Chapter 35 #2
“Good.” His response was curt. Regardless of my part in this, there was no camaraderie between the light king and the evil queen of Icespire.
The queen lifted her chin toward the soldiers surrounding us.
Her voice rang out across the platform, cold and clear with the help of Rhydian’s echoweaving amplifying her.
“People of Icespire,” the queen announced, “witness justice.”
She turned her gaze on me, sharp as a blade.
“This creature before you wears a stolen name and a stolen face. She walked our halls under false pretenses, fed by our stores, shielded by our laws, while her blood sang allegiance to our enemies.” A murmur rippled through the crowd as she paced a slow step closer.
“She calls it survival. I call it betrayal. Blood is not a costume to be put on and discarded at will. It is sacred. It is law. And when that law is broken, it must be answered in kind.”
Her hand lifted, pointing past me toward the open sky. “Let this be seen. Let it be known. To those who hide behind stolen titles and to the beasts who believe themselves untouchable, hear me now. Icespire does not forgive treachery. We answer it.”
And I, Elara, handmaiden turned stolen princess, was the bait they had dressed in rags and dragged into daylight, hoping my blood would buy them a victory.
I stared out at the no man’s land, at the dark forest beyond, at the army crouched in wait, and I felt something in me harden into a familiar, bitter defiance.
If I was going to die, then fine.
But I was not going to die quietly.
And I was not going to die for their plan.
Princess Evadne moved before anyone could stop her.
It was not graceful. It was not ceremonial.
It was the kind of motion that came from a decision carried like a blade under the tongue, sharp enough to cut the moment it was finally spoken aloud.
One heartbeat she stood among the frost gilded banners like a dutiful daughter, pale and composed and trained to look harmless, and the next she was striding forward through the ring of soldiers, skirts brushing the snow, chin lifted as if she were approaching a benediction instead of a murder.
I watched her close the distance to the Hushcrafter, and something in my chest tightened, instinctive and vicious.
The woman stood close to the platform with her hood drawn low, shoulders hunched, hands hidden in her sleeves like she was trying to disappear.
She did not look like a mage. She looked like a prisoner permitted to stand upright for the sake of someone else’s story.
Her mouth was cracked, her cheeks hollow, her eyes flat in the way starving people’s eyes went when hope became too expensive to keep.
The crown loved that kind of person. They loved broken bodies that could be positioned wherever they were needed, loved the quiet ones who did not ask questions because the answers always cost blood.
Evadne stopped within arm’s reach and lifted her hands slowly, almost gently, as if she meant to adjust the woman’s hood, as if she meant to offer comfort.
Even the guards hesitated, confusion flickering across their faces, because no one expected softness here.
Not from this family. Not at sunrise, not in a place where law and cruelty blurred together until they were the same thing.
Then Evadne drew a dagger.
It was small, meant for close work. A woman’s weapon. A weapon that did not require an army behind it, only the nerve to do something irreversible. The Hushcrafter’s eyes widened, her body tensing as if she knew what was coming but still could not believe anyone would dare.
Evadne did not hesitate.
She drove the blade into the Hushcrafter’s throat with one clean, practiced motion, precise and merciless.
Blood burst hot and dark against the snow, steaming in the air like the earth itself was exhaling.
The Hushcrafter made a sound that was not even a scream, more like a breath being stolen.
Her hands flew to her neck, fingers slipping, her gaze going wide with shock that felt almost childlike.
For one raw, terrible second, her eyes found mine.
Not hatred.
Not triumph.
Only fear.
Then her knees buckled, and she collapsed into the frost like something discarded.
The spell shattered instantly.
My cryomancy surged back into me so violently I stumbled, my breath locking as if the air had turned to glass inside my lungs.
It was not a gentle return. It was a door ripped off its hinges.
Cold flooded my bones, bright and alive, roaring through my veins like a storm that had been starved and finally remembered it had teeth.
Frost bloomed across my chains, crawling over iron in white veins, the metal singing in protest as my magic kissed it and claimed it.
I sucked in air, and it came out silver mist.
Elara!
Aeliana’s voice screamed across my mind, as if she’d been locked up and finally released.
I swayed, dizzy with it. Powerful and sick at the same time. As if my body did not know whether to celebrate or collapse.
