The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood And Ash Series Book 3)
The Crown of Gilded Bones: Chapter 47

Time slowed, and I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing. That Ian was no longer whole. That there was so much red everywhere—on the ground, on me. That it was his body falling, and it was his head rolling across the floor. It didn’t make sense.

Neither did the way I saw the Handmaiden lift her hand, her lips parted on a shocked gasp. Or how Prince Malik jerked back a step, the smug impassivity slipping from his handsome face as the wall around his emotions cracked just enough for me to feel the pulse of disbelief echoing through him. I didn’t understand Tawny’s screams as she backed away, why Emil’s eyes were so wide, or how quickly the blood drained from Kieran’s face, and the silent scream that etched itself onto Vonetta’s features. I didn’t get why Naill had closed his eyes or why Casteel was wrapping his arm around my waist, trying to turn me away, but I couldn’t be moved. I wouldn’t be moved. Agony ripped into my heart and chewed its way through my skull. Images of Ian and I flashed over and over in my mind, every single memory of him rapidly taking form.

“I loved him. I loved him as if he were my own flesh and blood!” Isbeth screamed, and then she calmed. “Look at what you made me do.”

Everything stopped as the entirety of the kingdom seemed to close in on me. I lifted my gaze from Ian.

Casteel’s arms tightened around me. “You vindictive bitch,” he snarled.

Her dark eyes glistened with tears as she shuddered. “It’s not my fault.” She turned to me. “I warned you. You didn’t listen.”

And then…and then everything sped up.

What came out of my throat was a sound I’d never made before. My chest cracked open, and what poured out of it was pure, untapped rage. There was no thinking. There was no understanding. There would be no ultimatums. All that mattered was that she’d taken him from me—she’d killed him, and I let that ancient instinct take over. It knew what to do with all the rage and pain.

I threw out my arms, breaking Casteel’s hold as the wave of energy pulsed out of me and rolled through the chamber. Casteel skidded back as Kieran turned. Royal Guards and knights rushed forward. They slammed into Tawny, where she stood frozen, her mouth open as she stared at me. I lost sight of her in the crush of men and shields and drawn swords as they circled the Blood Queen. And I saw the flicker of surprise on Isbeth’s face just as the covered windows along the walls cracked and shattered. Intense silvery-white light crowded my vision and formed in my mind, a thick webbing that stretched out from me as I took a step forward. I took out the Royal Guards first, shattering their shields and swords, and in the next breath, them.

Casteel unsheathed his swords as guards spilled into the chamber, but there was no one between Isbeth and me. Drawing in the anger and fear throbbing around me, I pulled on my hatred, funneling it through the cords snapping and streaming toward her. I was going to tear apart the walls around her mind like I had wanted to do with Casteel’s father. I wouldn’t stop this time. I would peel apart her mind, one section at a time as I broke every single godsdamn bone in her body. The silvery-white light pulsed over her and—

Isbeth laughed.

She threw back her head and laughed. I lost control of my will as Casteel whipped around, staring up at the Blood Queen. “Did you not believe what I said, dear child?” She reached out, flicking a red-painted nail against the thrumming wall of power. The light flared and then collapsed into shimmery dust. “That has always been one of your greatest weaknesses, Penellaphe. Your doubt in what you see with your own eyes and what you know with your heart. If you had truly believed in what I said, you wouldn’t have dared such a reckless thing. You would know that we are gods, and you don’t fight a god like that.”

She lifted a hand. Icy-cold fingers gripped my throat, digging into my windpipe. I reached for the hands—hands that weren’t there. A razor-thin bit of air worked its way into my throat as my eyes widened and then…nothing. I stumbled back, scratching at my neck.

“Poppy!” Casteel shouted, dropping a sword as he grasped me around the waist. I stared up at him, my mouth moving but without air to give my words life. His head twisted toward the Blood Queen. “What are you doing to her?”

“Teaching her yet another valuable lesson—”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lyra shift, heard her clothing rip. It was so fast. She’d been mortal one moment, wolven the next, and…

Isbeth turned her head toward her.

