The Poison King (The Allora Chronicles #2)

Chapter 1

Eveera

There’s a split road you come face-to-face with when thinking about death often. One that appears every time you toe the line, wondering what it’s going to take for you to cross it.

One way is the world taking you out, whether in battle or through natural causes. The other is the more selfish route – or at least that’s what people keep telling me.

I can hardly imagine many would mourn the Queen of Nightmares. In fact, I think a lot of people may even consider my death a favor.

An ache shoots from the soles of my feet up into my calf, disrupting my line of thought.

I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here, staring at the fork, but I do know it’s been long enough that they hurt.

I tried sitting down once, but the ground was so damp and cold that I nearly leapt out of my skin.

Picking up my foot, I take a painful step towards the selfish path – the natural choice for me.

“Don’t tell me that you’re seriously giving up.”

The sound of his voice sends my heart up into my throat. “Don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming,” I reply, my own sounding hoarse and gravely as I push past the lump in my throat, forcing the words out.

Blinking the tears that have welled back furiously, I lift my stare. He’s standing in front of me, those big brown eyes – soft and familiar. Axel.

“If I knew you were just going to give up and kill yourself, I wouldn’t have stepped in to save you in the first place.

I have a permanent neck ache because of you now.

” His mouth quirks up into a wry smile. A smile that now makes me physically ill.

Because I’m the one who took it away. I remind myself.

“If I’d known the version of you that was going to haunt me would have such an attitude, I would’ve made this choice a lot sooner. Save myself the trouble.”

He sighs, circling me until he’s at my back.

Both hands grip my shoulders tightly, and I flinch from how cold they are now.

No longer is the warmth that used to radiate through them there.

The nausea churns dangerously in the pit of my stomach as he pulls me back to stand squarely between the two roads.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, my voice cracking on the apology. “I’m so sorry, Ax.”

I feel the weight of his chin settle on top of my head, those cold hands leaving my shoulders so that he can instead wrap cold arms around my chest. My knees buckle into him, and he tightens his grip, refusing to let me fall.

“I made the choice, E. And it was easy.” The laugh that claws its way out of me is strangled – more of a sob, really. A messy, raw, and painful sob. Because he’s not real.

He’s not really holding me; his hands aren’t actually cold. His hands don’t even exist — they’re ash. As is the rest of him. This is all just some sick distraction from what’s really happening to me outside of my mind.

He says the choice was easy, but did he not consider what the aftermath of that choice would be? What that choice would do to me?

When my eyes opened again, it was due to the obnoxious rattling underneath my back. My head tilts side to side, showing me the same view inside the stupid carriage trunk I’ve grown so accustomed to.

Whatever road we’re going down now has dust billowing up through the slats, forcing me to cough. I try to cover my face, but I’m met with resistance, forgetting that the damn mage shackles connecting my wrists to my ankles.

My stomach dips with each rock we wheel over, the nausea I’d been experiencing in my episode unfortunately carrying over into the real world. Though, I can’t tell if the source of it is because of his shoddy operation of this carriage, or the tonic I’m force-fed daily.

“Can’t chance anything with you.” Ezra said – my Wield was too, “unpredictable.”

I’d argued that my Wield wasn’t unpredictable, that I have impeccable control over it. But he didn’t care; he just shoved the tonic down my throat and slammed the lid of the trunk closed.

That’s been the routine. Every other day, around dawn or dusk — Ezra whips open the trunk, checks the wards on my shackles, drugs me, and off we go again.

Until today.

We lurch to a sharp stop, and the carriage dips with Ezra’s weight. The crunch of footsteps echoes around me before my eyes are accosted by the bright daylight. He leans his aggravating face into the trunk, and I do my best to show with my expression the words – I will kill you.

It’s no use trying to say them out loud; the venom behind them is locked inside, thanks to his efforts in keeping me hidden. He’s made it so that I can’t speak unless he wants me to. This way, I can’t tell anyone who I am if we’re seen.

“I’m doing this for you — for us, Eveera. It’s not safe anymore. They’ll kill you.” He tried telling me the first time I was truly lucid. My scowl deepens at the memory while the unsettling sensation of his Wield – a Wield he managed to conceal for five damned years – glazes over my body.

Ezra hoists my shackled self out of the back, throwing me over his shoulder like a sack of grain. The only protest I can muster is a huff as he ushers us into the new hideout.

In the far distance, there’s the familiar sound of a bustling city, but by the looks at the terrain, it’s obviously not Obsidian.

My head hangs and shakes back and forth.

Where in the hell have you brought me this time?

The question comes out in a series of grunts and sighs, which he ignores while shoving open the old, rusted door.

My eyes flinch again at the drastic change back to darkness as the door slams behind us. The glamour of his Wield melts off once we’re safely inside. Ezra drops me down onto the hard floor and gets to work fastening me to one of the support beams.

