Page 75 of Heavy is the Crown
Oisin smiles, shifting me off his lap. “You are in over your head, Harbinger. You are alone here.”
Astrea laughs, the sound echoing through the room. “If you think I need my mate to help take you down, you're sadly mistaken.” Her dark magic is all around her, dark mist weaving through her fingers. “So, this is your last chance. Give me my friend back.”
The pull from my magic is instant as Oisin sends it out toward Astrea, and a cry is yanked from me as I physically feel the drain. It smashes into a shield of Astrea’s magic, but Oisin just takes more and more from me, pummeling magic into the shield around my friend, trying to break through.
“You’ll kill me if you keep going,” I manage to say between gasps of breath. “I don’t have enough magic.” The glass wall cracks a little more, my true self pushing harder against it.
Astrea darts out from behind her shield, those two blades now in her hands, taking down anyone who crosses her path, as Onyx and Buttercup cut their own path of death through the crowd. At some point between when I last saw my friend fight and now, she’s grown into something incredibly lethal that I’m not even sure my magic can stop.
An agony akin to starvation grips me, and I cry out. My magic rips through me near constantly now, emptying the space it should hold in my body. “Oisin! You’ll fucking kill me!” But he ignores me, his sole focus on getting to Astrea, even as I collapse to the ground.
FORTY-FOUR
I often wonder if things would have been different if I never had visions. If being a seer wasn’t my destiny.
-Hansley Mori
Shadow
(“(I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight” – Hidden Citizens)
The air explodes with the scent of magic, both Ava’s and Astrea’s. A cold wave of dread moves through the three of us as we see people come running from the palace, and guards pushing to gain entry through the massive crowd.
“Astrea is using her magic. I can feel the pull,” Ciaran says. “We need to fucking get in there right now.” His eyes flare red.
I glance at Drago, who nods. His power pulses through the air as his shift starts. “You two go in and get them. I’ll take care of anything out here,” Drago growls.
“I love you,” I say. “Don’t do something stupid.”
“I love you, too.” His eyes turn gold, and his skeletal dragon breaks free, pushing from the rooftop and letting out a massive ball of black flames into the air before his roar rattles the very foundation of the rooftop we are on.
Jackson
(“The Devil Wears a Suit and Tie” – Colter Wall)
I stare out over the crowd that's amassed outside what was once my home, eyes shifting uneasily. Since this fucking usurper invaded, it no longer looks like the space I grew up in. What was once vast and sprawling forest and gardens has been replaced by huge walls to keep people out . . . or to keep people in, it’s unclear. Oisin has created a separation between the citizens and the royals that even my monster of a father never had. The wind shifts, blowing my hair into my face and bringing the scent of magic with it. The sky overhead crackles as if it knows powers are about to clash.
Somewhere in the crowd are our companions, anxiously awaiting the return of the Harbinger witch. And even deeper in the crowd are the two that I brought in as back up.
Dios moves up next to me, the wolf shifter silent even on two feet. I allow my eyes to pull toward him briefly. “You got them settled?”
“Si.”
I let out a sigh. “I need your help with something.”
He raises his eyebrow at me. “What is it you need?” His voice is rich and feels smooth running over my body.
“There is a woman, my contact. I need her out and unharmed when all this goes down,” I reply without looking at him.
He moves closer, his scent washing over me. Leather and gasoline. He sets me aflame with things I never knew I wanted or needed. All my life, I have been the dutiful prince, something I was happy to do, honestly, never questioning what my own personal wants and needs were. At least until meeting Dios.Until I realized what it might do to me to say goodbye to him.And I will have to say goodbye soon. He cannot stay here with me. For so many fucking reasons, he cannot stay here with me.
“Sending me in will deliver a message,” he says simply, cutting off my train of thought.
I put a cigarette to my lips and light the end, watching the flame flare before disappearing, leaving nothing but the smoldering ember that I pull from. The smoke curls around us in a haze, clinging to us both. I want nothing more than to pull us back into that townhouse and get lost in his body again. I want to pretend that after today, nothing will change, and we will go back to this forbidden affair we have begun. That I won’t have to be a king, and he won’t have to be . . . what he is.
“Mi cielo?”
My heart stutters at the pet name he’s come to use for me. “I don’t give a fuck what kind of message it sends. Let them understand what they’ve done siding with that fuck.”
