Chapter Fourteen- A Life Paid for a Life Owed #2
“The Prince of Frostguard has threatened you all after discovering my identity and failing to accomplish his assignment.” There’s no point in hiding the truth. “I have no doubt you can protect yourselves but it’s what I came here to inform you of.”
I’m standing now, humbling myself before the council who may decide that I’ve put them at too much risk. That I’d be better off dead.
“You are playing dangerousss games with the Arcanistssss!” Scixt erupts. She just wants revenge and I am not surprised.
“I am one of them too, just as much as I am one of you,” I retort. “This is a personal vendetta, not one on behalf of Frostguard. I can assure you all of that.”
“If the ice prince setsssss foot in our land, we will kill him,” Sylvithria decrees.
“That’s why he needed to lure the boys out,” I nod.
“How would he know that they matter to you?” Lienit asks.
“Prince Caelthar has the ability to dig into the minds of others. It’s how he located me in the first place.” My shoulders drop.
“Thisss is your mess to fix,” Scixt sneers and stomps off.
“Fangborne Scixt, halt!” Sylvithria booms. Her magic stops the serpent in her steps. “You will attend this meeting with integrity, no matter your personal shame. Now ssssit.” The matriarch points to Scixt’s rock. She has no choice; her body obeys.
Even my cheeks blush at the word shame. All of the Fangbornes are ancient and it is not uncommon for them to mate with younger serpents.
It’s just the fact that I am not genetically a true serpent that makes the whole thing weird.
I am a baby by serpent years but a full adult Arcanist. The line is blurred ethically for them.
“I will take care of Caelthar and I will get my brothers back,” I vow before the Council of Eight.
As if on cue, a howl of pain erupts from the woods across the clearing, and then becomes one word that turns all attention to me.
“Harrow!” It’s Jacks, screaming as though he were an avenging angel and I his target.
The worst part: his brother lying limp in his arms.
A frenzy of movement happens at once. Some of the council slink into their snake forms to race towards Jacks, others sprint towards him on foot. When I try to go to him, Sylvithria grabs my arm, digging her nails into my skin.
“Who have you bound your life to?”
“What?”
“I sense it within you, for it hassss weakened your bond to your brothers,” she accuses. “That is why you didn’t sssssense that they were in danger.”
“I didn’t…” I pull from her grasp. Guilt settles in the pit of my stomach. My hand tingles, as though the ache to reach for Thorne has rooted itself beneath my skin.
“You might have gone to them first, you might have known.” She shakes her head and it reminds me of the first time I’ve ever seen her disappointed in me. When she learned of my chosen career as an assassin and a thief. My forked tongue moistens my lips as I try to form words.
My life was not bound to Jacks and Cain, but Sylvithria granted us a special kind of mental bond to keep us close and safe amongst humans. Amongst Arcanists. Her beloved human children. She is the only one who knows about the bond.
She says nothing else, only allows me to run to my brothers.
“You!” Jacks clammers to his feet from where he was hunched over Cain.
I allow him to tackle me to the ground at full speed, if only to allow him to vent his frustration.
His strawberry blond hair is matted and tangled, he smells awful, and his knuckles are already scabbed when he reels back and punches me in the jaw.
My head snaps to the side and he hits me again until pain explodes in my nose, definitely breaking it. Before he can hit me a third time, I grab his wrists and use my legs to launch him off of me.
“I tried calling out to you!” He screams as he recovers. The leaves of the forest floor leave bloody scrapes on his bony elbows where he landed.
I wipe the blood from my face where it cascades down my chin. The pain from my nose causes my vision to blur in and out.
“I came to help!” I try to reason with him. I try not to look at Cain.
“That vile fucking ice prince froze him from the inside!” He bellows, his voice cracking.
My eyes widen, but there’s a spark of hope mixed with the horror. My Stygian magic gives me an affinity for fire. I hurry to my brother, ignoring whatever Jacks is saying.
Blume is the Fangborne with the best healing abilities and she is working desperately to keep his heart beating. It is beating!
Cain is pale, his lips blue. I touch his body and it’s as if he’s dead. He’s stiff from the cold as though his soul has already departed his body. No.
