Unlikely Queen (Crystal Castle 1)

But that’s selfish.

And no matter how hard I try to be, I am not selfish.

With sad eyes, I look back at his silver ones.

“You can go now.” The words are out in a rush, and with my next breath, he is gone.

Tatiana is waiting for me when I leave the bathroom. She is pacing back and forth, and when she sees me, she stops.

“Usually, he pauses time and we don’t see him,” are her words. “You love him.”

I say nothing. There is no point to it because I’m still trying to understand everything there is between us. It’s a lot to take in. And I’m not sure I really want to understand it just yet.

“We won’t have long before they come here,” John says. His eyes fall to me. “Patrick was a good man, he died for what he believed in.”

I can’t form words, can’t say anything back to him. John would know him better than I ever did, but why do I feel so broken inside for what happened? If I just tried what she said, maybe then…

“Tatiana,” I say her name, and she pauses. “She wants me alive. She wants my powers.”

“Mother feared that.” She is packing a bag as fast as she can and not looking my way.

“Why?” I ask.

What reason would our mother fear that?

How could she even have known I would possess such a power?

“I can’t give power, I can only borrow it. The only way I can give power is when I return what I borrowed,” I tell her. “So why would she fear that?”

John stands at a sound from outside. “It’s the wolves,” he says, then kisses Tatiana’s cheek before going out to meet them.

Leaving my sister and myself standing in our old house where it all started.

“Tatiana.”

“She always feared your power would be too great. She journaled so much of it that she never told me, and I read it all when she passed.”

“And you gave that journal to Valefar because?”

“It was only one of them. I gave him the earliest one. He doesn’t know of the others.” She smiles. “That one only holds a fraction of what you are capable of.”

“Why does he want it?”

“I don’t know, but I have feeling its because you tried to heal Patrick. And when you did, you drained yourself. You know it does that to you. We carried on with the journey, Patrick holding you as we continued to walk...” She pauses and sucks in a breath. “Then they came, so many of them that they outnumbered us. And they were all after you.” I can see the sadness in her eyes that she lost me. “After they took you, Patrick tracked your scent, and we didn’t hear from him either.”

“She slit his throat in front of me because I wouldn’t give her what she wanted,” I say, a single tear leaving my eye and running down my cheek.

“Veronica will pay, do not worry about that,” Tatiana says with venom coating her tongue. “That bitch will pay in more ways than one.”

I look to my sister, who looks so much like me, and am not sure how I tell her. How do I tell her about Tanya? About who she is right now. The kind of person she has become.

“Tatiana…” her emerald eyes find mine, then I continue, “…Tanya betrayed us,” I whisper, the words tasting sour on my tongue.

“What?” she asks in disbelief.

“She was there to assist Veronica. She does not want to leave. Her words,” I say. “She stood by as the queen did vile things.” I shiver at the memory. “Not once did she try to help me, save me.”

“No! No way.” Tatiana shakes her head. Then stops. Turns back to face me. “It’s the life she has dreamed of, but she would never betray us.”

“She did. How do you think the queen knows what I can do?”

My sister’s mouth drops open and then she realizes it too—Tanya is not the same person she was.

“I’m still saving her and breaking every ward that queen put up.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” I say to her, smiling when I hear a loud bang, and we are thrown backward as our house falls to pieces around us. I hear our names called, but my ears are ringing so loud that I cannot make out who is calling.

Getting to my hands and knees, I start crawling to where my sister was and feel around, but my sight is limited due to the amount of smoke and debris flying everywhere. A hand touches mine, and I know it’s hers straight away.

“I can’t see,” she whispers. “It’s in my eyes.” I can hear the panic in her voice, but I squeeze her hand anyway to try to reassure her.

“Follow me and stay close.” As I start moving, I feel us both being picked up and carried out the back. The vampire that my sister put a spell on looks down on us.