Chapter 40
Forty
Elina
In her rooms, in the eastern part of the palace pyramid, Elina DuMarin stood at the window, watching the sun crawl across the sky and pondering the involvement of the Guardians in its path.
The priests and priestesses hadn’t been able to tell her what it meant that the burning star never changed course. Perhaps it was a law of nature, just like the way the chain at her ankle seemed to have become a fixture on the firmament of her miserable existence.
She’d considered taking a leap when the guards had left the window unlocked almost ten days ago, but the fear of being found dangling on a chain with a broken leg—she didn’t want to think about how her father would have reacted had he heard about it.
So when the guards had stormed the room after the temple ceremony that day of the Tears of the Gods, Elina had told them about the fleck of light brown in the night, enough to identify it had a human shape. A limp, human shape.
She didn’t know what the guards had done with the knowledge, whether they’d informed the king.
But when she’d continued standing there, staring into the distance—staring down at the wet sand she knew would embrace her with the caress of Eroth—city guards had shown up, their swords glimmering in the moonlight.
A part of her thought she’d done the right thing, telling someone about the discarded body, while deep down, at the core of her soul, something felt off, like she’d sent someone she cared for to the butchering block.
It hadn’t been until the five other people had shown up a little south of the body, their dark uniforms blending into the night so well, she’d only noticed them because of the silver blades reflecting the graying sky.
Then, there’d been the fight and an all-consuming wildfire—all five guards dead, left to bleed out in the sand.
Once more, part of her felt compassion for the men, while deep down, a fragment of her soul felt relief.
Then she’d watched two figures head out into the dawning day, limping and unstable, but Elina hadn’t called for the palace guards this time. She hadn’t told a soul what she’d witnessed. And no one had come to collect the discarded body and the corpses of the guards who’d gone to check.
Now that the sky was blue and the sand had dried, Elina stared down at the sun-bleached sand, humming a melody from somewhere she couldn’t remember.
The chain around her ankle cut deep enough to draw blood if she wasn’t careful while walking, and the bruises on her arms had faded—bruises from the men who’d dragged her back to the temple the day after the Tears of the Gods.
Men who’d claimed the priests and priestesses wanted to see her.
Who’d made her sit for hours on an uncomfortable, wooden chair, while the king had been watching, a faint smile on his lips.
“Elina, dear,” he’d said halfway through the day, eating from a platter of fresh fruit a servant handed him, still the father and the king, yet so much colder than he’d been a few years ago, before that day when the fire wielder had started all of this by destroying the army camp.
“I am heartbroken to put you through this. You have the fire wielder to thank for it, yet again. I’ve been told he has tried to free some Flame-born prisoners.
” At that point, a priestess had yanked on her chain to throw her off balance while one of the guards had grabbed her forearm and held it out for the priest to draw a straight line across her wrist with a ritual knife.
“Let’s see if your blood holds any answers. ”
When Elina had screamed, begged him not to hurt her, Ulder had apologized, because he didn’t want to hurt her, he’d said. He needed to. Because her blood might hold the answers to his questions, he’d said. Because if he was right, her blood might tell the future.
Rubbing the faint scar on her forearm, Elina blinked away the memory. She’d be wearing long sleeves for public occasions for a while, she just knew. Like all the other scars, this one would be hidden. And no one would care because no one would see.
Down in the desert Eroth created to protect the city from invasions, specks of green bloomed, adorned with flecks of color. Life, in a place of death. Hope, in a place of damnation.
And her blood hadn’t yielded answers.
Because Elina knew deep down, if she allowed those visions and images to seep from her, she’d never get out of the only home she’d ever known.
Shivering despite the stifling heat, Elina DuMarin closed her eyes against the sun, tipping back her head and blowing out a breath.
The vision hit her out of nowhere: a man in black, his near-white hair cropped close to his skull, ice in his dark-blue eyes, an elegant silver blade in his hand, dripping crimson, and in front of him, a killing field…
So many corpses, their throats slit, or gutted.
And behind him, among a cluster of faceless, black-clad figures, a creature of nightmares, its antlers reaching into the sky, its elegant, powerful body that of a lion, no, a horse…
No, both. Its split tail whipping from side to side like an angry cat’s.
With lilac eyes, it seemed to peer directly into her soul, and its grumbling voice sounded in her head, “Red runs the blood, little Elina.”
Lory’s story continues in Black Bleeds the Night. Pre-order now.
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