Chapter 40
Chapter forty
This couldn’t be real… It was impossible.
Mara couldn’t be my sister.
“M-Mara?” I couldn’t breathe, the words caught in my throat as the world threatened to start spinning. “Y-you’re…”
“Supposed to be dead?” Mara filled in, the sweet smile I’d fought so desperately to protect now unrecognizable. “Runs in the family, doesn’t it, Damon?”
I stumbled back a step, nearly falling into the snow before a pair of arms supported me from behind.
I looked up to see Cedric holding me up, his posture tight as he heeded Lochlan with extreme caution.
Atlas stayed in his current position, primed and ready to attack Lochlan if needed, while fighting against his own bewilderment.
“I…I don’t understand.” I pressed a hand to my throbbing head, fearful that I’d lost too much blood to process any of this.
“I’m sure Mother told you all about my tragic demise,” Mara explained, her hand gently tracing the edge of her scar.
“It’s true that Leopold sent me to be slaughtered, but the soldier instructed to do so didn’t have the stomach to go through with it.
Instead, he scarred my face to shroud my identity and let me be raised just outside the castle—right under your shadow.
” Her smile faded, and years of anger poured out of those striking eyes… How long had those eyes hated me?
She left Lochlan’s side, stepping forward to truly face me. I couldn’t run from it, my heart tethering me to the family I never knew I still had. I stepped away from Cedric, my legs shaking as I saw my sister for the first time.
“Everything you have ever felt owed, I was owed first,” she said, her voice gravelly and full of pain. She snatched my hand, holding up our mother’s ring with a deathly grip. “Including this.”
Her hand, it’s shaking.
In a terrifying moment, she pulled a dagger from her belt. Any sentiment I’d had toward my sister vanished as I recognized the thick black poison coating the blade. I ripped my wrist free, jumping back before she could slash at my finger.
“It was you,” I gasped, holding my rescued hand close to my chest as Cedric stepped between us. “You’re the one who attacked me in the night.”
That’s why they came through the servant’s entrance…
Mara let the blade dangle from her fingers, her expression stiff as she glared at the ring with pure envy. “Yes,” she admitted coldly. “I also poisoned your wine in the survival event. Avalyn and Ciara chose Sybil and Brisa, while the rest of us tried to take you out.”
I felt sick, my entire world crumbling around me as her betrayal shredded me to bits. All this time I’d been trying to save her…
“I wasn’t trying to kill you,” Mara said numbly. “I only wanted to take back what was meant to be mine, but bonding magic is a tricky thing. I needed you to take off the ring of your own accord.”
My thumb brushed the stone, my brows knitting as I looked between the ring and the girl willing to stab me for it. “Why do you want it so badly?”
“I figured you didn’t know,” Mara said sharply, tucking the dagger back into her belt.
“Its magic is more than just sentimental. Have you ever wondered why you’re so lucky?
Why you repeatedly avoided death despite throwing yourself into its clutches?
That ring protects its wearer from death.
The metal is forged from the purest enchanted metals in Ivalon, and the strength of the bond it’s tied to powers that protection.
The queen gave it to you to save you from the siege, and clearly, it’s kept you alive in far more lethal situations since then. ”
Protection magic?
My stomach dropped as the horrible truth donned on me. My father gave his queen the ring after he killed the Aemastian queen…he did it to protect her from the same fate he’d bestowed on his enemy. But the moment the queen transferred the ring to me, she died in my arms.
She gave up her life to protect mine.
A tear streamed down my cheek, all of this too much for me to push down the emotions.
“Don’t lose it again, Mara,” Lochlan whispered in her ear, pressing a hand to her shoulder like he was a devil that always lived there. “Claim what’s yours.”
When I looked back at her, my bleary eyes were barely able to see the bow that Mara had pulled from her back, or the arrow that she had aimed at my chest.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Mara said, her heartless words too brutal for me to process as she sent the arrow flying toward my heart.
I didn’t move. How could I? As much as it hurt to see my friend, my sister, turn against me, could I really blame her for her anger? Every trial that came from becoming Damon, every part of the royal life that I hated, she had been longing for all her life.
