Chapter Forty-two
Katrielle’s eyes flew open at the sound.
KNOCK, KNOCK
It was the same sound her spell had caused in the empty space between dimensions when she’d tried so hard to breach the Time King’s walls and make her way to the Queens. It was like the rapping of something heavy on a solid wood door in the dead of night, amplified by the power of distance and time. But now she wasn’t the one making the sound; she wasn’t the one casting the spell.
A hard and sharp aura radiated from this magic, and a distinctly masculine note emanated from the sound. It was a hollow crashing from somewhere beyond, angry and desperate and completely out of patience.
“Your Kings have found you,” she said.
Beside her, Poppy the Winter Queen sat up straighter. “You sense them?”
“You will too. Any second now.”
KNOCK, KNOCK
Now the magic and its furious sound moved out of Katrielle’s internal vision and into the real world, slamming against the walls of Evelynne D’Angelo’s bubble. The women around Katrielle cried out in surprise and then scrambled to their feet. She hastily joined them, getting her boots beneath her as the second round of banging sounds emitted from the very sky above them.
The ground began to shake. The five powerful women reached out to one another for stability, grasping each other’s arms in firm grips until they found themselves in a circle of strength amidst a crumbling world.
None of them had to be told to use magic to ensure their safety. The four Queens seemed to come to the decision as one, somehow in sync when they most needed to be. Katrielle watched each of them develop a glow in their vivid eyes. Then they closed those eyes and lowered their heads.
All five of them slowly lifted from the ground to levitate safely several feet above it. A second later, a glowing purple-blue bubble of warlock legerdemain began to cocoon them, shimmering and opalesque. It started on one side, traveled in a sphere around their forms, and drew together on the other side.
They hovered in this glowing crystal ball as the make-believe world the Time King had created for D’Angelo began to fall apart. Katrielle was the only one who saw it happen. The others were working their magic, in tune as one.
The illusion shimmered first, as the ground beneath it bucked and split apart. Then little by little, the shimmering made way for the nothingness that existed between the dimensions. Katrielle was intimately familiar with that nothingness. She’d barely escaped it the first time.
She realized that as the only one with knowledge of what they were about to encounter, and the only one not working a different kind of spell, it was up to Katrielle to get the four Queens and herself back to the world they’d come from. But more alarming than that was the fact that what was happening with them was probably happening with the other eight safe bubble worlds Solan had created and stuffed the other Queens into.
Which meant if they didn’t know what was happening and how to prepare for it, they would be ejected into the nothingness and would disintegrate entirely in short order. Unless she found them first.
Chloe, the Warlock Queen would probably be able to construct a protective shield around herself in time. As one of the first Akyri ever created, she was literally composed of stardust. She was familiar with the needle and thread of the cosmos, deep down in her core. She was also the Warlock King’s wife, and as such she was consistently full-to-the-brim with dark magic. She would recognize what she needed to do to survive and have the power to do it.
Siobhan the Phantom Queen was a warlock herself, and one of renowned esteem. She, too, would probably manage to protect herself from the discordant effects of her shattering world.
The Seelie and Unseelie Queens, Selene and Minerva, would have to be creative. As Wisher sisters, their magic was devastatingly powerful, but limited to the knee-jerk reactions of revenge. Kat wasn’t certain they would have anything to exact revenge for upon being protected in a safe haven bubble by someone who only wished to keep them out of the hands of evil. But she had faith in them. There was a lot of injustice in the world. Knowing those two, they would pull on stored resources of anger. She was pretty sure they would be okay.
Evangeline the Dragon Queen was half Nomad. The other half was legendary dragon.
At the thought of the man who’d provided her with that second half, Katrielle’s heart skipped so hard it hurt. Eva’s father had been the Great Black dragon, Bantariax. He was and always would be the first and strongest love of Katrielle’s life. Eva was their daughter.
Eva was likewise very strong. But she was only half Nomad, and even Katrielle had begun to dissipate in that vast emptiness. Evangeline wouldn’t make it without help.
For that matter, neither would Diana the Goblin Queen and Adelaide the Nightmare Queen. It was possible – just possible – that there existed some kind of creature that naturally roamed the vast nothingness of the space between worlds in the fabric of the multiverse. And if that were true, then Samantha O’Neill the magishifter may be able to shift into that creature. As such, she might stand a chance at adapting to the environment. She possessed the unique and innate ability to shift into any magical monster. So there was hope.
But not nearly enough of it. Too much was up in the air. Too many lives were at stake, and in that moment Kat had no real idea how to find any of them.
And then suddenly, as if in answer to the simultaneously raised inner voices of a dozen desperate magical beings, Katrielle felt a very powerful wave of magic wash over her and the women with her. It moved the protective bubble they were in, but did not shatter it. Instead, it seemed to be acting like a remotely controlled guidance system; the bubble jerked gently to the side, and then rose further just as the last of the Time King’s illusion fell completely away.
Katrielle was reminded of a movie she’d seen once as Lalura Chantelle. It was the most ridiculous and most fun movie – The Explorers. A group of children rigged a space ship out of a carnival ride and old computer parts. More or less. A shield much like this one surrounded the “space ship” and took it light years into space.
