Chapter 23
IZADELLA
An enervation death.
Lines of golden cracks, the width of my finger, run up between my breasts. It glows faintly, and my metal magic slowly seeps out of me. The fracture on my skin will soon take over my body, like gilded lightning strikes across my skin, ’til I’m gone.
I’m going to die just like my mother did, crying out in pain while my magic abandons me.
I will be nothing but a corpse for Nueena to mourn.
“Leon, he—” I wrap my arms around my chest, holding tight, as if I could keep my gilded magic, my life force, inside me.
“Nyvenah will know what to do. We can fix this.” Viella’s red-rimmed eyes meet mine with such compassionate concern.
I choke down a sob. “He isn’t who he said he was, or what he was. He’s not mortal. Leon is fae!”
Her mouth is a perfect O, frozen in shock before she says, “How?”
“He took off what he claims is Inara’s glamour ring that Alvina made. One moment he was mortal and the next he was…not.” Nausea rises within me, the pain in my chest growing white hot. I rub my hand over the spot.
“Lillian feared he wasn’t who he said he was. But where is he from?”
“I’m unforgivably foolish! I brOUGHT HIM RIGHT HERE.” My legs give out, and I fall gracelessly to the floor, sobbing, my breaths becoming jagged gasps.
The floor rumbles.
“Oh, oh, the vines! Della, you need to calm down.” I look up and the vines are growing and crawling into the room.
The palace shakes again.
Viella gets to the floor and holds me. I cling to her as she rubs my back in a soft soothing motion. “Della, honey, please calm down. We can handle anything, but you need to relax. Where is he now?”
“Lillian has him,” I gasp out.
“She will know what to do. She will find out who he is and why he’s here. Nyvenah can decide what to do with him.”
“Isn’t it obvious? He never loved me. He just wants this horrible crown.” I grab it and pull. The pain is immediate and searingly hot. I only cry harder, a miserable mess on the floor.
“Well, he can’t have it, whoever he is. He can bring a whole army if he wants. He—” Piercing bells ring frantically all around us.
Viella freezes. “Ellova’s grave,” she whispers and fear bleeds into her eyes.
Panic eclipses my own grief. “What is that? What does that mean?”
I’ve never heard this sound before. Three booming bells in a row followed by three seconds of silence. The pattern repeats itself over and over again.
“Get up!” She yanks me up and races to one end of the room, lurching open an armoire, revealing nothing but weapons. “We’re under attack!”
Viella throws on a set of golden armor with a terrifying amount of weaponry. I take a step back at the sight of her.
She looks just as fierce as Lillian.
“I need to find my Zemra and you need to get to the command room. If it’s Grayden, we can't let him get to you.”
I gape at her, and she shoves me through the door into the hallway.
“We need to leave, NOW!”
Someone screams my name down the hall. Everett races towards us.
“Izadella, I am to bring you straight to Nyvenah in the command room. They’re waiting for you. Vi, Lillian is in the west wing and there’s an army outside.”
I nod numbly and turn to Vi.
“I’m going to find Lillian. Stay with Nyvenah,” she says.
“Okay,” I mutter, and she gives me a long look before giving me a hug.
“It’s going to be all right. I just know it,” she whispers in my ear. I don’t respond but wrap my arms around her roughly before she pulls us apart and dashes away.
“Come on.” Everett takes my hand into his and guides me as we run, the echoing warning bells causing my head to throb. He wears leather gloves that grate on my skin as he tugs me to safety.
How could Leon do this to me? He lied this whole time about who he was and why he was here.
Let me believe he would be dead in a few decades, that he would have allowed the madness to overtake him just to be with me.
Letting me believe that loving him could break my heart, that I could die from it.
How did he think I would react? That I would blindly trust the stranger in front of me?
Leon was never a helpless mortal I needed to protect from Grayden.
He was the one I needed to be protected from.
I brought him to Ellova and had him recognized as a member of this court. The ways that he’s broken me can never be fixed. He held my whole heart in his healer’s hands only to break it so easily. The pain from his betrayal slices every part of me.
I choke on another sob.
“We have a full army ready to defend us. We can crush whoever is at our steps,” Everett says confidently as we arrive at one of the small stairwells only used by honeyguards.
