Chapter 22 Adaela #2
With that, we stepped out of the woods directly in front of the gates.
We timed it so that we got here during shift change.
The coast was clear. I felt myself reverting to who I used to be.
The amount of pain faced behind these walls was worse than anything I’d ever suffered out on a battlefield.
I expected that I would not come out of this unscathed, but my only hope was that Vada would.
I had to trust that she had the experience and the judgment to do what was best for all, and not just for me.
The first guards came into view, and instead of waiting for them to sound the alarm, I sent out a blast of death magic, incapacitating all of them before they even knew what happened.
I wasn’t using the full force of my powers just yet.
I didn’t know which ones were being forced into their roles and which ones were gleefully complicit in my father’s tyranny.
It would be unfair to take lives from those who were just a product of the system they were born into.
I tore through the gates, making my way to the throne room my father would be in, Vada keeping up with my quick pace.
I was used to being short and having to compensate for taller individuals.
I threw the doors open to the throne room to see my father holding court.
The euphoria of letting my death magic out to play still concerned me with how easy it was to push it out toward the individuals in the room, but this time, I made it precise.
My father was the only one standing. His guards, the audience, and the staff were all taking an interminable nap.
My shadows left me next, a tidal wave bursting through a dam as they rushed out from underneath my skin, pinning my father to his throne as he attempted to stand.
This was paramount to our success, since even though my father was not as strong magically as I was, he was deadly with a weapon.
He no longer could control my shadows, and the irritation on his face indicated that he tried.
“Father, so nice of you to hold court as a welcome home gift,” I said, swaggering toward him and refusing to bow.
He sat back in his throne as if he wasn’t tied there by my shadows, giving off the air of authority he had perfected over the years. “Daughter. What brings you back to Underhill?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. I was transported from a portal here as someone was caught trying to murder one of my constituents. Tell me, Cernunnos, were you involved?” I began walking up the stairs toward him, and nothing about his countenance changed.
He was a master at manipulation, so I had to determine truth from fiction.
Vada was standing at the edge of the platform, remaining mostly inconspicuous.
My father sat there, showing absolutely no emotion—a tell that signified to me that he did know something about what was going on.
There was no widening of his eyes, no change in his breathing.
I couldn’t hear as well as Vada probably could, so I couldn’t tell if his heartbeat changed or not.
Even the best of us had tells. I summoned my shadows to bring me a weapon off one of the passed-out guards.
Producing the long sword, I pointed it right at my father’s neck.
“Against my better judgment, I have left you alone to rule this fucking kingdom after everything you’ve done. I left and helped create another, where others like me could find respite. Yet, I really don’t have much holding me back now. Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right here,” I spat.
My father laughed. “My girl, you’ve never had it in you to kill me.
I’m the last remaining family you have, and for whatever reason, that means something to you.
After all these years, do you really think that I’m going to just sit here and let you take whatever you want? Have you forgotten so easily?”
As he finished his sentence, his second-in-command popped out into existence from a portal just to the left of Cernunnos’s throne.
He came prepared, too, immediately shooting off magic in my direction.
Father’s second wasn’t a portal weaver, so I was caught unaware.
His powers were earthen in nature. I was bound in a web of vines before I could react, and Vada shot up onto the dais to circumvent any more damage to me.
I took my eyes off my father, trying to find other ways to remove the vines from my body when I momentarily lost focus on the magic holding everyone in stasis, my father included.
Realizing it just a bit too late, I sent out another pulse of magic toward the crowd, but my father had already risen.
While my father wasn’t nearly as powerful as I was, that didn’t make him weak. He drew a sword, stepping up to me with lightning speed to force the sword through my gut.
It took everything in me not to scream out, though the pain was agonizing.
Not only had my father just stabbed me, he’d stabbed me with an iron blade.
The iron blade I’d given him, telling him it was the mythical blade I’d gone on that hunt for all those years ago.
My magic left me as if I’d never possessed it.
My insides felt like they were freezing and on fire at the same time.
The immediate, intense cramps were agonizing, and I struggled to continue breathing normally.
Instead, I took short, shallow breaths and tried not to pass out or throw up.
Slowly dropping to my knees, still caught up in vines, I looked up at my father with disdain as he laughed.
“Did you really think you were going to come into my home, demand anything of me, and that I would just sit back and take it? Have you already forgotten who you’re messing with, girl?
” my father snarled in my face, but I barely heard him over the searing pain as he backhanded me.
I fell over onto my side, vines wrapping tighter around me.
