Ilona Andrews - Magic Breaks

“I’ll lie in any bed as long as you’re in it, but this is still weird.”

I turned back to look at him. “We’re going to see my dad, who’ll probably crush me like a gnat, and you’re weirded out by my sword?”

Curran nodded at Landon. “I’m not the only one.”

Landon peered at me again.

“Did you name it yet?” Curran asked.

“Yes. Sarrat Irkalli. It means Great Queen of Irkalla, the Land of the Dead. My grandmother was occasionally confused with her, and now that she’s dead, it’s fitting.”

Curran spread his arms. “I rest my case.”

This was ridiculous. I leaned over the driver’s side, swung the door open, and yelled at the top of my lungs, trying to outscream the enchanted water engine. “Are you done?”

“What?” Landon said.

“Are! You! Done?! If you want, you can stay here. Just point us where to go, and we’ll drive ourselves!”

Landon slid back into the driver’s seat and pointed at my saber. “Put it away.”

“Say the magic word.”

“Please,” Landon squeezed out.

I slid the blade back into the sheath and petted it. “It’s okay, Sarrat. If he insults you, I’ll cut his head off and you can drink his blood.”

Landon shut his eyes for a long moment, exhaled, and steered the Land Rover back onto the highway.

Trees slid past my window, draped in snow and ice. Inside the heavily insulated SUV the world was quiet save for the low hum of the engine. Landon watched the road. Some complicated calculations were no doubt taking place in his head. Probably trying to figure out how my presence affected his little kingdom within Roland’s empire.

The road wove its way through the woods. The snow ended and asphalt began, seeded with large stone blocks. “Why the stone?”

“His magic degrades modern roads,” Landon said.

The woods continued. The trees grew thicker and taller, spreading their mighty branches to the sun. The snow sparkled in the weak winter light, pure white in the sun, blue in the shadows. The magic must’ve fed this park the way it fed the parks in Atlanta, and what began as a carefully managed spot of green had rioted and turned into a dense old forest. How odd it must’ve been for my father to go from ancient Mesopotamia to this winter wonderland.

Voron had dedicated his life to bringing me to this point. If he were still alive, he would know I was riding to my death. I now realized that he never expected me to win. All of his plans always ended with me confronting Roland. There was never any discussion of what to do after. He didn’t expect me to have an after.

The woods parted. A building loomed in the distance, surrounded by the spiral of a wide iced-over moat, curving around the structure like a snake of frosted glass. The building rose, all but floating, above the snow-covered lawn, oblong, its walls a gathering of delicate white panels that looked suspiciously like giant feathers. They thrust from the main mass in perfect imitation of a bird. The road turned, circling the building, and I saw the whole structure.

A swan.

The building was constructed in the shape of a giant swan, its tail sitting on the ground, its chest caught in the ice of the lake, while its proud neck curved five stories above the water. The sun bathed it and it glowed slightly, as if the entire palace had been painstakingly carved by a genius sculptor out of an enormous block of glossy alabaster. Each feather stood out, distinct, its vanes and shaft clearly visible. The swan looked ready to push off from the shore and swim out onto the lake. If it had been life-sized, I would’ve thought it was real. The beauty of it took my breath away.

How could the man who’d built Mishmar build this?

“Why a swan?” Curran asked.

“He’s fond of them,” Landon said, bringing the car to a stop. “We get out here.”

He stepped out of the car. Curran and I followed him toward three ornate bridges. One after the other, we walked across them and through the concentric rings of the moat. Snow crunched under my feet.

I was walking into the heart of my father’s power, while the magic was up. This wasn’t how I had pictured confronting him. But at least Curran was with me. So we could die heroically together. Okay, that wasn’t the best thought to have right about now.

It didn’t matter. I would walk in there and I would walk back out with Christopher and Robert. Or at the very least, I would see Roland’s blood on my new sword before he crushed me.

Maybe I should just stop thinking altogether.

The bridges ended. I wasn’t ready.

Curran paused and examined the swan. “What the hell . . .”

“Just go with it,” I told him.

A wide arched door waited for me in the swan’s side, right where the legs would’ve been tucked under the body. A stairway of white marble stairs led to the door.

He’d killed my mother. He was going to claim the city I called home. He’d stopped a horde of undead vampires in Mishmar.

This was happening.

Every nerve in my body tensed. My breathing deepened. My muscles became loose and pliant, like I had spent half an hour warming up before a big fight. It felt like my blood was boiling. Next to me Curran rolled his head, stretching his neck and loosening his shoulders.

The stairs ended. The arched door swung open. I walked through the open doors into my father’s palace.

• • •

I HAD EXPECTED a sterile monochromatic space. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Warm, sand-colored tiles lined the floor. An indoor garden, lush with green plants, spread on both sides of me in curved, raised beds, bordered by a gently winding pond, where fat lazy koi floated under the lily pads. The air smelled of lotus and roses. Tiny insects, blue and green and ruby-red, floated between the flowers, like a scattering of weightless jewels carelessly flung by the handful into the air.

In the center of the garden, a round mechanism of golden and silver gears rotated, balanced on a thin spike. Hair-thin wire rings wrapped around the mass of gears. The rings spun and turned, hypnotic in their beauty. Magic emanated around it. Was this an atomic model of some sort?

I made my mouth move. “What does it do?”

“I don’t know,” Landon said. “He built it one afternoon on a whim.”

A giant door waited at the other end of the room.

I reached forward with my senses. Vampires.

My hands were trembling. Hell no. I’d had twenty-seven years to prepare. I wouldn’t lose it now. I inhaled the air, letting it out slowly. My hands steadied. My pulse slowed.

“You can’t go any farther than that door,” Landon said to Curran.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll wait in the doorway.”

We passed between the flowers, circled the mechanism, and stopped before the door. I touched it and it swung open. A long room stretched before me, its white marble walls soaring up. I stood on a raised walkway. Twenty feet wide, it spanned the length of the room, running from the door all the way to the opposite wall. A trench bordered both sides of the walkway, filled with vampires. Past the trenches, on the sides, men and women waited, standing quietly. My father’s court.

The walkway ended in a raised dais. In the very center of it, on a throne formed by the bodies of serpents carved from glossy white stone, sat my father. He wore white.

I looked at his face.

He looked back at me.

The instant I saw his eyes, I knew why my mother loved him. His skin was a deep even bronze, saturated with the sun’s warmth. His nose was straight with a sloping tip, his cheekbones carved with careful attention, his jawline strong and masculine. A length of white cloth tossed over his head covered most of his hair. A short beard with a touch of silver traced his jaw, but the eyebrows above it were black, and his eyes were young and full of life. He could’ve been Arabic or Jewish, Hindu or Hispanic. Had he been twenty years younger, he could silence a room full of women simply by walking in. But he chose to appear older. When orphans dreamed of being adopted, this was the kind of father they pictured. His eyes radiated wisdom and kindness, intelligence, and calm surety, born of age and confidence in his own power. He could’ve been an ancient king, a great prophet, or a revered teacher. He had killed my mother. I hated him. Yet when he looked on me now, I wanted to stand taller. It was like being in the light of the morning sun. When the power of those eyes shone on my mother, she had no chance.