Chapter Five- To Truly Know Thy Enemy #2
I inch my eyes over to meet his dark ones.
I nod, shakily. I don’t scare easily, but I have just been brought into something that I never expected.
Only then am I able to sense Aleksander’s wards that have fallen away and permitted me to bear witness.
Warding is essential to the royal family.
The All royalty families in all the kingdoms possess warding magic drawn directly from their Titan- blessed magic.
It is essential to keeping spies away from critical information.
“Why me?” I ask, stepping back from him before I do something I regret.
“While you’ve proven your loyalty, I want your fealty. If I can’t have that, I want you dead,” Aleksander shrugs.
“I’ve sworn fealty to the crown of Netherhelm,” I remind him as we watch each other carefully.
“Now you’re swearing it to me,” he emphasizes. “See, my dearest brother here needs regularly to be reminded of where he stands amongst his siblings.” Aleksander practically skips over to Thorne and lifts his chin. “Isn’t that right, blightborn?”
My heart lurches when Thorne bares his teeth and sneers at his oldest brother. He’s been beaten and shredded open, yet he still fights. I almost grin. Almost.
Then, Aleksander sends a rapier through Thorne’s abdomen.
I feel my legs weaken when the blade protrudes through his back with flesh hanging off of the end.
Thorne loses consciousness again. The vicious hatred in Aleksander’s eyes shows me that there’s no love for his brother.
He hasn’t even flinched; there’s no mercy, no remorse.
My throat constricts when he eyes me and removes the sword.
Blood spurts from Thorne’s wounds in tune with his heartbeat.
I send my dark magic to him to help slow it, catching Aleksander’s attention.
“No need, the blasted bastard refuses to die,” Aleksander informs, tossing the rapier to the ground. He strolls from the Enchanted Tree Garden with the casual saunter of someone leaving dinner.
I rush to Thorne’s aid, cutting the vines from his wrists. He slumps into me, blood smearing my armor. I see then, on his neck where Aleksander bit him, explaining the blood in his teeth.
“What the fuck,” I whisper.
At that Prince Thorne stirs, trying to look at me.
“Serpent?” He groans but passes out again.
My hands slip in his blood, looking for purchase on his mangled back.
An awful squishing sound follows my fingers sliding into his muscle tissue.
I bristle when I feel something —a rib!?
—skate against my fingertips and opt to guide him to the ground as I struggle with the clasp hooked to the chain around his neck.
This is fucked, even for me. I’m helplessly aware of the dirt and gravel entering his open wounds as he lays prone beneath me.
Still, I watch as his injuries begin to heal when I finally unclasp the chain from his collar and it falls from his neck.
I suspected it was a tool for dampening his power, but now I know.
I turn and examine it above me, dark tendrils of magic crawling along the chain seeming to taunt me. They retreat slowly as the magic previously stifling Thorne releases him.
I war with the hatred and empathy within me when I behold the pain in his face.
His eyebrows are knitting together, blood matting his silver hair, his lip split in two different places.
My fists clench in what’s left of his shirt hem as I try to process why Aleksander asked this of me. I could kill Thorne, now. Or try to.
But then it wouldn’t look accidental. If anything, the blame would fall on Aleksander. Which can’t happen. Shit.
I stand with my hands on my hips as I assess the situation, Thorne’s recovering body, and how the hell I’m supposed to get him to his bed chambers without being seen. I try to kick him awake but his body has fallen into a complete healing sleep. He could be like this for days. How convenient.
I nudge his body with my foot, nothing.
“You are proving to be wholly inconvenient,” I inform him as I drag him to sit against a tree.
Said tree brushes a branch up the back of my neck as though to make a pass at me. Can sentient trees make a pass at someone? Either way, I swat it away in annoyance.
“Can you assist with healing him or do you just enjoy watching?” I shout up at the trees, who flinch at me.
As if in answer, the colors emitting from the trees turn from deep red to a glowing white.
The magic swirls towards my hands, guiding them to Thorne’s chest. It is as if the trees above and earth below object to what the Prince has just experienced.
They bless my own Stygian magic with the ability to heal, just this once, as if they know I do not have an affinity for such abilities.
I flinch at the contact, his body cold. But I’m more stunned by the fact that the enchanted trees are helping. I swallow hard when Thorne’s muscles stitch back together, his body twitching violently. I hold him still and try to conjure my own healing magic, aiding the forest’s foreign magic.
The wind howling between the trees seems to take on a voice of its own, whispering around me. The words are indistinguishable at first but slowly becomes a message. A message that is clearly meant for me. A woman’s voice crawls fills my head, as delicate as it is demanding:
The Serpent becomes the Executioner’s salvation.
I jump backward, crawling away from Thorne at the disembodied declaration.
