The Shadow Queen (Ravenspire, #1)(99)

Kol lowered his shoulder and slammed into Lorelai, sending them both sprawling into the nest of writhing vines.

The vines whipped out and lashed themselves around Lorelai’s arms, legs, and waist, pinning her to the floor. Their teeth were razors, their poison fire. Her lungs labored for every breath she took. Her pulse pounded in desperation as Kol yanked at the vines that covered her heart, heedless of the teeth that sank into his skin.

Across the room, Irina hefted the swords, one in each hand. Her lips moved, and the swords shuddered to life. Releasing the hilts, Irina smiled as the swords hovered in the air like hawks searching for prey.

Lorelai’s eyes stung with tears as she met Kol’s feral gaze. His talons tore at the vines across her chest. The swords began circling faster and faster. Weariness from Lorelai’s constant use of magic was setting in.

Irina laughed in vicious triumph as she waited for the princess to die.

The last vine blocking Lorelai’s heart snapped in two, and Kol roared in savage hunger.

The swords dove toward them.

And Lorelai knew.

She couldn’t fight off both Kol and Irina. She had to choose.

There was no panic. No hesitation. There was only her heart willing to pay the cost of killing Irina and by doing so, save her kingdom and save Kol.

She gathered her remaining strength, stretched her palms flat against the floor, and called to the deepest core of Ravenspire. To secret depths unplumbed by even Irina.

The swords flew toward them.

Kol’s hand curved into an open fist above her heart.

Irina laughed.

“Hat`sja oyti,” Lorelai whispered. “Come together and rise. Take the one who hurts you.”

Deep within the ground, something rumbled like thunder trapped in a cavern of rocks. Something bubbled and boiled and surged toward the surface.

“Please,” Lorelai whispered, magic stinging her hands as it spilled into the marble and sank into the core of Ravenspire. “Help me.”

The swords were almost upon them.

Kol’s talons pressed against the skin around her heart as if he was gauging where to plunge his hand.

Irina shrieked her victory.

Leo’s face blazed across her mind, the laughter in his eyes turning black with Irina’s spell. Her father fell to the floor, already dying from the bite from the snake Irina had sent after him. The woman in the Falkrains sobbed over the bodies of her children before plunging her knife into her own chest. The land was rotting, the people desperately crying out for salvation; and Kol, an honorable king who’d only wanted to save his people, was lost.

All because of Irina.

Fury was a burning stone in Lorelai’s chest. It was the power in her blood, the strength of her bones. It was the beat of her heart—the heart of Ravenspire’s true queen come to save those she loved from ruin.

“Hat`sja oyti!” Lorelai’s voice rose as Kol struck, breaking the skin, tearing the muscle. “Hat`sja oyti!”

Pain was a flash of blinding agony that seized Lorelai’s entire body, but she kept her palms pressed flat against the floor, her magic pouring into Ravenspire with every furious beat of her heart.

The rumble grew louder. The marble shook, shivered, and cracked. And then the floor beneath Irina’s feet fell away and a fiery river of molten lava gushed from the belly of Ravenspire and surrounded her.

Irina screamed an incantor, but there was nothing for her to touch except the blazing stone that already obeyed Lorelai. Her eyes met Lorelai’s, and the fury in them dissolved into bewildered pain as the lava surged forward and dragged the wicked queen down into the depths of Ravenspire.

The swords dropped harmlessly to the floor, and the snapping vines disintegrated into dust.

The collar around Kol’s neck snapped in two and fell from his neck.

The snake wrapped around Gabril’s neck shrank until it became the harmless garden snake Leo had been playing with the night his father died.

Lorelai’s blood poured from her chest.

Kol closed his eyes and shook his head, as if trying to understand where he was and what was happening.

This isn’t your fault, Lorelai sent to him, and his eyes flew open as she used the last of her strength to say, I forgive you.

Horror filled his face as he saw his hand. Her blood.

He leaned toward her, but her strength was gone, and darkness claimed her.




FORTY


KOL JERKED HIS hand away from Lorelai’s chest and stared in horror at the blood pouring from her. Her eyes were closed. Her body lay limp on the crumpled marble floor, surrounded by the dust of the things that used to be vines.

Skies, no. Lorelai? Lorelai! His heart thudded against his chest, but there was no call to hurt, punish, and kill because he’d already done it. He’d hurt her.

He’d killed her.

He’d killed the girl who’d saved him.

His hands shook, and his throat ached with unshed tears as he doubled over and pressed his forehead to hers. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

It didn’t matter how many times he said it, or how deeply he meant it. It only mattered that she was gone, and that he’d done it.

So what if Irina had driven him to it? It wasn’t Irina’s fingers covered in Lorelai’s blood. It was his.

He didn’t know how he was ever going to be able to shoulder the guilt.