The Impostor Queen (The Impostor Queen, #1)(14)
“I did it too well.” She moans from between gritted teeth. “All it took was a moment of distraction to lose the balance.”
Something Kauko had been trying to prevent. Ice and fire are unpredictable, especially when they collide. A little too much of one or the other and things must have spiraled. “And yet you contained the storm. If you hadn’t, all our ships wouldn’t have returned.”
She looks up at me. “A Valtia protects her people. That is your first duty. Remember.”
I will my tears away, but they’re stubborn. “Please stay, Valtia. Don’t go.”
It is the prayer of a child, not a woman. My head is full of memories, of the first time I was carried into her presence, of the kindness in her eyes as she took me into her arms. I was so scared, but as soon as I felt her warmth, the fear melted. You are precious, she said. Your home is with me now. Her eyes had been filled with tender sadness, but also with love.
“I belong with you,” I whisper. “You told me that, my Valtia.”
“Sofia,” she says as ice crystals prick my palm. For a moment it’s so cold around us that I can see our breaths, but it fades quickly. “That’s the name I had before.”
A name she shed the day she became the Valtia. That she’s reclaiming it now is a knife in my heart. But her eyes are pleading, and I cannot deny her. “Sofia.”
“You’re ready, darling,” she rasps. “You’re going to be the strongest Valtia there ever was. The stars have foretold all of it. The world has never seen such power.”
My mouth goes dry. “You knew about the prophecy?”
She cries out as blistered patches rise on both her legs. Her injuries are coming from the inside out. So much magic, out of balance, tearing its vessel apart. “Can’t you do something?” I ask Kauko, forcing myself not to scream. “Help her restore the balance!”
He shakes his head, his fleshy lips pressed together. “It’s too late, my Saadella. And too much for a humble priest. Only a Valtia could do such a thing.”
What I need to be to save her, she must die for me to become.
“This isn’t fair.” I lower my head to kiss the frozen skin of her wrist. “If I had the magic now, I would use all of it to make you well.”
She squeezes my hand, but her fingers are so hot that they’re burning me. I clench my teeth and smile at her, tears streaking down my face. Her hair is haloed around her head, sections of it singed to a blackened crisp, others covered over with ice. It crunches softly as she moves. “I know the bind of it,” she says in a halting voice. “I remember the day my own Valtia died. But you will go on, Elli. I’ll always be with you, and so will all the Valtias before me. You’ll carry our magic inside you. You will never be alone.”
I bow my head. I don’t want this. Not yet. But to deny my duty would be to fail her—and all of Kupari. “I will honor you.”
She looks at me, her ruby eyes full of pain and love. “You already have,” she says, her voice fading to nothing.
Her body convulses. Elder Kauko cries out and yanks me away from the bed as flames burst from her chest, spiraling high enough to reach the ceiling. I scream, unable to look away as icicles stab their way out of her belly, her back, her neck. She makes no noise, but I am made of sound. I’m a frenzied animal, lost to reason as I try to get to her. I am so certain. So certain:
If I touch her, I can make her better.
Kauko is crushing me, his shoulder pressed over my face, his hand cupping the back of my head. He smells of sweat and blood and failure as he holds me to the floor. I stare at the hammered copper ceiling, which reflects the inferno below, the Valtia’s arched back, arms and legs flung wide, bleeding and burning and freezing.
Dying.
There’s a loud hissing sound. “Let it burn out,” I hear Elder Aleksi say. “We need to take the Saadella to the Stone Chamber. We shouldn’t have waited this long.”
Kauko’s weight lifts from me, but before I can lunge for the bed again, he and Aleksi drag me away. Sofia’s still burning, thrashing weakly. Her blood is smeared across the sheet and dripping onto the floor. The sight of her red eyes, wide open and begging for release, follows me into the antechamber. My thoughts are spinning. My body humming and buzzing. It feels like a chasm has opened inside my chest, ripping asunder what was once tightly knit. I shudder as my stomach revolts, emptying me out. Two acolytes dive for the marble floor and absorb the mess with their own robes.
Leevi shouts orders to the apprentices and acolytes as Aleksi and Kauko carry me through the domed chamber, all the way to the back, where a stone staircase leads below. Their hands are gentle but relentless. No matter which way I twist, they won’t let me escape. My Valtia. My Valtia. I scream for her over and over again until my voice is shredded. I hear mourners calling out, but I can’t make out their words. The growing void inside draws me inward, commanding all my attention while it crashes and roars like an avalanche, carving me hollow.
My feet skim the floor as the elders reach the bottom of the stairs. We’re in the catacombs now, the walls oozing with the essence of the Motherlake, blades of rock jutting from the floor and ceiling of the caverns and tunnels. The way is lit with torches, but it’s still a tomb, full of inky shadows that swim with secrets and age-old ritual. The elders finally pull me into a small, round chamber and set me down on a slab of smooth stone that takes up most of the room, leaving only a narrow aisle around the edge. The slab is neither cold nor hot. It feels like hard, unforgiving nothing beneath me.