Chapter 48
A
suffocating sensation of drowning overwhelmed her, and she felt as if the room itself was closing in.
The cacophony of voices became deafening, and she couldn’t escape his haunting voice.
Little Mouse. She had prepared for every possible scenario, even considering the unlikely event of Kaed being alive.
However, she could never have fathomed seeing Goddrick standing just a few feet away from the King.
Her body quivered, driven by the low, rumbling hiss emanating from Ilkiz. He turned to converse with the guards nearest to him, who seized Kaed before descending the few steps that elevated them.
She had to fight, to somehow find clarity in the fact that she was not the weak little girl he had forced to turn his hourglass five hundred years ago. She was not the same person. Yet, as he approached her, towering over her, she felt like the mouse he had made her out to be.
Fear does not discriminate; it comes when she wants it the least.
Ilkiz… Her own thoughts seemed distant.
“I will kill him.” Ilkiz seethed. The raw power seared her, and she lurched forward, her chest feeling taut. “Release me so that I may—”
Wait… Her eyes turned towards Illyan and Zhal. Allow me to fight.
“Elder Fae, I must say, I am not disappointed in your tactics.” She detested his voice, and the way it sent ripples of fear through her.
When she raised her gaze to him, her lips curled into a snarl.
“They don’t understand you can’t be killed.
” He halted a few feet before her, and she finally saw Kaed, who was staring at her with an angered expression.
“Look at me.” Finding the strength quickly, she looked up at him.
“You will never lay as little as your filthy eyes upon him again.” His gaze shifted to Jayce, and her body trembled.
“Sound familiar—?” She shifted her gaze to him, and as though sensing what was about to happen, her legs were in motion, placing her body between Jayce and Goddrick.
His blade, previously concealed behind his back, now extended toward her. As if it would have pierced Jayce’s stomach, it collided with hers. However, instead of penetrating her, scales crawled across her, enveloping her waist and extending up her arms. The blade shattered, crumbling to the floor.
“Karver!” Jayce shouted, and in an instant, the once loyal second-in-command to the King was beside them.
Goddrick gazed deeply into her eyes, and as she felt Power envelop her, she effortlessly pulled apart the restraints at her wrists, as if they were tied with paper.
Scales cascaded across her entire body, molding to her frame and granting her a full set of Ilkiz’s armor.
The white iridescent sheen matched the brilliance of the white marble that surrounded them.
She held Goddrick’s gaze, and in those moments, everything around them bled from existence. Only the two of them remained, and time stood still.
“You will pay for what you did to me,” she seethed, and with her words, the boom of Ilkiz’s roar shattered the room around them. The painted glass of the Keep rocked and cracked.
“My Little Mouse,” his teeth bearing as he towered over her, “you will suffer by any means.”
The corner of her lip twitched, “I’m going to enjoy ripping you apart.”
As the marble crumbled from her sheer force, screams emerged, but those that mattered stayed steadfast. The familiar sounds of fire and water now cracked behind her, accompanied by the smart remarks of Kaen. “Smells like shit, looks like shit. Must be Naverra.”
Jayce stepped beside her, and she could feel his wings wrapping around her, his body emanating power. Goddrick took a step back, and she felt the urge to charge after him but knew that her family’s safety was above all else.
“Filthy traitors!” Theon rose, his entire being quivering with the intensity of the unfolding scene before him. “I didn’t want to believe it, but now that I see the truth with my own eyes, it is undeniable!”
Azahara surveyed the enemies before them, mindful that they were reciprocating the scrutiny toward her family standing beside and behind her.
Jaakobai and his Fae soldiers stepped between them, blocking the King. “Ah—I knew you looked familiar, but those wings, there is no mistaking. The traitor.”
She advanced with purpose. “Eyes on me.” Jaakobai, caught off guard, quickly shifted his gaze to her.
“Good boy.” Her family chuckled behind her, but she maintained a stoic expression.
“I have no desire to destroy this place and the people of this Kingdom, but I will. Without hesitation. Give me my family, and we can settle this, all of us, beyond these walls, where the only casualties will be you.”
The Elder laughed, and even Goddrick chuckled. However, the King did not find humor in her words. “You fucking witch! Weak minded souls easily seduced by your…” He loomed tall behind his guards, flanked by Fae warriors and a god.
