Her Cinder Throne (Completed)

Chapter 91

 The palace stood eerily empty and the contingent's footsteps echoed like thunder through the halls as they moved from room to room, checking for soldiers or Thijs and Gethwine themselves. As they peered through doorways and looked into closets, Cole was struck with the complete transformation of the rooms she had once walked through as a servant. All the furniture and decor had been removed, to where no one knew, and the walls stood bare and glaring. It was almost hard to navigate without the familiar landmarks in the rooms, and Cole simply followed Tanwyn as he led the men systematically along the floors. It was if the royal family, and the nobles who lived there, had vanished into nothing. As if they had not lived there for centuries. It made Cole's skin crawl.

Not surprisingly, they did not find Thijs in any of the main rooms or stashed away in a linen closet. In fact, after about a half hour of running through the palace, they were running out of places to look for the king and the former Eldritch queen. Not to mention the soldiers she knew they would have with them for protection.

At the end of the top floor, Tanwyn turned in frustration and threw his hands up. "There's no one here," he said, marching back to Cole and then turning to peer out a window. It didn't offer much of a view, but as Cole stepped up behind him she caught a glimpse of her men still fighting in the streets below. She also realized that there were a lot more of Thijs' men now, and she worried that soon hers would be overrun. She didn't know if any would survive, and if they did, what plans Thijs would have in store for them. No doubt, Cursed for the Eldritch, and torture or death for the humans.

Swallowing hard, she pulled back and shook her head. "He has to be here. There was no time for him to leave, and Gethwine's magic is not powerful enough to be split between making Cursed and transporting them around the country."

Tanwyn frowned. "Didn't you say they had something that helped them see if magic was being used on the grounds?" he asked.

Cole's eyes widened. "Yes. A stone or something. Do you think that could help?"

"Well, if we let our magic go, then we should be able to sense if Gethwine is using any. No doubt she is, putting up warding spells or some other sort of protection."

Cole nodded. "Now we'll just have to find the crystal," she said.

They checked Thijs' chambers first, but other than countless sheaves of letters and maps that made her blood run cold with their calculated planning of the Cursed's birth, they found no crystal to help them.

Cole ran her fingers over the Sparkstone on her wrist, more than ever grateful that she and Tanwyn had managed to snatch it right before Thijs had been able to find it. She had spotted sketches on his desk, outlining the process he had taken to turn his own son into a monster. It was brutal, dehumanizing. If he had done that with only an enchanted dagger and the heart of a mountain monster, she shuddered to think what he could do with unlimited magic of his own. While Gethwine could only offer him what magic she could sustain in her tired body, she knew that the Sparkstone would be used endlessly to produce whatever Thijs wanted. And, Cole thought with a sob stuck in her throat, what would it do in the hands of Bastian? With his own dark magic, what could he summon, what power could he wield, if he was given the Sparkstone by his father. Or, like a nightmare, if Thijs decided to turn himself into a Cursed, and doom them all forever.

"There's nothing here," Tanwyn said, tossing down a roll of maps after shaking them thoroughly with no sign of any hidden crystals.

Cole bit her lip, looking around at the abandoned room and remembering when she had spied Thijs speaking with Baerghast. They had been discussing the Sparkstone, though she hadn't known it then, and now she wished she had just jumped in and ended the king right then and there. She could have saved all the Cursed and stopped the monsters from leaking into the world. She wouldn't have even cared if Baerghast had killed her immediately after her blade found Thijs' heart, because it would all be worth it...