tempered with a loss, but he was alive and I was alive, and I was not picky on mates.
Darkness still coated my vision. It seemed even the sky had turned into shadow. “Where’s McKenna?”
The cold marbled floor, covered in a mosaic tile, led to a filigree railing. We were on a rooftop, the open sky the only ceiling on the tallest tower of the castle. The twin moons left a highlight on the water.
“Shhh!” He shot a look behind us. The haze of loyalty around his shoulders was a mix of orange and red. “She’s crafting. It’s best to let her work.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice.
I stumbled to my feet, my balance top heavy. Golden bars strapped to my bare chest, a glistening clear stone right over my heart. Spindly golden wings grew from my back, heavy and sharp. These wings were not made for flapping.
My shirtless body had been painted in kohl. I looked like a drawn skeleton. Shaky lines traced over my bones and across my ribs. From the itch on my cheek and under my eyes, my face had been painted as well. I touched my nose and black kohl smeared onto my fingers.
It was, in a word, chilly.
I was grateful I was still wearing my trousers.
The cut in my side had been healed but my ribs ached. How long had I been unconscious?
The crown slid down my forehead. In the skill section of my stats, the words Equip Crown of Visions? highlighted.
I glanced around. A swarm of Wingships darkened the broken red sky above me, each one armed and watching the harbor, while a trio of zomoks flew around a hovering Wingship at the center that tossed oranges and whistled out commands. The jagged mountain peaks seemed low compared to this tower.
If not now, when?
Equip crown.
Electric shock rocked down my spine. The crown straightened itself on top of my head, as if by magic. A flicker. A flash, like a spurting video, and then the vision showed me Queen McKenna pressing a jewel bracelet like she’d clicked a button. I heard gears tick behind me, and then the sharp wings bolted to my back swung upward, through my ribs, and the bloodstained tips crisscrossed through my chest. McKenna let go of the button and smiled at me as my vision shadowed to black.
Regular game play shuddered through that black. I’d fallen to my knees, my heart racing as I touched the place on my chest where the blades would strike.
Deactivate crown.
That wasn’t a future I wanted to see.
At the left, a large group of Devout knelt on all fours, manacles slung around their ankles. I stepped toward them, and their gaze turned to me. I knew a few of them—Rogi, Boll, and Vaika. Their loyalties flickered green for an instant as we met eyes, before shifting back to red as their shoulders caved in defeat when I joined them.
They sang a low hymn, forming ghostlight into a low hanging green mist, which siphoned into a trailing snakelike shape toward a pile of black lumps at the center of the ballroom floor.
I raised my voice with theirs, ghostlight pulsing forward toward robes covered with raven feathers, lying like lumps on the polished floor.
Historians. She was making Historians?
McKenna knelt in the middle of the lumpy piles of robes and gears, a screwdriver held between lips painted the color of blood as she fiddled with a mechanical. She was dressed in breeches, a pale billowing tunic, and a sheer red coat, which tapered sharply at her waist and fell to her mid-thigh. And the bracelet from the crown’s vision that would trigger my death was tucked into the work belt slung over her hips, like just another tool.
She motioned with her fingers and Andrew joined her side. He twisted a stream of the snakelike mist around his fingers then blew it into the gears.
The mechanical engine coughed a green exhaust before the gears purred to life, making those raven feather–covered lumps rise. They stood at attention, and then they began to spin, an army of Historians, dancing to silence. Each one touched spindly hands and spun again, their robes spreading in the movement, revealing flashing blades at the ready. Their carved silver masks sparkled like empty starlight. The Historians were not supposed to dance. They were made to record history, not to be music box spinners, and certainly not to carry weapons.
“What do you think?” McKenna asked, watching me.
Um … luckily she didn’t wait for my answer,