The Girl of Fire and Thorns Complete Collection (71 page)

It’s like a slap in his face. His eyes clear; he nods once.

Ximena has been quiet this whole time, steadily stitching at my new skirt as if a normal tomorrow were a foregone conclusion. She looks up from the fabric in her lap. “Someone needs to guard your back as you leave,” she says gently. “Someone needs to stay behind.”

Her face is dark and calm and beautiful, and I know what she intends. “No,” I whisper. I shake my head, unable to bear the thought. “No, Ximena.”

“I could buy you several minutes’ time. Precious time. I know just what to do. It is the only way.”

“I can’t lose you too.”

She smiles. “I’ll find you later.” But she and I both know it’s not true. Ximena could buy us time, but she wouldn’t survive a confrontation with a sorcerer.

I won’t let it happen. She doesn’t yet understand how determined I’ve become.

I rush into the atrium, where we have stashed Rosario’s things. He will need sturdy shoes for our journey, a change of clothes, the signet ring he wears on a cord around his neck that will always prove his identity.

I pass the bathing pool, and the Godstone pulses such heat that I whirl. The tiles with their four-petaled flowers stare back at me.

My hand flies to Roldán’s amulet. Four rounded protrusions, just like the flowers. I whip the chain over my head and turn it around to stare at it. Is it supposed to be a flower?

I hear pounding. The squeak of hinges as the door is thrown open. Gasps.

“This is the correct room?” I can’t see the speaker from my huddled crouch beside the bathing pool, but the voice makes me shiver.

I creep forward on all fours, peer into the bedroom, then yank my head back.

My heart pounds with the knowledge that there can be no escape. Three animagi stand just inside the door, their whitish hair gleaming, their Godstone amulets already glowing with recent bloodshed. Condesa Ariña stands with them.

“This is the room. I swear it,” she says. She has led them right to me. I should have realized she’d betray me at the soonest opportunity. I should have—

“Where is the one who bears the mark of sorcery?”

No one answers.

Another voice bellows, “If you do not tell us who bears the mark of sorcery, you will burn.”

The Godstone hammers at my navel with angry heat.

Heat. It should be cold. Icy cold. I stare at the amulet in my hand, at the tiles next to me.
All the bearers . . .
Little yellow flowers with blue spots, one blue inky blot on each petal. Bright, gorgeous blue. Godstone blue.

God, tell me what to do.

The amulet’s petals are curved. Concave. Godstone sized. The stone in my navel leaps as my mind makes the connection. I grope at the caged stone at my neck, trying to lift the latch and open it, but my fingers fumble.

“I am the bearer.” Mara’s voice, from farther away. She must have come up behind them. “I’m the one you seek.”

Oh, Mara, no
. I whip the amulet over my head. I flick the latch open with a fingernail and upend it; the ancient Godstone tumbles into my palm.

Angry questions, too muffled to understand. Soft crying. “Né es ella.” She’s not the one.

I place the dead Godstone against the ugly amulet, snug into one of the concave petals.
Is this what I’m supposed to do, God
? Something clicks, the pendant vibrates, and I snatch my fingers back. The Godstone is embedded in the flower amulet now, as if a jeweler soldered it in. My heart pounds with fear and hope. I need the three Rosario has.

I shove the amulet into my belt sash and rise from my hiding place. I have to catch Rosario’s eye somehow, communicate what I need. If he’s frozen in place, I’ll have to find a way to approach him.

The Godstone pulses warm encouragement, but my heart races in my throat and my fingers are icy. I step into the bedroom.

Mara kneels at the feet of an animagus, her head down. His fingers tangle in her hair.

Their amulets glow. Condesa Ariña lies off to the side. Her legs are unnaturally cricked, and her blood pools on the stone floor. They’re going to use the condesa’s blood to burn answers out of my lady-in-waiting.

“Wait.” I step forward. Ximena is closest to the door, frozen in a half step toward Rosario. The little boy looks at me pleadingly. “I’m the one you want.” My voice is getting stronger. I’m doing the right thing. Even if I can’t get to the Godstones, there’s a chance that if I give myself up, they’ll spare my friends.

An animagus brushes past Mara. “You bear the mark?”

“If you mean do I have a stone like that”—I indicate his amulet—“living in my gut, then yes. I bear the mark.”

