Page 38 of Queen of the Wicked
The air cracks as I sink into the water. I panic as I swim, worried at any moment that something will drag me under, but all I think of isRowan, Rowan, Rowan. I have to help Rowan. Nothing else matters.
Somewhere behind me, I hear Kaius follow me into the Well, just as he catches up to me, we’re both dragged under by a force we can’t see.
I remember this, the last time I was here, being dragged under this water knowing there’s no escape. I look to Kaius, fighting the invisible force to try and reach me, but it’s no use.
With nothing left to do, no way to save us, I do the one thing I swore I wouldn’t:
I surrender to that darkness inside me, letting it consume me whole in the ways it’s been screaming for all this time. It breaks me open like lightning through the sky. It slithers through my veins like serpents. It makes me sharp like glass.
A voice I faintly recognize as mine tears from my throat, whispering, “Enough.”
Everything freezes. The earth. The wind. The water. Even time, perhaps.
From the Well, something emerges. Something ancient and terrifying as the darkest night.
A figure cloaked in robes spun from the stars themselves. With a face shimmering like diamonds and eyes like the most alluring void. Magic coils around it like chains of shadow and light.
And then I realize…that figure–it’sme. An avatar of the dark goddess in my soul awaiting my command.
She pulls Kaius from the Well, safely depositing him next to Rowan, whose evil bonds break with a flick of her wrist. Then, she confronts the Priestesses themselves.
“Kneel,”she says. Amatisi hisses back. With a flick of her wrist, she turns the Priestess to ash. She does not ask twice. The remaining Priestesses fall to their knees in silence.
“Insolent fools!”she growls in dissatisfaction.“How long I’ve waited to return here to punish you for your failures! You shall be punished. You. Shall. Perish!”
The Priestesses stay kneeling, their heads touching the ground in shame. Then, she turns to Kaius and Rowan.
“No!” I command. She harshly faces me, or whatever entity of me she takes orders from in this moment.
She smiles.“A soul is indebted to me.”
Then, she raises her hand in their direction, and I can’t let this happen.
So I don’t.
Something inside me cracks. A scream without sound. A surge without shape. Desperation to save the two men I love.
Light spills from my eyes, my nose, my mouth, my fingertips and toes. The last thing I remember is the world going white with fear.
Then—
Nothing.
Thirty-Four
Adelasia
Thick and unnatural silence, like the world is holding its breath, is all I notice when I sit up.
My eyes flutter open to a sky no longer red with blood, weeping with the tears of stars, or crackling with violence.
It’s still. Too still.
I’m on the little island in the center of the Well, where Eternity’s statue sits broken in a heap of black tendrils and ash. Charred earth still smokes under me, and my chest aches as if I’m breathing in broken glass.
My limbs tremble, my head throbs, but the only thing I truly care about is the absence.
Rowan is not beside me. Kaius is not holding onto me. The Priestesses have left no trace that I fear I might have hallucinated them entirety.
