Storm Princess 3: The Princess Must Reign

  The Princess Must Reign

  Storm Princess Saga

  Everly Frost

  Jaymin Eve

  The Princess Must Reign

  Storm Princess Saga Book Three

  Everly Frost and Jaymin Eve

  Copyright © 2018 by Everly Frost and Jaymin Eve

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead are purely coincidental.

  Frost, Everly

  Eve, Jaymin

  The Princess Must Reign

  For information on reproducing sections of this book or sales of this book, go to

  www.JayminEve.com or www.EverlyFrost.com

  [email protected]

  [email protected]

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Assassin’s Magic #1 by Everly Frost

  Acknowledgments

  Also By

  For all our readers.

  We honor you.

  1

  Death was never part of the plan. When I crossed the border into gargoyle territory, my goal was simple: heal Baelen and get the hell out of here. But the gargoyle king had different plans for me. Forced to work in his mine, I joined the enslaved gargoyles digging for heartstones to increase King Howl’s power. Finally finding a heartstone—the Prime Heartstone—we saw our chance to rise up against him.

  I fought side by side with the miners against Howl’s army, fighting a battle for our lives. My friend, Llion, was badly injured and Cassian was killed, but not before he brought the Queen’s deadly heartstone to the battle: a weapon that only a gargoyle with royal blood can safely touch. In an act of desperation, I forced Howl to hold it. As Howl flew me high above the battle, I pressed the Queen’s heart into the harness around his neck where he kept the other stones that gave him the power to enslave his people.

  Howl was anything but royal. The stone’s power shredded him before my eyes.

  But I touched it too.

  Now, I am about to die.

  Released from his arms, I tip backward. The Queen’s heart floats up and away from me, defying the press of gravity. The tip of my finger taps the stone, a glow rippling out from it as if it was just dropped into water and we’re both sinking under the surface.

  A thick cloud of debris fills the air above me where Howl used to be. The Queen’s heart burned him to ashes. Gusts of wind sweep his remains through the open sides of Crimson Court, past the pillars and the flags bearing the shadow panther crest, out over the cliff’s edge, blowing the dust away in a single, sharp burst. Howl is gone.

  Darkness presses in on me from all sides and I’m falling. Falling to the floor of Crimson Court where I will break on the hard stone. The final light of the day shoots across the Court, warming me for the last time. A long time ago, the elven Queen gave her life to become the sun that lights our world. As her light bathes my body, I sense the rising of the distant moon. After the elven Queen became the sun, the gargoyle Queen became the moon. Her name was Incorruptible and it’s her heart that killed me.

  The sunlight winks out.

  I take one last breath and inhale the scent of battle, of blood and death. The fighting continues around me. Only the nearest soldiers saw Howl die, his death cry swallowed by the sounds of clashing swords and roaring gargoyles. Llion has collapsed to the ground, badly injured, one of his wings almost torn off. Liliana runs to him, crying his name.

  Jasper fights his way to me, his clothing and weapon both bloody, his face cut and bruised. Welsian races toward me too, the bulky gargoyle moving faster than I’ve ever seen as he leaps over bodies trying to get to me. The leader of our mining team, Roar, took flight the moment I started falling, his blue-veined wings glowing in the new dark as he zooms toward me, desperately reaching out.

  They think I’m falling because Howl dropped me. They think they can catch me. They don’t know the stone has already killed me. I close my eyes. My friends are free now. They will rebuild their lives and bring peace to their country. I know they will.

  “Baelen…” I whisper his name one last time, exhaling my final breath as the ground rears up beneath me.

  I brace for the final impact.

  Out of nowhere, a gust of wind rushes under me, bursting upward and taking me with it, spinning me around, elevating me above the fight. I’m too stunned to fight its force, letting it take me and carry me high into the ceiling, pushing me upright so that my feet point downward and I stand on nothing but air.

  Roar flies to my side, his wings beating hard, surprise shooting from every angle of his body. “Lady Storm!”

  Welsian shouts from the floor, his face upturned to mine. He tries to approach me, clearly alarmed by this new force, but a tornado springs up between us. It buffets Roar backward too, pushing his wings around as if he’s a moth and not a massive warrior. He fights it, angling his wing daggers forward in an attempt to cut through the shield, but the gusty barrier forces him back again.

  The tornado widens, extending all the way around me. It’s transparent so that I can see through it, but the way Roar rolls backward every time he tries to get to me tells me that the barrier around me is impassable. I’m completely separated from the rest of the battle.

  I’m worried it will rip Roar’s wings off if he tries again. I push my hand out to tell him to stop, not daring to extend my arm into the whirlwind. “Stay back! It’s okay. I’m okay.”

  I think.

