Page 54 of Pearls of Salt and Sacrifice

Reva froze. “What are you talking about?”

“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” her stepmother said in a tight, pained voice. “The Death Pearl has such power. Such tremendous power. I only meant to use it to call the beast. But after the attack on the Endellion, I lost control of the monster. It stopped listening to me.”

Reva’s pulse throbbed in her temple, but she refused to release her grip on Cassandra. “So you didn’t send that thing after me?”

“Well…yes.” Cassandra twisted her lips into a bitter smile. “You’re in the way, Reva—your father should have made me queen, not regent. Queen! You’re just like your mother, you know. She stole my place first. Your father should have been mine, but he took one look at your mother and fell in love.”

Cassandra said the words as if falling in love were a disease that might be catching.

“And then when she died, I thought I might be able to take my place at last. But your weak father willed that you become queen on your eighteenth birthday. And what did that make me?”

“A regent, Cassandra. It made you a regent!”

“I don’t want to be regent!” Cassandra’s scream echoed off the walls of the castle. “I want to be mistress of this gods-forsaken island. I want to throw you into the sea and watch you drown, and I want to kill every last elf in the ocean, and I want—”

“Those things won’t make you a queen,” Reva said, angry tears burning behind her eyes. “They make you a tyrant. I understand why you may want to get rid of me, but why the elves? What did they ever do to you?”

“They murdered my parents, that’s why!” Cassandra’s chest rose and fell with frantic breaths. “Before you were born, there was a skirmish between the humans and elves. My parents went out to battle and never came home. The elves murdered them.”

Reva’s eyes rolled closed momentarily, as puzzle pieces slowly clicked into place. But Cassandra had twisted everything up so that the truth might never be found. “Cassandra, that was war. Terrible things happen in war, but we aren’t at war now. Jareth and his sisters aren’t the ones who killed your parents—and just like we aren’t the ones who went out to fight in that battle. Those were other people, other times. You have to let it go.”

“I won’t let it go!” Cassandra yanked free of Reva’s hold and took a step back. “They ruined my life, made me a sands-blighted orphan. I scraped and fought for every crumb. I gave up everything to earn this crown, my crown. And you’re not going to take it from me now. Yes, I failed to kill you on that beach, and yes, I failed to sink the Andromeda. But I won’t fail again.”

Anger flared in Reva’s belly, but shock held her in its silent grip.

“I’m going to finish what I started. I may have lost control of the kraken, but I can still get what I want. And if you interfere, you’re going to get everyone killed. So for once in your life, stand aside and take your proper place on this island. I am Etthan’s future. I am their queen.”

“You’re not a queen,” Reva said, tears stinging her eyes as she stared at the woman who should have been guide and protector. “You’re a mad woman.”

“No,” Cassandra said, the unnatural shadows in her eyes coalescing into a single mass that drowned out all hints of color. “I’m Etthan’s queen. I’m a queen.”

Reva felt bile rise in the back of her throat as she watched this woman succumb to madness.

Then Cassandra screamed a word Reva had never heard. A shockwave drove Reva backward. Her hands slipped off Cassandra, and she skidded across the balcony, slamming into the outside wall of the castle. Stars in her vision mingled with pain in her body.

Groaning, Reva struggled to her feet and took a moment to clear the darkness pressing at her peripherals. Then she advanced on Cassandra again.

“Don’t you see?” Cassandra’s words were as sharp as a blade. “With every life it takes, that thing gets bigger. It gets stronger. And if you interfere, it will become unstoppable. This is the only way.”

Another shadowy tentacle smashed against the side of the castle, about fifty yards below them. The impact shook the foundations of the castle. Reva and Cassandra both stumbled. Reva didn’t doubt her stepmother was telling the truth—this beast was already five times the size of the one that had attacked the Andromeda.

“We need to stop this creature before it destroys Etthan entirely!”

But as Reva drew close to Cassandra again, she realized her stepmother’s dark eyes had gone completely black, with madness and magic and who knew what else.

“Too late,” Cassandra breathed, in a tone twisted with both fear and fascination. “Too late. With every life it takes, with every drop of blood it spills, it only strengthens.”

Fresh screams of terror from below only reinforced how out of control the shadow kraken had become.

“We must do something!” Reva lurched forward and grabbed her stepmother by the shoulders, shaking her. “Jareth can help us. His krakens will help fight the—”

“He can’t help you.”

“Why not?” Reva clung to Cassandra, digging her fingers into the woman’s shoulders.

“Only a blood sacrifice can stop the monster now,” Cassandra said as her black eyes stared at Reva, unseeing.

Blood sacrifice.

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