The War of Two Queens (Blood and Ash 4)

A tremor ran through me. I couldn’t trust myself to speak. The essence pulsed too violently.

“You don’t believe me?” Isbeth asked.

“No.”

“I can’t blame you for that. It was not an act of love. Not on either of our parts. For me, it was necessary. I wanted a child. A strong one. I knew what you would be,” she went on, and I thought I might vomit. “For him, it was just lust and hatred. Those two emotions aren’t very different from one another once there’s nothing but flesh between you.” Another pause. “Perhaps it will please you to know that he tried to kill me afterward.”

I shuddered, feeling sickened. “No,” I whispered. “That doesn’t please me.”

“Well, that’s a surprise.”

The back of my throat burned, and I closed my eyes against a rush of tears. My stomach continued churning. Even if he was a…an active participant, she had already taken his freedom. There was no real consent there. And Isbeth was the worst sort on so many different levels.

“I used to wonder why it took Ires so long to look for his brother. Maybe because Ires slept so deeply. But Malec didn’t die all those years ago like I believed, did he? That bitch entombed him. Now I know that he must’ve been conscious up to that point. Two hundred years, Penellaphe. And then he must’ve slipped away, as close to death as he could get for it to then wake Ires.”

I opened my eyes. “You were heartmates. How did you not know he wasn’t dead?”

“Because whatever Eloana did to entomb him severed that connection. The bond. You know what I’m talking about. That feeling—the awareness of the other,” she said. And I did. It was an intangible sense of knowing. “It’s like the marriage imprint but not on your flesh. In your soul. Your heart. I felt the loss of that, and a part of me died. That’s why I believed he was dead and wished he was. For it took nearly two hundred years for him to lose whatever bond he shared with his twin. To become unconscious. Can you even imagine?”

“No.” I thought of those deities in the crypts.

“Eloana may not have known that he was a god, but she knew what she was doing to a deity. That type of punishment is worse than death,” she continued. “Your mother-in-law is not so very different than your mother.”

“You’re right,” I said. “Except she’s not nearly as homicidal as you.”

The Blood Queen laughed. “No, she just murders innocent babes.”

“And you haven’t?” I fired back, not even bothering to tell her that Eloana had claimed to have no knowledge of Isbeth’s son’s death. She wouldn’t believe me anyway. “Where is he?”

Her mouth tensed. “He is not here.”

I stared at her, unsure that I believed that. If she had brought Ires with her when she traveled, I doubted he was far. “So, if I had chosen to see him instead of Casteel, would you have allowed it?”

“You never would’ve chosen anyone but Casteel,” she replied.

Guilt churned in my stomach. “But if I had? You wouldn’t have allowed it, would you?” When she didn’t answer, I knew that I was right. Anger replaced the shame. “Why haven’t you let him return to Iliseeum?”

“Other than the fact that he would be sure to return once he regained his strength? When he couldn’t be so easily subdued?” Isbeth had drawn closer. “I need him to make my Revenants.”

A ripple of understanding went through me. “You needed a god to Ascend the third sons and daughters. And you already had knowledge of Kolis’s essence and how to use it, thanks to Malec.”

Isbeth studied me. “I was wrong earlier. I didn’t know that you would be aware of him. That is…curious.”

My palm slipped on the pillar, and I turned, feeling an indentation in the stone. I shifted slightly, looking down. There were markings there, shallow and spaced every couple of feet. A circle with a slash through it, half off-center. Just like the bone and rope symbols in the woods near the Dead Bones Clan.

“What are these marks?” I asked.

“A safeguard of sorts,” she answered.

I pressed my thumb against the markings. “More stolen magic?”

“Borrowed magic.”

“How do they act as a safeguard?”

Isbeth’s gaze lifted to mine, and she smiled. “They keep things in—or things out.”

Casteel

Poppy was here.

I pulled harder on the chain, cursing when the hook refused to budge even a centimeter. How many times had I tried to loosen these damn chains since I’d been here? Countless. In the last couple of days, hunger had driven the frenzied attempts. Now, I was just as desperate, but for different reasons.

Poppy was here.

Panic sliced through my gut. She could take care of herself. She was a fucking goddess, but she wasn’t infallible. No one was. Except for the Primal, who spent most of his time sleeping. I had no idea what the Blood Queen truly was or how Poppy was dealing with the knowledge of who Isbeth was to her. There were too many unknowns, and I needed to get out of here. I had to get to her before that red haze descended again. And it was coming. I could already feel it in the ache returning to my bones.