This wasn’t space. This was the place between spaces, between universes, which were each composed of countless galaxies that possessed countless solar systems which contained countless planets. This was the nothing that held it all together and simultaneously attempted to tear it all apart.
But the image remained, and she couldn’t help but smile when she saw the same kinds of bubbles – four of them – containing all eight of the remaining Queens. Their heads were all bent, and their hands were clasped. They were in pairs; they’d managed to find one another and breach their own walls with either magic or perhaps sheer strength of will. Whatever it was, it was clear to Katrielle that the Queens could not be contained.
Her vision of the Thirteen Queens on the chessboard facing off against an oncoming evil flashed before her mind’s eye. But for the first time since she’d begun seeing it, Kat wasn’t filled with dread or worry. Instead, she felt hope. These women were immensely gifted and colossally powerful. This right here was proof. Without even meaning to, without spoken or written communication of any kind, they’d cast the same spell. They’d simply known what to do and had acted as one powerful weapon against happenstance.
As they passed within close proximity to one another and as a group changed course, Kat noticed that the emptiness looked different than the last time she’d been in it. There seemed to be fissures of energy moving through it, dark and jagged. It was also a touch lighter than before, the way material became lighter in color at its edges when torn.
It concerned her, but what did she know of the emptiness between worlds?
She turned her attention to the women and took note of which of the Queens had joined up together. Selene and Minerva were of course together, but that was no surprise. As twins, they were already very connected, and becoming Queens in strange courts had only made them more so. Katrielle imagined that their worlds had consisted of happy places where they had at last managed to locate their birth mother, a Wisher they had been tirelessly attempting to find for several years. It was their greatest wish and highest goal since becoming Queens. The search was ongoing and fruitless thus far, but Kat would bet good money that at least for a little while, the two had experienced family reunions inside William Solan’s protective worlds.
Chloe Septeran the Warlock Queen and Samantha O’Neill the Shifter Queen were together. That was a bit of a surprise, but when Kat stopped to consider it, it also wasn’t. Chloe was an outcast of sorts as one of the first Akyri ever created. She’d always been special and she’d always been hunted because of it. As for Samantha, until recently being hunted and running away was all her life had been composed of. She was the magishifter, a legendary shifter with capabilities that the world would hastily exploit if it got its hands on her. Because of this, and general misunderstandings, she’d always been on the lamb. The two women had a lot in common. And already, Kat could feel a strong friendship forming between them. It was Chloe’s store of warlock magic, boosted by Samantha’s innate power, that formed their spherical shield.
In another sphere were Siobhan Ashdown and Adelaide, the Nightmare Queen. Siobhan was a warlock, and as the Phantom Queen, she was adept at understanding the intricacies of realms devoid of life. Perhaps that lent itself to the strength of the spell she now used to protect herself and Addie, whose natural power as a Nightmare and as a gifted seer strengthened the magic, adding to the shield.
Kat realized that these two were also well matched and was not at all surprised they’d managed to find one another. Siobhan sometimes felt frightening, for lack of a better term. She was the Lady of the Dead. She was the first woman people met after coming to untimely ends. She was the face of finality. What was more frightening than this notion?
And then there was Addie, who actually and literally turned into a Nightmare upon provocation. She sprouted horns and everything. Kat smiled at the thought. In truth, she was absolutely stunning in her Nightmare form, but she knew that Addie was just as self-conscious as any woman. It was part and parcel. And hence, she and Siobhan made a good pair.
In the last bubble were the two main healers of the dozen. Diana Chroi the Goblin Queen – and Evangeline. The Dragon Queen.
My little girl.
She was all grown up now, that was for certain. The two women grasped each other tight, as sisters would, and this time it was magic that poured forth from both of their forms to create the shield that carried them safely through the miasma of emptiness between worlds. Diana was now a fae, made such by her joining to the Goblin King, the most powerful fae man in existence. Goblin strength was immense and indescribable. It was why the kingdom had been separated from the other fae realms, and its king banished long, long ago. As his bride, Diana inherited this tremendous power, and she utilized it now.
Evangeline was half Nomad and half Legendary dragon. Her strength was monumental, just like Diana’s. She was also a trained warlock. These two were quite the pair in their ability to destroy – and yet it had been their ability to mend that had drawn them to one another. Katrielle could sense that. It was their shared desire to fix the world, to see it healed, that led them to each other and afforded them the strength they now exhibited.
The five bubbles filled with the twelve Queens joined in a floating group that reminded Kat of a pack of hovering fireflies and suddenly picked up speed. Katrielle tensed and prepared her magic. She was the only one with her eyes open. She was the only one who could react if something unexpected occurred.
What am I saying? She suddenly thought. This is all unexpected. This is nuts. But that was life. Especially in their world.
And that’s when it hit her. This wasn’t just the Queens returning to their world. From the way the emptiness looked just then, a little lighter than before, a little more jagged, she would guess this was actually something else entirely. This was two worlds colliding.
The rest of life would not even notice the impact. But as a Nomad, as a Traveler, she would. And so would the Queens. If she didn’t protect them, they might very well be destroyed.
This is going to hurt.