The Queen's Secret (The Queen's Secret #2) - Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,84
someone shouts, and more of the crowd scatters. But Cal doesn’t move and neither does Rhema. The Aphrasian monk is dead, poisoned by Jander’s linseed.
One after another, the crows that have eaten the poison lie convulsing in the dirt. Every single one of them caws with rage or pain, their eyes glowing like a ball of flame, and then explodes into the form of a cloaked man. Black feathers shoot through the air, smacking people in the face. Cal raises an arm to keep them away, but he is soon pasted with damp feathers that he has to scrape off. They stink of sulfur.
The whole yard has the rotten smell of death, and people cover their mouths, recoiling from the sights and smells before them. The still-living birds clamber over the dead monks until their own moments of explosive transformation, until the bodies lie heaped around Jander’s obsidian circle, so high that Jander himself is half obscured. He’s still standing, the blood on his forehead and cheeks drying into a caked mud.
Another flash of black lightning cracks the sky. Wails of fear ripple through the crowd, and the guards seem agitated, some of them pointing their spears upward, as though they’re waiting for more evil to descend from the sky. But no more crows circle or descend. The ones left alive on the ground peck at the poisoned seeds and follow in the steps of their predecessors.
Daffran turns to Cal, his face no longer pink and swollen with tears. The scribe looks furious. He opens his mouth to speak and an almighty caw erupts, so loud that it echoes around the courtyard. Cal watches the scribe rise from the ground, as though the black lightning crackling above is pulling him into the sky. He’s a whirling tornado now, towering above Jander, turning and turning, changing color. His face is huge and enraged, and his limbs are a flashing mass of black claws, glinting and razor-sharp. The wind whips up small stones and dust, and Cal blinks and squints, hand on his sword, trying to focus on Daffran’s new form.
“You will not defeat me!” Daffran roars, more giant crow than man now, whirling until he touches down on the cobbles of the yard. Black lightning splinters the sky. Daffran reaches out an arm that has become something between a huge wing and a vicious claw, pointing straight at Cal.
“Cal!” It’s Rhema, by his side, her sword also poised. “I can’t move!”
Cal tries to lift his sword but his arm is heavy, and his legs won’t move. Everyone around him is still, as though time has stopped. Daffran has cast a spell on them all. Like Rhema, Cal feels his body freezing into position, as though he’s been turned into stone.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Lilac
When the noise erupts outside, Hansen and I are in my old apartments, where the windows face the yard. Maids have been working here today, clearing the last of my belongings, and we walked over together earlier to ensure everything is moved. A fire is burning in the grate. The only things left to remove are a small miniature of my mother, propped on the mantel, and my bow and quiver of arrows, hanging on the wall.
Loud cawing and thumping draws Hansen to the window, and he unlatches the shutters.
He looks outside and gasps, backing away from the window. “Crows! A whole lot of them—hundreds, maybe—flying in the courtyard!”
I look up from the fireplace. “You’re jesting. Why would there be hundreds of crows in the courtyard?”
“I’m telling you, there are!” Hansen shrieks. “Come see!”
Hansen is given to hysterics. I poke at the fire so an ashy log rolls over.
He walks back to the window and looks out. “They’ve surrounded that strange, skinny boy—the mute.”
“He’s not a mute,” I say. “If you’re talking about Jander.”
“Yes,” Hansen says, increasingly agitated. “One of the Chief Assassin’s gang. In the name of Deia! What is going on?”
Our guards are with us, standing poised at the door with their weapons out, but what we see will defy any spear or staff. I nudge Hansen out of the way so I can see, though it’s freezing by the window and Hansen has turned the glass frosty with his breath.
The first thing I see in the courtyard is Jander surrounded by crows—covered in them, in fact. Hundreds, just as Hansen said.
I try not to scream. He’s bleeding, but standing his ground. I know what he’s doing; my aunts taught me about something like this years ago.