Kieran shouted a warning, and then Lyra’s high-pitched yelp and thick, snapping and crunching sounds followed. I tried to turn my head but I couldn’t. The grip on my throat tightened.

“A lesson that will get worse if another single wolven who’s eyeing me like I’m dinner takes another step toward me. The same goes for the Atlantians,” she said, and I wheezed pitifully, damp sweat coating my skin. “I will snap her neck.”

“Stop!” Casteel yelled. “Stand down. Now!”

I dug at my throat, panic blossoming in my chest. I couldn’t breathe. Pain streaked down my throat as my nails drew blood.

“Let her go,” Casteel said, dropping his other sword as he clasped my wrist. “Damn it, let her go!”

“I don’t think I will. You see, she needs to understand the same lesson you were so resistant to,” Isbeth said. “She has no choice. She never has, and I can tell she still believes otherwise. Perhaps she is a perfect fit for you, and she’ll never learn. Your brother has been far more accommodating.”

My lungs burned as sharp, stabbing pinpricks attacked my hands and arms—my legs. Black dotted my vision. Pressure clamped down on my skull. Those icy fingers sank into my head, into my mind. Pain sliced through me—the kind that seized control of my entire body, and this—oh, gods, this was what I had planned to do to her but hadn’t been quick enough or known how. It felt like she was tearing me apart from the inside, scattering my brain. I jerked, straining against Casteel as I clasped the sides of my head. I twisted, only aware that I breathed because I could scream.

“Poppy!” Casteel gripped my arm as I clutched at my head, tore at my hair as those claws kept digging in. Panic filled his eyes as wet warmth gushed from my nose, from my ears. “No. No. No.” He pulled me to his chest as he twisted toward her. “Please. I beg you. Stop. Please, godsdamn it. Stop! I’ll do anything. You want Atlantia? It’s yours—”

“You are not the true heir,” she cut him off. “You cannot give me what I want.”

“She can’t give it to you if you kill her,” he shouted as my teeth bled. “You want to control her? You want me, then. Take me. I won’t fight you. I swear. I won’t. Just stop. Please.” His voice cracked.

Consciousness was slipping away as I fell further and further into the soul-shredding pain. I could barely hear their words or understand them. I was losing the ability to make…thoughts, but I heard that—heard Casteel begging, and through the torrential pain, I shook my head. I took those screams roaring through me and all those frayed slivers of thought to form one word, over and over. “No. No. No,” I whispered and screamed as all the light went out around me because I would rather be dead. I’d rather be—

“You’re killing her. Please,” Casteel pleaded. “Please, stop.”

“You. Oh, you have always been my favorite pet. And when she wakes, she’ll know how to keep you alive,” she replied, her voice fading and draining away until I wasn’t sure that what I heard was real. “Malik. Retrieve your brother.”

And then there was nothing.

My head throbbed endlessly, and there was a metallic taste in my mouth when I opened my eyes. Fragments of sunlight drifted through the thick branches of an elm.

“Poppy?” Kieran’s face leaned over mine. My head…my head was in his lap. “You there?”

I swallowed, wincing at the pain. “I think so.” I started to sit up. “Where are we?”

“In the woods just outside of Oak Ambler,” Hisa answered as Kieran helped me up. I rubbed my aching head as I squinted. Hisa’s features were stark.

I kept looking as my mind slowly cleared away the fog. Delano sat beside Naill, who stood with a hand over his heart. Emil and Vonetta knelt beside the…beside a prone body. “Tawny?”

“She’s alive.” Emil looked up quickly, his eyes haunted. “But she’s been wounded.” He stepped aside, and I saw the darkness staining the rose color of her gown around the shoulder. “The bleeding has stopped, but…”

Vonetta pulled the collar of Tawny’s gown aside, and I inhaled a shaky breath. Her veins stood out under the rich brown skin, thick and black. “I don’t know what this is.”

I rose, unsteady. My clothing was stiff with blood. Some was mine, but most of it had belonged to Ian. “I can help her.”

“I think you should just sit back down for a little bit.” Kieran was on his feet beside me.

Pressing a hand to my head, I kept looking and kept…searching the patchy memories. The sound of crunching, breaking bones came back to me. “Lyra?”

