Then, as suddenly as it had started, the shaking stopped. The room became deathly still, as though the world were holding its breath, waiting.
In the silence, the pillar split open.
CHAPTER 25
Gregorn’s Pillar split cleanly. The crystallized salt fell away in two neat halves, dissolving into fine crystals that spattered like wet snow against the marble. Where the salt crumbled, watery light swelled in its place, blue and calm like the noon sun seen from the bottom of a clear lake. At the light’s heart, casting long, dancing shadows across the ruined stone floor, was Renaud.
He stood at the center of the dais, the last of the salt falling around him, and across his shoulders, draped like the pelt of some mythic beast, was a glowing waterfall. It roared in a torrent over his shoulders and down his back, and then, just before it spilled onto the floor, it hit the wall of Renaud’s open spirit and turned in midair. The water’s own momentum forced it back up his chest and over his shoulder, where the cycle began again, an endless circle of water churning in furious anger. But no matter how it writhed and tossed, its flow was contained by the barriers of the enslavement. Renaud’s control was well entrenched, and the water could not break free even enough to wet his clothes, which were completely dry despite the flood rushing across them.
Renaud held out his hand and the water followed his movements, charging down his arm to form a long, thin spike at the tips of his fingers, which he leveled at Miranda’s head.
“That’s two kings of Mellinor your little group has murdered,” he said. “Not to mention the destruction of our throne room. I don’t think anyone could object to your execution, at this point.”
“The only murderer here is you, Renaud,” Miranda hissed, clutching Gin’s fur. “Release that spirit!”
Renaud chuckled, and the water flowing across his shoulders roared even faster. “I don’t think you want me to do that. I see now why Gregorn was willing to die to keep this spirit. He’s barely awake, but just look what he can do.”
Renaud swung his arm, and the spike of water flew out in an arc, striking the wall like a cannon shot. The stones exploded outward, sailing into the night. Wind rushed in, and Miranda ducked as a shower of rubble flew toward her. When Renaud pulled back his hand, the entire northwest corner of the throne room was gone, leaving a gaping hole where the wall had been.
The stones in the roof squealed, but with one of their corner supports gone, it was a losing battle against gravity. One by one, they hurtled to the ground, cracking the floor where they hit. Renaud cackled, and the water’s light flashed wildly around him, shifting from blue to white to almost black in sickening confusion.
“Renaud!” Miranda shouted, putting her arms up in a desperate attempt to shield herself and Gin from the falling rocks. “Enough of this! You’re going to destroy everything if you keep this up!”
“And what do I care?” Renaud’s voice trembled with the force of the spirit he held back. “Mellinor is mine to do with what I like!” He held out his hand again, and the water rushed over it in a fountain of white spray. “This is the heart of Mellinor,” he shouted, raising the water high over his head. “Everything else is just an empty shell!”
As he clenched his fist, Miranda could hear the water’s own deep voice, warped by the enslavement, screaming in frustration as it fought Renaud’s hold. And as it screamed, the palace began to shake worse than ever.
“We have to get out of here!” Miranda turned frantically to Eli, trying to cover Gin’s head as ever-larger pieces of ornamental stonework crashed down around them. “That idiot won’t stop until he brings the whole place down!”
Eli looked up from where he was fixing the last of Nico’s restraints, but whatever he’d been about to say was interrupted as a large chunk of stone arch landed not half a foot away from Josef’s head, covering them all in a shower of grit.
“All right,” Eli growled. “That’s it.”
The naked fury in his voice shocked Miranda out of her protective crouch, and she looked up just in time to see another, fist-sized stone hurtling toward Nico’s unprotected shoulder. Eli caught it without looking and hurled it as hard as he could at Renaud’s grinning face.
“Do you think this is fun?” he shouted. “Do you think this is a game? Is beating us so important that you’ll bring down your own roof to do it?”
Renaud shattered Eli’s stone with a flick of his hand. “Don’t flatter yourself, Monpress. This was never about you. You and your collection of oddities were just in the wrong place at the wrong time when fate decided to hand me my birthright.” He grinned maniacally. “Consider this my thanks, a throne room for your tomb, my way of repaying the unknowing kindness you did me.”