He works quickly, his expression turning sad when he rocks back on his heels and gives my restraints a once-over.

“I’ll be back. I just need to run a few errands.”

I scoff, keeping my gaze narrowed. He squirms under the weight of it, moving away from me to stalk back towards the entrance.

With a hand resting on the knob, he looks over his shoulder at me, the sad expression still prominent.

“It really is for the best. Our journey will be over soon, and then you’ll be safe. ”

“Fuck you.” I spit.

He sighs, smoothing his face into the familiar stony appearance he kept on retainer in Obsidian. “I’ll be back soon,” is repeated for the third time, and I stick out my tongue.

“Lucky me.” My foot kicks out against the dirt floor, my head falling back against the wall.

I close my eyes again, hoping to disappear from my new quarters.

The minute they shut, a chocolate-hued stare finds me.

Usually, they would be a comfort – but they’re not the ones I want to see at the moment.

With a shake of my head, they flick away from the front of my mind, replaced by two sharp hazel irises and a mop of curly brown hair. Rorin. I think, wishing desperately that the seal between us wasn’t gone.

I assume the reason that our link’s been broken is because of the cocktail of drugs Ezra’s using on me – but a more rational side wonders if it’s the distance that’s made it go quiet.

If I focus hard enough, I can feel the warm brush of his lips against my hair, his rough hands wrapped around my body, and heat pools within me.

Some time ago, I realized that the heat pooling was actually longing.

Damn him for making me feel it. For awakening a part of me that I was sure did not exist. But with the longing for his touch, the painful unknown of what’s happened to him – or any of our men – settles in.

Are they dead? Are they alive? Are they being tortured? Who knows. I’m stuck here in another fucking building, with magic-suppressing drugs coursing through my blood and mage shackles bound to me for good measure.

What a fool I’ve been. A trusting fool who’s now stuck here, useless and fragile – my conscience chides, two things I have never been in my life.

If Vada were here, she’d waste no time chastising me for getting trapped in a position that has me at the mercy of a man who, in any normal case, would be dead before he could even register what was happening.

What a pathetic fool.

“Don’t say that.” I crack an eye open to see that my sleep has pulled me back to the crossroads, but this time it’s Orem standing in front of them.

My heart stills, my mouth falling open to speak until he raises his hand.

“If you’re going to apologize, or give me some bleeding monologue of how I never should have died – save it.

Didn’t Axel tell you that martyrdom or even humility isn’t a good look on you, Evie? ”

My lips clamp shut, and I clear my throat. “I wasn’t going to do any of that,” forcing my tone to be as monotone as I can make it, feigning boredom.

He tilts his head to the side, both eyes rolling back in his head as he takes a seat on the clammy ground, motioning for me to do the same. I groan, mumbling that the ground is cold, but he shushes me.

“You know – I’m glad it happened the way it did.”

His admission breaks the short silence that’s eased over us, and my brows furrow, waiting for him to continue and explain.

“Max, he…well, he always protected me. It was nice that I could do the same for him for once.” He sighs, his finger drawing figure eight circles in the dirt as he finds the rest of his words.

“When he joined up, all I could think about was losing him, too. Losing him in some battle or skirmish, something as dumb as the illness taking our parents.”

Orem’s chin tips back, a small smile resting on his lips. “It’s why I joined the Guard after him. Ha. He was so pissed. When he saw me walking down the halls of the barracks,” a quiet laugh leaves him, and he draws another figure eight, “gods – I don’t think I’ve ever seen his face so red.”

“I bet not.”

“He beat my ass that day.”

A hollow laugh escapes my chest at the thought of Max and Orem in a brawl. It was a scene I’d seen half a dozen times, if not more, in training. But then, it was for exactly that – training – nothing emotionally charged. “You were brave, Orem,” I note, and he shrugs.

“I just did my job.” He whispers, a tear streaking down his face. My heart twinges as I watch the droplet slide down his already pale cheek. “Couldn’t let him die, you know?”

I nod, the twinge growing stronger within me.

They’re both dead because of me – he and Axel. I’d blame it on Baelor or Eiser even, but that blame would be misplaced. Though they have plenty to be guilty for, their two deaths aren’t one of them.

No, their blood stains my hands.

I enlisted both of them in my service and agreed to go with Rorin, knowing they’d follow no matter if I asked them not to – and ultimately it was my Wield that reanimated them, turning them into something worse than anything Baelor or Eiser ever could.

My thoughts switch back to Max, who – if he’s even still alive – now has to live with the final memory of his brother’s head tumbling from his shoulders. And it was he who severed it.

Gods. Such a fool, Eveera. Such a careless, worthless, damned fool. If only you’d said no that day…