Chapter 52 Alaric
That fucking girl.
It was all Alaric could think as he ?ew towards the castle.
He landed on an upper terrace, banishing his wings as he stormed through the doors and into the council room. Rage ?ooded through him, hot and acidic.
She was going to pay for all of this. She thought she knew what suffering was? She thought losing her twin ?ame was as bad as it could get?
She was going to learn exactly what it meant to be in a nightmare. “Get the Fae Queen,” he snarled at Mikale, who had shot to his feet at his entrance.
“What happened?” Mikale demanded.
“She burned the entire fucking Fellowship to the ground,” Alaric ground out. A servant entered the room carrying a tray of food, and he immediately gripped the young woman’s heart in his power, squeezing and squeezing until there was nothing left.
She’d ?gured it out, too quickly, that he wasn’t able to use his power on her. She likely didn’t know why yet, but he knew she’d ?gure it out soon enough. And when she did, his task would get that much harder to complete.
And now she knew he was on a timeline and that his time was running out.
“Fuck!” he bellowed, snatching up anything he could get his hands on and hurling them around the space. Books. Papers. Dishes. Decor. Furniture. By the time he could see through the haze of red that had clouded his vision, the council room was destroyed. The servant’s dead body was on the ?oor amid spilled food and beverages and debris.
Scarlett may have taken his strong hold, but that arrogant child had forgotten about the last key. She thought she’d been so damn sneaky taking that nightstone dagger from his desk, but in her haste to leave with it, she’d left the last key sitting there.
He had them all.
All seven of the Avonleyan keys.
He would have Talwyn shift them to their true form, and then he would hunt Scarlett down. She would take that fucking Blood Bond, and she would let him into Avonleya. He would not fail like his father had. He would succeed, and this world would be his to rule, his to own. Far from Achaz. Free of the duties required of him as a Maraan Prince.
That would be his reward for completing this task.
Nuri emerged from the shadows of the room, a maniacal smile on her face. “She is going to destroy you.”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” Alaric snarled, his hand snapping towards her. Nuri’s hands grasped at her chest, a strangled cry rising up her throat, but that smile never left her face.
“Alaric.” Balam’s smooth, calming voice ?oated through the room. “We need her alive.”
“Where is the Fae Queen?” Alaric demanded, releasing his adopted daughter. She bared her fangs at him as she recovered from his power coiling around her heart. He ignored her. She couldn’t hurt him. Not since she took that Blood Bond to save those children.
He’d tried to rip that out of her. That heart that cared too much. He’d tried to drive it out of all three of them. Instead, they’d bonded. Latched onto each other. Became something truly horri?c.
And something so much easier to manipulate. Until the day Juliette had died.
Sybil had not realized just how much of the gift of sight her daughter had. That Juliette had seen what needed to happen.
Scarlett thought Mikale and Veda had orchestrated the events of that night. And they had to an extent.
But so had Juliette.
“Talwyn is tending to matters in the Courts,” Tarek supplied. “Trying to instill order since we went in and took over the Fire and Water Courts.”
“And she let the Royals and the Inner Courts go,” Alaric said sharply, his power slipping around Tarek’s heart now. “Did you not understand your task?”
“I did, my Lord,” Tarek wheezed out. “The Fae Queen must be handled carefully. You know this. Be too forceful with her and she will leave our side.” He sucked in a rattling breath. “They ?ed. Including Luan. Only Princess Ashtine remains. The other Royals have disappeared.”
“But they still live,” Alaric sneered.
“Not all of them,” Mikale cut in with a sadistic grin. He looked at Tarek. “Seeing your queen take him out was truly beautiful. I was so glad I was there to witness it.”
“You idiot,” Alaric said, releasing Tarek from his power’s hold. “It is precisely because of that act that we are in this mess.”
“So she burned your little clubhouse down,” Mikale said, rolling his eyes. “Does it really matter that much?”
“That clubhouse mattered more than the life of you and your sister combined,” Alaric said. Mikale’s mouth snapped shut, his jaw tightening as he bit his tongue on whatever he was about to say.
Smart move.
Alaric turned to Balam. “Take Tarek and get the Fae Queen. We have the ?nal key. I want them shifted. Today.”
