The Mirror King (The Orphan Queen, #2)(128)
“You’re wrong. You need me.” Patrick scraped his sword off the ground and lunged.
Tobiah moved toward me at the same time I grabbed him and pulled him to safety, a breath away from the sword point.
Patrick’s blade clattered on the ground. He grunted and fell forward. Behind him, James pulled his sword free of Patrick’s heart, and Melanie looked on with a cold, distant expression.
Patrick was dead.
Heavy moments stretched as we stared at Patrick’s body on the ground. Prince Colin’s body lay close by. A faint numbness settled over me. Something I’d always thought was impossible had just happened. And I’d lost another Osprey in the process. Another person I’d once called a friend.
“Your Majesties!” Denise dragged my attention back to the park and the chaos within.
Chrysalis had recovered control of the wraith, so the battle had resumed. Blades clashed and people screamed. Everywhere I looked, there were bodies on the ground, and others trying to flee.
“We have to stop this. Come with me.” Tobiah took my free hand and pulled me toward a tall building. We threw our hooks and climbed up the side of an old, pre-wraith structure. Melanie and James guarded from below.
On the roof, we could see the whole battleground, all the reds and blues intermixed, and those with black knives on their uniforms struggling to contain the fighting. Wraith beasts plowed through, growing with the heavy concentration of mist.
“People of Aecor!” Tobiah called. “People of the Indigo Kingdom!”
No one heard.
I touched his hand. “What do the people call you, Tobiah Pierce? What do they whisper about you?”
“The heir to four Houses?” He shook his head as understanding dawned. “No, I don’t think I should. There’s already so much wraith.”
“And it’s what’s causing the panic right now. Contain it. I know you can.”
He sucked in a heavy breath and braced himself with one hand on my shoulder.
A mirror appeared on a storefront across the way. Then another to our right. And another beneath us.
Dozens of mirrors popped into existence. Round, oval, rectangular, octagonal: they appeared in a hundred shapes and sizes, fixed to the walls and lying on the streets. They were all bare, sharp glass.
Tobiah stood at my side, his face upturned and his eyes closed in concentration. His skin was pale and slick with sweat, but mirror-reflected wraith light shone onto him. Us.
Wraith shrieked and spiraled upward, but Tobiah’s mirrors caught it—for now. Even the beasts were motionless, trapped in their reflections.
Everyone looked at us.
“People of Aecor!” I called, same as Tobiah had. “People of the Indigo Kingdom!”
Tobiah steadied himself and gazed over the crowd. It was impossible to say how long we had before the wraith escaped his mirrors, so we had to hurry.
I lifted my voice. “Colin Pierce is dead. Patrick Lien is dead. The battle is finished. Aecorians: your queen, the rightful heir to the vermilion throne, has won. Citizens of the Indigo Kingdom: you are all refugees, and by coming to Aecor, you agree to obey my laws. With me, I have King Tobiah, Sovereign of the Indigo Kingdom, House of the Dragon. He, too, is a ward of Aecor, per the Wraith Alliance.”
Tobiah made himself tall and proud, and in mirrors all across the park, I caught reflections of the two of us: black-clad vigilantes standing side by side. “Queen Wilhelmina has graciously taken us in. Indigo Army, you will submit to our queen. Aecorians who followed Prince Colin’s rule, you will submit to our queen.”
My heart thundered when he said my name. When he said queen.
I fought to hide the tremor in my voice as I spoke. “Our problem now is the wraith. It surrounds you. These mirrors won’t hold it forever, but I will take action to fix that upon my return to Sandcliff Castle.”
Thousands of eyes gazed up, some with anger, but more with hope.
“I need you all to work together. Protect one another. Every one of you is valuable.” I stopped myself before looking toward Patrick and Colin; we could have used them, too. The sense memory of my dagger entering his gut still echoed in my fingers.
Tobiah took my hand and squeezed the sensation out, though it probably wasn’t meant to be comforting, but a reminder. Hurry.
“You have your orders. Those who refuse to obey will be arrested and put on trial. Those who wish to throw out their former allegiances will be pardoned.”
Immediately, people began moving, calling orders, looking for guidance from their comrades. I let them be, keeping my head high as I strode toward the side of the building to climb down again.
A faint keening rose up, inhuman and piercing.
Tobiah stood where I’d left him, his hands clenched at his sides and his jaw tight.
“What is it?” I walked back to him. The noise grew louder, humming like bees. Below, everyone was looking around, moving more quickly.
Tobiah met my eyes. “Wraith.”
With a sharp crack and flash of light, every mirror in the park exploded.
FORTY-SEVEN
GLASS AND LIGHT shot upward in a thunderous explosion, but as the shards began to rain down, they vanished.
Tobiah was sweating, shaking, gasping. “It escaped. It broke free of the mirrors.”
He’d gotten rid of the mirrors before they caused people harm. That was something. But now the wraith mist was free; it swirled and shrieked, spinning through the park with a blinding glow. Mist burst outward, stretching farther into the city.