Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices 3)

The First Heir, Emma thought. So it’s true.

There was a murmur of shock in the room—not from the human prisoners, but from the Riders and redcaps. A dark flush of rage went over the King’s face. He flung out his arm, sheathed to the elbow in a golden gauntlet, toward the roiling Portal on the north wall.

“Gaze upon this Portal, glorious Queen,” he said through his teeth, and the image in the Portal began to change. Where before the desert landscape had been deserted, it was possible now to see darting figures among the poison-colored whirls of sand. The sky above the landscape had turned to a scorched rust and gold.

Emma heard Clary make a strange choking noise.

“I have torn a hole through to another world,” said the King. “A world whose very substance is poisonous to Nephilim. Already our lands are protected by its earth, and already the poison begins to spread in Idris.”

“It’s not the ley lines,” Cristina whispered. “It’s the blight.”

They spun to stare at the Portal. The scene had changed again. It now showed the same desert in the aftermath of a battle. Blood stained the sand red. Bodies were strewn everywhere, twisted and blackened by the sun. Faint screams and wailing could be heard, dim as the memory of something horrible.

Jace whirled on the King. “What is this? What is this world? What have you done?”

Clary’s hand circled Emma’s wrist, gripping tightly. Her voice was a bare whisper. “That’s me.”

Emma stared through the Portal. Wind blew the sand in harsh gusts, uncovering a body in black Shadowhunter gear, the chest torn open and white bone showing. A spill of red hair threaded through the sand, mixing with blood.

“That was my dream,” Clary whispered. Her voice was choked with tears. Emma stood frozen, staring at Clary’s dead body. “That’s what I saw.”

The sand blew again, and Clary’s body vanished from view just as Jace turned back around. “What world is this?” he demanded.

“Pray you never have to find out,” said the King. “The land of Thule is death, and it will rain down death in your world. In Ash’s hands it will be the greatest weapon ever known.”

“And what will be the cost to Ash?” demanded the Queen. “What will be the cost to him? Already you have placed spells upon him. Already you have bled him. You wear his blood around your throat! Deny it, if you can!”

Emma stared at the vial around the King’s throat: She had thought it was a scarlet potion. It was not. She remembered the scar on Ash’s throat and felt sick.

The King chuckled. “I have no wish to deny it. His blood is unique—Nephilim blood and demonic blood, mixed with the blood of the fey. I draw power from it, though only a fraction of the power Ash could have if you allow me to keep the Black Volume.”

The Queen’s face twisted. “You are bound by your oath to return it to me, King—”

The King tensed; Emma didn’t understand as much about faeries as Cristina did, but she knew that if the King had sworn he would return the book to the Queen at dawn, he would have no choice but to do it. “It will bring us both indescribable power. Just let me show you—”

“No!” A streak of gray linen and dark hair shot across the room and caught hold of Ash, whirling him off his feet.

Ash cried out as Annabel seized him. She flew with him across the room, Ash’s wrist gripped tightly in her hand. The Riders rushed after her, the redcaps circling from the door. Whirling like a trapped rabbit, she bared her teeth, Ash’s wrist still caught in hers.

“I will speak your name!” she shrieked at the King, and he froze. “In front of all these people! Even if you kill me, they will all have heard the word! Now tell them to stand down! They must stand down!”

The King made a choking sound. As the Queen stared in disbelief, he clenched his fists so tightly that his gauntlets bent and shattered. Their metal stabbed into his skin and blood bloomed around the jagged edges.

“She knows your name?” the Queen demanded, her voice rising. “That Nephilim knows your name?”

“Stand down, Riders,” the King said in a voice that sounded as if he were being strangled. “Stand down, all of you!”

The Riders and redcaps froze. Realizing what was happening, the Queen shrieked and ran toward Annabel, raising her hands. But she was too late. Throwing her arms around Ash, Annabel hurled herself backward through the Portal.

There was a sound as of thick fabric tearing. The Portal stretched apart and closed over Annabel and Ash. The Queen skidded to a stop, twisting her body to avoid crashing through the Portal.

Julian sucked in his breath. The image in the Portal had changed—now they could see Annabel and Ash standing in the broken wasteland, sand swirling about them. The Queen screamed, holding out her hands as if she could touch Ash, could enfold him in her arms.

For a moment Emma almost pitied her.

The sand whirled again, and Ash and Annabel vanished from view. The King slumped down on his throne, his face in his hands.

The Queen spun away from the Portal, striding toward the throne. Grief and rage were etched onto her features. “You have done the second of my children to his death, Lord of Shadows,” she said. “There shall never be another.”

