“I have come to reclaim my conduit stone.” Evelayn lifted her chin, despite the fear that coursed through her body.
The Ancient hissed. “No, Little Queen, you will not be taking this back.” Máthair Damhán reached up and unclasped a thin chain, which Evelayn hadn’t noticed before, from around her neck. She held it aloft, and there it was—her diamond conduit stone, dangling in the air, winking in the wavering light that illuminated the cave. “You are going to give me its mate.” She pointed at Lorcan, lying beneath her on the dank floor, his conduit stone flashing scarlet from the power flowing through his veins, woven into the very marrow of his bones.
“No,” Evelayn breathed, even as muffled sounds of protest were quickly cut off from behind her.
Lorcan closed his eyes, but the defeat she’d seen in their silver depths before he did turned her cold. Why did he lie there—why didn’t he break free and kill Máthair Damhán? He was directly beneath her belly, the most vulnerable part of her body.
“The swan queen … so very loyal. And now you will prove it.” Máthair Damhán scuttled back so that Lorcan was exposed, then she bent all eight of her legs and lowered her bulbous body to reach down and slice away the silk over his mouth with one long, sharp talon. “Tell her to carve out your stone and give it to me—as you did to her.”
“No,” Evelayn whispered.
“I need him alive to be able to access the power in his conduit stone once you remove it from him—but that doesn’t mean I can’t make him writhe in agony.” Máthair Damhán lifted one leg and let it hover over his abdomen, the threat clear with the blood still drying on his leg where she’d already stabbed him once. “Being this close to the Immortal Tree will enable his body to heal so quickly, I can get very creative if necessary. Shall we see if we can make him scream?”
“This won’t work,” Lorcan said roughly. “We are Bound, but she doesn’t care for me that way. And she knows better than to give you control of all the power in Lachalonia.”
“Your lies are not befitting a king. The female reeks of her fear for you—and of her affection.” Máthair Damhán lowered her sharp claws until they punctured through the silk, and then pressed a bit harder so that they pierced Lorcan’s stomach, agonizingly slowly. His head flung back, his back arching in pain, but the muscles in his jaw flexed and he didn’t so much as utter a noise. “You will remove his stone and give it to me … Or shall I continue?”
“Don’t … do … it …” he panted as the arachnoid withdrew her talons, now dripping with his blood.
“I forgot to mention: Since you were so kind as to bring extra targets with you, every time you force me to ask again, one of them dies.”
The Ancient made another horrific noise. Time seemed to slow as Evelayn whirled around with a cry. Lorcan shouted—there was a blast of shadowflame from behind Evelayn that exploded into one of the daughters, throwing the creature against the stone wall—but it was too late. Two other daughters attacked at once. One slit Lothar’s throat while the other stabbed him through the gut with her massive, razor-sharp pincers. And then a blast of light ripped through his chest for good measure. Even this close to the Tree, there was no chance of his survival.
A scream tore from Evelayn’s throat. Letha lunged toward Lothar but stumbled and fell to her knees with a half-broken sob when he crumpled to the ground.
There was a bellow of fury from behind her, and Evelayn twisted back to see Lorcan lying on his stomach now, having broken the top half of his body free of the spider silk, struggling against Máthair Damhán, who pushed him down with four of her legs. She lowered her body to grab his long white hair, the talons she had in place of nails digging into his scalp as she yanked his head up. “Stop. I need you both alive, but the Little Queen won’t heal as nicely as you.”
To Evelayn’s dismay, Lorcan immediately stopped struggling. She was still reeling from Lothar’s sudden, violent death. Letha had bent over him, letting her forehead drop to rest on his, unable to touch him any other way. The others were in visible shock; Ceren had begun to cry.
Evelayn’s chest was tight with the tears she refused to allow to the surface. They had made a promise to the Spirit Harbinger to return that which was taken—which meant they somehow had to return their power.
Perhaps this was the only way.
“Do you wish to lose another of—”
“I’ll do it,” Evelayn said.
“What was that, Little Queen?”
“NO!”
Evelayn ignored Lorcan and raised her voice: “I’ll cut out his stone.”
