Chapter Twenty- I Watched You Let Me Die #2
The sounds of Thorne’s victims dull to a roar, distant.
Drowned out by the blood rushing in my ears as I turn my attention to Aleksander.
He’s climbed higher in the tree, trying desperately to cast the spell I once heard his father use.
The one tethered to Thorne’s collar. But when the metal of the collar flares, it instead bows in response to Thorne’s magic as he drains the life from the knights who once served him.
Somewhere beyond the Enchanted Tree Garden, chaos has erupted as war plans are drafted to respond to Frostguard. How did they break the wards? Surely the King and the rest of the advisors are looking for Prince Aleksander, given that he oversees the military aspects of Netherhelm.
I release a torrent of snakes and send them up the tree with a smirk. Briefly, Aleksander freezes. Then he gets his wits about him as Thorne argues with Reese. Why not just kill him?
Aleksander taps into his fire magic, whispering a spell that I rarely use.
A trail of flame overtakes my serpents, and I feel it in my arms as they coil inward and catch fire.
Their scales flash gold and burn bright as the fire takes over them, coiling and writhing.
But ultimately, they collapse to dust and my rage is a thing untethered.
I sprint for the tree and vault upward with ease, pulling myself up by the branches.
“Wretched Prince, how doessss it feel to ssstare death in the face?” I ask, allowing the ‘s’ sounds in my words to be drawn out as I expose my eyes. As I let him really see my true nature.
“The Serpent of Netherhelm. It’s really you,” he trembles and holds his sword out before him. I know him to be a fierce warrior; not the best, but comparable. His power comes from the army behind him. An army that can’t help him now.
Somewhere below me, a bone cracks, and a man wails. I look down to see Thorne dragging Reese to the bottom of the tree by his hair. His femur is threatening to stick out of his skin, broken beyond repair.
“You’re the High-Sword, Reese. How did you let him get the drop on you?” I tease him. “Elm, go find out what’s happening out there!” I point to the exit of the garden. He obeys and sprints back towards the palace.
Aleksander uses this moment to try and use his little fire spell on me—until I turn my attention back to him.
Flames threaten to lick across my skin, stopping just before it does: “Cease your fire attacks,” my voice is low and seductive.
My magic moves to hypnotize him, his body absorbing the command.
I can’t compel him not to attack me altogether since his Shadowfall blood makes him powerful enough to resist. But hopefully, removing an element will work in our favor. I feel Thorne watching me in awe.
“You could have done that sooner!” Thorne shouts up the tree.
“Why don’t we just discuss that for a minute!” I shout as Aleksander lunges and wraps his hands around my throat. His dark hair is tangled and there’s a wild desperation in his eyes as I fight him off. The regal prince is not here; this is a feral and desperate thing that’s been cornered.
Just then, the tree seems to grow tired of Aleksander and I wrestling within it. Its branches pluck us up gently and set us on the ground as if picking pesky lint off its suit.
My ankles sing as we hit the ground and Aleksander seizes the opportunity to attack.
“Vyrketh,” he whispers.
Jagged spikes of dark magic given solid form shoot out of the ground.
It seems that tonight I get to see what sort of dark magic Prince Aleksander prefers.
One slashes across my calf;Thorne and I wince in unison.
Aleksander doesn’t notice. I silently curse my luck that this land answers first to Shadowfall blood and that his Stygian magic knows no limits.
I jump back and slam into a large pillar of dark magic, knocking the wind out of me.
“Zenithra!” Aleksander twists his hand outward towards me. I duck low, avoiding a dark plume of Grave Fog that would send me into a psychotic spiral.
Thorne kicks Reese in the face, choosing to spare him by knocking him unconscious.
Thorne shouts some tangle of letters that turns out to be a spell. To my amazement, it’s ice magic. A wall of water slams into the older prince and solidifies into ice against his skin, causing snow blindness and disorientation.
“You could have done that sooner!” I gesture at Aleksander groaning as he burns through the layer of ice on his face and stumbles back helplessly.
I realize then that even though Aleksander is carefully locking down Thorne’s Stygian magic, his ice magic can’t be tamed. The Titaness Shivara won’t be so easily silenced by those in Xeusis’s bloodline; she does not answer to them.
