The Girl King (The Girl King #1)(119)

She had a sudden memory. The Eastern Palace, some summer, years ago. She had tried to coax Min into the lake, so cool and inviting. Lu had swum out until her feet couldn’t touch anymore, then turned back to wave at the shore. See? she had called. It’s safe. Just jump in. I’ll watch out for you. There had been longing on her sister’s face, but it had been overtaken with fear. She’d always been so afraid. And so Lu had continued on her own, until without meaning to, she had swum so far she couldn’t see Min at all anymore.

I love you, she thought. But that wasn’t right—that wasn’t what—

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Min’s eyes widened.

A blur of blue-gray sailed between them, and Min was gone, bowled over by Nokhai’s mammoth wolf.

Lu! his voice rang out in her head. Go!

“Don’t hurt her!” she cried.

Wolf and girl tumbled apart. The ball of energy flew from her sister’s hands, but her aim was off, and it missed Nokhai, blasting a hole into the ground where he’d been half a breath earlier.

Nokhai rolled, coming to a graceful, deadly crouch. Min landed on her belly, then struggled to her knees.

She lifted her hands toward Nokhai. There was no hesitation in her face anymore. Just fury. Seething and single-minded.

She never saw Vrea coming. The blast took her hard in the back. Min went rigid with it, her arms thrown out like a scarecrow’s. She screamed, barely audible over the electric sputter of the lightning.

“No!” Lu cried. “Vrea! Wait!”

The Oracle dropped her hands and Min fell forward like her spine had been cut. Ropes of white-hot energy still whipped wild around her torso, her arms. They hissed as they lanced in and out of her.

Min lay still, her breath shallow and fast. Then, incredibly, her sister rose up on one leg, then the other. She turned toward Vrea.

The veins spidering across her face had gone deep purple. A patch beneath one eye had burst into a dark splotch like spilled ink. The reddened whites of her eyes were darkening at the corners, the black bleeding inward, making the hazy gray of her irises look white by contrast.

“Enough,” said Vrea, and her voice filled the air, firm and solemn.

“Not quite,” Min said flatly. She flexed her hands, watching the lightning lick around her fingers like flames on kindling. “You’re tired, old woman. You spent your strength destroying our army. Do you think you have enough left for me?”

“The corruption in your soul is consuming you,” Vrea said, thrusting out an arm. “Look! Look around at the madness you’ve wrought.”

Lu rose up on her good arm and followed the Oracle’s gesture. Around them, the walls of the Heart crumbled, billowing dust in their wake like a sandstorm. The trees planted along their edges flared green, then alarmingly greener, so bright it hurt her eyes. Then they dimmed, went golden, then black and gray as though they’d been charred. Their leaves dropped, drifting on the air, white and soft as ash.

“If you don’t stop, we will all die,” Vrea continued. “Help me put an end to this, before it’s too late.”

“It’s already ending,” Min said. “It’s already too late.”

She lunged forward, thrusting with both hands. The energy crackling around her disappeared into her body, sucked down under the skin. There was a pause, and then an enormous ball of light shot out through her palms. It shattered into Vrea’s chest and the priestess flew through the air, limp. She hit the ground, dead weight, and did not move again.

“No!” She could hear Prince Shen’s roar over the melee. “No! Vrea!”

Lu closed her eyes.

There was a rumble—so close, impossibly close, a thunderstorm beneath their feet—followed by a deep moan, as if the world itself were grieving. Half the stone floor fell away, replaced by a terrifying maw of sky.

In an instant, two hundred imperial soldiers on horseback were tumbling down into that abyss of benign, placid blue. The remaining soldiers reined up their horses and broke rank, stampeding away in terror. Most were headed out of the Heart, back from where they’d come, but some were trapped on the other side of the split.

Jin directed what was left of his tiny army back from the widening seam. Lu covered her head with her good hand as they stampeded past. How stupid, after everything else, to die crushed under a pack of panicked horses, she thought.

“Get to the temple!” Jin hollered. “The ground won’t hold without Vrea! Do you hear me? Get to the mountain! To the temple!”

Prince Shen drew Vrea’s broken body tight to him. Thin lines of blood ran from her nose. They left red streaks against Shen’s tunic as he clutched her close.

Jin ran back toward him. “We have to go!”

Shen shook his head. Lu could barely hear him. “She’s gone. She was all we had, and she’s gone.”

Lu looked behind her as yet more pavement crumbled. Set’s body was still lying there. For a moment, she met his dead, unseeing eyes with her own.

Then a crack widened beneath him and he too was gone.

“Can you stand?” Jin stooped at her side. His face was twisted in grief and all at once, Lu saw the old man in it, the young man, and the little boy—so many faces flickering like candlelight buffeted in the wind. She looked to where he’d been and saw Shen still crouched on the ground, holding Vrea.