The animagus’s impossible eyes widen. I ignore him, glancing around for Alejandro, wondering if he escaped somehow. But no, that’s his head peeking over the edge of my bed. He’s on the floor beside Ariña, forced to stare, frozen, at her broken body.

Their amulets brighten as the blood soaks into the stone. Not much time left before they burn us all. “Free my companions, and I’ll let you live,” I say.

The animagus nearest me smiles. I shudder at the sight of his pointed, brown-stained teeth. “Oh, you are no threat,” he says pleasantly.

My legs shiver with the desire to run. “I have a
living
Godstone inside of me. That dead thing around your neck is no match for it.” It’s a ridiculous bluff. It will fool no one.

But he hesitates, eyes narrowing.

“Maybe,” I continue brazenly, “I should take
yours
.” I look meaningfully at Rosario.

Rosario starts, his chin lifting just slightly in my direction. He isn’t frozen after all. He was pretending, the way I did months ago in the animagus’s tent. Precious, clever boy! The Godstones must have protected him.

But the animagus is not convinced. “You lie,” he snaps. “If you were able to call on the earth fire, you would have done so long ago.”

I grasp for a convincing retort. My hands shake. I take a step forward, toward the animagus and Rosario. I hold my head high, my gaze steady. “
The champion must not fear
,” Homer said in his prophecy.

“I’ve been waiting,” I say. “Waiting until I could gather more than a single stone. And look! Here you are. Three of you.” One more step takes me just past Rosario. The animagus before me holds his ground. I hope I block his view of the boy behind me. “Surely you’ve heard what happened to your brother. The one camped with your northern army.” I slip my right hand behind my back while I speak, curl my wrist so my palm faces upward. “I burned him. I used his own amulet against him and I burned him.”

Concern flickers in the animagus’s porcelain features for just a moment. It’s replaced by a feral smile. “I think you love your friends too much, little girl,” he hisses. He turns to the other two. “Burn the tall one.”

“No!” I can’t see Mara’s face, but I imagine it. I picture the droopy scar across her eyelid, her lips pressed together in determination.

Rosario drops the Godstones into my hand.

The animagi’s amulets are blazing now; I can hardly look at them. The one clutching Mara’s hair hauls her to her feet.

The champion must not waver
.

I yank the golden flower from my sash and thrust the Godstones into the indentations on the petals. They click into place, fused there by sorcery. Streaming light from the animagus’s amulet plunges into Mara’s torso as I raise my own amulet toward him.

Please help me
. God has never intervened to save the life of a person I care about. Still, I pray, willing the amulet to do something, anything. Just this once.

Nothing happens. The amulet does not even warm in my hand.

Mara’s screams rend the air. Something breaks inside me. “Wait! Stop!” I cry. “I’ll give you my Godstone. Just stop.”

The animagus thrusts Mara away. She crumples to the ground. Smoke rises from her clothes.
Oh, Mara. You’ve already suffered so much
.

As one, the three animagi advance on me, blue eyes on the strange object in my hand, their long fingers twitching like spider legs. Tears stream down my cheeks. I have failed so utterly. Rosario will not escape. The animagi will have their ten Godstones, and more. My hands fall to my sides, my chin drops. Four Godstones should have accomplished something.

Shouting, heavy bootsteps, the ring of steel. Joya’s soldiers pour through the doorway. The animagi turn from me, startled. I back away quickly, hand still grasping my failed amulet.

An animagus seizes Ximena by the shoulders and places her body in front of his; the other two grab Rosario and Alejandro. The presence of the soldiers makes no difference. Invierne’s sorcerers will still have what they want from me.

“Let them go,” a dark voice commands. Lord Hector! Foolish hope glimmers inside me. No, it’s the Godstone, sparking warmth.

“Leave this room at once, or we burn your king and queen.”

The Godstone pulses in manic excitement, like it’s going to burst from my belly. I look down, half expecting to see it glowing through my sash. I realize I have clutched the amulet to my stomach.

My mind is a fog of heat and certainty, my body awash with blistering power.

Four Godstones is not enough. Five is the perfect number, the divine grouping.

I turn the amulet over in my hand. There, in the back, almost hidden. Another indentation, perfectly centered.