“Ice magic is not something I’m actually trained to wield!” He shouts and dodges a spear of dark magic from Aleksander.
A series of bells echo through the palace, signaling that the King has called a strategy meeting with the war lords. Aleksander is needed and he looks toward the bell tower with eyes wide.
Something shatters at my feet and then at Thorne’s, a plume of purple-brown smoke rising into our faces. A fucking Transient Potion?
It tastes like pepper and lavender in my sinuses. I cough, mirroring Thorne who is rushing to my side. Shit.
This definitely means he wants to capture us, not kill us.
“Umbraveil,” I try the damned invisibility spell, cursing the Titans under my breath when it doesn’t work.
Aleksander got us, rendered us incapacitated with that potion. Who the fuck carries potions in this century? The wretch. I feel my head already swelling like a balloon, the high preparing to set in.
“Umbraveil,” Thorne claps his hands together, and I swear I see his eyeballs swirling from the drug. He grabs my arm harshly, his fingers digging into my flesh as he casts us both in invisibility.
He pushes me to sprint in front of him as we flee from the Enchanted Tree Garden.
Thorne shouldn’t have been able to cast that spell, soI retract the earlier cursing of the Titans—perhaps they are looking out.
Perhaps hitting us with that potion made Aleksander cocky enough to loosen his hold on Thorne’s leash.
“He needs to die!” Thorne screams, actually fucking screams as we rush through the trees. His frustration gives way to what must be dizziness because he stops running and leans on a tree. The invisibility spell warbles but holds.
“Yes, but if he dies now, the kingdom’s army will be scattered without a leader.”
“What about Reese?” He asks, panting. We’re both blinking furiously, trying to see through the swirling colors of the potion.
“Why didn’t you kill him?”
“Because he’s agreed to get the other key from King Dreven.” Thorne says. I carefully move towards him, my heart hammering against the potion in my bloodstream as it casts me into a dreamlike state.
I reach up and gently wipe the blood from his cheek, the tenderness of the touch causing his breath to hitch.
“Reese…” I stare at him in astonishment.
“He’s agreed to help us,” he smiles victoriously.
“Why?” I ask and pull him further into the woods. My legs are growing weak but we’ve only managed a mile between us and the Enchanted Tree Garden. We have to keep going.
“It would seem he has some… loyalties to Asterin,” Thorne stops and tugs at the hair at the nape of his neck like he does when he’s nervous, chuckling as he looks at something the drug shows only to him.
I try to think back to any interaction I’ve seen between the High-Sword and the Princess. Their avoidance of each other should have been obvious that they were in a relationship…
“Interestingly enough, Reese also has ties to the Black Lanterns,” he crosses his arms smugly. I ignore whatever hallucination is mouthing words to the right of me. It’s not real.
How did I miss Reese’s involvement?
“Are you okay?” His voice lowers. I sway on my feet and lean against a tree. The sensation of someone constricting their arms around my lungs seizes me and I gasp. For a moment, I hope it’s Thorne embracing me. But no. I try to draw breath again.
Thorne is looking at me with blown-wide pupils then jumps at something unseen over his shoulder.
He’s been beaten and brutalized yet he’s worried about me.
He’s so jaded and used to the pain that he puts on a brave face even while we’re hallucinating in the woods.
But I see the cracks in his facade. His need to break down and scream.
To curse the world, the Titans, someone for the hand he’s been dealt.
I could reach into him, still his bleeding heart and stop his pain. But that would stop his breathing, stop the color in his cheeks, the spark still behind his eyes. That would stop the way he’s looking at me.
“I survived,” I offer a meek smile. “We survived.”
Thorne seems to accept this answer and stalks forward into the darkness of the forest. I follow behind him until my legs are too weak. The concept of time isn’t something I can grasp.
Thorne turns and crosses his arms. He goes to lean against a tree to look at me, but must have imagined said tree because he misses the one behind him by three feet. His arms are slow to catch him, leaving him on his ass in the dirt.
I hold the laugh in my cheeks before letting it go and it explodes out of me, loud and true.
He looks at me in astonishment and starts laughing too.
I foolishly offer a hand to help him up and instead, he uses both of his hands to drag me to the ground.
I hit it hard with an oomph, even though I could have sworn I told my arms to catch me. Fuck.