“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Dare?” Bavasama wrinkled her nose and stepped back again, still facing me. “Haven’t you realized by now just how much I’m willing to risk for a chance to regain my rightful place on the Rose Throne? What I’m willing to destroy to reclaim what should have always been mine?” She lifted one of her hands and waved toward the guards. “Take her away. The tower, of course, and bring her a bucket of water to bathe. She reeks.”
One of the guards stepped forward. “Your Graciousness?”
“If you kill me, then they’ll burn Bathune to the ground. They’ll never surrender to you.”
I felt a hand grab each of my upper arms, and then two of the guards started to drag me away. I lifted my toes and tried to dig my heels into the floor, fighting them, but they just pulled harder.
“When I get free…” I snarled as they pulled me through the door.
“Oh, darling,” she said. “I seriously doubt that’s going to happen.” She burst into shrieks of insane laughter, and the doors to her throne room slammed closed in front of me as I struggled harder against my captors, kicking my feet and flailing my arms.
“Forget this,” one of the men said in a gruff voice. He let go of my arm before jamming his shoulder into my stomach and picking me up, throwing me over his shoulder. “I’ve had enough of you now.”
“Let go of me,” I said, trying to ram my knee into his stomach.
“That’s it.” He wrapped his arms tightly around my legs and held me pinned against his shoulder as I squirmed.
“Her Graciousness may want you alive, but I don’t think it matters. Dead now or dead later, it’s all the same to me. Besides, she did tell me to make sure you had a bath.”
I felt the brush of the window’s sides as he pushed my legs through and then a sick feeling in my gut as he leaned forward, forcing me to slide off his back. Then the snaggle-toothed monster holding me simply let go, and I could feel myself fall, probably from much too high of a height to be good for me.
Chapter Seventeen
I hit the water with a loud crack, and all the air in my body rushed out of my lungs in one solid push. My back burned from the sting of the impact, and when I tried to scream, water filled my mouth, and I swallowed it into my lungs. Flailing, I tried to kick myself to the surface, but the heavy weight of my sword pulled me down, dragging me toward the bottom. I scrambled upward but everything hurt, and my arms didn’t want to move. Nothing wanted to move.
Then there were strong arms wrapped around me and bodies pressed against my sides, and I was going up, being dragged to the surface by people I couldn’t see inside the murky, green depths.
“Breathe now, sister queen,” a familiar voice crooned as we broke the surface, and I sucked in a lung full of air. “Breathe easy now. You’re safe.”
I pulled in more air and let it out in a sob as Talia and two other mermaids began to swim me toward the grassy bank that surrounded their pool. “Talia? What are you—” I stared at her, my eyes wide and my heart pounding as Talia fought to lift me onto the cool grass. “Oh my God, I thought you were dead.”
“No.” She reached out to stroke my cheek, and I crumpled onto my side, dropping my head into her hand and letting it hang there.
“The wizards—” I coughed, spitting up water.
“Took us prisoner,” Talia said softly, still stroking my cheek and occasionally bringing her hand down over my wet hair. “Timbago and the rest of your staff were fighting bravely to protect us, but they were outnumbered. They couldn’t have protected us any more than they already had. There were too many of them, and when Timbago and the others were distracted by the Fate Maker’s army, the wizards surrounded us, and we didn’t have a chance.”
“Timbago…” I felt light-headed, as though I was going to be sick, at the thought of the goblin who’d been my friend, the goblin who’d died to protect me and my throne. He’d come back to me once—briefly—in death to share with me the secret of the Dragon’s Tear. He had been its keeper, its guardian.
“Is a fierce enemy when he’s riled,” Talia said and then smiled. “I watched him take on two wizards all by him—”
“He’s dead,” I whispered.
I heard the mermaids around us suck in their breath, and it was like the entire world had stopped as they stared at me. I struggled to sit back up and pushed my hair off my face. “He died at the labyrinth. They all died. The entire household staff.”
“All of them?” Talia asked, her face paling.
“The Fate Maker and Bavasama’s combined army killed them all,” I said, my voice trembling.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered into my hair.
“I thought you were dead, too. I went to the palace, and they were all dead and you were gone, and I thought you’d died with them.”
“Allie—”
“So many people have died,” I whispered. “Timbago and Darinda and all the dryads. My half brother Eamon. The village of Socastia. The Firas. I thought you were dead, too. I cried for you.”
“I know.” She cradled me close and patted my hair. “There was no way to send you word, no way to let you know that we had been taken prisoner. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.” I nodded, stunned. “I’m just glad you’re safe. Or as safe as any of us can actually be right now.”
“It will all be fine,” Talia said as she patted my head again. “Your army will come and save us, and we’ll all be home before you know it.”
“No, we won’t,” I said. “My aunt is going to kill me. She said that she’s going to use me as a bargaining chip to keep her throne, but I’m not stupid. She can’t risk me raising another army against her. She’ll kill me to keep from losing the throne. Just like she should have done with my mother.”
“She tried,” Talia said. “To kill your mother… But it didn’t work. Just like it won’t work if she tries to kill you.”
I looked at her, wide-eyed. “What?”
“You are the Golden Rose of Nerissette. You wear the crown. Life flows through you. From you. You are the reason this world blooms again, and the magic of this world won’t let her kill you.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, stunned.
“Haven’t you ever been curious?” she asked. “Fallen off the back of a dragon, faced the Fate Maker, and yet you’ve managed to survive with little more than a scratch. Don’t you wonder how you keep surviving things that would kill other people?”
“I…” I swallowed as I stared at her.
“You are the guardian of the First Leaf,” Talia explained.
“What?” I gaped at her. “But that’s the missing Relic…”
“Yes. The First Leaf, the key to perpetual life. You are its guardian.”
“No, I’m not. I mean, I have the leafy orb thingy…or I did. Bavasama gave it to me, and I gave it to Mercedes and she brought it with us, along with the rest of the relics, but there’s no magic in it. I mean”—I swallowed—“there’s obviously magic in it, but it’s like the Orb of Fate. It’s an illusion. It’s not like the Dragon’s Tear or the Mirror of Nerissette. There’s no magic there that I can touch, or use.”
“That’s because the First Leaf isn’t inside the Orb of the Dryads,” Talia said softly.
“What?” I asked. “But if the Orb of the Dryads—”
“Your crown,” Talia whispered, brushing her fingers over my forehead, just underneath the silver leaf at its center. “The Pleiades hid the First Leaf inside your crown.”
“My—”
“Then they locked that crown in a box that could only be opened in your presence. A Relic that only the rightful Golden Rose could touch.”