She’d watched as I took over her role, then was forced to serve me as I reclaimed my power. How could she stand to watch me become a princess when she’d been robbed of the title first?
I deserved this pain. I deserved to die, and she deserved the ring.
“Ack!” Cedric’s cry of pain ripped me out of my thoughts, my heart stopping with his as his eyes went wide only an inch away from mine.
He had jumped in front of me, taking the arrow in the back while acting as my shield.
“No!” I screamed, wrapping my arms around the prince as he collapsed in my arms.
“Cedric!” Atlas ran, his voice cracking as he hurried to help slow his little brother's fall. “What have you done!”
“Cedric, you’re in the way again,” Lochlan grumbled, his irritated tone enough to make me want to rip out his rib cage and beat him over the head with it. “Can you step aside? Mara, why don’t you try that again?”
“Of course, King Lochlan,” Mara obeyed, the sound of the bowstring stretching catching my breath. I looked up just in time to see her pointing the arrow at my head. I shut my eyes, but the sting of the arrow never came.
“Hey!” Mara shouted, falling to her knees as a young Ivalonian boy pushed her down with all his might. “Get back!”
Lochlan rushed to her aid, raising his sword to strike down the bold Ivalonian. “Big mistake,” Lochlan snarled, allowing the poor boy’s life to flash before his eyes before striking him down. He slashed his sword, but not even a drop of blood spilled as the shaft of a spear blocked his swing.
“You’re no king,” Avalyn barked, her earrings gleaming with magic as she pushed Lochlan back with ease. “All of you who can fight, rise up! Defend your princess!”
Avalyn…
“Guards! End this!” Lochlan shouted, stirring up a full-blown battle with him and Avalyn leading each other’s respective armies.
Cedric’s weak coughs pulled my focus out of the fight, his face paling and his breathing no longer stable. Atlas eased him onto his side, gingerly pulling the arrow and placing pressure against the wound.
There’s too much blood…
“Cedric, no…” I didn’t want this to be the last side of me he saw, but I couldn’t keep my heart from weeping. “You shouldn’t have done that. Please, hang in there.”
Cedric’s hand twitched, his fingertips looking blue as I hastily grasped his hand, squeezing it to beg the life not to flee from him.
“R-run,” he wheezed, his hand growing colder. “S-save Ivalon.”
“Cedric…” Atlas begged quietly, his hands releasing the wound as a grim realization stopped his efforts. “It’s too late. He’s gone.”
“No.” I shook my head, tears blinding me as I refused to release his hand. “No, no! He’s not gone, he’s right here!”
“Diaspro!” Atlas took my other hand, pulling it toward him so I had to meet his face. He was crying too… “He’s gone. We have to leave. We have to save Ivalon.”
Save Ivalon.
I nodded, my voice no longer working as I looked back at the first prince who had loved me. He wasn’t breathing anymore, his hand completely limp in mine. I pulled his hand to my lips, placing a soft kiss on his fingers as he had once done for me.
“Goodbye, Cedric. I love you, too,” I whispered, tears falling on his fingers. I pulled my hand from Atlas, and without a second thought, pulled my mother’s ring from my finger.
The separation pulsed through my core, the magic bond placed by my mother finally severing with a painful pull. I knew how she’d felt when she gave me this ring. She didn’t care what happened to her; she only wanted to save someone else.
But was it too late to save Cedric?
I slid the ring onto Cedric’s finger, the magic sealing to him without any resistance.
His finger twitched.
“What?” I gasped, leaning in closer but being pulled away by Atlas before I could get a better look.
“We have to leave, now!” Atlas said, dragging me behind him as a rush of guards came sprinting toward us. I could barely feel my legs, but they still remembered how to run as I looked back at the fallen prince with a heavy heart.
“Where are we going?” I asked Atlas, wiping the tears from my eyes as he pushed through the castle doors, pulling us away from the arena.
“We have to leave Aemastia,” he said, his voice as tight as his grip. “We need to find the Guardian.”
To be continued…