Scarlett thought she would best him? That she would take him down? Make him suffer?
She was a weapon that he had created. And he wanted his property back.
He had spent the entire afternoon and evening reconstructing the map before him. The original had been destroyed in that ?re she had set, consumed by her white ?ames.
Star?re.
Nothing could withstand it.
He’d had to combine his own power with that of Balam and Mikale to recreate this map. It showed the entirety of the continent, along with the rifts they’d created to allow more seraphs through. When he went to Avonleya with Scarlett in tow, he would have an army at his back. An army that would actually stand a chance against the power of the Avonleyans and what they had locked away within their lands.
His father had been foolish to think he could defeat them with wits. Thinking he could sneak in, control the Fae Queens through their sister. Manipulation of emotions and relationships could only get one so far. Alaric’s own Wraiths of Death had proved that much.
Black pillars shimmered like mist where the rifts were, seraphs guarding each of them. Five in each of the mortal kingdoms. Three in the Night Children territory. They’d opened one in each of the Courts since they’d entered, but more would be coming. Tarek was right. They needed to be careful with Talwyn. She couldn’t know he was taking Fae children from her Courts to open these rifts. She wouldn’t understand the necessity of their sacri?ce. Then again, she was so blinded by her need for vengeance, maybe she would.
They had been debating whether to go into the Shifter territory or the Witch Kingdoms next. Both were unpleasant. The Witches were just plain ruthless, and the Shifter siblings were cunning and dangerous. There were arguments to be made on both sides as to which one to pursue ?rst. For now, he was content to leave them contained behind the wards that bound them to their lands.
They had moved to a different council room within the Baylorin castle after his temper had destroyed the previous one. Talwyn was in a corner working with the keys, Tarek monitoring her progress. She had not been particularly amenable to being summoned here on such short notice.
“You are changing the plans, then?” Balam asked quietly, studying the map. “You want to go to Avonleya before we have strongholds in the other two territories? Is that wise?”
“I think it would be unwise to delay anything once we have secured Scarlett once more. She can be given no more opportunities to escape again. When we have her, we move in,” Alaric replied, his ?ngers drumming on the table.
“I believe it would be just as unwise to alter the plans that we have been carefully putting into place for centuries,” Balam countered.
“You just want those mortal children back in your possession for only the gods know why,” Alaric retorted, his ?ngers drumming again.
“I would not expect you to understand,” Balam replied calmly.
“It is done.”
They both turned at the sound of Talwyn’s voice. She was standing, the skystone chains hanging from her hand. Amulets of the traitor gods no longer hung from them but seven nightstone keys. The tops of the keys still held the shape of the gods’ symbols, but they tapered down to long points, two pointed prongs sticking out on either side like thorns.
Alaric stood, slowly walking towards her, taking in this surreal moment. How long had he waited to ?nd these keys? How much had gone into orchestrating the events that had led up to this? How many years of making sure the right people were in the right place at the right time? All leading up to this moment and the ones to come.
He reached out, feeling the cool stone against his palm as he took the keys from the Fae Queen. He squeezed them in his ?st, feeling the pointed prongs break skin. He didn’t care. He ?nally held them in his hand.
They vibrated slightly against his palm, a tingling sensation shooting up his arm. Pure power held within them. He hadn’t expected that. He’d thought they’d need Scarlett’s power to activate the keys. But maybe not …
He turned to say something about it to Balam, but stilled.
Balam’s eyes were ?xed on the map. And Alaric could see why, as the shimmering pillars that represented the rifts slowly began to disappear. One by one, they winked out.
“What is happening?” Mikale asked from where he’d been sitting, quietly brooding for the last three hours.
“It appears all of our rifts are closing,” Balam said, his black eyes lifting to meet Alaric’s.
Without another word, they both Traveled to the closest rift. Two seraph sentries snapped to attention at their appearance, but they ignored them as they approached the rip. It was by a pond in a secluded clearing just north of the castle. Or it was supposed to be.
“The Night Children lands. The one by the river estate,” Alaric said, Traveling in the next heartbeat.
They both stepped from the air within seconds of each other, staring at the spot along the estate wall where they had let the seraphs in to ?ght Scarlett and the Royals when they’d found the Contessa.
