Page 52 of Once the Skies Fade (Immortal Reveries #2)
Chapter 52
Matthias
I t had to be humans.
Nothing else would have both the queen and her general as rigid as garden statues. A quick glance toward Graham further supported my suspicions, as he was sitting on the edge of his chair, his fingers drumming nervously on his knees as he watched intently. My skin prickled with unease when I picked up their faint scent. This wouldn’t be good. Resting my chin on my hand, I watched, waiting and searching for any clues that might help me determine Calla’s innocence—or guilt.
Isa was shaking her head vehemently, and I managed to catch some of her tense words: “No, we can’t delay. It has to be now. The Assembly insists.”
Calla hissed back, “I’m the queen. They are advisors, not rulers.”
“It will look bad if you refuse. This is a chance to rebuild trust with your kingdom.”
Calla’s hands trembled as she clasped them tightly behind her back, as if she were wrestling with her shadows to keep them contained.
“It will be worse if I lose control,” Calla seethed.
Isa flashed her signature stern, motherly look at her. “Then don’t lose control.”
Spinning away from Isa and pulling her hands in front of her, Calla faced her throne. She stared down at her open palms as if her shadows might be able to tell her what to do. After a few tense breaths, she turned back to the crowd and dipped her chin in a single nod to Isa.
The general, stepping to the side, gestured to the lead guard to come forward and speak.
The guard—a male about my age, give or take a decade or so, with graying hair at his temples—bowed to Calla, nodded to me and the other males sitting on either side of her, and then spoke, his deep tenor immediately silencing the crowd’s murmurings.
“Your Majesty, apologies for the intrusion, but this is a serious matter indeed. We caught these individuals sneaking into our kingdom from Wrenwick, a strict violation of the law.”
Calla lifted her chin once, but said nothing, and the guard immediately turned and instructed his team to remove the prisoners’ hoods. A man I didn’t recognize stood at the rear beside a young woman with reddish-brown hair. In front of him, the hood lifted to reveal a young woman whose face I immediately recognized.
Raven.
But my sister had said she’d slipped into Kinham, hadn’t she? Thinking back to that conversation at my sister’s home weeks ago, though, I realized that no, she had only relayed information passed to her through a friend, and that friend hadn’t offered any description.
Regardless, Raven was here now.
But why?
I’d been searching for her—and the other rebels—for so long, a brief wave of relief washed over me, replaced instantly by a weighty worry over what she was doing here and what would happen to her now. Could I protect her against the consequences? Should I?
While I pondered those questions, the guard removed the fourth hood, and I nearly leapt to my feet.
Sera.
My sister.
What was she doing here? Why was she sneaking into Arenysen? She knew the stars-damned risk, especially for her.
Her brown eyes glided over to meet mine, widening slightly with a flare of defiance mixed with obvious fear. My mind immediately pulled up the memory of the children covered in their mother’s blood. The image shifted into a pile of bodies and limbs on this floor. I hadn’t needed to see it with my own eyes to know the horror Calla had caused that day—a horror I couldn’t let her repeat today, for Calla’s sake as much as for my sister’s, Raven’s, and the others’.
Calla cleared her throat, drawing all eyes to her.
“Why are you here?” she asked, her voice eerily calm, almost sweet even.
Raven stepped forward half a pace and locked eyes with the queen, no sign of fear on her face.
“The poison used by the rebels in Emeryn has been coming from Dolobare through your port in Crowmer. I came to intercept the latest shipment to keep it from getting into the wrong hands in Wrenwick.”
Calla’s face remained stoic, her body rigid, making it impossible to tell how she was receiving this news. Did she know the poison was coming through her country? Was she the one authorizing it? Did she believe Raven at all? She didn’t ask anything more, though, and instead addressed my sister.
“And you?”
Before Sera could answer, Isa was rushing over to Calla’s ear, frantically whispering words I couldn’t hear. Whatever it was, though, had Calla asking, “Are you sure?”
Isa nodded, and the queen turned back to Sera once more.
“You aren’t human,” she said, and relief pulled my shoulders down, allowing my breaths to come more easily.
“Half,” my sister said, and I could have slapped her for the confession, but admittedly it would have been hard to deny given her rounded ears.
“And why are you here?” Calla asked. “Are you, too, looking to stop this poison?”
She shook her head slowly. “No, I came to help support those who chose to remain in your kingdom despite the law.”
My eyes slid closed, dread pooling in my chest as it caved inward.
“Help them how exactly?” Calla asked.
“Getting them food, namely, but also helping get their children to safety if needed.”
“So they send their children away but choose to remain,” Calla said. “Why don’t they just leave?”
“This is our home!” The couple behind my sister voiced in unison, and immediately Calla lifted a hand and flicked her fingers in a silent command to her guards, who kicked the backs of their legs. Their knees hit the floor with a loud crack that reverberated off the high ceiling above.
