Free The Dark Queen (The Dark Queens Book 5) by Jovee Winters Page B

transforming, literally before her eyes. Turning from the smooth-faced matronly beauty into the twisted and macabre mask of an ancient crone with withered flesh and a beak’s nose.
    “Me, a witch!” She cackled in a voice that seemed forged in the fires of the Underworld itself. “She is the witch.”
    She pointed a gnarled finger at Fable. And Fable felt the tightening of dark, ancient, and terrible magick pulse through the confines of her tower.
    Saw the way the guard’s irises flared so darkly that the entire color of the eyes now bled through with black so deep it seemed bottomless.
    “George, look at this. Look at her!” She cried, shrinking in on herself, desperate that Charles be proven wrong. That for once the man she detested with her whole heart and soul might do one act of kindness in his whole, miserable, pathetic life. “Look at her!” she screamed.
    But her king merely shook his head. “I know who she is, and who are you, Fable. You thought to make a fool of me, but no more. I do not want you, and I do not need you.”
    He snapped his fingers and instantly the guards were on her. Even Charles.
    Their hands latched cruelly onto her arms, her legs, her waist, her hair; anywhere they could grab hold of. Yanking, tearing, squeezing so hard that tears rolled in great large clumps from the corners of her eyes.
    “Stop”—she kicked and screamed, flailing pitifully—“Let me go! Don’t do this, don’t do this, please. I would be a good wife to you, George. I would be—”
    “Burn it,” he said again, and then turned on his heel. Brunhilda notched her skeletal chin, sneering maliciously, and something inside of Fable snapped then.
    She’d never wanted to hurt anyone.
    She’d only wanted her freedom.
    Freedom from their pain, their abuse, from their tortures. Snapping her fingers, she slammed the doors shut, locking them tight so that not even dark magick could reopen them. Outside the remainder of George’s men pounded on the doors, their cries of desperation to reach their King echoed through her chamber.
    “ Ignis! ” she cried, and this time, fire didn’t simply erupt from her palm, but from every inch of her.
    George ran to the door, trying to open it, but it was no use. He kicked and screamed, demanding his Knights open it. But not even Brunhilda could undo what she’d wrought. Instead, the witch had jumped in front of the King with her arms spread wide and glaring hate at Fable.
    Flame so hot it melted flesh on contact spread out from her body like a creeping vine. The guards screamed, dropping her instantly.
    “ Fin !” Brunhilda roared back, and the fires that had been reaching for her and George like ravenous fiery claws immediately ceased.
    But the men continued to burn on; the magick once lit wouldn’t stop until it had consumed them. They dropped her, scattering to all corners as they writhed and wailed, begging her to cease their torment.
    Brunhilda’s eyes burned hate.
    Body aching, Fable pushed her way up shakily to her feet. But she knew she was still far from safe.
    “Stop this,” she squeezed out, unable to believe that that pitiful whimpering voice had been her own. Breathing hurt, her ribs were bruised, and she felt blood—her blood—oozing down from the countless wounds the guards had already inflicted upon her. “We don’t have to kill each other.”
    Brunhilda’s shrunken lips curled in disgust. “Of course, we do. You will rot in Tartarus for what you’ve done today. The sins you committed. Take a look around you, Queen of Darkness, and see the evil you’ve wrought.”
    And suddenly the entire world moved as in slow motion. Fable saw the crone lift her palm, and her months of studying under Galeta’s tutelage helped her to see what she might have missed before. The spark of dark magick that suddenly flared to life on the aged crone’s palm, the malevolent whisper of terrible power that squeezed the oxygen out of the air.
    Brunhilda was going to throw not