Kestra’s attempt had failed. That black disk had been my last hope for Joth’s death. If he intended to use the whole of his magic against me, nothing I could do would offer more than a few seconds of defense. But I raised my sword anyway.
“This is your last chance!” Harlyn yelled as she burst through the doors of the throne room. Joth’s attention shifted to her, and I sent an order to Rawk, who immediately laid a line of fire directly at Joth, though he raised a shield to protect himself.
Harlyn shouted, “You may have the power to harm us separately, but you will never get us all, not before one of us gets you!”
“The five of you and a young silver bird with smoke?” Joth widened his arms with mock concern. “Where do I begin?”
Harlyn grinned. “Begin with any of our hundreds!”
Instantly, both doors into the throne room opened, and Alliance soldiers poured inside, all of them running directly toward Joth. Caught off guard, he backed onto the steps leading to the Scarlet Throne. His hands were busy defending himself or attacking wherever he could, but he couldn’t see everywhere at once, and with little experience in actual battle, he remained vulnerable, something we were all too happy to exploit.
He created shields in front of him, forgetting the soldiers who advanced behind him. Desperate to protect himself, he threw one soldier against a wall on the right without noticing how close Commander Reese was at his left. He raised one hand to squeeze on a heart but needed the same hand to mount a defense. He couldn’t stop us all, and he was clearly weakening.
Finally, he had backed all the way to the top of the stairs, at nearly the same time as Harlyn approached from behind. He grabbed her arm and forced her down directly in front of the throne, then shouted, “Everyone go to your knees, or I will make her suffer.”
To emphasize his point, he pressed the back of her neck, and Harlyn screamed with pain.
Kestra and I were on opposite sides of the throne, but we immediately locked eyes. Endrick had given Kestra a similar punishment once, though with only a small portion of his power. Based on Harlyn’s cry, what she was receiving must have been worse.
Immediately, most of the Alliance soldiers went to their knees, Gabe among them. The Brill knelt, and once I went to my knees, so did the members of my cavalry.
In fact, only one person still refused to kneel: Kestra.
Crossing directly in front of the Scarlet Throne, she lifted the disk bow with another black disk in the pocket. My heart both lifted and fell in the same moment.
Obviously, she had used the wrong disk before, perhaps testing the extent of his powers, or knowing that he would detect her attack. But if she had the real disk this time, the one containing Endrick’s ability to destroy a person’s magic with their death, then how could she hope to succeed where the other attack had failed?
Distracted by Kestra, Joth’s attack on Harlyn paused, and she slumped forward at his feet. Joth walked down three steps before folding his arms and laughing. “So a magic disk was indeed made,” he said. “And you expect to kill me with it now?”
“Surrender to us,” Kestra said. “Joth, I beg you to surrender before it’s too late.”
“Oh, it’s already too late.” He raised his hand, palm up, and closed his fingers in. Kestra cried out, and I knew he was attacking her. When her hand flew to her chest, the disk bow automatically fired, though her erratic movement threw off the aim. Joth broke off the attack on Kestra so that, as before, he could catch the disk in his hands.
She fell to the ground, and I rushed toward her, which put me directly in his line of sight. “King of the Banished,” he said. “Now is the time when you tell your Alliance to surrender. Do it now and all those who prove themselves to be my servants may live.”
I straightened up. “It is not in us to surrender. No, Joth, for as long as you reign, we will strike again and again and again, never stopping until you are nothing more than a bad memory.”
“Every attempt will end the way this pathetic disk did. I will always see the attack coming.”
“Not this time!” From behind, Harlyn leapt to her feet with a black disk in her hand and slammed it down on Joth’s shoulder. He straightened up and cried out, clutching wildly at the disk, but the damage was done. He thrashed about, knocking Harlyn over the back side of the steps. The black disk grew white-hot as it pulled magic from Joth’s body, even as the injury drained him of life.
He slumped to his knees, and for the first time, I saw the boy who had recorded a simple journal in All Spirits Forest. The prince of Navan who had spent his entire life caring for his people in their cursed state.
“I’m so sorry,” he mumbled; then his body collapsed and rolled down the stairs. By the time he was on the floor at my feet, he was dead.
The eerie silence that had fallen in the throne room lasted only a few seconds. It broke into utter despair when Loelle cried, “My son!” and ran toward Joth’s body, kneeling before him. I’d stepped aside to give her space, and from this new angle, I realized the black disk wasn’t lodged in his shoulder nearly as deep as I’d imagined. Which meant the disk had done exactly what Kestra had hoped. It had used Endrick’s power to pull all the magic from Joth, killing him.
While Loelle cried for Joth, I hurried toward Kestra, who finally straightened up, though one hand remained at her chest. She began anxiously looking around the room, but I said, “It’s safe; he’s gone.”
“Yes, but where’s Harlyn?”
I followed her around to the back of the throne platform, where we found Harlyn crumpled at the bottom of the stairs. Maybe unconscious. Maybe worse, a thought I couldn’t bear to consider. She had slammed the disk into Joth’s shoulder with her bare hands. Had the disk’s instinct to take life affected her too?
Gabe ran around the platform from the opposite direction and froze when he saw Harlyn. Kestra knelt at Harlyn’s side and gently rolled her onto her back. After a brief inspection, Kestra shook her head, and I immediately feared for the worst. Wordlessly, Gabe knelt across from Kestra and took Harlyn into his arms and ran one hand through her hair. He appeared on the verge of collapse too.
“I wasn’t the Infidante,” Kestra said, still kneeling on the floor. “I could hold the disk because I had created it, but Harlyn always was meant to do this job. We figured it out when Amala drove us here in the wagon. Harlyn opened my satchel to be sure I had enough disks, then picked up the disk containing the magic. It flashed with light, but she closed the satchel before Amala noticed. Then she took the disk for herself, waiting for the right moment.”
“And sacrificed her life for it.” Gabe pulled Harlyn closer to him.