“Enough of your foolishness!” the King snapped. “I am the one who sacrificed for our child!” He indicated the ruin of his face, the glimmer of white bone where flesh should be. “Your children were and always have been nothing but ornaments to your vanity!”

The Queen screamed something in a language Emma didn’t understand and flung herself at the King, drawing a jeweled dagger from her bodice.

“Guards!” the King shouted. “Kill her!”

But the redcaps had frozen, staring in shock at the Queen as she brought the dagger down. The King threw up an arm to defend himself. He roared in pain as the knife sank into his shoulder, and blood splattered the ground below the throne.

It seemed to spur the redcaps into action. They raced forward to seize the Queen, who turned on them in fury. Even the Riders were staring.

“Now,” Adaon said.

He moved lightning fast, flinging the swords he held into the eager hands of the Shadowhunters who surrounded him. Emma caught one out of the air and raced toward Mark and Kieran, Julian and Cristina on either side of her.

Her nerves caught fire as the redcaps, realizing what was going on, rushed at the advancing Nephilim. She had hated every moment of standing still; as one redcap lunged at her she leaped for the nearest boulder, caromed off it, and used the force of her rebound to sever another’s head as she landed. Blood sprayed, blackish red.

The King’s face suffused with blood as he saw what his son was doing. “Adaon!” he bellowed, the sound like a roar, but Adaon was already racing toward Mark and Kieran, knocking redcaps aside with savage blows from his broadsword.

That’s right, Emma thought with a savage pleasure, every one of your sons hates you, King.

She spun to engage another redcap, her blade clashing against his iron pikestaff. Jace and Clary were battling more redcaps. Julian and Cristina were behind Adaon, pushing toward Kieran and Mark, who were surrounded by guards.

“Riders!” the King cried, spittle flying from his lips. “Stop him! Stop Adaon!”

Eochaid sprang, leaping over the heads of a group of redcaps to land in front of Adaon. The prince’s broadsword moved with incredible speed, parrying Eochaid’s blade. Adaon shouted at Cristina and Julian to get to Mark and Kieran, and turned back to Eochaid just as Ethna strode up to them, her sword drawn.

Emma ducked low, cutting at the redcap’s legs; she said a silent prayer of thanks for Isabelle’s bracelet, powering her blows as her own body weakened. The guard went down in a welter of blood as Jace raced to Adaon’s side. His sword slammed a

gainst Ethna’s with a ringing clang.

And Emma remembered why she had always wanted to be Jace Herondale when she was a kid. His sword flew around him like sunlight dancing off water, and for several moments he drove Ethna back, while Adaon pressed Eochaid, driving him farther away from the throne and from Kieran and Mark.

Clary leaped over a boulder, landing beside Emma; she was panting and her sword was drenched in blood. “We have to hold the redcaps off,” she said. “Come with me!”

Emma darted after her, slashing at guards as she went. A group of redcaps including General Winter had surrounded Cristina and Julian, preventing them from getting near Kieran and Mark.

Emma sprang for the rough wall of the throne room. She scrambled up one-handed, looking down on the chaos below. The Queen and King were battling back and forth before the throne. Adaon and Jace were holding their own against the Riders, though Adaon had a long cut across one shoulder that was bleeding freely. And Clary was spinning, quick and fast, jabbing at the redcap guards and then darting back out of reach with startling swiftness.

Emma flung herself off the wall, air rushing past her as she flipped and twisted, landing boots-first and sending Winter sprawling. The other redcaps rushed her and she swung her blade in an arc, slicing the tips from their pikestaffs. She sprang away from Winter and advanced on the other guards, her sword arcing in the air. “I slew Fal the Rider,” she said in her most menacing voice. “I will slay you, too.”

They paled markedly. Several fell back, as behind them Julian and Cristina rushed to Mark and to Kieran. Julian hauled Mark to his feet, bringing his sword down to sever the chain that connected Mark’s wrists. They swung free, each one still bearing an iron wristband.

Mark caught hold of his brother with his manacled arms and hugged him quickly, fiercely. Emma’s eyes prickled but there was no time to look at them; she spun and kicked and slashed, the world a chaos of silver and ice and blood.

Emma heard Cristina call her name.

Ice turned to fire. She ran toward the sound, leaping over toppled rocks, and found Cristina standing with a shattered blade in her hand. Kieran was still kneeling, pieces of the broken sword scattered around the chain that bound his wrists to the earth.