And I felt a hidden reservoir of power. Not my own. Something different. A Queen’s power.
I looked up and saw Nyx leap through the air. Rose put her hands up, and her wings seemed to flash in the sunlight. Then a blinding light filled the air in front of her as she stepped to the side.
Nyx screamed and fell crashing to the ground beside her. She stared at him in horror and began to walk backward away from him, her hands going to her mouth. Nyx lay on the ground screaming as his hands covered the gauze over his eyes. Gauze that protected his eyes from white light.
Nyx was the son of a half-dragon, raised in a cave for more than a hundred years. His kind could see in the complete dark of a cave. Their eyes were only able to adjust to the fire that they controlled. White light was not natural in the world of dragons. At least not his kind.
He was the perfect hunter in the darkness, but in the light of day, his eyes would already be aching. That flash could have blinded him. He would heal it, but that was not something he was used to doing in the heat of battle.
I felt for that reservoir and realized that I couldn’t pull the power into myself. Instead, it seemed to augment me, making me not just a half-incubus, half-fairy. I was something else. Part Queen?
I touched the ground again, hoping that the impossible would be made possible, and I felt for a warren. There was none.
But, just as a bridge pulled at you, wanting to be used, the Queen’s power pulled at me, showing me the answer. I directed it through the ground towards Nyx. Towards Nyx’s shadow as he stood up, rubbing his eyes and growling at Rose.
Then I felt it, the warren. Tighter than any I’d ever seen. As I slid through my own shadow into the warren, I saw that it was filled with a different mist. Black mist almost like smoke mixed with a white that could only be described as condensed sunlight.
I slid through the tunnel only a few feet long. My wounds ground against the stone as I slid through the tunnel that was barely wide enough for me to fit through. I groaned, knowing that no one could hear me, and I reached out to touch the end of the miniature warren.
The image of Nyx grasping his daggers in both hands appeared in my mind. His cloak trailed behind him on the ground as he prepared to rush Rose once again. I smiled as I slid through the nothingness between this space and the Immortal Realm.
My hand wrapped around Nyx’s neck. My legs wrapped around his waist, and I plunged my obsidian dagger into the back of his neck with every ounce of strength I had left, slicing through his spine. His arms and legs seemed to collapse as he lost feeling everywhere below that point.
As he fell to the ground, I held the knife, feeling his strength drain into me. The power flowed into my burnt chest, healing it bit by bit. Nyx gasped under me, and I felt the power inside him fade until there was nothing.
Until the shell that had held the soul of the man who had raised me was empty. Until I knew that he’d gone back to the void. He’d been the only man who had seen me as something to protect and teach. He’d been the only one other than my mother who had seen the value in my bloodlines.
I hadn’t wanted this, but he hadn’t either. He’d be proud that he was bested by me, that the student had surpassed the teacher. I felt the sadness roll over me in waves, but I pushed them back. Not now. I would grieve later.
I pulled the knife out of his neck and rolled him onto his stomach. It was only then that I heard Rose screaming. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, glad to be rid of the pain.
Then I bent down and picked up his daggers. They would be his only real possessions. Nyx, the greatest assassin in the history of the Fae was dead. I remembered when he’d shown me these same daggers a thousand years ago and begun teaching me how to use them. Then, I remembered the day that he’d handed two hartskin sheathes to me, giving me the most valuable gift I’d ever received. I could never have been a part of the Assassin’s Guild, but that had been his way to say that I was worthy. That he was proud of the man I’d become.
He had not been my enemy, yet I’d been forced to kill him.
“Rest, friend. You’ll be remembered. Seraphina will not get away with turning us against each other.” I patted his chest. His scarred hands seemed to relax, and I stood up, holding his daggers.
Turning to Rose, I said, “It’s done. We’re safe now. Nyx didn’t work with anyone else, so we shouldn’t need to worry about any other assassins.”
She ran to me, and I held her against me as tears fell down her cheek. “I thought you were going to die. I couldn’t watch that and not do anything.”
I took another deep breath and said, “I thought I was going to die. I should have died. Your being here is the only reason I didn’t.”
She looked up at me, her eyes seeing under the hood, and asked, “Because I distracted him?”
I shook my head. “Because you’re a Queen. Because you should be sitting on the Dark Throne. A Queen can lend her subjects part of her power. That’s the true power of a Queen. They can wield massive strength, but they’re still vulnerable to physical attacks.”
I held