“This is my kingdom,” Calla said, once again in that off-putting tone. “This is my law—a law I decreed for your own safety. Humans…”
She paused, her mouth still open as if she was trying to say words that refused to come out. Calla’s body tensed until her shoulders trembled while she continued to try to speak, her mouth opening and closing like a fish on the beach. After several odd attempts to finish her sentence, she let out a growl of frustrated anger.
“I cannot—I will not—rule over humans. This is no longer your home. Understand?” she asked, and the couple exchanged a wary glance.
“Does that mean you are letting us go?” the man asked quietly.
“Of course not,” Calla said. “You knew the cost of staying. You knew it meant death. What kind of ruler would I be if I didn’t dole out punishment fairly? And as for you two”—she pointed to Raven and Sera in turn—“You were never my citizens. Entering my kingdom unlawfully—regardless of your supposedly good intentions—makes you enemies of the Arenysen crown. And what do we do with our enemies?”
With this question, she pivoted to her right and gestured to Korben, who had a wicked gleam in his eye as he answered.
“Death is the typical punishment for spies.”
It took considerable effort not to lunge across the dais and smash my fist in the male’s face for trying to get my sister executed.
“Agreed,” Calla said, and lifting her hand, she pulled her shadows out to swirl above her open palm.
“No,” I said, pushing to my feet.
Sera was shaking her head at me. Raven seemed to notice me for the first time. Calla slowly rounded on me, her shadows still dancing on her hand while some tendrils seemed to drift toward me.
“No?” Calla asked, her dark eyes narrowing on me, a dare not entirely different from the expression she’d worn in my room the other night, though decidedly more fearsome. I risked walking toward her. Ignoring the crowd around us, I held her gaze amid the heavy silence in the room. I stopped an arm’s length away from her, close enough I could grab her if she tried anything, but not so close as to betray our connection.
“Hold them for trial”—I barely stopped myself from using my nickname for her—“Your Majesty. Show your kingdom that you’re just and capable of mercy, that you aren’t the killer they believe you to be.”
Her expression iced over. “I am just, general. But some are not worthy of mercy.”
“What did the humans do to you?” I asked before I could think better of it. “Whoever hurt you, they are not here. These people did not harm you.”
“They did when they chose to disobey my laws!”
“I’m not suggesting you let them go. But this is not the time to act rashly. Remind them of who you truly are—the caring, compassionate queen we all know you to be.”
“Remind them?” she asked quietly, and I nodded, stupidly thinking I’d helped. Her lips curled up into a sinister grin. “Seems they need to be reminded of what happens when they defy their queen.”
Before I could stop her, she sent her shadows careening toward the prisoners. They bypassed Raven and Sera to surround the young couple in darkness, their sharp cries choked off by her power. When her shadows lifted, the man and woman crumpled to the floor, lifeless.
The crowd gave a collective gasp.
She killed them without a second thought—no remorse—suffocating them with such ease, just as she had nearly done with Korben in the hallway. The scene before me vanished as a memory took its place. Gabriel gasping for breath as the Shadow Keeper filled his lungs with darkness instead. I’d been helpless to stop it, incapable of helping him, as feeble then as I was now. Calla’s clicking tongue snapped me back to the present. Her shadows once again swirled slowly in front of her.
“If you wanted to stop the poison,” she said to Raven, “you should have come to me or to the Assembly.”
“How do you think my family got the poison in the first place?” Raven challenged. “All shipments from Dolobare require royal approval. For all I know, you’re the one who has been orchestrating its transport.”
“And what use would I have with a weapon against my own kind?”
“Ask your husband,” Raven spat.
Calla roared—a pained, mournful sound—and threw her hands toward Raven.
No! I wouldn’t let this happen again. I wouldn’t stand idly by and do nothing.
I bounded forward, jumping off the dais to stand in front of Raven, as if I could actually block Calla’s powers from reaching her. Yet, that’s exactly what happened. Her shadows halted, winding around my arms and legs, through my hair and over my torso, moving like a pet against its owner, who had just returned from a long absence.
Growling low, Calla glowered at me. Her face twisted in anguish and confusion as she seemed to try to get her shadows to move past me. I risked a glance at the other males still seated on the dais. Korben bore a wicked grin as if he were already picturing my execution, silently begging for her power to end me right here. Phillip’s eyes were as wide as his mouth, which he tried to hide behind splayed fingers, and Graham watched all of this with a stoic curiosity.
“Move, Matthias,” she hissed the command, but I stood firm, extending an arm out in front of my sister as well.
“No. I won’t let you do this,” I said, gently. “Not without a trial.”
She sneered, baring her teeth, but pulled her shadows back into her palms. Gesturing to the guards, she said, “Then you’ll go to the dungeons with them.”