The rift was gone. Vanished. As if it had been closed up and sealed. “How is this possible?” Balam asked, anger edging into his voice.
“I do not know,” Alaric ground out through gritted teeth. “Toreall. The one where they captured Scarlett.”
Balam nodded, and moments later they were standing beside the trees of the Dresden Forest, just on the other side of the Earth Court.
That rift was gone too.
But the cry of an eagle had them both turning to the sky. Not an eagle. A grif?n. Three of them.
“How the fuck are they out of the wards?” Alaric seethed, watching as the grif?ns ?ew closer and closer.
Balam said nothing, his eyes ?xed on the approaching beasts and riders.
The High Witch and two of her sentries.
The ground shuddered beneath Alaric’s feet when the grif?ns landed, their massive wings folding against their sides.
“Queen Scarlett Aditya has a message for you,” the High Witch said, her tone hard and unforgiving, while her sentries eyed him and Balam with distaste.
“And what is that?” Alaric gritted out from between his teeth.
“Remember that she is already inside.” The High Witch lifted her chin a little higher then, her grif?n’s wings already stretching back out and preparing to take off. “And that keys can open more than one lock, and some keys and locks do not go together at all.”
With that, the High Witch was ?ying back to the skies, her sentries right behind her, turning and heading back to their lands. Alaric slowly looked down at the keys he still held in his hand.
He felt Balam’s hand land on his shoulder before he Traveled them back to the council room in the castle.
“She played you like a fucking fool,” Balam sneered as soon as they stepped from the air.
He snatched the keys from his hands, holding them before his face. He studied them for only a few seconds before throwing them onto the table. One look at the enchanted map told Alaric that every single rift that had been created over the last decade had been closed.
“What has happened?” Talwyn demanded, stepping to the table and picking up one of the keys, turning it over in her hand.
“She closed them all,” Alaric murmured under his breath, unable to believe she had pulled this off. That she had indeed played him. She hadn’t left that amulet by accident. She had wanted him to have it. Wanted him to have all of them. Wanted him to have Talwyn shift them into the keys.
Because she had altered them. These keys weren’t going to get him into Avonleya.
He moved forward, picking up a key himself. Mikale did the same.
And Tarek.
He could see it then. The tiny Blood Mark at the top of the key, where the god’s symbol still held its form. This one was Falein’s, goddess of cleverness and wisdom.
How ?tting.
“She not only closed all the godsdamn rifts, she sealed the realms,” Balam bellowed. He spun, pointing an accusing ?nger at Alaric. “How many times did I tell you to quit playing with her? How many times did I tell you to keep her locked up? You insisted you had her under control. That she answered to you and only you, despite her proving time and again you have never owned that girl.”
Balam swiped up another key. The points at the end pricked his skin, blood immediately welling. This key was Temural’s, god of the wild and untamed. The god the Shifters tended to worship.
“Not only did she just prevent us from opening more rifts to bring in more forces, she lowered the wards keeping the Witches and Shifters contained. In one fell swoop, she just changed everything.” He tossed the key back down on the table.
He stalked for the door, pausing beside Alaric. “You deserve every ounce of wrath Achaz will bring down upon your head for this.”
Then Balam was storming out of the council room.
Silence fell in the room, but it was soon interrupted by slow, psychotic laughter. The laughter grew and grew. Alaric turned to face Nuri Halloway.
“Nothing about this is funny, you insane bloodsucker,” Mikale snapped, chucking the key he was holding at her. She didn’t even ?inch when it cut a gash along her temple. “You are bound to us. If we go down, you go down with us.”
“Oh, I always knew I would burn beside you for what I did,” Nuri replied through her laughter.
“Then why the fuck are you laughing?” Mikale demanded.
“Because it is funny,” she replied, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world.
“How?” he asked incredulously.
Her honey-colored eyes slid to Alaric. “Because you created a weapon to start and end a war, and in the end, it will only serve to destroy you.”
Alaric’s ?st tightened around the key he still held. He could feel it cutting deeper and deeper into his skin as his ?st clenched tighter and tighter, blood beginning to drip to the ?oor at his feet.
If Scarlett wanted a war, then she had just started one.