MÁTHAIR DAMHÁN FLIPPED LORCAN OVER, AND THE king let her, still not fighting back. She had claimed she needed him alive, but there was a deadness in his eyes that hit Evelayn like a punch to the stomach. She’d pushed through crippling grief before, she could do it again. Somehow, she would figure out a way to save the rest of them. She just needed a bit of time.
“I will do it,” Evelayn repeated, “but first I have some questions for you.”
“You dare to make a demand of me?”
“You can’t take his stone yourself, or you would have done it by now. You need me for some reason. Just as you needed him to take mine. And I want to know why.”
Máthair Damhán moved toward her, but Evelayn held her ground, even though she was shaking inside.
“Do not try my patience, Little Queen.” The Ancient stared down at her with all six of her inky black eyes.
“Somehow, you have accessed my power through my stone. Once I give you his, you’ll have complete control and all the Draíolon will be powerless against you.” Evelayn spoke quickly, hoping to keep her distracted long enough to come up with some sort of plan. “I know I am not going to be allowed to leave this cave alive. What harm is there in answering my questions first?”
Máthair Damhán’s pincers clicked together again, but this time she seemed to be considering, not giving a signal. After several tense moments of silence while Evelayn waited with bated breath, the Ancient responded, “We’ve attempted to get our power back from the Draíolon before. But we were unsuccessful. When other Ancients tried to do it themselves, the living stones of a royal killed them. And we learned that a common Draíolon wasn’t enough. He did as we bade; he tried to get to the royals for us, but he failed.”
“Are you speaking of Drystan?” Evelayn’s eyebrows raised; that wasn’t at all what she’d expected. “The first Draíolon to kill another?”
“Wasted millennia,” Máthair Damhán spat. “The Choíche moon rises only once every thousand years. We waited and planned and found an impressionable young male to do our bidding. And all for nothing. The others who remained gave up, but not me. I came here and waited. For thousands of years, conserving my strength, prolonging my life by staying near the Tree. It was only too easy to convince Bain of what he had to do when he came seeking the Immortal Tree for more power and found me instead. And what fortuitous timing, with the Choíche moon approaching again in just over two decades. I only had to be patient a little longer.”
Evelayn felt Lorcan’s shock reverberate through her, echoing her own, but she couldn’t afford to focus on that—on the realization that perhaps Máthair Damhán had been the one to put the idea of war in Bain’s head. That she had been behind all of it. “What does the moon have to do with it?” Evelayn asked instead.
“You Draíolon think yourselves so wise, so knowledgeable. But you don’t even know your own history.”
Evelayn could scent the others’ terror and confusion—their grief. It threatened to distract her, but she forced herself to stay focused. To keep thinking as the Ancient spoke. “Then tell me. What is it we have forgotten?”
“In the beginning of all things, there was only Light and Darkness. Infinite power from which came day and night, summer and winter, this world and all the creatures in it. The Choíche moon is the one time when the seeds of that power can be stolen—and claimed—by another race. Your ancestors attacked us on a night just like t
he one coming tomorrow and stole our power. You were weaker than we, but you outnumbered us like ants swarming from their hole. You came in never-ending waves, dying in droves, but two slipped past us—a male and a female. They stole the Seeds of Power that belonged to us and planted them here. The Immortal Tree was born and we were left powerless while the male and female hunted down as many of us as they could and slaughtered those who weren’t able to escape them.”
“You say we are ignorant, but we know more than you think.” Evelayn knew she was risking the Ancient’s wrath but pressed on anyway. “You act as though you always had claim on the power before it was stolen by the Draíolon, but you are lying. You stole it first. It never should have belonged to any of us.”
Máthair Damhán hissed at her and lunged forward as if to attack but abruptly stopped, her clawed hand inches from Evelayn’s face. Her heart galloped beneath her ribs, but Evelayn held her ground.
Lorcan lurched up, watching her warily, the bitter tang of grief mixed with fear so strong it burned Evelayn’s nose. If he was frightened, she should have been immobilized by terror.
