The Crown of Embers(114)

Leaf giggles with delight. He sends more bolts, so fast they are blurs of streaking light, but I continue to pull the zafira’s energy into me, and they bounce away from my barrier.

“And now I try to kill your enemy!” he yells, and he turns toward Storm, who lies defenseless on the ground, still gasping for air.

“No!” I send my barrier flying toward him, but it is too late—a bolt of energy plunges into his leg. He screams as the fabric of his robe sears away in a widening, blackening circle, and I catch the agonizingly familiar scent of burning flesh.

I clench my fists with frustration. I have all this power, but I lack the skill, the finesse, to channel it properly. I can’t defend both of us. I close my eyes, racking my brain for an idea.

I’ve never been able to destroy, save for the one time. But I can create. I can knit flesh and renew life. I focus on the tree roots over our heads. I think about their bark, their soft insides. I imagine them growing.

Another bolt shoots toward Storm, but he rolls away just in time. Leaf bends his elbows behind his head, readying to fling the ball of light at Storm. I know what will happen next—it will explode in a wave so powerful that nothing can stand in its way.

Grow. Please grow.

Light tendrils whisk up my arms toward the ceiling. They wrap around the roots, untwisting them, pulling them down. And suddenly I am the roots, reaching as if with massive fingers. I grasp for Leaf, coil around him, yank him from the ground and dangle him in the air.

His light ball blinks out. He gapes at me for a moment, then kicks his legs in the air, which sets his chain rattling.

“Well, all right, then,” he says. “Your apprenticeship is complete. You’re a sorcerer now. I declare it so.” He closes his eyes and mutters intelligibly. Something jerks in my chest as my roots release him. He falls to the ground, lands with a great crack beside Storm. I drop to the ground a moment later. My knees buckle, but I keep my feet.

Leaf sprawls, his knee bent at an unnatural angle. “Ah, broke that leg again,” he says, as if it’s hardly worth his notice. “But no healing for me this time.” He cocks his head at me. “Would you like to be my replacement?”

I take a step back. “Er, no thank you.”

“I thought as much. You are a queen, after all. Things to do, things to do, yes? Also, I probably could not make you, living stone that you have. No matter. I’ll take this little mouse, weak as he is.” Leaf reaches out with a spindly hand and splays his fingers across Storm’s horrified face. “And now, my weak prince, all the power you’ve ever wanted is yours.”

“No!” I shout, grasping for more of the zafira. I sling tendrils of light toward Storm to pull him away, even as the manacles around Leaf’s ankles dissipate into fog.

Storm begins sliding toward me, but it doesn’t matter. Shadows form around his ankles, darkening until they are as hard and true as iron.

Leaf sways; then his cheek hits the ground, hard. He gasps in the dirt, a smile on his face. “Free!” he whispers. “You’ll put my stone into the wall, yes? With the others?”

His face caves in on itself until he is little more than a grinning skeleton. His hair turns black as he shrinks, dissolving into a cloud of dust. The dust coalesces in the air, then rains to the ground, forming an ashy pile. A single glittering Godstone winks from the pile’s center.

“I’ll be here forever,” Storm whispers. “Forever.”

I tear my gaze from the pile of dust that used to be Leaf and say, “No. We’ll find a way to free you. Maybe an ax? I’m sure Captain Felix has a blacksmith in his crew.”

Storm’s face falls into his hands. “The chains are formed by magic. No blacksmith can break them.”

“Maybe I can—”

“You can only do creation magic, remember? You can’t destroy these chains.”

“I’m very good at figuring things out.”

He clambers to his feet, and his features suddenly calm with resignation. “Majesty, go. Leave me here. Even if you could figure out a way to free me, you won’t do it. The zafira connected with you. I saw it. You’ll be able to call on its power forevermore. No matter where in the world you are. Just like the animagi of old, when we had our full strength. You truly are the chosen one.”

He’s right. Even now, I hum with strength, like I can do anything. It’s wonderful to feel such breathtaking power. I’m almost dizzy with it.

“But the zafira needs a living sacrifice, a conduit,” he says. “Without a gatekeeper, it’s useless to you.”

All I do is walk away from this place, and I become the most powerful sovereign who ever lived. “Storm, I never meant—”