The Heart had done a very neat job, crushing only the area around Josef and Adela but leaving the rest of the palace intact. It looked like someone had dropped a brick on this corner of the building, ripping away the walls and the roof but leaving everything else mostly intact. Servants were already peering over the ragged edge from the now-open rooms, their eyes as wide as dinner plates.
Where the Heart’s spirit was open, however, nothing moved. Even the dust was pressed indelibly into the ground. The stone wall had been crushed into the palace’s foundations by the Heart’s weight, bringing the roof down to eye level from the ground, and there, lying on her back and half buried under a cascade of cracked tiles not a foot away, was Adela. She lay completely still. So still that, for a moment, Eli thought she was dead. Then he saw her chest rise in a tight, tiny gasp, and he realized the truth. She was crushed, like everything else. In fact, the only thing not crushed beneath the Heart’s enormous weight was Josef.
He sat at Adela’s feet, watching her with a disgusted look. When he saw the three of them waiting at the edge of the destruction, Josef stood, walked over to what looked like a tangled ball of steel, and held out his hand. With a squeal of ripping metal, the Heart cut up through the twisted steel like a knife through ribbon and leaped into Josef’s grip, its hilt pressing firmly into its swordsman’s palm. The second Josef’s fingers closed on his sword, the monstrous weight lifted.
There was a whoosh of air as the winds rushed to fill the void. Josef let it blow over him, breathing deeply as the bleeding from his shoulder eased, then stopped altogether. When the wound was staunched, he turned and walked back to Adela. Now that the weight had lifted, the princess was coughing and struggling to roll over. She’d made it to her side by the time Josef reached her, and Eli saw her eyes widen in fear as she brought her hand up with a silver flash.
The Heart was there before she finished, the black blade slamming down just above her fingers. A spirit screamed, and Adela looked down in horror.
Just above the guard that protected her fingers, Adela’s sword was now little more than a ripped metal edge. On the ground in front of her, the rest of the bright steel blade twisted like a trapped snake beneath the Heart of War. The metal screamed as it thrashed, but every scream was fainter than the one before it. Finally, the sword fell still, its light fading like a dying ember, leaving the blade motionless, dark, and dead in the rubble.
“No,” Adela whispered, her fingers trembling on the hilt of her broken sword. “No. It’s impossible.”
Josef looked away in disgust. “Nico?”
Nico was behind Adela before Josef finished speaking her name, her hand coming down on the back of the princess’s neck. The blow hit with a solid thwack, and Adela slumped forward, her eyes fluttering closed.
“That should keep her for a bit,” Josef said, leaning on the Heart.
Nico stepped over Adela’s body to stand beside him, her eyes locked on his blood-soaked shoulder.
Josef began to fidget under her scrutiny. “I’ve had worse,” he muttered.
Nico’s eyes widened, but she let it lie.
“Well,” Eli said, stepping onto the rubble as well. “Now that that’s over, what next?”
“Get to the queen,” Josef said. “Before Lenette hears her daughter failed.”
“What about…” Eli tapped Adela’s body with his boot.
“They can handle it,” Josef said, nodding over Eli’s shoulder.
Eli turned to see the admiral and several guards marching toward them across the now-empty square. When he turned back, Josef was already off, trotting into the palace through the sundered wall with Nico hot on his heels. Muttering the usual curses about bullheaded swordsmen, Eli ran after them. Tesset followed a step behind, swift and silent as a shadow.
The wall the Heart had collapsed at this level turned out to be the outer wall of the pantry. Josef ran through the stocks of grain and flour, bursting through the door to the kitchen with a swift kick. The kitchen staff screamed and scrambled to get out of the prince’s path. Eli called out apologies as he ran past, but he stayed right on Josef’s heels as they cleared the kitchens and started up the servant’s stair toward the queen’s chambers.
They’d reached the third floor and were rushing toward the royal wing when Josef skidded to a stop, causing Nico and then Eli to run into him.
Eli poked his head around Josef’s broad back. “What is it n—”
The question died in his throat. Queen Theresa was at the other end of the hall. She was in a dressing gown, her face sweat soaked and pale as death. Long white hair tumbled loose from her head, the wispy ends nearly brushing her bare feet. Lenette was at her side, and the queen clung to her with skeletal hands. A small knot of worried guards trailed behind them, following the queen and her lady as they made their way slowly down the hall.