The Gates of Memory, стр. 106
“Nonsense! You could’ve fought against me, perhaps better than anyone else, and yet you refuse. Why?”
Had she been a fool? The queen seemed to think that Alena was more dangerous than the others, but was she? Did her soulwalking abilities somehow make her use of the gate more of a threat to the queen?
So many questions, and no answers. The Anders weren’t the only ones playing a game they didn’t understand the rules to.
Even though the queen didn’t move a muscle, her next words almost knocked Alena over. “Take control of the gate.”
Alena stared, incredulous.
The queen looked to the gate. “Nothing taken without struggle has value. Take control of the gate and let us see whose will is greater. It has been far too long since a worthy challenge has appeared before me. I will not waste it.”
Alena licked her lips. The gate was still close enough to touch. She hadn’t moved since coming out of the soulwalk. All she needed to do was reach out. Then she could fight the queen on more even terms. She even knew how to make a stronger connection than the Anders. If not her, then who else? She didn’t like the gates, but perhaps commanding one was her duty.
She looked again around the room. Her friends needed her. And right now, there was nothing she could do to save them. She reached toward the gate.
Then she stopped.
“What are you waiting for?” the queen demanded. “It’s right there.”
Alena didn’t have an answer. Something inside her held her back.
“Do it!”
Knowing that touching the gate and controlling it was what the queen wanted solidified Alena’s determination. What good were her beliefs if she didn’t live them?
She let her hand drop. Then she stared directly into the queen’s cold eyes. “No.”
The queen’s rage was immediate. With a gesture, a gust of wind unlike anything Alena had ever felt picked her up off her feet and threw her across the room. She hit the opposite wall at speed, and the back of her head cracked against the stone. She collapsed to the cold stone floor of the cave, smooth the way that only those that came before could create. Then the queen stepped forward and touched the gate.
Alena’s whole world went white.
59
Brandt and Regar felt the heat at the same time. They both turned their heads, mirroring each other exactly. Considering that Regar held a burning ball of fire in his own hand, the fact that he even noticed the additional heat was indicative of how hot the new source of heat was.
“I’m sorry, son,” said Hanns.
And with that, the dying emperor unleashed an attack of flame, a white-hot tunnel of light and heat that cut into Regar.
Brandt was convinced that the beam was strong enough to cut through a mountain’s worth of stone. It could melt a mountain glacier in a heartbeat, sending a deadly wave of water to some unsuspecting valley. Yet somehow, Regar’s body absorbed it. The beam winked out of existence almost as quickly as it had appeared, and Brandt stood in shock.
There came a point where a mind couldn’t take any more. When wonder followed wonder, awe eventually faded. Brandt wasn’t sure he’d ever be amazed by anything ever again. Regar should be nothing but dust and memories, yet he still stood.
Regar gritted his teeth, and Brandt saw the prince struggled with the same inability to handle the heat Brandt had fought just moments before. Except this time, the scale of the attack was far beyond a mere gatestone.
Off to the side, Hanns collapsed, the last of his energy spent on the attack.
Brandt came to his senses. It wouldn’t take long for Regar to either die from the emperor’s blast or to overcome it, but there was no reason to take a chance.
Brandt reached out with his sword and stabbed it into Regar’s chest. He pushed it through the heart and out the prince’s back.
A father should never be the one to kill his son.
For a long moment, nothing happened. Regar looked down at the sword sticking through his chest with a look of disbelief, then he collapsed, giving up control of the incredible energies coursing through his body.
They found their exit through Brandt’s sword. A wave of pure energy that warped the air blasted from the tip of Brandt’s blade, channeled out through Regar with his dying breath.
The blast tore apart stone, shattering it as though it was nothing more than a brittle pot.
Regar’s mouth moved, but no sound came out. One moment his eyes were full of life and dreams of the future, and the next they were blank orbs, their animating force gone.
As Regar fell he slid back, off Brandt’s blade.
He had killed a prince.
Brandt stared at Regar for a moment and then turned to the emperor. Remarkably, the man was still alive. Brandt rushed over to him and knelt beside him. For a moment, Brandt dared to hope. If the emperor had enough strength for that attack, perhaps he had enough to surprise Brandt one more time. But it was a fool’s hope.
Seeing the emperor’s wounds up close, Brandt didn’t understand how the emperor had attacked at all. The man’s face was pale, his eyes were unfocused, and his hands trembled. The hole in his back bled freely. Tears ran down the emperor’s cheeks, and perhaps for the first time, Brandt saw the emperor not as a ruler but as a man. An old man who had felt honor bound to kill his own son. Brandt didn’t know what comfort it would be, but it was all he had to offer. “You didn’t kill Regar. I killed him. I’m sorry.”
Brandt didn’t know if the emperor heard him or not. His eyes stared at something beyond Brandt’s shoulder, possibly already looking to the gates beyond.
So Brandt repeated himself, over and over, until Hanns breathed his last.
Brandt braced himself. Hanns had been connected to two gates and he couldn’t guess at what the