“It’s not that. I’m aware of the power of the Ellovian armies,” I say through trembling lips.
It takes me a moment to realize he is taking me down into the depths of the palace and not up towards the command room that overlooks the forest with its clear view of whoever is attacking us.
“What, did the mortal break your heart already?” His tone turns mocking.
I nod my head, but violent dread makes me pause. How did Everett know that Leon was mortal? Or at least pretending to be.
Nyvenah wouldn't have told the court Guardians about Leon, would she? I know he was forbidden from being here, but still. Did Camarra tell Everett? Why would she tell her son? He’s too far down the chain of command to have been given that information.
I swallow slowly, focusing all my energy on acting as if I’m not terrified. An icy feeling is crawling down my back. The instinct to run away from him takes over.
It was Everett.
“Something like that.” I force my voice to sound casual, but it wobbles.
The stairwell is narrow and dark with no place to escape. When light appears below us, I prepare myself to break away when we reach the next opening and escape.
Is he the one who took the sacred navlue fruit? Or maybe worked with the person who did? Is he working with Grayden?
The tree only grows in the throne room in Ellova.
Someone told Grayden’s guards the exact location of my cottage to burn it to the ground.
The bastard, the fucking bastard.
“Oh.” He makes a small tsking noise. “Did I let it slip?'' His smile is unbelievably cruel when he turns. His gloved hand almost crushes mine when I try to bolt, but he’s faster and stronger, shoving me roughly against the wall.
The crown's magic rises within me, but the stone stairwell we are in has nothing to help me.
An ice-cold collar is clamped onto my neck.
Iron.
The flow of the crown’s magic slows but never fully leaves. The vibrant magic has been a consistent presence since I put it on my head and now feels muddy and distant in my veins.
“Someone is waiting for you across the Divide,” he whispers in my ear before his hand is around my throat. I claw at him, kicking where I can. When I open my mouth to scream, he shoves a small bundle of red and black leaves past my lips.
The numbing in my mouth starts immediately and he presses his rough hand over my mouth, keeping my head jammed up against the stone wall.
Vedesdron.
The poison growing in the balcony garden in the Adreania castle.
Footsteps grow louder, someone is racing up the stone stairs towards us. Hope surges into my soul.
Please be Nueena. Please, please be Tavien.
Kole arrives with pink cheeks, out of breath from running up the stairs.
That spark of hope vanishes.
“Everett! We are needed—” He stops, taking in the sight of me pinned against the wall, slowly losing consciousness, Everett’s hand over my mouth.
Kole glances down at the iron collar. He narrows his eyes at us, demanding, “What the hell is going on?”
My captor is swift with this deceit. “Izadella is a traitor to the realm. She brought an enemy army to Ellova’s gates, ready to attack. I’m taking her to Nyvenah immediately!”
The numbing sensation spreads over my face to the top of my head, but I use all the energy I have left so slowly shake my head, which rolls to the side, hanging limply.
“I find that hard to believe, Ev,” Kole says slowly, his hand going to the hilt of his sword. “What’s around her—”
Everett releases me, unsheathing his sword. Kole doesn’t have time to block the weapon as it plunges into his gut.
I collapse and Kole’s body slams to the ground next to me, blood gushing from him. We stare at each other, horror frozen on his face as he gapes at me, tears forming in his eyes.
“I’m—sorry,” Kole whispers.
Everett brings his sword down again, piercing right though Kole’s side. He rips the blade out again and sprays the wall behind him with blood.
Kole’s last words hang in the air.
My terrified mind struggles to process the gore and loss in front of me. Everett just slaughtered his best friend of a hundred years as if he were no more than a pig for dinner.
Kole's blood seeps down the stairs, pooling onto the next step.
If he would do that to his friend, what would he do to me?
Everett kneels down to yank me off the floor, tossing me over his shoulders like I’m a bag of flour, knocking the breath from me.
He walks through the blood, leaving a trail of crimson footprints behind us, leading me to my own devastation.
I try to struggle against him, but my eyes feel like stones as I fight to stay awake, the poison pulsing through my veins. The blackness comes in waves.
Leon’s name echoes around me over and over again and it takes me a minute to untangle the fog in my mind to realize it’s me, calling for him. What is left of my heart shatters completely.