Chapter 52 #2
“The nyxteria is beautiful, but it is deadly. Do you think you will ever forgive yourself? Is there anything left of the soul you’ve so permanently marred?
” King Saros stared down at me with disdain.
“We are not so different, you and I. The stone demanded Enya dive to the deepest depths of darkness before it bent to her will. It seems you have as well.”
Aeriden’s gaze burned against my face from across the room, but I couldn’t turn to him. How could I ever face him after what I had done? I had killed our father, killed his father.
“Before you kill me, Lady Cantor,” the king continued, coughing through the blood dripping down his nose, “consider what else Dark King Daimos brews in the north. Daimos has always sought their power. The very power that flows in your veins.” Saros’s blue eyes darted around my neck and my outstretched hands, now shaking against the power flowing from them.
“They will be back. They will come for them. The Bellators knew this and did nothing. Decided to hide their weapons. Selfish, rotting cowards, all of them. It was up to me.” He gasped now, his breath turning ragged.
“Up to me to find a way. And if that meant a small sacrifice of our people, to keep our kingdom safe… We needed armies. Any armies to defend—”
A shattered cry bellowed from the hall as Ronan stormed up the steps to the center of the large room at the same moment Nerissa’s light burst through the back circular window, spraying the floor with a cascade of glass.
Nerissa ducked and rolled into the space as Ronan sprinted past me, screaming in devastation and wrath as he lifted his longsword above his head.
“NO!” I cried after him, cutting my powers off before he leaped into their path. The king barked in pain as his knees hit the floor, his weak body crumpling forward.
“Ronan!” Nerissa screamed as he shoved his blade through King Saros’s chest, the ancient man’s blue eyes widening as Ronan lifted him by the cuff of his robes and the hilt of his blade.
The king coughed a stripe of blood across the ex-queensguard’s face.
Saros slid his gaze once more to mine, wan mouth open in shock as the extended life in his eyes died.
A crimson line stretched into a pool on the floor.
“What have you done?” Nerissa breathed as her arms went slack, watching Ronan, who stood between us, staring down at the dead king. His blade hung loosely from his hand as blood wept from its tip. Ronan’s bright eyes were dull as he raised them to meet Nerissa’s and then my own.
“Ended his reign,” he croaked, turning toward Aeriden and Kresida.
A look of shock passed over his numb features, registering who Kresida held at knife point. He ripped the white kingsguard cape from Aeriden’s back before he slipped it over his blade, ridding it of the king’s blood.
“Lyvia was doing just fine at that herself,” Kresida spat, eyeing me with irritation.
I ground my teeth, allowing my powers to flare in my palms, my eyes blazing with a rim of embers in defense. I refused to look at Aeriden, to meet his horror-stricken gaze.
“I heard what Saros said just as I arrived,” Nerissa started, stepping over the body and approaching us. “About what he thinks is coming…”
“And what Xenelpha said about the return of an enemy.” I bobbed my head, finishing her thought.
Nerissa’s eyes slid to Aeriden before turning toward Ronan. “What of the queen? Will she be able to—”
“The queen is dead.” Ronan’s words were flat as he dropped the blood-soaked kingsguard cape and strode from the room without another word.
Nerissa’s keen Ravindra eyes scanned Aeriden’s black armor and the discarded cape.
“Lyvia, what do you—” she began.
I lifted a hand, a familiar sensation washing over me. “What is that?” I murmured, scanning the wreckage in the room.
Nerissa stilled, before she asked, “What do you feel?”
“Lyvia,” Aeriden’s broken whisper floated from across the room.
I stepped through the wreckage. The faintest pulsing. Not a sound. A vibration of air pushing and pulling throughout the room.
“Lyvia,” Aeriden said again, his voice shaking, louder.
Push and pull. Push and pull. Here in this room. A Bellator Bone, hidden somewhere. I stepped over the large mirror that had shattered at Nerissa’s entrance.
Push and pull.
“Lyvia!” Aeriden screamed at me.
I looked up to find his face tightened with grief and rage. Those features that looked so much like my father’s. His father’s.
Tears soaked his face, brightening the sapphire hue in his irises.
“Where’s Dad?”
Numbness crept over me as I held his stare. The blood drained from my face as I relived those damning moments in the Crystal Castle, those moments that haunted me day and night. The moments that eclipsed my soul in a shadow of darkness.
People filed into the room. Carina. Astraeus. Vulcan.
Push and pull. Push and pull. The feeling intensified, and my powers leaned forward.
“Dead,” I answered quietly, picking up the burning orange Bellator Bone from among the wreckage next to the king’s staff.