Chapter 50
Tethys gazed upon the vast fields of snowpack and ice from an arched windowsill. Fire roared in the hearth beside her, but only frigid flames cast light across her bedchamber’s walls. She braced against the sill, long black locks curtaining her face as she huffed a sigh.
Tethys knew then she wasn’t herself. This wasn’t her memory, but of the woman who came in haunted dreams.
“You’re just as much of a coward as our father was.” The queen scowled. With her chin tipped slightly, she paced the room, her black heels clicking on the cold wood floorboards. “All you’ve ever wanted was my title—the crown’s title for yourself.”
Tethys watched from the window, keeping the snowy fields fixed in the corner of her eye.
“That’s not true, Adria, and we both know it, but you’ve let Ursae crumble. Reopen our trade routes with the other realms. Our people are starving and freezing, and yet you sit here in this godsforsaken castle with a full belly and warm furs.”
“Shut your treasonous mouth!” she hissed, jutting her skeletal index finger toward Tethys. “I should throw you in the dungeons for your defiance.”
Tethys’s fists curled around her chair’s velvet armrest.
“My defiance? Sister, for once in your life, please just listen to me. Ursae will die if you don’t reopen those routes,” Tethys cried. If only she could burrow through Adria’s icy walls, maybe then she could be reasoned with.
“Last I checked, I am the northern queen, not you. So, know your place.” The queen’s vicious bite sank its teeth into Tethys’s skin, practically drawing blood. She turned on her heels and unlatched the door. “Don’t bother coming to tonight’s celebration. Festival is better off without you.”
“It’s no wonder even your son hates you, Adria. You’re cruel—always have been and always will be,” Tethys seethed. “You’re a terrible queen. Good thing our mother is long since dead, she’d be so fucking ashamed of what you’ve become.”
Adria stopped in the open-door frame and glanced over her shoulder, eyes burning with lethal hatred. “She was never any mother of yours, sister. She despised you. Why do you think we always locked you in your nursery?”
The queen approached, her footfalls cutting through the frigid wall between them. “Why do you think when I had new dresses, you were left my hand me downs? Or why I got the finest porcelain dolls for my birthday and you received nothing?”
Rage bubbled in Tethys’s belly as Adria continued, closing the distance between them until their noses just brushed.
“You are an abomination in this world and I wish you were dead, Elpis,” Adria whispered, her breath an arctic blast across Tethys’s cheek.
Violent whispers licked up Tethys’s throat, leaving a blazing trail of venom in their wake. She gritted her teeth, stifling the fury just enough to keep her vision from tunneling. Adria grasped her shoulders, digging her sharpened nails into flesh.
A droplet of blood trailed down Tethys’s arm and splattered to the floor.
“Why don’t you do the realm a favor and kill yourself now before you bring us all to ruin?” Adria whispered.
Tethys lunged for her then, letting the dam break.
The flood of violent thoughts drowned her mind as she wrapped her claws around Adria’s neck.
She squeezed, tighter and tighter until the queen’s complexion whitened.
Panic flashed in Adria’s eyes, but Tethys refused to release her hold.
She burned in the darkness blazing from within.
Tingles rushed through her veins, sending her pulse boiling up her throat.
Tethys didn’t care that Adria begged for breath or that she fought against the hold.
All that mattered was squeezing every last breath of life from the queen’s lungs.
She was done letting Adria’s vicious words shred her apart.
Years of abuse fueled the violet flames emulating from her fingertips.
The light twisted around Adria’s long, delicate neck, contorting it in shadows.
“Please, Elpis—sister. Let me go,” Adria choked, ragged tears streaming from her muted eyes.
“The Ursaeans are better off without you. Vikar is better off without you,” Tethys growled, feeling the life flood from Adria’s lips.
The walls sizzled around them, time stopped, and Tethys knew then she’d succumbed to the darkness—the demon waiting for an escape. She closed her eyes, refusing to watch the last remnants of the memory play out.