  I do a mental check of all my limbs. I’m still in one piece. I’d expected to be nothing more than dust by now. I’d expected to die a painful death like Cassian. To be torn apart like Howl. But for some reason, the Queen’s heart hasn’t shredded me into fragments.

  What’s more, all four heartstones have gathered inside the eye of the tornado with me. The Queen’s diamond heart floats in front of my chest while the emerald Virtuous heart and sapphire Lightsworn heart drift on my left. On my right side, the golden Prime Heartstone gravitates toward the Queen’s heart, but that is not a surprise to me. When I read the Queen’s journal, I found out that Queen Incorruptible had been in love with Prime. She never acted on her love or betrayed her husband, King Supreme, but when she gave her life to become the moon, her heart fell from the sky to Prime’s resting place so their hearts could be together forever. We’d unearthed both of them.

  A commotion draws my attention to the far end of the Court where Howl’s soldiers have herded all of the clan leaders and the old Priestess into a group. The soldiers hurry out of the way, shouting and trying to rally as another gust of air forces the group to part, creati
ng a clear pathway from the Court entrance all the way to me.

  A figure appears in the gap: a male silhouette, his armor catching the light of the moon and glinting across the space between us. From head to toe, he’s covered in finely sculpted metal plates, linked to protect his body and decorated in crimson and ochre markings. At his side, he carries a sword, its sharp blade pointed outward, handle gripped hard.

  He towers over the nearest warriors while the air around him glows red like a bloody sunset. As he enters Crimson Court, the ground lights up beneath his boots and the stone floor blazes, leaving a scorched trail behind him. The scent of rain hits me. Acid rain.

  The breath catches in my throat. My heart stops.

  He is the most dangerous male I’ve ever seen.

  He is the only male who ever held my heart in his hands.

  “Baelen!”

  But this can’t be true. He can’t be awake. He won’t last more than a few minutes before his wounds kill him. The Elven Command stabbed him with swords strengthened with sorcery. Baelen had taken four deadly wounds through his chest. He had used his storm power to suspend the damage before he died, to pause himself in time, but now that he’s awake, the wounds will continue their course and he will die…

  I hold up both my hands, palms out, even though I’m in danger of pushing them through the barrier that could strip the skin off them. Stop. Please. You can’t be awake. You can’t… die. I won’t let you! I will rip the world apart before I let that happen!

  As soon as these desperate thoughts form inside my mind, a light flares in front of me. I wrench my focus from Baelen to stare sharply at the Queen’s heart, not sure what I just saw. Did it just spark? Did it just react to my thoughts?

  Inside the Court, Howl’s soldiers have used Baelen’s arrival to rally and regroup. They abandon the task of imprisoning the clan leaders and race to form a cluster at the far side of the wind tunnel Baelen has created.

  Jasper responds by shouting to the miners to rally to him, gathering on the opposite side closest to Llion. Jasper appears both relieved and concerned to see Baelen. Jasper is one of Baelen’s best friends. They attended military training together and Jasper knows that Baelen is unrivaled on the battlefield. Having Baelen in this fight will tip the scales in our favor. But Jasper knows as well as I do how close Baelen is to death.

  The miners form a protective barrier in front of Llion and Liliana. I’m worried about them, but glad to see Jasper and Welsian take up defensive stances in the front row, weapons held aloft and ready. They’re joined by Badenoch, Erit, Iago, and Arlo, and within moments, the clan leaders also race to join them, moving as quickly as they can with the old Priestess at their head.

  The battleground inside the Court is now divided into two: Howl’s army on my right and the miners on my left, each on one side of the path Baelen has created. The division has made clear just how many soldiers there are—and just how few miners are left. Even the addition of the clan leaders has done little to boost their numbers. On top of that, most of the clan leaders are old males, the ones Howl knew couldn’t challenge him.

  How many miners have died? Sadness overwhelms me as I scan the bodies lying on the floor, afraid of what I’ll find.

  Roar zooms up in front of me, his face pale and drawn, wings spread, trying to block my view. “Lady Storm,” he says. “Don’t look.”

  But it’s too late. I’ve already seen them. Half the miners lie dead where the central battle was fought. I knew all of them, had heard all of their stories, know the names of their wives and children, their mothers and fathers.

  “They fought with valor,” Roar says, his eyes burning bright. “You’ve already avenged their deaths by killing Howl.”

  Rage burns inside me. The Queen’s heart flares again but I’m too angry to care. “That doesn’t bring them back, Roar.”

  “Then we will mourn when this battle is over.”

  The fallen miners were Roar’s friends for longer than they were mine. He hides his pain well, but it shows in the clench of his jaw and the slow beat of his wings, the slump of his shoulders. Pain flares through every nerve ending at the loss of these honorable males. I want to scream it out. More than anything, I want to fight. I want to kill every soldier in this place.

