Page 188

In my arms, Melinoë’s limbs twitched. Achlys’s body slackened at the same moment, her head lolling to one side as she slumped to the ground; two sapphire eyes gleamed in her ivory face, her lips almost as pale, her white hair fanning out around her shoulders. One last time I heard her voice. ‘Please…’

Then she went quiet.

Deadly, mortally quiet.

With a loud gasp, Melinoë’s eyes flew open.

Ink-black pupils stared out into the world with animal ferocity –Creon’seyes, and I hadn’t seen the similarity as keenly until this moment, in a face that so much more closely resembled his own. Same high cheekbones. Same deep bronze skin. Even the way her lip curled up was familiar, not sweet and mocking like the Mother I’d known but savage in its fury, the expression of a female prepared to sacrificeeverythingfor survival.

Even if it was the sister whose mind she’d shared for centuries.

I almost,almostyanked my hands off her when she moved.

She didn’t seem able to look at Achlys’s body six strides away, at the dead flesh and bones in which she’d moved for so long. Instead, those dark eyes aimed themselves at Creon. Her armsrose from the floor, reaching out for him – slender lady’s hands, not a trace of scars or callouses marring the skin.

‘My son …’ she rasped.

He stared back at her, eyes empty like mirrors, a knife between his unmoving fingers. Around him, her mutilated victims didn’t move – silent witnesses of her latest attempt to sacrifice him for her own survival.

‘Please.’ A wheezing little laugh escaped her trembling lips. ‘I’m yourmother. You can’t let her do this to me – you—’

‘I don’t think you’ll get far with that line of argument,’ I said brusquely, angling Feather to fit the blade more snugly against her vulnerable artery. My hand in her hair was shaking, and yet my sword hand held perfectly still. ‘There’s quite a lot that mothers shouldn’t be doing to their sons either.’

‘Oh, go to hell,’ she hissed, voice sharpening in an instant, hands wrapping around my elbow as if to pull me away. I didn’t budge even as her nails dug into my skin. ‘Youcan’tkill me, you little pests. Not if you ever want that voice back. Not if you don’t want the rest of the magical world to die out within—Why are you laughing?’

Because an unexpected smile was curving around Creon’s mouth, wild and as sharp as unsheathed claws. A smile as inhuman as it was magnificent, primal and tightly controlled at once … and just like that, I knew what was coming.

Knew it, andcravedit.

‘Sorry, Mother.’ His golden voice was low and deadly – like the sweetest, purest honey, dripping with venom. ‘I’m afraid you’ve rather … served your purpose.’

Her eyes widened.

One frozen instant in which I saw the understanding hit, his voice, his words – one moment of explosive, horrified insight …

Then I slit her throat.

Chapter 39

She died with nothingbut a last, undignified gurgle.

The second half of the Mother, High Lady of faekind, killer of gods and destroyer of continents … lying dead in my lap, curled up like a child to be comforted.

Her fingers still clawed into my forearm. Her once-beautiful face remained fixed in grotesque contortions. Around us, dull thuds broke the silence – her puppets dropping to the floor as the magic sustaining them died with her. Nothing else moved as I slowly pulled back my sword – nothing but the blood that kept gushing from her throat, dripping onto the marble floor with what seemed like obscene loudness.

So, so much blood, and yet reality only sank in slowly – that she was really, truly dead.

She wasdead.

She would never hurt another soul again. Would never bind another soul again. Would never let out that blood-curdling little laugh again, would never call me her little dove again … I struggled to shove the lifeless weight of Melinoë’s corpse off me, my hands shaking, my trousers and fingers stained with blood. I’d killed her. I’dkilledher. Ended the empire. Ended the war. Saved the whole damn world …

Simple thoughts, simple facts, and yet my mind refused to absorb them.

Still no one moved as I dropped my sword and rose to my feet, as if the world had turned into a gallery of statues around me. The gem-eyed bodies lay scattered around the hall. Alyra had landed on an armrest of the ruined throne, glaring majestically at the mess below. Creon stood frozen, shadows carving his face into razor-sharp angles as he stared down at the body of the mother he’d never known, that stranger’s face mirroring his own.

But behind me …

The softest, quietest whimper broke the silence.