I bared my teeth at him. At the edge of the dais, Vada completed a roundhouse kick to my father’s second, and I saw her take a dagger and strike it through the bottom of his chin, killing him instantly.
I tried not to grimace as I said, “I never forgot, father. I had no other fucking choice.” I coughed, a little blood leaving my lips.
I choked out Vada’s name, and she scrambled over the body she just killed to get to me. Vada let out a quiet gasp and sent out a blast of seduction magic toward my father, who just laughed at her.
“You impudent little cunt. Have you not heard the stories? I’m immune to your fucking seduction games,” Cernunnos bellowed, taking a step toward Vada.
Vada laughed. “You speak to me as if I’ve not lived lifetimes longer than you, Cernunnos. I’ve been called impudent my entire life. But what you stupid motherfuckers continuously forget about is that I know your secrets, and I don’t bow to the likes of men.”
I was motherfucking myself, because if there was anything I should’ve thought about bringing before we stepped foot inside of this place, it should’ve been a healing tonic.
I was wrapped in vines, desperately trying to keep my father’s guards knocked out, though that was a lost cause while I had an iron sword in my gut, slowly bleeding out around it.
I should have used my waning energy to deal a blow to my father as well, but I couldn’t think straight.
As much as it hurt, I leaned my torso down toward the sword, grunting in pain as my vision spotted.
If I’d had the breath, I would’ve been screaming.
I was hoping that I could cut away enough of the vines so I could loosen my arms to break through the rest. I worked out daily and had a lot of bulk to show for it, but these magically enhanced vines were stronger than I could break.
I just kept praying to any gods that would hear my call that I could get out of this before I passed out from blood loss.
My body couldn’t heal with iron in me. This was likely it, and I wished Vada would leave like I’d asked of her.
Vada’s shouts sounded a million miles away, calling out to me while my father held a sword at her neck, but I couldn’t really hear what she was saying.
My breath was getting shallower as the moments passed, but finally there was some give in the vines.
I began struggling through the pain, working on trying to loosen the vines enough to get free.
A noise like a thunk distracted me from my mission as Vada had perfected some new move she had learned while working with the guards in the Demon Faction.
Father was on his back, killed by his own sword.
It was a quick death. Deserved, yes, but not nearly enough.
He did have some truth to his statement.
The only reason he wasn’t dead before this was because I had some fucked-up notion about him being my only living family left.
I thought I’d be more devastated about his death, but all I felt was cold indifference.
Tears were running down my face, though I couldn’t remember when I started crying.
I wasn’t crying for my father, that much I knew, but I couldn’t tell if it was from losing the only family member I had left, from the pain of the sword protruding from my belly, or if it was from how close Vada had come to death herself.
If I had been thinking clearly, I would have remembered that Vada could not die.
Either way, the emotions I’d tried to hide from the Fae in Underhill couldn’t be contained.
Vada slid over to me as I dropped toward the floor, my breathing labored.
I wasn’t going to last much longer in this state.
She cradled my head in her lap, tears running down her face.
I wondered to myself if this was the first time she had shown any emotion in my presence other than her fastidious calm, and my heart shattered that we wouldn’t get to find out where this thing between us could’ve gone.
The prophecy would end with my death, and the worlds would likely end, too.
Power didn’t always equate to winning. Neither did planning, since this was worse than the worst-case scenario we had planned for.
The crowd had begun to stir. I was losing what little power I had left, and I wasn’t sure I could prevent them from bombarding Vada.
I wasn’t worried about myself in this moment.
I was worried about her. I couldn’t fight.
There were plenty of sycophants in the crowd who fully supported my father’s reign of terror.
I was sure there were still Fae left in this court who also saw through his bullshit, but I wasn’t sure they were here.
Vada ran her hands over my face, through my hair, and down my arms. “You will not die today, my love. Not when I just found you. I will not allow it.”
I focused on Vada’s face as my vision blackened around the edges, concentrated only on the pain and devotion there. “My only chance is to get this iron out of my body. I can have my shadows help until we can get out of here, but I’m afraid that—” I gasped for breath, then coughed up more blood.
“Shh, sweet girl. We’re going to pull this blade out, then we’re going to staunch the bleeding. I need you to stay with me. I need your shadows to help stabilize you until we can get you help. Are you ready?” she asked.
I nodded weakly, trying with everything in me not to pass out.
Vada moved down my body, lifting my hips into her lap so that my head was below my heart—likely to get more blood flow to my brain—then rested her hands on the sword.
Even that small movement had me crying out in pain again.
She pulled in one swift move, and I screamed with everything I had, back bowing off the floor.
My vision went entirely black, and I passed out.