Song of Blood & Stone (Earthsinger Chronicles #1)(90)

“Be it so,” said Jasminda under her breath. She could barely think for the questions swirling around in her head. Could it really be true? She and Jack together as king and queen?

Oola rose higher into the air, surveying the land and the people. A disturbance among the Lagrimari caught Her attention, and She hovered staring at the sea of soldiers. Jasminda craned to see what caused the lines of Lagrimari to part. From this distance, all she could make out was the movement of a bright, reflective object, glinting in the sun. She pulled Jack forward, passing through the sea of stunned Elsirans to get a closer look. Every sense was on alert.

They reached the front of the crowd, and Jasminda jerked to a stop, causing Jack to plow into her back.

“What is it?”

She could only stare as dread cooled her skin.

Sunlight glittered off the jewel-encrusted mask covering the face of a man walking across the battlefield. No holes for eyes, nose, or mouth were visible—just a covering of multicolored precious stones obscuring his entire head. A heavy tunic lined with even more jewels flowed nearly to his ankles. He walked across the caldera-covered ground as if laying claim to the land. As if he had already conquered everything he surveyed.

Jasminda tapped into the maelstrom of emotions surrounding her and struggled to parse them out. The strongest by far were from Oola—pain, shame, anger, heartbreak, and finally, relief. Oddly, Jasminda could sense nothing from the man in front of her, who could be none other than the True Father. Eero. His emotions were a vast emptiness. Were he not standing directly on the caldera she would have thought he was blocking her Song somehow, but perhaps he had no feelings left after centuries of tyranny.

Oola lowered herself before Her twin until Her feet hovered over the ground. She reached for him and ran a finger across the grotesque mask. Jasminda once again pushed forward, drawn toward the two as if by an invisible chain. Having spent so much time inside Oola’s head, worry blossomed within her at the Queen’s reaction.

“You have returned,” Eero said. His voice was nothing like that of his younger self. Hollow and raspy, it was the sound of death. Both Oola and Jasminda flinched.

“I have come back for you,” Oola said.

They spoke quietly, just for the two of them, but Jasminda made out their words.

“You came back to take from me what is mine,” Eero grated.

Oola dropped Her hand. Jasminda was now close enough to see the tears welling in the Queen’s eyes. Her worry grew.

“I came back to right my wrong.” One tear broke free and streamed down Oola’s cheek. “What have you done, brother?”

Eero raised his hands to his mask and pulled it off his face. A silent shudder went through those on both sides. None alive had seen beneath the mask he’d first donned centuries ago. Subjugation and misery had altered the collective memory, and the Lagrimari had forgotten their leader was not an Earthsinger like them. They’d forgotten why he preyed on them and stole their power.

The jeweled mask fell from his gloved fingertips. Beneath it, Eero’s face was unchanged from the young man Jasminda had seen in Oola’s memories. The shock of the crowd was oppressive. It slammed into Jasminda, forcing her to throw up a shield against the assault.

“Will you embrace me one last time, sister?” Eero’s words echoed those he’d spoken before betraying his twin all those years ago.

Oola’s emotions sharply changed. Guilt came to the forefront, her resolve to right her wrong was slipping away under the weight of the familiarity and love she still felt for her brother. His amber eyes held a warmth that did not correspond to the emptiness inside him. Oola could not sense it, she had always been blinded to him, just as Yllis had said, and even now, even now, as Jasminda observed, she continued to be so.

Jasminda needed a way to get through to Oola, to make her see her brother for what he really was.

Your Majesty. Jasminda thought a message, the way Osar and the Earthsingers of old had. She did not know if it would work, she had little control over the vast power now bursting beneath her skin, but she had to try. He is not the boy you knew any longer. You must not allow him to sway you. If the message had gone through, if Oola had heard her plea, she gave no acknowledgment. Instead, her self-condemnation seemed to grow.

Jasminda trembled. History could not repeat itself again. “We have to help her,” she whispered to Jack.

“Help Her?”

Jasminda never took her eyes off Oola. They’d thought her a goddess, but she was a woman, a woman with a broken heart who had nothing left in this world. A woman caught in a vortex of pain.

“She can’t do it. Even after everything . . .” Jasminda wrung her hands. She too knew heartbreak. She too knew loss. But somehow Oola had allowed those emotions to overtake her resolve, and now she faltered when she needed to act.

“We have to stop him before he harms her.”

Jack’s expression was incredulous, but he nodded. The True Father was now bound from using Earthsong by the caldera, and if Oola’s feet touched the ground, she’d also become powerless. But in the final vision Jasminda had seen through Oola’s eyes, Eero had even then been bound by Yllis’s blood spell. The bracelets on Eero’s wrists had been calderas. But those bracelets had not stopped him from stealing his sister’s Song. To do that he must have used pure blood magic, Jasminda surmised. And blood magic had allowed him to destroy the calderas.