bristol paused in front of him uncertainly, a jumble of emotions stopping up in her chest, but she then continued toward her destination. Her mother.
Merriwind got back to his feet. “But—”
Tyghan shot him a lethal stare to shut him up, as his long strides closed the space between him and Bristol. “You’re bleeding,” he said.
She saw his shirt for the first time. He was drenched in blood. Her father’s blood. Agony still lined his face. “I’m all right,” she said, wondering if he saw her as a beast now. “I need to go to my mother.” She tried to step around him, and he caught her arm.
“Bristol, wait—”
“What?” And then she noticed the unnatural silence. She saw Julia’s anguished face. And Sashka’s. And—
Every face was frozen in time, frozen on her.The quiet. There were no screams or sobs. Her stomach hollowed to an empty pit, and she ran. “Mother—”
“Bristol!” She heard Tyghan call. “Don’t—”
