His eyes widened with horror. “But Dochte was to be spared! It was promised to me!”
She took obvious glee in his pathetic pleading. “All of them, Aldermaston. The reign of the mastons has ended. Even Muirwood was burned to the ground.”
“No,” the Aldermaston pleaded, sprawling out in front of her, his shoulder convulsing. “I beg you, spare this final one! I was promised, by Ereshkigal herself, that it would be spared!”
“You thought a promise made to a man would be honored by Ereshkigal? Was it not your own teaching that women are mutable?
Changeable by nature? Are we not water that molds to the shape of the dish? Poor Aldermaston.” She crouched down by his prostrate form and gently stroked his head. “Where is the Medium to aid you now? Where is the power you once took for granted? You have nothing left that I need or want.”
The Aldermaston sobbed like a broken man, his shoulders heaving.
“Poor Aldermaston,” she crooned. Her voice pitched lower.
“Gideon wept as Muirwood burned too. He heard the screams from inside as the fire consumed it. As will you.”
The feeling in the room grew so bleak the torches seemed to dim. A sick, strangling feeling seized Trynne’s chest as she listened to the queen’s voice. It had stopped sounding like her, the voice slowly changing to another’s, as if multiple voices were speaking at the same time. Trynne’s thoughts went blank with fear, and cold sweat seeped from her pores.
“Look at me,” the queen said, her eyes glowing silver and swallowing what little light there was in the fetid prison.
The Aldermaston lifted his head, his mouth wet with drool. He shivered uncontrollably as the queen lifted his chin to face her. Her power swept over him, compounding his grief and remorse, his fear and desolation. The room seemed to echo with hissing noises, but Trynne felt rather than heard them—the delighted purring and growling of those unseen monsters feeding on the man’s desolation.
“A rich bounty indeed,” the queen said with relish. “You served me well, Aldermaston. But now I release you.”
The queen bent her neck and kissed the Aldermaston’s forehead. As soon as her lips touched his flesh, Trynne felt a little prick of magic, a spell of some kind imparted by the kiss. She felt the invocation of something, like a whisper of death, and the Aldermaston’s shoulders slumped as if he knew what would happen because of it.
“I . . . I . . . speak your true n-n-name, Eresh—” the Aldermaston tried to utter, but his voice thickened and he could say nothing.
She stroked his cheek, relishing his impotence. “You will never speak again,” she whispered. Then she rose and turned her shining eyes on Martin. “Assemble the servants and every living thing in the area to the abbey and then bar the doors. Bring this man to the gardens to watch it burn. Then tie a Leering to his neck and cast him into the sea when the tide comes in at dawn.”
Martin looked at her incredulously. “My lady, you can’t mean—”
She rose imperiously, looming over Martin as if she were a giant. “You will obey me, or you will join him.”
Those terrible whining and hissing sounds—no, sensations— intensified. Martin stared at his granddaughter in horror for the command she’d given. But she had not given the order—it was the thing inside her. Trynne felt Fallon’s hand close around her wrist.
She glanced at him, saw the fear in his eyes. The warning to flee.
There was nothing they could do here. No further help they could give.
Trynne reached behind her back to where the Tay al-Ard was fastened to her belt.
Martin stood transfixed, his brow furrowed with conflict, his teeth bared like a dog about to snarl.
Trynne felt Fallon squeeze harder, as if saying, Now!
She closed her fingers around the Tay al-Ard, feeling her heart cringe from the blackness of the deeds about to be committed. The queen turned toward her. Those uncanny silver eyes locked on hers.
And then she and Fallon vanished.
Trynne brought them to the harbor where they had disembarked from the queen’s ship. There were no vessels there now, for the tide had gone out, but there were plenty of soldiers and rowboats.
“I’ve never felt so awful in my life,” Fallon whispered to her, shaking his head. He turned and looked up at the black face of the abbey. The stars swirled in a vast configuration in the sky, but the island itself looked dead and dark.
“It was pure evil,” Trynne said, shuddering. “I’ve never been so afraid.”
“Nor I,” he agreed. “This place is cursed.”