A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic #1) - V.E Schwab Page 0,117

you to do that,” he said. “Create something strong enough to kill me. Since you clearly cannot do it yourself.”

Athos frowned. “What does it matter, the shape your death takes? It is still at my hand.”

“You said you wanted to kill me yourself,” countered Kell. “But I suppose this is as close as you can come. Go ahead and hide behind the stone’s magic. Call it your own.”

Athos let out a low growl. “You’re right,” he said. “Your death should—and will—be mine.”

He tightened his fingers around the stone, clearly intending to dispel the serpent. The snake, which had been slithering around the king, now stopped its course, but it did not dissolve. Instead, it turned its glossy black eyes on Athos, the way Kell’s mirror image had on Lila in her room. Athos glared up at the serpent, willing it away. When it did not obey his thought, he gave voice to the command.

“You submit to me,” ordered Athos as the serpent flicked its tongue. “You are my creation, and I am your—”

He never had the chance to finish.

The serpent reared back and struck. Its fanged jaws closed over the stone in Athos’s hand, and before the king could even scream, the snake had enveloped him. Its silver body coiled around his arms and chest, and then around his neck, snapping it with an audible crack.

Kell sucked in a breath as Athos Dane’s head slumped forward, the terrifying king reduced to nothing but a rag doll corpse. The serpent uncoiled, and the king’s body tumbled forward to the broken ground. And then the serpent turned its shining black eyes on Kell. It slithered toward him with frightening speed, but Kell was ready.

He drove the royal half-sword up into the serpent’s belly. It pierced the snake’s rough skin, the spellwork on the metal glowing for an instant before the creature’s thrashing broke the blade in two. The snake shuddered and fell, dispelled to nothing but a shadow at Kell’s feet.

A shadow, and in the midst of it, a broken piece of black stone.

IV

Lila’s back hit the pillar hard.

She crumpled to the stone floor of the throne room, and blood ran into her false eye as she struggled to push herself to her hands and knees. Her shoulder cried out with pain, but so did the rest of her. She tried not to think about it. Astrid, meanwhile, seemed to be having a grand time. She was smiling lazily at Lila, like a cat with a kitchen mouse.

“I am going to cut that smile off your face,” growled Lila as she staggered to her feet.

She had been in a lot of fights with a lot of people, but she’d never fought anyone like Astrid Dane. The woman moved with both jarring speed and awkward grace, one moment slow and smooth, the next striking so fast that it was all Lila could do to stay on her feet. Stay alive.

Lila knew she was going to lose.

Lila knew she was going to die.

But she’d be damned if it counted for nothing.

Judging by the rumbling of the castle grounds around them, Kell had his hands full. The least she could do was keep the number of Danes he had to fight to one. Buy him a little time.

Honestly, what had happened to her? The Lila Bard of south London looked out for herself. That Lila would never waste her life on someone else. She’d never choose right over wrong so long as wrong meant staying alive. She’d never have turned back to help the stranger who helped her. Lila spit a mouthful of blood and straightened. Perhaps she never should have stolen the damned stone, but even here, and now, facing death in the form of a pale queen, she didn’t regret it. She’d wanted freedom. She’d wanted adventure. And she didn’t think she minded dying for it. She only wished dying didn’t hurt so much.

“You’ve gotten in the way long enough,” said Astrid, raising her hands in front of her.

Lila’s mouth quirked. “I do seem to have a talent for that.”

Astrid began to speak in that guttural tongue Lila had heard in the streets. But in the queen’s mouth, the words sounded different. Strange and harsh and beautiful, they poured from her lips, rustling like a breeze through rotting leaves. They reminded Lila of the music blanketing the crowd in Rhy’s parade, sound made physical. Powerful.

And Lila wasn’t foolish enough to stand there and listen to it. Her pistol, now empty, lay discarded several