Kieran shook his head.

My heart started thumping as I slid my hand to my sore throat. Isbeth. “Where is Casteel?”

Vonetta turned back to Tawny, her shoulders tight—too tight.

Silence.

A tremor rippled through me. The hum in my chest pushed and expanded, and my heart—my soul—twisted because I already knew. Oh, gods, deep down, I already knew the answer. I cracked as I drew in a too-shallow breath.

I stumbled around in a circle. My eyes locked with Kieran’s as I felt my broken heart crack even more. “No,” I whispered, stepping back and then toward Tawny. I needed to help her, but I bent, doubled over. “No. He didn’t.”

“Poppy,” Kieran whispered. “There was nothing we could do. Cas…he handed himself over. We had to leave. Isbeth said Tawny was a gift—a sign of her goodwill. One that she said she hoped you would return.”

“No.” Tears rushed my eyes as I tried to make myself go to Tawny. My stomach dropped as I jerked straight and looked at my left palm. The imprint was still there. I closed my hand and then my eyes, and I saw Ian…I saw him falling. I heard her laughing. I heard him begging. “No. No.” I gripped the hair that had come free, pulling until I felt my scalp burn. I could hear Casteel saying: “I was nothing more than this thing without a name.” That was what she’d done to him. What she would try to do again. “No. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Poppy,” Delano said, and I hated how he said my name, how softly he spoke it. I hated the sorrow pouring into the air around him, soaking my skin. I shook my head, twisting toward Vonetta.

“We’ll get him back,” Vonetta promised, but she…she couldn’t make that promise. “We will, Poppy.”

Kieran inched closer, his hands at his sides. “Look at me, Poppy. “

Still shaking my head, I backed up. I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t breathe again as my chest throbbed with eather. The pain tore through me—the pain and fear because Ian was gone, and I knew what would happen to Casteel. I knew what they would do to him—I knew what she would do because I knew what she had already done to him, to Malik, and to Ian.

Ian.

My gaze fell on Tawny, and I…

Throwing back my head, I screamed as the rage erupted from me. Over and over, I saw Ian falling. Over and over, I heard Casteel shouting—begging for her to stop. Lightning ripped through the sky, heating the air. A deafening boom of thunder exploded, rattling the trees and sending birds flying in every direction. Hisa and the guards froze. Delano pressed back, bumping into Naill. They began to back up slowly—away from me as my fury charged the air, whipping up a storm. And in the distant parts of my mind, I realized it had always been me. It hadn’t been the gods that’d caused the storms. It hadn’t been Nyktos. The blood rain had been them, but this…this was me—the violent stir of energy colliding with the world around me. It had always been me—this absolute power.

But I…I wasn’t me.

I wasn’t the Queen of Flesh and Fire.

My chest rose and fell as my fingers spread wide. I was vengeance and wrath given form, and in the moment, I was exactly what Alastir and the Unseen feared. I was the Bringer of Death and Destruction, and I would tear down the walls they sought to protect themselves with. I would rip apart their homes, scorch their lands, and fill their streets with blood until there was nowhere to run or hide.

And then I would destroy them all.

Streaks of silver-white energy crackled off my skin as I turned back to the edges of the woods, toward the city.

“Poppy. Please—” Vonetta shouted, leaping in front of me.

I threw out my hand, and she skidded through the tall grass. I stalked forward, the wind whipping overhead. Leaves snapped and fell. Trees bent under the weight of the rage pouring out of me, their limbs slamming into the ground all around me.

“Poppy!” Vonetta’s scream was caught in the wind. “Don’t do this!”

I kept walking, the ground trembling under my feet, the image of Ian collapsing, of Lyra being struck down, playing over and over to the sound of Casteel begging—begging her.

Kieran darted around one of the branches as it slammed down, kicking up dirt. “Listen to us,” he shouted, the force of my anger tearing at his clothing. “You don’t—”

I sent him back, his feet slipping out from under him as I screamed. Another pulse of energy reverberated through the forest. The trees in front of me shattered, and I saw the black wall of the smaller Rise surrounding the village outside of Oak Ambler. The guards saw me coming forward—coming for them. Several unsheathed swords of bloodstone as others raced through the gate. In my mind, the silvery webbing fell over the wall and seeped into it, replaceing those cracks I’d seen in the larger Rise. I latched on to those weak spots and tore the wall apart from the inside. Stone exploded, mowing down the guards.

