THE TINY VOICE of doubt that had whispered relentlessly in Irina’s ear since the night of Lorelai’s betrayal had become an deafening roar.
How had Lorelai stopped the collar from torturing the Eldrian king? How had she taken control of the mountains, the water, and the land and defeated every spell Irina threw at her?
How had Lorelai thwarted Irina’s will? Irina’s heart?
Either she’d had training—unlikely since Irina had kept an eye on every semipowerful mardushka in all Morcant in case the princess tried to return to her mother’s roots—or she somehow had more raw power in her fingertips than Irina had ever realized.
More power than she should possibly have.
Her deepest fear had become a reality: Lorelai was stronger than she was. There was no explanation for it. No reason that Irina could find, though she tried.
Had her birth been unusual? Had one of the fae from the realm of Llorenyae fled its home kingdom and found succor in Ravenspire in exchange for gifting the princess with extraordinary power?
Irina’s skin grew cold, and a finger of ice slid down her spine.
She needed answers about Lorelai’s birth—about the magic that ran through the princess’s veins—and there was only one person who could give them to her.
Her stomach roiled, and her heart beat in sharp, uneven bursts.
It was time to face what lay beneath the garden’s monolith.
She swept through the hushed hallways of the castle, Raz clinging to her neck, and kept her expression cold and forbidding as her pulse tapped a frantic rhythm against her skin. She ignored the maids who ducked out of her path, the nobility who turned as if to speak to her, and the pages who scrambled to open doors before their queen reached them, and ignored as well the thread of fear that trembled along her spine. Her guards walked behind her, their hands on the hilts of their swords.
She burst into the castle’s entrance hall, barely sparing a glance for gleaming floor that had once been covered in blood and destruction.
She had no time for sentimentality. No room for the ache of loss and betrayal.
A page threw open the castle’s front entrance, and Irina strode through, her spine straight and her head held high, though she shook as the chill of the early morning air settled against her exposed skin.
“Your Highness, perhaps a coat would be in order?” her guard asked.
She ignored him.
The path to the garden lead down the front drive and then cut to the left and wrapped around the western turret. The monolith glowed beneath the morning sun, and the starpetals that blossomed around it reminded Irina of blood against snow.
Tatiyana’s blood.
Tatiyana, who no longer had a voice to speak or a will to overcome, but whose heart still lingered in her bones and would give Irina the answers she sought.
If she could stand to see what else her sister’s heart contained.
“Leave me,” she said to her guards as she forced her steps toward the monolith.
Her steps slowed as she left the crushed stone path to walk on the circle of midnight black dirt that surrounded the monolith. The starpetals seemed to reach for her, their sharp edges eager for a taste of her blood. She bent to allow Raz to slither onto the ground, and then parted the starpetals with her hands, heedless of the tiny thorns that left cuts scattered across her skin.
Her heart beat faster, and her breath came in sharp, unsteady bursts as she sank to her knees on the rich, black dirt, crimson flowers latching on to her hair and the sleeves of her dress. Facing the glittering white edifice that marked her sister’s grave, she gathered her remaining strength, ignoring the weariness that was already pulling at her, and plunged her hands into the soil.
The ground was the same Ravenspire ground that had been grudgingly bending its heart to hers since the moment she’d set foot in the kingdom over nine years ago. She’d mined its power and bent it to her will countless times, ignoring the drain she’d put on it for the sake of ensuring her reign.
This time, there was no ignoring the resistance she met. The depletion of the land’s power that had once surged to the surface every time her bare skin grazed the ground.
She focused her power, her will, and magic exploded down her veins, out of her palms, and into the ground. “Kaz`prin. Bring me what I seek.”
The soil bubbled and heaved. Irina held on to the soil’s heart, exerted her will, and refused to falter even as she felt Tatiyana’s heart slowly rise to the surface.
With one last shudder, the ebony casket ascended from its resting place, split in two with a tremendous crack, and then Irina was holding the bones of her sister.
Irina tried to speak, but her voice was caught in the suffocating thickness of the panic that closed her throat. The bones in her hand were from her sister’s rib cage, the shelter of Tatiyana’s heart, and the place where the strongest residue of what had once been a living being would still reside.
Murderer.