Treachery Queen (The Callistra Chronicles #1)

TWENTY-EIGHT

Ice built over her tongue.

"No," Pasiphae lied plainly. "But it would have been nice to know. I've already killed one Crown heir, after all, wouldn't want to kill another."

Morgana jerked back, the first time Pasiphae had ever seen her be taken by surprise. Pasiphae had found the wound, and she had torn it wide open with nothing but her bare hands and blunt teeth.

"Do they know?" she pushed, tilting her chin at the guards. "That Nata is dead because you forced her to take my magic? That their Crown Princess was tossed onto witch soil and then burnt with the rest of the garbage that day—"

Pasiphae's jaw slammed shut, so hard that something cracked inside her mouth.

"I think that's enough," the queen said, her fist squeezed tightly. "We only sent you back to create dissent in the power ranks. I see now that it was a mistake." With every tensing of the queen's fingers, Pasiphae's lower face throbbed with reciprocal pain. "Shut the door!"

The guards hurried to act on Morgana's command. The doors banged shut and reverberated into the silence, drawing on until Pasiphae heard phantom echoes.

Morgana was unhurried.

"Airesi has sent out battleships that are idling all over Callistra," she finally said. The Unseelie queen posed the statement like the start of a conversation. "They are pointed at us." She pivoted on her heel to face Seth, only the prickling of her wings betraying any emotion that could be bubbling beneath the surface. "Were you aware of this?"

"My mother hardly consults me on her actions," Seth said with a roll of his eyes. "You're asking the wrong person."

"No, I would have to disagree on that sentiment." The queen spun back around again. "See, I would rather like to know what Sesostris Basillerius is doing parading around my Court pretending to be one of mine. After I welcomed you, it makes me look rather stupid, don't you think?"

She seized out her hand, hooking upwards, and though she was across the room from Seth, he was held up at the throat by an invisible grip.

Her magic was too strong for him. He would be vastly overpowered attempting any attack.

"I would like to know," Morgana continued, "what the Seelie Court knows, and how they're going to inevitably use it against me. Now, please."

Seth quite literally snarled at the faery queen. He proceeded to suggest that she do something anatomically impossible.

"Why do you have to be like that?" Morgana mused. "I don't want to do this, you know."

"I frankly don't care what you do to me," Seth spat.

"Oh, I thought you understood."

Without warning, a seizure pulled tight in Pasiphae's stomach. She choked on air, gasping at nothing. It was pain but it was also absence, like her intestines had been pitched into a void and now they had to destroy themselves in order to feel real again.

"Little prince, it's not you I'm going to do anything to."

Pasiphae felt her own scream sitting heavy before she released it, lingering like a dark plague at the back of her throat, before it tore into the room and curled around the queen.

Morgana breathed in, absorbing the sound.

A cold sweat broke out along Pasiphae's forehead. As the next wave of magic struck, she forced herself to swallow her shrieking, unable to bear the grief marking Seth's face.

"Wait," he demanded as the queen raised her hand again, and Pasiphae cut in immediately, rasping, "NO!"

He stared at her with a strange pleading, asking her of something that she refused to be responsible for.