I have to stare back if I want to have any hope of binding myself to the Hallow.
But she squeezes my hand again. “Not this Hallow, Iskvien. If you bind yourself here—now—then all you will do is drink your own poison.”
“How do I defeat him?” I cry.
“You don’t.”
“They’re going to kill her.”
I can see Angharad now, her bare feet slapping on the stone as her black skirts whisk around her legs. She moves like a creature of the night, drawing the long thin dagger from her hip as she grabs Amaya’s wrist.
Isem, her pet sorcerer, stands by the Hallow chanting.
“Please,” cries a small voice. “Please don’t hurt me.”
And everything inside me goes still.
They’re the first words I’ve ever heard Amaya physically say—and I know, with a mother’s instinct, that they come from her mouth.
“That’s enough.” The voice trembles through the cavern, shaking rocks from the walls.
I lift my sword, but my hand pauses as Angharad hauls my daughter upright and puts a knife to her throat.
“Throw down your weapons,” she commands with a cruel smile.
“Don’t you touch her.” The words are a growl from my throat. “If you hurt her, then I swear I will destroy you. I will destroy this entire fucking Hallow, so you can never resurrect him.”
Reaching out, I summon the power through the Hallow.
The sensation of that dark presence is stronger, and its attention turns to me the second I link with the Hallow, but this time I push further. I slip past that leviathan waiting in its dark waters and plunge directly to the Hallow’s core.
There.
There’s the ley line.
And I know Angharad can feel the floor shivering beneath her feet, because she looks down in shock before slowly lifting her head.
Our eyes meet.
“It seems we are at a bit of an impasse.” Angharad bares her teeth in a smile, and Amaya squeals with fright as the knife clearly cuts in.
“Stop!” I scream, holding that roiling power within my grasp but helpless to do anything with it.
“Throw down your weapons,” Angharad commands again, and this time, it’s not a suggestion.
“Thiago?” Eris asks.
“Do as she says.”
Swords clatter as they strike the ground. It doesn’t matter. We were never going to defeat her with steel.
A warm body brushes against my legs, more of a reminder than a creature fully formed.
“Grimm,” I whisper.
“I will protect her with my life,” he tells me before he fades into the shadows. “Keep that bitch queen’s attention on you.”
“You’ve been very elusive, Princess,” Angharad calls. “Invisible even to my Heartless. I was starting to grow a little vexed, but then my commander realized there was another little thread of light calling to him. A child who could sing to the Hallows. A child who walked the snowy north, shielded by an old hag and dozens of other children. It took him a long time to find her, but when he did, what a curiosity she was. A child of destiny with no mother or father. A child who had been abandoned. A child with the power to break the world.”
“She wasn’t abandoned,” I snap, and this time, my gaze meets Amaya’s. “My mother stole her from me, and if I had known for one second that Amaya was out there, I would have stopped at nothing to find her.”
“Ah.” Angharad leans low, resting her chin on Amaya’s shoulder. “It’s enough to bring tears to one’s eyes. Your mother came for you, child. She loves you enough to spring my trap. But it will be too late.” Angharad’s voice rises. “Because the child’s magic supersedes the mother’s. My lord god desires a sacrifice of immense proportions, and now I have my heart set on—”
She suddenly screams as a set of teeth sinks into her hand, and a shadowy figure forms, his weight driving Angharad’s hand away from Amaya’s throat.
“Thiago!” He’s closer than I am.
“Rouse the Hallow!” he snaps as he sprints toward them.
Amaya throws herself aside, but her chains haul her up short.
Angharad screams and stabs her knife into the shadow that tears at her hand. Grimm howls as he’s flung aside, but he crawls to Amaya, hissing weakly as he glares at the queen.
“You filthy little cur!” Angharad screams.
Light blooms through my veins. The Hallow ignites. And the world around me turns to nothing more than shadows as I glow with so much light that every creature around us cries out and throws their arms over their faces.
The fetches scream, vanishing through the last traces of shadow.
A whine hisses past my ear, and I’m focusing so completely on the Hallow that for a second, I don’t even feel it. But the slam of the arrow into my shoulder drives the breath from my lungs, and suddenly the Hallow is torn from my grip.
I scream as I hit the ground, losing my grasp on all of that power.
“Now!” Angharad bellows, and her fetches suddenly reappear and close ranks between us and the Hallow.
The pain makes me want to vomit.
But Thiago’s inside that ring.
“Go,” I whisper to him. “Get her out.”
Grabbing the arrow by the shaft, I try to roll to my knees. Pain and darkness shoot through me. It’s close to the bone, I think.
And then Eris is there, grabbing the shaft from my hands.
“Bite down,” she says, shoving her leather glove between my teeth.
Stars swirl through a night sky in my mind as she snaps the arrow. I scream through the leather, saliva gushing from my mouth.
“We’ll cut it out later,” she says, slipping an arm under my shoulder and hauling me to my feet. “Focus on the Hallow.”
Red light and shadows wage war within the Hallow stones. Thiago takes a menacing step toward Angharad, tearing off his gauntlet. Suddenly every inch of our bond clicks into place, his magic rushing through the world. Darkness unfurls behind him like a pair
