Page 49 of Queen of Stars and Shadows

“You have no power here, sorcerer,” she says in a voice of ice and blades. “I created the darkness, and I created the dreams that haunt them.”

I step sideways and place a protective arm around Sarielle. I can feel the taut lines of her body against mine, the faint shiver that runs through her.

“And you cannot stop me either, guardian,” the demon says, pinning her gaze on mine. One perfect pale blue eye, and one ruined, rotting socket of darkness. “You fell within the thrall of my magic so easily before, in my ice forest. Over and over again. I pulled you like a puppet on strings, and it was your woman who saved you that day.” She chuckles. “But you don’t remember that, do you? Your mind has betrayed you also. Slipping slowly into madness… you can’t save yourselforyour queen.”

“You tricked me,” Sarielle says, shivering in a different way now, her eyes dark with rage. “You’re only free because you lied, and because you sent us to your hell dimension.”

The demon shrugs. “What’s your point, pathetic little queen? Of course I lied. And now your realm is mine. Not just your realm, but all of Aureon, now that the walls are crumbling. I will take this world back to the dark bliss it was at the birth of time, and I will drink in every ounce of suffering and misery…” She throws back her head ecstatically as if she can already taste it.

“I won’t let you do this,” Sarielle growls. “I won’t let you have Valaron.”

“And how exactly are you going to stop me?”

The wall of darkness behind the demon flares andwhooshesaround us. A great, howling wind rushes into my ears, and on it I can hear the screams of thousands of lost souls that I can only guess are the victims of this foul creature. Images begin to flash through the darkness, terrible, atrocious things. Rotting carcasses and the most vile and disgusting of monsters feeding on the flesh of those still living. Rivers of blood and entrails.People running to escape from something dark and evil, terror in their eyes. Piles of severed limbs and broken bones. It all whirls around us, faster and faster, pressing closer and closer until I can’t draw breath because the darkness is sucking every ounce of my strength…

Then it stops, and we fall to our hands and knees.

The demon stalks slowly toward us, pausing before Sarielle. I try to crawl to put myself between them, but the creature raises a hand, and my body is crushed within a grip of power. Agony lances through me.

“I could kill you, right here and now,” the creature hisses. “But I want you to suffer for a while longer. I want you to realize how powerless you are. I want you to be eaten alive with the knowledge that you released me onto this world, that its people will all suffer as unimaginably painful a final few days as you will. I want you to be here when Valaron falls, so you know that it’s all because of you. And when you have come to the heart-wrenching realization that you are no queen, just a pathetic, selfish girl who is the furthest from anyone who could dare to call themselves queen, and that there is only one true power in this world, one who created every terror and every evil that exists, when you acknowledge who the true master of this place is and you beg me to forgive you for your insolence,thenI will let you die and release you from your miserable existence.”

A dark, withered hand reaches out and grabs Sarielle’s chin, forcing her eyes upward.

“You are queen ofnothing.”

And then, in the blink of an eye, the darkness and its ruler vanish. The air rushes back into the room, and the shine of distant stars can be seen again beyond the throne.

I pull Sarielle into my arms, crushing her against me. She draws a shuddering breath and buries her face in my shoulder.

“I thought I sensed something,” Xinius says, his tone grave. “A shift in the balance of the realm. But I foolishly thought it was just part of the other chaos.” He shakes his head. “Isthsharyn. If she is free…”

“Isthsharyn?” I ask.

“Few know her true name. She is known to most simply as Mother of Darkness.”

A pulse of shock moves through me. “I thought she was only a tale told to children, a fable…”

Xinius shakes his head. “I think we all saw that she is very much flesh and blood.”

“Can she be killed?” Sarielle asks. “Or are we doomed?”

“It has always been fated that the world will end,” Xinius says after a long pause. “As all worlds do, eventually. There is nothing that lasts forever.” Another long silence. “If Isthsharyn is here, then perhaps that time has come for Valaron. But there is always hope, Sarielle. This makes the task at hand even more impossible than it already was, but if there was no hope at all, the world would already be gone. Because a world cannot exist without at least some small hope, some small light against the darkness.”

“Well, then,” Sarielle says, drawing herself up tall, “let us prepare for what’s to come. Isthsharyn will be back, and Avonia, too. We need to speak to the warriors, and the rest of the citizens. Prepare them for what’s to come.”

I feel a wave of awe at her strength and resilience. The demon is wrong. Sarielle was made to be queen. “Yes, there are many preparations to be made. We need to evacuate the citizens—we don’t know when either Avonia or the demon will return. And I will send word for all guardians near here, and any surrounding houses still loyal to the crown.”

“Tonight, I’ll send word through my dreams to Lilette also,” Sarielle says. “She and Owyn must be worried sick since I disappeared.”

“And I will make preparations for the coronation,” Xinius says.

“Coronation?” Sarielle asks, her brows wrinkled.

“You had a wedding,” the sorcerer says, “but you were never properly crowned as queen. These are sacred ceremonies, and they should not be set aside.”

I share Sarielle’s skepticism. “You really think this is the appropriate time?”

“No, hardly,” Xinius says. “But there are ancient rites that will help Sarielle in the battle ahead. It’s not enough to turn the tide of the battle, but it will give her a little extra strength. We need any available advantage.”

---