But she had finally come up with a plan. She needed these answers.
“You know nothing of which you speak!” said Máthair Damhán. “That power was ours to wield—until the Guardians cut us off from it. They had access to endless strength, immortality, and power beyond what you can possibly imagine, and they never touched it. They didn’t deserve it and they shouldn’t have kept it from us.”
“The Guardians?”
“Weak, pathetic Draíolon, such as yourselves, who discovered the location of the source of power in our world, hidden in the Water of Life. They built a temple around it, cutting us off from the water and the seeds. They appointed themselves Guardians and lived there. We could have overtaken them and continued to partake of the Water of Life as we had before they came. But instead, we bided our time, waiting for the Choíche moon so that my brothers and sisters—the other Ancients who should have existed forever—could claim the power that was rightfully ours. We never wanted to be reliant on the Water, but nor should any living thing cut us off from it, ever again.”
Evelayn focused on her fear, hoping the scent of it drowned out any other emotions Máthair Damhán might notice. “Were the seeds from a tree, too, then? How did you steal it?”
“It was the original source, deep in the earth, you fool. There was no Tree until the Draíolon stole the seeds and thoughtlessly planted them.”
Evelayn thought of the well they’d found, of the glow coming from somewhere deep, deep beneath them. Of the healing power of the Water of Life they’d used to save Lorcan. Of the depiction of Máthair Damhán herself going down into that well and emerging with Light and Darkness gripped in her hands. “But if you only took seeds … does that mean there is still more power there—at the original source?”
“Of course.” Máthair Damhán was growing visibly irritated, and Evelayn knew her time was nearly up. But she still needed more. “The Seeds of Power are the source of all the power in our world. We only took one of each—Light and Dark. That was all that was needed.”
“If that wasn’t all there was, why didn’t you go back and steal more after the Draíolon took yours? Or find some other way to access it?”
“Because the Guardians were somehow transformed after we attacked the temple and stole the seeds, and the entire forest surrounding it was cursed. They became the Spirit Harbingers whose power far exceeds any other beings’ in this world. They can take the soul right out of your body. If any of us had tried to access the temple again, they would have killed us immediately.”
As the pieces finally fell into place, Evelayn shivered. “Only the Gods could have given them such power.”
“If the Gods even exist, they left the original power to the Ancients,” Máthair Damhán snarled. “And they should have left it—and us—alone!”
Evelayn shuddered but pressed on, despite the Ancient’s rising temper. Only the knowledge that Máthair Damhán needed them alive gave her the courage to speak once more. “What if we found a way to share the power with everything in our world? What if we tried returning it to the source—where it was intended to be?”
Máthair Damhán’s hand lashed out, and this time she grabbed Evelayn by the throat, choking her as she lifted her off her feet, up into the air toward her head, so that the Ancient’s foul breath hit her when she hissed, “Don’t think I don’t know what you are trying to do. We made that tunnel—we used it to break into the temple and steal the power. The Spirit Harbingers have more than enough power; they will not be getting any more back.” Evelayn clawed at the fingers wrapped around her neck, desperate for air. Then, mere seconds before Evelayn would have lost consciousness, Máthair Damhán threw her toward Lorcan; her body slammed into the stone floor with a sickening crunch and a blinding flash of pain in her left shoulder.
“Evelayn!”
Ignoring Lorcan’s shout and the excruciating pain that made her think she’d probably broken at least a bone or two, Evelayn forced herself to rise up onto her good hand and her knees. Something clattered beside her and she glanced over to see a knife on the ground, the bone-white handle and blade gleaming in the incandescent light from the opening to her right.
“Why?” Her voice was unsteady, and the room spun dizzily around her when she looked at the Ancient once more. But she had to know this one last thing. “Why do you want the power back so badly?”
Máthair Damhán bared her sharp black teeth. “With that power, we were immortal. But after you stole it from us, the first of all creations, my brothers and sisters, have slowly died off, all of them except me. I am the last. And I will not be taken like they were. I will have my power—my immortality—back.”