“Cain,” I mumble and hold his head in my hands. It lolls to the side, his chest barely rising and falling. “Back up,” I tell everyone who surrounds him.
I begin to raise my body temperature, hotter than I can stand it until sweat beads on my forehead, until it feels like I’m being boiled alive.
I lay across my brother, trying to force the heat into him.
Flames come to life in my palms but I can’t touch him without burning him.
My only hope is the heat will be enough to thaw him, to save him.
I can’t hear what Fangborne Blume is saying nor can I hear Jacks above the roaring in my ears.
We all wait, hoping.
I feel the second his heart stops. I feel it like a crashing tide against my consciousness.
I feel the moment my magic loses against Caelthar’s.
In that moment, Cain’s human form gives way.
He returns to a coiled cobra, lifeless in my arms. His familiar brown and copper scales cause my heart to seize. I haven’t seen them in years.
The scream that leaves Jacks is neither human nor animal as he falls to his knees. I lay Cain before me in the grass and scramble backward, unable to accept the truth.
Cain is dead.
Cain is dead.
Cain is dead.
The legion of snakes begin to communicate across our masses.
I cover my ears as if I can stop the chant which is moving through my mind.
Stop, I beg them.
Just as tears spring to my eyes, Jacks grabs me by my hair.
I don’t fight back because I need the pain.
Strands pull free of my scalp, offering my emotional pain a physical outlet.
He shoves me to the ground, ripping a hand full of hair from the crown of my head.
I suck air through my teeth and welcome his incoming assault with a smile.
“Come on!” I scream at him, kneeling in the dirt. This isn’t me, antagonizing my brother in his time of grief, but it silences the snakes communicating in my head.
He reels back and kicks me in my ribs. I feel bone splinter and crack inside of me and the air leaves my lungs with a harsh oomph. I remain in the dirt, my breathing heavy due to the broken rib and nose. Jacks reels his foot back again.
It’s Vryss who stops him, grabbing him around his entire body and pinning his arms to his side. My brother is wrecked with grief, feral. He spits at me.
“The Ice Prince sent me with a message for you, Serpent of Netherhelm,” he looks at me in disgust, thrashing against Vyrss. “A life paid for a life owed, you leave me no choice but to end the Executioner Prince myself,” he mocks the ice prince’s cockney northern accent.
There’s a brief silence as I blink through pain and disbelief. Then Scixt speaks.
“Your Arcanist affairssss have brought death to the Venomwoods!” She kicks dirt at me. Fair.
“His actions have brought death to Cain, not to the ressst of us.” It’s Kigon who speaks up.
“Cain wasssss one of us!” Scixt reasons.
“Yes, but he also chose to present himself as human and live partially in their world.” Kigon folds his hands behind his back and the sleek scales on his biceps flex.
Sylvithria remains silent, taking in the situation.
“This is a direct result of his relationship with the human serpent child,” Kigon adds and turns to Vyrss.
“Cain was one of mine, but he was also one of theirs.” He points towards the human villages in the east. He finally releases Jacks who sneers at me.
It’s customary to let the serpent lie and rest where it dies. To rot and return to Xeusis in full from the spot in which life was lost. A silent acceptance settles over the council, over the matriarch as they gather around Cain’s lifeless snake form.
I don’t try to join in as they whisper over his corpse.
I pull my knees to my chest with a wince, knowing the pain isn’t penance enough for this.
Cain is dead, and not because I failed to kill Thorne.
I did kill him. He’s dead because of Caelthar’s insecurity, his fear that Thorne will fight him for the crown of Frostguard.
As if Netherhelm would even allow that. The whole thing is stupid and somehow I’ve landed right in the middle. Only for it to cost me my brother.
Rage, hot and familiar rises inside of me. I know that I will kill Caelthar for this—it’s just a matter of how to display his corpse on the steps of his palace. The thought of his entrails hanging from the walls brings a cruel smile to my lips.
Not only will I free Thorne of the Titan’s Kyanite, but I will unleash him upon both Netherhelm and Frostguard.