“No!” I shout.
He’s simply mine to kill. I can’t have his brother accomplishing the task first. I hate him, I hate Aleksander. I hate them all. I will be this Kingdom’s downfall. It’s a silent promise I make to myself as Thorne’s eyes begin to flutter open.
“Hello, Executioner Prince,” I smirk and crash my fist into his perfectly healed jaw.
His head snaps sideways with a crack. This seems to anger the enchanted trees as the wind picks up, deep black shadows swirling around me as if in warning.
But it’s not the tree’s magic at all. I’m thrown backward against the base of a massive Moonling tree as the tables turn and Thorne drags himself up to standing.
Black tendrils swirl in his eyes, as he commands his magic to restrain me there.
I push against his magic, my will against his. He’s strong, far too strong to have just been on the brink of death. Still I’m able to dissipate his shadows, meeting him head on.
“Healing me just to attack me? Seems a little counterproductive, Serpent,” he sneers.
What is it with people calling my motives into question?
“My goal wasn’t to kill you. You just pissed me off,” I counter.
Thorne looks between me and his blood on the ground.
“By being unconscious?"
I ignore the question.
He releases me.
We stare at each other a moment, a million questions dangling between us. Ultimately I shrug out of my high collared jacket and hand it to him. When my chainmail and tight fighting armor becomes visible, Thorne just stares at the lines and planes of my body. I clear my throat.
“And don’t touch anything,” I gesture down at his hands that grant a horrific death to anyone he touches.
“I can touch stuff,” he pulls on the jacket. “Just not people.”
“Whatever,” I grumble. “Well. It seems I’ve been tasked with ensuring your healing and safe return to your bed chambers,” I extend my arm for him to lead the way.
“You’re not going to ask about…” He gestures around them.
“Figured you deserved it,” I mask my earlier concern with indifference and shrug.
Thorne narrows his eyes as though he can see through me.
“I hardly think any living creature deserves to be ensnared and tortured,” he snaps.
Truthfully, I agree with the sentiment. Unless it’s royalty or nobles, who are responsible for the prolonged death of their impoverished subjects.
“So long as you acknowledge that you are more creature than man,” I say to his back. He leads us through the Enchanted Tree Garden, the trees growing more still.
I can almost see him smile in the way his posture changes when he says, “Serpent, are you saying I was an animal in bed?”
I halt, unable to collect my thoughts fast enough as images of our bodies together come crashing through my mind.
“I…”
At my inability to speak, he lets out a genuine and airy laugh.
“You better find your words or you and I are going to have a long night ahead of us,” he says over his shoulder.
We enter the east wing of the palace where the royal children reside as I ponder what he means by ‘long night ahead of us’.
“I’m only meant to see you here safely, Prince Thorne,” I remind him.
“So my dear brother didn’t mention that you are to assist me in tonight’s executions, I take it.”
“No…”
“He tends to leave that part out. See, I’m strongest when I’m first healed so I need to start crossing names off of my father’s list,” Thorne says and opens the cedar wood door to his bed chambers.
“Nothing about this makes sense!” I exclaim. Thorne turns to look at me with crossed arms. “And I’m not going in there.”
He rolls his eyes.
“Prince Aleksander said he wants your fealty. He wants you complacent in my torture, the managing of my curse, my executions, and all things me related,” he gestures at himself.
“I’m a knight, not an errand boy,” I assert.
“You’ll be dead if you do not do what he asks,” Thorne reasons and drops my jacket from his shoulders to the floor.
“Why is he torturing you?” I ask, exasperated.
“Why do you long to kill me?” He stares into me, not allowing me to avoid the question.
“If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead,” I promise him.
“Seems like we shouldn’t ask one another questions if we can’t answer each other honestly.”
With that, Thorne disappears behind his bedroom door to change clothes. He’s so casual about everything that has occurred tonight, leading me to believe it’s normal for him to be beaten nearly to death. What’s worse is that I had no idea that it was happening.
The hair on the back of my neck stands on end and I glance left and right down the hallway, squinting hard at the dark passageway at the end.
As though called forward, a veiled woman makes herself visible.
Her magic dances around her and I know she’s watching me.
My irises narrow to that of a snake as we regard one another. If she reacts, I cannot see it.
The same voice from earlier slides its way into my head again. This time, a complete prophecy:
When death slithers closer, the blade craves the bite.
The hand raised to strike will falter yet.
The Executioner is coiled, his curse holding fast.
When scars mar the innocent, turning the heart to stone,
The life meant to end will bind instead.
Dressed in sin not born of him,
The bastard prince finds solace upon the throne of his kin.
Or will the Serpent become the Executioner’s salvation?
I bristle, knowing now that the voice speaking to me is that of Queen Ivy Shadowfall.