  A sharper flare of light makes me gasp. This time I’m sure the Queen’s heart responded to my anger.

  As if he senses my fury across the distance, Baelen tightens the whirlwind around me so I can’t act on my instincts, his focus zeroed in on me. I can’t read his expression from this distance, can’t see his eyes, but there’s definitely something different about his face, something that I can’t make out…

  I want to hear his thoughts like I could when we used the storm’s connection to communicate with each other. I need to know that he’s okay—need to tell him to let me down because I want to fight—but he’s closed off from me.

  I am his focus as he strides along the pathway between combatants, headed straight for me with stunning purpose. Now that his path is clear, the wind tunnel dies down around him, but the tornado around me remains strong. I may not be able to read Baelen’s thoughts but I can sense his intentions.

  He’s coming for me.

  He’s more than halfway to me when he pulls up sharp. I’m not sure why until a soldier steps forward, blocking his path. Baelen shoots me a last determined look before turning his attention to the new male.

  This male has a sharp nose and dark gray wings slightly spread, wing daggers pointed forward in an aggressive gesture. For a long time, I suspected that many of Howl’s guards were forced into serving him—I still think that’s true—but many more of them followed him willingly. They saw an advantage for themselves in their positions of power over others.

  It looks like they have a new leader.

  I recognize this gargoyle. He was one of the males who blocked Jasper from helping Cassian. This male knew what he was doing. He thought Howl would win, so he gave no thought to Cassian’s suffering.

  Nearby, Roar leans toward me, speaking through the whirlwind. He snarls as he inclines his head at the gargoyle standing in Baelen’s path. “That is Gerst from the Grievous Clan. He was the one Howl sent to take our wives and children away from us.”

  Roar’s wife is imprisoned in Harem Hall, like many wives of the miners. Roar once told me that Howl took away the wives and children of all the males he believed could challenge him, using their loved ones as leverage to ensure the gargoyles did not rise up against him. I’d met Roar’s wife, Gilda, a beautiful ebony-haired female and vowed I would reunite them.

  Roar continues. “Gerst was next in line to be General if something happened to Cassian. As long as Gerst thinks he has a chance to get his hands on the heartstones, he won’t surrender. He’s the highest ranking solider now. He wants to be the new king.”

  That would explain why he was so happy to let Cassian die. But he has no idea what he’s facing now that Baelen is here. Even Howl was smart enough to fear what would happen if Baelen woke up.

  “I won’t let that happen, Roar.”

  He nods. He trusts me, but his next glance has a question in it. He was a leader among the miners for many years and needs to get back to the others. Jasper can lead them temporarily but they won’t follow an elf for long—even if there’s a possibility that Jasper is part-gargoyle.

  “Go,” I say. “They need you.”

  As Roar flies back to the main group, Gerst calls out to Baelen, loud and harsh, a snarl in the tense silence. “You will lay down your weapons, elf. You have no place in this fight.”

  Baelen responds by narrowing his eyes. His whole body thrums with anger. He pauses before he speaks, commanding the attention of everyone in the Court. “Only the gargoyle Queen can command me. I will lay down my weapons when she tells me.”

  It’s been so long since I heard Baelen speak. The connection we used to talk with each other while he slept is no comparison to hearing his voice now. A shiver races down my spi
ne. I don’t care that the Queen’s heart glows. I close my eyes and let the sound of his voice wash over me like cool water.

  But my eyes fly open as I consider what he just said. Gargoyle Queen? Is he talking about the Queen’s heart?

  His response causes a stir. The soldiers turn to each other. Even the miners are confused. One question is repeated over and over: “What Queen?”

  Baelen half-turns to me, shooting me a sudden smile across the distance. It’s a smile just for me, making his face light up. It takes my breath away, burning the air between us. His smile should be reassuring but it only serves to make me more confused. And afraid. It’s only been moments, but he’s still alive. Like me, it seems impossible. How have we both defied death today?

  Baelen’s smile fades as his focus returns to Gerst. “I recognize you, Grievous Gerst. I was not sightless while I slept. I know what you have done and I will not let your actions go unanswered.”

  A shiver shoots down my spine at the violent intent behind Baelen’s speech. I was never sure how much Baelen actually saw or heard while he slept. He spent the last month living as a statue in Howl’s Royal Residence. Howl, who maimed, tortured, and killed his people at will. I don’t want to imagine what Baelen might have seen.

  Gerst responds to Baelen’s declaration with a surprised step backward. Fear shoots across his features, quickly hidden. Baelen often has that effect on people. All males and females in the House of Rath were formidable warriors—the biggest and strongest, sworn to protect others. He trained his whole life to be the warrior that he is today.