A cloud of grayish dust blanketed the air as screams of panic rang out, and I smiled. Screams tore through the air, and I felt something gruesome curling the corners of my lips. I stalked forward, silvery-white light crackling between my fingers.

In the thick dust, an immobile shadow took form. It was her. The Handmaiden. She was the only still thing among the smoke, the screams and panicked shouts, her dark hair hanging in a thick braid over one shoulder.

“These people had nothing to do with what happened back there. They are innocent. Stop her.” The young woman lifted the bow, completely unfazed by the gathering energy and the streaks of lightning. Not a single muscle trembled as she took unwavering aim at me. “Or I will.”

I cocked my head, seeing the silvery-white light stretch out toward her—

“Sorry,” she said. “That doesn’t work on me.”

The energy recoiled from the Revenant. I pushed harder, but the eather shrank back, crackling and spitting.

“Keep trying.” The glow of silvery-white light shone brightly across her face. “In the meantime, do you know what will work on you? Shadowstone, which is what each of my arrows is tipped with. I put one of them through your head, you may get back up, but it won’t be anytime soon.”

My chest rose and fell rapidly as I zeroed in on the tip of the arrow. The fading sunlight reflected off the shiny black surface.

“So, I’ll repeat myself,” she continued, walking forward as she raised her voice. “These people have nothing to do with what was done. They are innocent. Stop this, or I will stop you.”

Innocent.

Behind her, people scattered into the dirty streets, rushing toward the Rise. They carried nothing but themselves and screaming, red-faced children. They were just mortals caught between the Blood Crown and me, and I could see from where I stood, that the gate to the city was closed.

And I knew that the Ascended who still remained within wouldn’t open it. They would’ve already done that if any of them had been like…like Ian. I sucked in a broken breath as I stared at the people crowding the gates of the larger Rise, their fear a pulsing mass.

I was not what Alastir and the Unseen claimed.

I was nothing like the deities they feared.

And I sure as hell wasn’t like my mother.

“I’m sorry,” the Handmaiden said, and my gaze snapped back to her as a jagged tremor rocked me. “I really am. I knew Ian. I liked him. He wasn’t like…a lot of the others.”

Despite the grief and the rage tearing its way through me, I focused on her, opening my senses. That ability still worked as it had before because I knew I was reading her emotions. I could taste them—the tartness of uncertainty and the bitterness of sorrow.

“But you need to leave. The Blood Crown has already left here. No one remains who played a role in what happened.”

“Except for you,” I countered.

There was a slight wince. “Did you have a choice when you were the Maiden?”

I stared at the Handmaiden. She could’ve struck me with one of the shadowstone arrows at any point, and I doubted she would’ve missed. But she hadn’t. She stood between me and the villagers outside the city, the poorest among those who called Solis home. Not between me and the Ascended.

My…Coralena had been different, hadn’t she? She’d been a Handmaiden—one of those Revenant things—but she had taken Ian and I away from Isbeth. She’d loved Leopold. I remembered how they’d looked at each other. I thought of the look on this Handmaiden’s face when she’d been summoned to prove what a Revenant was—the wave of hopeless desperation and then the feeling of surrender. Emotions I had been painfully well-acquainted with. And I thought of how Prince Malik had behaved when Isbeth had called her forth. He’d stepped forward and then seemed to stop himself. I wondered how many times she’d been used for show and tell, and then I decided I didn’t care.

It took every ounce of my self-control, but I pulled the energy back to me. The static charge of power faded from the air around me. The wind eased, and the trees stopped groaning behind me. “Where is she taking him?” I demanded, taking a step forward. The Handmaiden’s eyes narrowed. “If you’re thinking about firing the arrow, you’d better aim true,” I warned. “I don’t need eather to fight you. I imagine that regrowing sliced limbs and a head is quite the painful process.”

