Page 79 of Shadows of Light
The prophecy had already given them the answer.
Her heart pumped, stuttered, and compressed once more as blood pooled in her mouth before trickling past her lips. From the corner of her eye, she spotted a small, red scorpion skittering away.
Above her, Amaris grinned, but her grin faded when the door creaked open.
* * *
Sahira and Kaylianodded a greeting to the guards outside the sewing room door. The man and woman stepped aside, and Sahira opened the door.
As she entered the room, Sahira’s smile vanished. She stopped when she spotted Lexi lying on the floor in a pool of white while Amaris stood above her.
Did Lexi fall? IsAmaris trying some new, weird way to fit the dress, or had… had…
She had no idea what else could have happened for such a strange scene to unfold before her. And then, Kaylia entered the room and froze beside her.
As she stopped, Amaris cloaked herself in shadows and vanished.
“What the…?” Kaylia started.
Her voice trailed off when the skittering of tiny legs scampering across the floor drew their attention to the corner of the room. They saw the noxus scorpion at the same time.
And Sahira knew what had happened; it made no sense, but she knew the truth. “No.”
Everything in her froze as she nearly sank to her knees. At the same time, Kaylia lunged forward. Her hands weaved an intricate pattern as she screamed, “Heart of stone. Heart of stone! I weave thee a heart of stone!”
Lexi inhaled one more time before freezing. The breath never left her lips; her expanded chest didn’t release it, and her open eyes became unseeing as she stared blindly forward.
“Guards!” Sahira shouted. “The queen has been attacked!”
And wherewasher attacker? Her gaze flew around the room as she raced to her niece’s side and collapsed next to her.
The blood trickling from Lexi’s blue lips and trailing down her chin was the only part of her that still moved. Her skin was so pale it was nearly translucent.
When Kaylia cast the heart of stone spell over her, she’d frozen Lexi into this time and place. The spell stopped the poison from seeping through her body and destroying her, but she couldn’t awaken, and she wouldn’t move again until they found the antidote.
Sahira caressed her niece’s cheek as she hunched protectively over her and searched the room.Where is that bitch?
For all Sahira knew, she’d somehow managed to slip past the guards or jumped out the window. Amaris could be gone, or she could be hiding in this room, waiting to strike again.
Does she have more of the scorpions?Noxus scorpions were rare, but if Amaris had one, she might have more. But in this condition, a knife through Lexi’s heart would easily finish her.
Sahira hunched closer to Lexi, shielding her niece with her body. If Amaris came for her again, she would have to get through Sahira first.
They needed Cole or a dark fae stronger than Amaris to locate her, but they were all in the Gloaming.No onehad expected this, not from someone they’d grown to trust so much.
Shouts echoed through the palace; the guards searched the room as they held their swords at the ready. The scorpion’s feet tapping against the marble floor drew her attention as it retreated further from them.
They couldn’t let that thing get free; it would kill anyone else it stung.
Kaylia spun in a circle as Sahira searched for a way to trap the scorpion. Dozens of glass bottles full of needles, threads, sewing tape, thimbles, and other assorted things lined the shelves on the wall.
Remaining protectively huddled over Lexi, Sahira waved a hand at one of those jars. Intricately moving her fingers, she spilled the contents across a countertop before the jar flew across the room.
The scorpion lifted its tail defensively and tried to scamper away, but Sahira slammed the jar down on top of it. The scorpion’s tail clicked against the glass as it repeatedly attacked the jar.
“What happened?” the male lycan demanded.
Kaylia turned in a circle as she whispered, “That which I cannot see, let it be, let it be. That which I cannot see, reveal it to me.”
