The Girl King (The Girl King #1)(116)

“The separation between our realms has been corrupted,” Vrea told Min. “Yunis is crumbling. Falling back down to earth. We will fall with it, unless you think you can stop it.”

Set laughed, steering his horse daintily back from the slow-spreading cracks in the ground. “You can drop the stern teacher act, Oracle. My little bride broke your gate, dismantled your pitiful spells of protection. You can’t overpower us. Whatever you’ve made she will unmake.”

“Destruction is easy,” Vrea said, her voice sharp. “This child has strength enough for that. But I wonder, does she have the skill to mend? To create? If not, what is to prevent you from being killed along with the rest of us?”

Fear swept across Set’s face, brief as the shadow of a bird overhead.

“Don’t.” The voice was ragged. Min shoved her long hair back roughly, glowering at Vrea. “Don’t speak of me as though I weren’t here!”

She lashed out a hand and struck Vrea full in the chest with a blast of white light. The priestess bowed around it, manipulating it with her hands, absorbing it into her body. She stumbled, her brow creased in effort. Prince Shen stepped forward as though to help her.

“Get back!” she told him.

“Don’t kill the Oracle!” Brother rode up to Min. His stallion stamped in wide, nervous circles and he flailed at the reins to still it. “We need her knowledge. She knows the secrets of this place—I need that knowledge!”

“I am the knowledge,” snarled Min, raising her hand again. “And I don’t need anything.”

“Min!” Lu screamed, and this time her sister heard, turning like a hound to a whistle.

“Lu?”

Nasan tried to grab her, but Lu ran forward. Min put up a hand.

Lu willed herself not to flinch, not to think of the damage that hand had only just wrought. There was no lightning, no intent behind the gesture. A defensive reflex only. And this was her little sister, after all. Min wouldn’t hurt her. She wouldn’t.

The two of them stared at one another, breathing hard. At their backs, the two sides faced off warily, neither moving. Vrea’s hands were up.

“Lu.” Min’s voice went soft. “You cut your hair.”

“You . . .” The words died on Lu’s lips as she searched Min’s face. It wasn’t just her sister’s skin. The tiny veins in her eyes had run up to the surface and burst, flooding the whites of them red, turning the irises into hazy gray islands in a sea of blood. And there was nothing in them, Lu realized with a jolt of terror. No familiarity, no fear.

“Min, what happened?” Lu whispered. “What has he done to you?”

Set laughed. A cruel, scraping sound. “I’ve done nothing. This is what she is. She said it herself: this is what she was born for.”

Lu ignored him. “Min, this is madness. Come with me. Let Vrea—help Vrea—salvage whatever’s left here. We’re all in danger. Whatever’s happened, whatever you’ve done, we can fix it, we can forgive—”

“Enough,” Set interrupted coldly, sliding down from his horse and striding forward. “Min is my wife. She is the empress. You speak of forgiveness? Well, she’s not yours to forgive.”

Lu met his gray gaze, then raised her own sword. “I’ll kill you,” she said, voice trembling. “Whatever you’ve done to her—I’ll kill you for it.”

Brother stepped forward. “Emperor Set, please take care—”

Set’s eyes never left Lu. “Min, my empress, burn alive the next person who dares interrupt me and your sister, would you?”

Brother did not speak again.

Set sneered at Lu. “Are you so stupid you don’t understand what this is, cousin? You lost. I won.”

“Not yet you haven’t,” Lu said. She flexed her hand around the pommel of her sword, feeling that weight, as familiar as one of her limbs. “Not while I’m alive.”

She didn’t hear Nokhai approach so much as she felt him. He stopped protectively beside her, his wolf’s body taut and bristling.

Set’s lip raised in disgust. “What is that thing?”

Don’t you remember me? Nokhai’s voice trembled in their ears. You tried to kill me when we were children. I looked a bit different back then, admittedly . . .

The haughtiness slipped from Set’s face. “Ashina? That’s not possible. Your Pact was broken—we killed you all!”

Not all.

Set’s gray eyes narrowed. His sword flashed in the strange light as he raised it. “Then I’ll finish the job now.”

“No,” Lu snapped. “Nokhai, get back.”

Lu . . .

She met his wolf eyes, golden and fierce, and yet still somehow familiar. “I have him,” she said, “go help the Triarch. Let me end this.”

He fell back, but kept a close distance.

“You and me, cousin,” Lu told Set. “Come. Let me teach you one last lesson.”

Her words broke something in him; he came at her hard and furious and impossibly fast. She barely had time to parry. Their blades met, the cold bite sending tremors through her arms. She could still feel the Yunian liquor coursing in her blood, and her muscles were weak with disuse.

It has been too long, she realized wildly.