Jenna Helland: The Fanged Crown

“You’ll kill me, then,” Ysabel said without emotion.

“I’m sorry, my dear. But beautiful girls make good martyrs,” Tresco said regretfully.

Slowly, Ysabel raised her arm that had been hidden behind the table. On her fist she wore a massive, spiked gauntlet made of bronze. Emblazoned with intricate designs, it covered her skin up to her elbow and looked so heavy that it would have been difficult for someone twice Ysabel’s size to maneuver it.

“What is that wretched thing?” Tresco asked, so startled by its sudden appearance on her slender arm that he forgot about the spell he was preparing to cast.

“It is the manner of your death,” she replied as she rammed the gauntlet into his belly with surprising strength and speed. As the spikes shredded his insides, she twisted the metal glove. He howled as the pain engulfed him.

“But the Torque!” he cried.

“The Torque only grants a ward against magic,” she said. “You stupid, stupid man.”

“Ysabel!” He wanted to plead for mercy, but her name was the only word he could manage to speak.

“Where is the Captive’s elixir?” she hissed.

Tresco had no idea what she was talking about. Blood was filling his mouth and nose.

“The manuscript I left you had all the information you needed to find the elixir,” Ysabel hissed as Tresco’s blood ran down her arm. “I spelled it out for you in small, simple words. Yet you come back with a … Torque? Such an inferior artifact? It has merely a fraction of the power in the vial. Is there anyone more miserable than you?”

Tresco’s hands grasped futilely at the air around him as if he could steady himself with the ether itself. The pain was so incomprehensible that it felt as if it must be afflicting someone else. Tresco had inflicted so much suffering during his experiments at the Vankila Slab. For the first time, the words of his victims rattled through his mind as his consciousness blinked on and off like a torch about to burn itself out. And what words they had been: words of mercy, of remembrance, of forgiveness. His victims had pleaded for those they loved and those they had wronged. Their regrets consumed them and then flew from them like startled birds. Tresco had felt nothing but contempt for their unexpected compassion. He found no joy or hope to draw from within himself, and now he envied them. And he loathed the void of a life that he had lived.

“Hopefully, my so-called rescuers can lead me to the elixir,” Ysabel said, glaring at the bodies on the floor. “Then it all won’t have been in vain.”

Reaching out with her free hand, Ysabel yanked the Torque off Tresco’s neck and inspected the unpolished metal. Then she slipped it on her own neck, where it was hidden under the high collar of her dress. As soon as the Torque left Tresco’s body, Harp, Liel, and Kitto stopped struggling as the invisible grip on their throats dispersed and air flowed to their lungs again. But none of them yet moved off the floor. Ysabel leaned close to Tresco so her lips were against his ear.

“You have kept me prisoner for a decade,” she hissed. “You have kept me from my magic, forcing me to squeeze blood from a stone for every drop of knowledge and power that I possess. I should have been reborn with all that I had in my previous body, but no, I was forced to play the simpering girl to sniveling idiots.”

Tresco could barely keep his head from falling to his chest. He shifted slightly for one last look at the statuesque profile of the girl who had been his ward.

“Evonne?” Tresco gasped with his last breath.

“You always were slow, Tresco. I have been there from the moment the lights went out in the Winter Palace the night of the massacre. I’ve been with you—locked in this useless body of a child. I should have been powerful despite the youthful vessel. I should’ve had all my magic at my disposal. But instead I was weak, forced to claw my way back to what I was. No thanks to you.”

She twisted the gauntlet again. “And now I have returned to the pinnacle of my power,” she said viciously. “Not you nor anyone else will keep me from my rightful place on the throne.”

She yanked her hand out of the gauntlet, let Tresco’s lifeless body fall on top of it, and turned around as the other three stirred.

“What happened?” Harp asked, as he stood up shakily and saw Tresco slumped on the ground and blood seeped into the cracks between the paving stones.

“He tried to cast a spell, I think.” Ysabel’s voice quivered. “His chest caved in … Blood was everywhere.”

“The Torque did that?” Harp asked Liel. “Could it have killed him?”

“I don’t know,” Liel replied. “Maybe there was an enchantment on it?”

“Do you know where the Torque is?” Harp asked Ysabel.

“He said there was an artifact in here,” she replied, picking up the case and holding it against her chest. “My guards have deserted me. Will you take me to Queen Anais? I have so much to show her.”

“Of course,” Harp assured her. “We have horses outside. We can go immediately.”

“Thank you,” Ysabel said appreciatively. “And on the way, you must tell me everything that happened in the jungle.”