Her lips twisted in a brittle, thin smile. “Don’t worry. I will strike true.”

I returned her grin. “Tell me where they are taking him. If you don’t, you’d better kill me when you take me down because I will come back. And I will kill you.”

“Do you really think that is a threat? That I fear dying? After doing it as many times as I have?” She laughed, and the sound was as crumbling as the grimace of a smile. “I welcome the final death.”

“Do you welcome the death of the people you seek to protect right now?” I challenged, ignoring the spike of empathy I felt for her. “Because if you don’t fear your end, then maybe you’ll fear theirs.”

Her nostrils flared. “You all are no better than them.”

“You’re wrong. I stopped,” I said. “Would any of them have stopped? Would your Queen?”

She said nothing.

“I have no desire to kill innocents. I want to help the people of Solis—free them from the Blood Crown. That is what we wanted to do,” I told her. “But they killed my brother and took the one person who means the world to me. I will do anything to get him back. No matter how badly it stains my soul.”

“Then you know how to get him back,” she snapped. “Submit to her and take Atlantia in her name.”

I shook my head.

“So, you won’t do anything for him, then?”

“Because once she has what she wants, she will kill him,” I said. “She will kill me.”

“Then I guess you’re screwed.”

“No. Because I won’t let either of those two things happen,” I said. “I’m going to give her what she wants, but not in the way she thinks.”

Curiosity flickered through the Handmaiden, but then her attention shifted just the slightest to my shoulder.

“Poppy,” Kieran called quietly as several archers on the Rise scrambled into their nests.

Her chest rose with a shallow breath. “She’ll take him to the capital. I don’t know where. No one knows where she keeps her…pets.”

A shiver of rage brushed my skin, stroking the throbbing in my chest, and her lip curled in disgust. It was brief. I wasn’t sure that she was even aware of it, but I saw it.

“But it doesn’t matter,” she continued. “She’ll have every Revenant on hand guarding him. She’ll have him watching over your King,” she told me, and I knew that she spoke of the Prince. “You won’t get near him.” She lowered her bow, her shoulders settling. “Unless you can bring the fire of the gods with you, none of you stands a chance.”

A chill swept through me as I stared at her. Fire of the gods? Her gaze met mine as she took a step back. “I’m sure we will meet again,” she said.

“We will.”

I sat in the wooden chair of the hunting cabin Casteel had brought me to, after he’d saved my life and risked so much in the process, and stared at the bed.

Tawny lay there, her face too pale, her breathing too shallow. I’d tried to heal her. I’d tried once when I went back to the woods. My gift had flared to life then, and the wound had closed, but she didn’t wake. I tried again when we stopped halfway here, after we’d mounted the horses that Hisa had brought. I placed my hands on her too-warm skin as soon as we arrived at the cabin, but she didn’t wake, and those dark veins had spread up her throat.

We’d traveled straight through the Wastelands and had reached the hunting cabin as night descended. We had to stop. Everyone was tired, and Tawny… I didn’t know what was wrong with her or what had pierced her flesh to cause this—for my gift to not do much beyond closing her skin.

The arrow the Handmaiden had held resurfaced. It had been fashioned from shadowstone. The same weapon my mother had had the night the Craven came to the inn. The same kind of weapon the deities had been buried with and the skeleton soldiers had held. I couldn’t remember seeing what kind of weapons the guards had. I’d…I’d obliterated the ones who stood in front of me, but the Handmaiden had said it would put me down for a while. I glanced at Tawny. Could it have been shadowstone? Was that why my gifts had only worked to a certain point?

My gaze lowered to my hand. I turned it palm up and, in the glow of the candlelight, saw the marriage imprint shimmer. I closed my hand, squeezing my eyes shut against the burn.

I hadn’t cried.

I wanted to. I wanted to cry for Ian. I wanted to cry for Lyra. I wanted to cry for Tawny because I feared she’d never open her eyes again. I wanted to cry for Casteel because I knew what he faced, even if I could imagine what he must be thinking or feeling to know that his brother had not only betrayed him but would also become one of his prison keepers.