Of course. A
living
Godstone should complete the holy grouping.
My
Godstone.

I tear the sash from my waist, pull up the edge of my blouse and hold it in my teeth. The Godstone gleams at me, and I gasp. Light swirls inside it. No,
thousands
of tiny lights, from white to midnight blue, whirl in a lazy, glittering maelstrom.

I press Roldán’s ugly amulet to my stomach. The muscles in my body tighten as it clicks into place. The sorcerer holding Ximena thrusts her to the ground and strides toward me, his eyes fixed on the amulet. He reaches for it.

“No!” Alejandro screams. He wrenches free of the animagus’s grasp and launches toward the one approaching me, yanking a dagger from his boot. He plunges it into the sorceror’s back.

The animagus freezes midstride, icy eyes opened wide. He drops to his knees, and blood bubbles on his lips.

The remaining two lift their amulets toward the king; light streams forth, crashes into his body. Alejandro collapses to the floor, shrieking in pain.

“Papá!” Rosario screams.

And then my amulet begins to spin like a pinwheel on the axis of my navel.

Everything tingles. The maelstrom of light from my Godstone is all around me now, swirling and beautiful and terrifying. My skin breathes in the energy of the earth, of the air around me, and feeds it to my living Godstone.

So much power! I’m panting, shaking. It’s all too big for my skin, too huge for me to hold. I will burst if I don’t do something soon. My amulet spins faster.

Instinctively, I do what I have practiced unceasingly for months: I pray, harder and more desperately than ever.

Dear God almighty, please deliver my enemies into my hands.

The maelstrom of light coalesces into a tight ball, a small blue sun hovering at my navel. I place my hands below it. Though the air crackles around me, it is cool in my palms. Wonderingly, I lift it toward the animagi.

Words stream unbidden from my lips. “My God is with me; I will not waver. My God is with me; His power is mine.”

The animagi gape at me in horror. I realize I’m quoting scripture in the Lengua Classica. I cannot stem the flow of words, and my voice grows stronger. “I will look in triumph on my enemies. They will scatter to the ends of the earth, and God’s righteous right hand will endure forever!”

The ball of light whirls. My body tingles with power. I’m shouting now.

“
I
am God’s righteous right hand! And I will. Not. Waver.”

I splay my feet wide and toss my tiny, whirling sun high above my head.

It hovers near the vaulted ceiling a moment, spinning faster and faster, sending sparks in all directions.

A massive boom rocks the world as it explodes into a wave of heat and shimmering air. My hair blows back from my face; my skirt plasters against my legs. Windows shatter, and glass falls in a glittering wash all around me.

The animagi scream. I watch in horror and relief as their bodies wrinkle and wither and dissolve into blackened dust.

And suddenly, I am empty. Powerless. A drained husk of a girl.

My knees can no longer support my weight. I crumple to the floor as the amulet detaches from my stomach, plinks to the ground, slides under my bed.

I’m lying on my side, cheek pressed into my sheepskin rug, my eyes drifting shut. The amulet flares once where it lies, and winks out. I follow it into blessed darkness.

Chapter 34

I
wake to sun streaming harsh against my eyelids.

“Elisa?” A head hovers above me. I blink rapidly, but my mind clings to sleep. “Elisa! You’re awake.”

“Rosario?”

“Ximena! She’s awake.”

Another head. My vision is clearer now. My body aches everywhere, like I was beaten with wooden swords. “Ximena?” I croak, almost choking on the dryness in my throat. “What happened?”

She places a cool hand to my forehead and chuckles. “Elisa, my sky, you destroyed the animagi.”

I gasp out a sob of relief, remembering. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

“That amulet of yours. It sent a wave, like light or heat, all through the city. Every mirror and window in Brisadulce shattered. Then the animagi just . . . grew old right before our eyes. It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. They say the same thing happened to the two who remained on the battlefield.”

It’s overwhelming. The animagi are dead. Tears squeeze from the corners of my eyes. From habit, I put my fingertips to my Godstone and send a prayer of thanks. It responds with balmy warmth.

I gasp. “My Godstone. It lives.”

“Yes. I suppose God isn’t done with you yet.” I’m not sure I appreciate the amusement in her voice. The possibility that God has a further use for my stone could make me ill if I thought about it too much.