And then I realized I was missing someone.
The duke. The master of coin.
I had not seen him since the beginning of the night.
The fires in the hearth continued to cast light, but there were endless pools of shadows. And from one of those shadows the master of coin stepped forward, a crossbow braced against his chest, aimed at the throne.
His avarice was so keen that he had no qualms in killing his own “investment.” The countess is right, I thought. The master of coin didn’t want to see this curse broken. It would ruin the life he had built for himself in Endellion. All the money that dreams brought into his hands.
He let the arrow fly. It sang in the air.
I only had a breath to react. I was the only one who saw him, my eyes trained upon the arrow’s path. All my spells disintegrated in my memory. I couldn’t summon a single shield.
And so I didn’t think. I merely reacted—I let my body respond—and I stepped between Phelan and the master of coin. I took the arrow in my chest, hoping it would find the stone of my heart.
The arrow met me with startling force, blowing me off my feet. I slid along the floor and then came to a stop, gasping. I gazed down at myself like this body belonged to someone else, with this shaft of wood that protruded from my chest and the blood that began to spill like wine. The pain surged when I tried to breathe, when I felt the sting of my wound.
And then the screams rose. My mother’s. Olivette’s. Imonie’s. My father’s.
Phelan gathered me in his arms and together we sat at the footstool of the throne. He was saying my name, over and over—Clem, Clem, Clem—like it was a prayer, like it was an answer. Like he didn’t know what to do without me.
“Phelan,” I managed to say, and I must have sounded like my old self, because it calmed him.
He quieted, caressing my face. Fear burned in his eyes like embers. I tried to breathe and felt the excruciating pinch in my lungs again. A pressure sat on my chest, and pain crackled between my ribs.
My parents hovered, as did Mazarine. They were frantically speaking; their words rushed over me like a river. I wanted to tell them to be quiet, and I closed my eyes. Clenched my teeth. Ordered myself to keep drawing breath even though it was agonizing. And then the silence came, and it was beautiful and cold and calm, like resting underwater. I knew why the words had faded, because a shiver raced across my skin, and I began to change.
I opened my eyes. My guise started to crack along my arms, up my neck, across the planes of my face like ice.
Phelan continued to hold me against his chest. His warmth seeped into me, and I could hear his heart pounding, hummingbird swift in his breast. I watched the wonder in his face. It eclipsed the terror, the agony.
And I breathed and I broke and I transformed in his arms.
Mazarine’s ancient magic relinquished me. I watched Anna Neven crumble and fall away, and she lay in fragments around me, like pieces of stained glass.
My hair was long copper waves once more. My two inches of height and my full lips and the dimples in my cheeks and my brown eyes all came back to me, just as I remembered them. And yet I could not explain why I felt like a different girl.
Until I breathed again and felt my heart struggle to beat.
The arrow had not broken the stone within me. A wound had not ushered my breaking. It had been my decision to take an arrow for Phelan. For I couldn’t imagine a world with him gone.
And the last stone of my heart turned into dust.
“Mazarine,” my father said in a ragged voice. I felt his hand touch my hair. “Mazarine, can you do something?”
Mazarine gazed down at me. I saw that her guise had started to crack as well. Half of her face was human, and half of her face was troll. She was breaking, and I wondered why. Wondered until she laid her hand upon my chest, as if sensing the state of my heart. And I knew she had come to care for me.
“Her heart is weakening,” she said. When she drew her hand back, her fingers were drenched in my blood. “And the curse still stands. Perhaps . . .”
She had no chance to finish her statement.
Phelan rose with me in his arms.
I wanted to ask him, What are you doing? But my voice . . . I couldn’t find it. Yet he seemed to know my thoughts, because he said, “I don’t want to do this without you.”
I released a tremulous breath—all right, as you wish—and he walked us to the throne.
He claimed the sovereignty with me in his arms. We sat together, as one, and the curse came undone.
A wind tore through the hall. It was violent at first, the makings of a storm, and it extinguished the fires and made the shadows twine and dance. The windows shattered one by one, raining glass and lead. The snow swept in. I thought that we would all be torn apart, blown into pieces.
But sometimes things must break before they can be made whole again, so that they can be forged into something stronger.
The wind died, escaping out the open windows, and the snow gathered on the floor.
It was a quiet, peaceful night. A night for dreams. And magic teemed, thick and cold, in the air.
I looked at Phelan only to discover he was already gazing at me.
The pain in my chest was relentless. I couldn’t draw breath, and I made a sad, gurgling sound. Blood filled my mouth, and I knew I had reached the end of myself. And yet I wasn’t afraid.
I began to let go. It was a sweet surrender, to not have to hold on to things so fiercely as I had before. To open my hands and my heart and be who I wanted to be.
“Clem,” Phelan whispered.
It was the last thing I heard.
Mazarine suddenly appeared before us. In one swift stroke, she yanked the arrow from my heart.
I closed my eyes and surrendered to the rush of darkness.
43
One does not expect to wake after their heart has stopped beating, after they have slipped into the cold, quiet dark. One also does not expect to return to the light only to be greeted by a troll.
Mazarine sat beside me, her human form gone, shed like scales. She was just as I remembered from that fateful September day months ago: a jagged face like rocks, teeth overlapping her lips, stained with old blood. Coarse hair that shone silver, threaded with leaves and sticks and thorny vines. Her twin horns gleamed like bones.
She noticed my stirring and smiled, which roused a tiny flame of fear in me.
“My mortal girl awakens,” she said. “Sit forward and drink.”
I didn’t tell her I felt weak and shaky, and that my chest smoldered with pain. I didn’t think it wise to oppose her, even if her love for me had made her disguise break, and she helped me sit forward in my bed.
I blinked against the streams of sunlight that flooded in through the balcony doors. I didn’t recognize this room. It was far grander than the one I had originally chosen for myself, and I frowned, rubbing the ache in my temples.
“Mazarine . . . where am I?”
“The fortress in the clouds,” she answered, lifting a wooden cup of cold water to my lips. “The Duchy of Seren. The realm of Azenor. Drink, Clementine.”
I sighed, exasperated by her replies, but began to sip the water. It washed through me, trickling into the parched places of my soul, and I felt refreshed.
And then Mazarine added, “My duchess.”
I promptly choked on the water.
“What did you call me?” I rasped, coughing. The pain flared in my chest, and I groaned, laying my hand over my heart. I could feel linen bandages wrapped snugly around me, beneath my chemise. But my wound was still bright and tender. I wondered how long it would take before I could breathe without feeling that pinch of pain.