Anger had grown with each mile we got closer to Atlantia. If we had known the truth about who the Queen really was, we could’ve better prepared. We would’ve known it was impossible for her to be an Ascended. We would’ve known that anything was possible. Instead, we’d gone into the meeting hobbled by lies. No part of me believed for even one second that Eloana hadn’t known the truth. Possibly even Valyn had known. The knowledge they’d withheld could’ve changed everything.

Because it already had.

A soft knock drew me from my thoughts. I rose and stiffly walked to the door.

Kieran stood there. “Can’t sleep. None of us can.” Beyond him, I saw several shapes sitting around a small fire. He looked over my shoulder. “How is she?”

“Still asleep.”

“I know you haven’t slept.”

I shook my head as I stepped out into the cool night air, closing the door behind me. I glanced over at the bent and bowed trees as I walked with Kieran over to where the others sat.

Vonetta glanced up as I sat beside her. She offered me a flask, but I shook my head. I’d apologized to her and to Kieran, but I felt like I needed to do it again. I opened my mouth.

“Don’t,” she cut me off. “I know what you’re going to say. It’s not necessary. I understand. We all understand.”

There were several murmurs of agreement from around the fire. My gaze briefly met Hisa’s and then Delano’s and finally Naill’s. “He’s still alive,” I said roughly. “She won’t kill him. Not when she thinks she can use him to control me—control Atlantia.”

They nodded, but I sensed relief. They had needed to hear that. I’d needed to say that. “Does anyone know anything about shadowstone? That was what the Handmaiden had.”

“I heard what she said,” Kieran said.

“Do you think that could be what’s causing Tawny’s injuries?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” Hisa dragged a hand over her head. “She’s mortal. I’ve never seen a mortal wounded by shadowstone before. A lot of Healers in Evaemon and some of the older Elders may have seen something like this.”

I thought of Willa and then her diary, and the next breath I took hurt.

“What is the plan?” Emil asked as Vonetta handed him the flask. He took a drink.

We hadn’t really spoken on the ride away from Oak Ambler. Not about anything, but I had done a lot of thinking—about what Isbeth had said, what even the Duchess had claimed in Spessa’s End, and what the Handmaiden had told me.

Even though I’d refused Isbeth, she believed that everything was falling into place. She had the Prince and now the King of Atlantia. She had found a way to control me, and in her mind, she therefore controlled Atlantia. Just like Duchess Teerman had claimed, I would succeed where the Queen had failed.

But they were wrong.

I looked down at my hands—at the marriage imprint. You always had the power in you. That was something I had also thought about. I now knew where I’d first heard it. The silvery-blonde I’d seen when I had been so close to dying. That is what she had said to me.

You always had the power in you.

And it was what Nyktos had said. A part of me wondered if the woman I’d seen was his Consort. That, in her sleep, she’d reached out to me, to either warn or help me. It would make sense that she would.

After all, I was her granddaughter, if she was who I believed.

My fingers curled into my palms. The center of my chest hummed with power—the eather of the King of Gods. The kind that should’ve been powerful enough to destroy whatever the hell Isbeth believed she was. But I hadn’t been prepared. I hadn’t fought like a god because I did not believe I was one.

But Casteel had, hadn’t he? Did he ever really believe I was a deity?

I exhaled roughly. “She was right.”

Vonetta looked over at me. “Who?”

“The Queen. I am a god,” I stated.

Her brows rose as she glanced over at Emil and Naill. “Um—”

“No. Wait.” Kieran rose, understanding flickering through him. “If what she claimed is true and Malec is one of Nyktos and his Consort’s sons—and you’re their grandchild—you are a god,” he reiterated what I’d just been thinking.

Delano nodded slowly. “It doesn’t matter what in the hell Ileana— Isbeth—is. You are the grandchild of Nyktos—of a Primal God. That is why your bloodline is so potent. You are a god, not a deity.”

“Shit,” Emil muttered, taking another drink before Vonetta snatched the flask from him.

“That’s what Nyktos meant,” I said, swallowing. “I never needed his permission.”

“For what?” Naill asked.

“To use his guards,” I said, knowing that’s what the Handmaiden had meant by the fire of the gods. “To summon the draken.”