As he stumbled over his words, she narrowed her eyes at him. “By my what? Hmm?” Her gaze shifted to Kaed, who seemed to be staring at Goddrick, anger etching his beautiful face. Then she glanced at Illyan and Zhal, who were looking at her in pure awe.
“Seduced by the succubus herself.” Jaakobai took a step towards her. “All of them, weak—”
Jayce moved to step forward, but she placed her hand on his chest, momentarily halting him.
“Call me what you will: whore, witch, succubus—manipulator.“ She shook her head and moved her hand down. “It won’t make a difference when you are all dead.”
“Kill them all,” The King said, and that was all she needed to hear.
Goddrick reappeared in front of her in an instant.
With a smile, she observed as Jayce grabbed his arm, which was reaching for her neck.
With nearly indiscernible strength, Jayce squeezed, and the oily blood she’d come to hate spattered across her face.
The god retreated as quickly as he had lunged at her, one of his hands severed and held tightly by Jayce.
“I thought I made myself clear,” Hearing him made her body thrive. “You will never touch her again.”
With anger lacing his face, Goddrick shook out his arm, the tendrils of his skin and bone pushing through the marred, severed limb, reconnecting a new one in a matter of moments.
She looked to Karver, “Get my family, please.” Without hesitation, he vanished. She caught a glimpse of him at the corner of her eye, behind Illyan and Zhal, opening a wether for them all to jump through, safely returning them behind her.
“Akua, take them back to the Neptune. Xol, Kaen—” She glanced at the Yuul, then at the Spirit Rider, who was pleading with her entire body to fight. “Ready to do some dancing?”
“Fucking finally!” Kaen screamed—literally—and engulfed herself in flames.
“I’ve been ready.” Xol cracked her knuckles.
“On me.” With both powerful women beside her, they rushed towards Jaakobai.
A rocketing boom sounded beside her, and she glanced over to see both Karver and Jayce engaged with Goddrick.
When she turned back to Jaakobai, his wings were outstretched, those same dragonfly-style wings having grown exponentially since the last time she’d seen him, spanning further than Jayce’s.
As electricity sparked through his fingers, he threw it at them.
Digging deep, she found the shield that Death’s power provided.
Just as she had done against Akua, it wrapped around the three of them, the lightning shooting to the ceiling, cracking through the marble.
The pure shock across Jaakobai’s face would have been satisfying enough, but as they reached him and Xol connected her fist with his cheek, she rejoiced internally.
His head nearly tore from his body with the sheer force, and if it hadn’t been for his wings, he would have gone straight into the King and his guards.
Kaen was surrounded by flames, and as she tossed her hands outward, the fire engulfed the space around the Fae soldiers. Even with Magic of their own, unless they wielded water, they would burn.
Jaakobai stood before Azahara, his curved Fae blade swinging outward, surrounded by a purple hue. Dropping to her knees, she narrowly missed the blade. With a forceful kick to his shin, he cried out, but to her surprise, his bone didn’t break.
Narrowing her eyes, she disappeared from the floor just as Jaakobai’s blade came down at her. When she reappeared, the three of them were circling Jaakobai, while the Fae soldiers pulled their own blades, their gazes shifting between them.
Sensing Azahara looking towards her, Xol narrowed her eyes. “Go, Kaen and I got this.”
He remained her priority, and she appreciated Xol for understanding that.
With a nod, Azahara turned her attention beyond the ongoing fight.
Searching quickly in the sea of soldiers, she called out, “Kaed!” Her heart swelled at the sight of his eyes on her, filled with life.
Suppressing the urge to let her emotions take over, knowing that crying now would only hinder her in saving him, she pushed back those emotions and enveloped herself in Ilkiz’s Power.
The purple flames caused the soldiers surrounding Kaed to seize up.
As she took the first step toward him, Azahara sensed a powerful strike coming from her side, prompting her to disappear once again. The resounding crack of the floor shattering in the place where she had just stood sent a tremor crawling up her legs.
“Using our dyspoxii against me, Little Mouse?” Goddrick roared.
She honestly had no idea it was that she was using, but it made sense.
The instances where she found her mind and body placing her in a different location at that exact time, she was tapping into the dyspoxii.
“Here I thought I was just really fast,” she quipped.
The instant transition from one place to another—it was that at work.