“Yes.” Her gaze swept back to me, to where the wolven surrounded me and then to her son.
My gaze swiveled back to Casteel. He stood right there, no more than a dozen feet or so from me, but it seemed like an impossible distance, an impassible gulf.
He stood right there.
Hawke.
Casteel.
The Prince of Atlantia.
The Dark One.
My husband.
My heartmate.
Casteel lowered to one knee, crossing the swords over his chest as he bowed his head between the vee of the deadly sharp blades. A stuttered heartbeat passed, and he lifted his chin just enough that he saw me.
The wolven sank onto their haunches, heads bowed, but their lips peeling back in snarls as those behind the King and Queen quietly advanced.
“Yes, it is,” his mother spoke again, reaching up and curling her fingers around the twisted bones.
Queen Eloana removed her crown, and with wide eyes, I watched her place it on the Temple floor, at the feet of the statue of Nyktos.
With a whoosh of air, flames roared from the stone torch of Nyktos, flickering and dancing in the wind. The other torches followed suit, fire sparking to life, and the bones of the crown shimmered, the bleached whiteness of them cracking, slipping away and turning to ash, revealing the gilded bones underneath.
“Lower your swords,” she commanded, her chin lifting even as she lowered to one knee, even as a potent, helpless sort of rage drenched the space around her, one that carried the stench of a long-buried fear come to fruition. “And bow before the…before the last descendent of the most ancient ones, she who carries the blood of the King of the Gods within her. Bow before your new Queen.”