“You’re afraid to die? That’s what this was all for? You have killed so many—you’ve driven wars that slaughtered thousands—all so you didn’t have to die?” Beyond Máthair Damhán, Evelayn could see Lothar’s lifeless body on the ground, the others standing there, watching her with terror in their red-rimmed eyes.
“What care have I for your worthless lives? You stole my entire family from me. You all deserve to suffer as I do.”
“But … don’t you wish to be with them again? Because of you and the war you started with Bain, I lost my family, too. Of course I want to live a full life here; I want to wear my body out with years of love and laughter and work, but someday I want to be with them again in the Final Light.” Despite herself, tears gathered in her eyes as she thought of her mother and father, taken from her by a mad king, driven to desperation by his misguided wish to protect his family and pushed by the avarice of the creature in front of her.
“A fool’s wish. There is nothing beyond this sphere. We simply cease to be. And I will not go quietly.”
“You’re wrong. I know they are there. I know it,” Evelayn repeated. But a terrible schism of doubt cracked open in her heart. Máthair Damhán had existed for millennia. If she didn’t believe in the Final Light, was Evelayn a fool to do so?
“Take the stone now or another one dies!” Máthair Damhán suddenly shrieked.
Evelayn cringed away from her, almost expecting another blow. When one didn’t immediately come, she grabbed the dagger in her good hand, her left arm hanging limp and useless at her side, every movement causing it to throb with pain.
Mother, she prayed silently as she turned to Lorcan, if you are truly there somewhere, help me. Help me right now. Help us … somehow.
She took a deep breath and crawled over to where Lorcan lay waiting for her. The defeat on his face wrenched at her heart. She gripped the dagger tightly, lifting it slightly, but then paused. Lorcan flinched in anticipation but did nothing else to try and stop her.
“Let them go,” she said without turning.
“What?”
“Let them all go—give them a chance to live and I will give you the stone.”
“I will have them all killed!” Máthair Damhán roared,
and Evelayn flinched—but she didn’t back down.
“Fine—then kill them. And I will never carve out his stone for you. You can kill both of us, too. Because there is a Final Light, and my mother and father are there waiting for me. If you kill all of them, then I have no more reason to wish to live. Or to give you what you want.” Evelayn took the dagger and, rather than lifting it over Lorcan’s head, turned it on herself, holding it above her heart.
“Stop!” Máthair Damhán lunged at her, but Evelayn pressed it into her skin, just hard enough to draw blood, and the Ancient skidded to a halt.
“For some reason, you need me alive—and you need me to do this. So let them go—safely. Now.”
Máthair Damhán clicked and screeched in that otherworldly language of hers, and the daughters cut away the spider silk binding Tanvir, Letha, and Ceren, then backed away.
“The exit is through there.” Máthair Damhán pointed to a different tunnel Evelayn hadn’t noticed until then, across from the one with the light.
“Ev, no. You can’t do this.” Ceren was weeping as she limped toward Evelayn on her burned legs.
“Go now before I change my mind!” Máthair Damhán bellowed, her fury twisting any similarity to the Draíolon out of her monstrous face entirely.
“Go, Ceren. Go back to Quinlen and your younglings. Please,” Evelayn pleaded, tears burning the backs of her eyes.
“I love you, Ev.” Ceren’s words were almost indecipherable through her sobs.
“I love you, too,” Evelayn choked out. “Thank you for being the sister I never had.”
Lorcan lifted his head toward Ceren. “Find my mother for me. Find her and tell her I’m sorry—that I never meant for Lothar to”—his voice broke before continuing—“that this wasn’t how it was supposed to end.”
Ceren looked to him, to the male whom Evelayn knew she’d spent so many years hating and plotting against, and nodded. “I will. I promise.”
Tanvir had to drag Letha away from Lothar’s body. “We have to go,” he urged her, glancing at the murderous expressions on the daughters’ faces. He paused to take Ceren’s arm, then pulled her toward the exit. His eyes met Evelayn’s and her heart constricted. She’d truly loved him once, and even though he’d hurt and betrayed her, she still didn’t want him to die here, like Lothar had. He nodded, as if he understood the feelings in her heart.