My feet slipped on the ice dusting the platform, and the world tilted.
The edge was behind me.
The drop was waiting.
I threw my hands out instinctively, not thinking, not planning, only reacting, and my magic answered faster than my mind could catch up. Ice shot outward from my palms, blooming into a slick angled sheet that formed beneath my heels and spilled down the wall in a sudden, glittering slope.
A slide.
A path.
A way out.
I stumbled backward onto it, half falling, half being carried, my chains clinking as I hit the ice and began to skid.
The cold bit through my thin dress, but it was nothing compared to the heat of adrenaline scorching my blood.
Wind tore at my hair. The sky spun above me.
The platform vanished in an instant, replaced by stone and frost and the blur of guards shouting as they realized their sacrifice had just grown fangs.
“Stop her!” someone roared.
Another voice snapped sharp as a whip. “Archers!”
But the ice was mine. I moved like a dropped knife, sliding down the wall on a gleaming ribbon of frost, heart pounding so hard I could taste it.
Above, Queen Marisella’s voice cracked across the courtyard, high and furious, refined rage curdling into something uglier.
“You useless, stupid girl,” Marisella hissed at Evadne, the words laced with a fury so raw it carried even to where I slid below the wall. “What have you done?”
I twisted just enough to see the platform. The queen stood rigid in her furs and jewels, crown flashing in the morning light, her composure shattered beyond repair. This was not a ruler addressing her people. This was a predator whose carefully laid trap had been torn open from the inside.
Princess Evadne faced her without backing away. Blood coated her hands, her chest rising and falling hard, but her eyes were steady. Clear. “I did exactly what you trained me to do,” she said, her voice carrying despite the chaos. “I chose.”
Marisella stepped toward her. “You chose to make a spectacle of yourself,” she spat. “You chose to humiliate me.”
Evadne let out a sharp laugh, brittle but real.
“I chose to end it,” she said. “I am tired of living by your rules. Tired of being sharpened and pointed and told who I am allowed to be.” Her gaze flicked briefly to the crowd, then back to her mother.
“You wanted loyalty. You wanted obedience. This was the only way to break it.”
Something in Marisella’s expression shifted, not pain, not grief, but offense. “You think defiance makes you brave?” she said softly. “It makes you disposable.”
She moved before Evadne could answer. One hand caught her daughter’s chin, the other her skull. There was a sharp, sickening crack, loud enough to cut through the shouting below. Evadne’s body went limp instantly, her defiance ending in the same heartbeat it had begun.
Marisella did not even flinch.
She seized Evadne by the hair and shoved her forward with brutal, careless force, sending her over the edge of the platform as if she were throwing away a spoiled offering. Evadne’s body fell through the air, limp and wrong, her skirt snapping like a torn flag behind her.
I hit the bottom of the slide hard, skidding across packed snow until my shoulder slammed into stone. Pain flared white behind my eyes. I sucked in a sharp breath and tasted blood. My chains clanked as my wrists jerked, the iron biting deeper into bruised skin.
Then Evadne hit the ground beside me.
The impact was sickening.
A sound like meat striking rock.
Her body bounced once and went still, her limbs twisted, her eyes staring up at a sky that she would never see again.
I stared at her, my mouth open, my lungs refusing to work.
It was one thing to expect cruelty. It was another to watch a mother snap her own daughter’s neck in front of hundreds of witnesses and call it order.
She didn’t even have the decency to use her magic.
It was hand on skin. Brutality on innocence.
Above us, Queen Marisella stepped forward, blood still marking the stone at her feet.
She did not look down at Evadne’s body. She looked at everyone else.
“Let this be remembered,” she said, her voice carrying, sharp with something unhinged beneath the command.
“Blood does not make you untouchable. Birth does not make you safe.”
Her gaze swept the wall, the soldiers, the nobles, the crowd below. “I am the law of Icespire,” she continued. “And anyone who betrays me, anyone who disobeys, anyone who dares to forget who sits on the throne, will end the same way.” Her mouth curved, not quite a smile. “There are no exceptions.”
Then her eyes found one man. Her voice hardened into a blade. “Rhydian Veyne,” she shouted. “Get her.”
Boots pounded. Armor clanged. Shouts ricocheted across the courtyard like arrows.