24
Kora
Kora’s heart pounded in her ears as she descended the wide staircase.
Her boots were near silent, as she followed her path back to the ballroom she’d fled a week ago.
Sunlight filtered through the iron-paned windows, breathing life into the warm walls.
It was unlike anything she’d ever seen, a true old-age castle from before the Galenite War.
Pearls, opals, and moonstones embedded the floor, encased with resin.
The walls painted over with what Kora could only describe as pure sunrise.
Tapestries and portraits lined every hallway she stalked on the ground level, seeking a familiar face.
Hopefully Aryn. Endless generations of the Windward family, stern paintings of memories lived within these walls, all framed by a white wooden loom with gold brushed along the top.
Kora paused by one. Unlike the others, the little girl in it had her eyes closed, surrounded by a field of lilac flowers.
The skies behind her danced, pink hues shimmering, curling into her braided blonde hair.
Kora continued, her breaths coming in quick and shallow as she wrestled with her anxiety begging her to return to her room, to hide under the cream blanket soaked with grief-laden tears.
But she could hide no longer, wallow in her grief no more. She needed to fight this darkness lingering inside her.
Samuel needed her, Theron and Ivar needed her.
She needed to see Erick, she needed answers to long-buried truths.
To know what had happened ten years ago when she’d been ripped from her life.
She pivoted down a hallway past the ballroom, the furniture oddly pushed and stacked against walls.
Plants had withered and died, left in porcelain pots with sweeping patterns painted on the white base.
“Erick Cadell must be killed at once!” a chilling voice thundered through the walls.
Kora’s gut twisted, her mouth drying as she sprinted down the wide hallway towards an open set of towering doors made from pure, untarnished platinum. They were oddly out of place with the remaining décor of Windspire, and blinding bright light beamed from the chamber they led to.
“Father, welcome home.” Aerion’s voice was distinct, his jovial tone muted, and he spoke with calm reverence.
Kora hovered by the entrance, the windowless hallway a saving grace as she peered into the chamber. Harsh sunlight bathed the domed room, a ring of windows making it near impossible to see as she shielded her eyes.
Her heart jumped at Raiden kneeling on a thick, white carpet, gold lining the trim.
His head hung low, one hand resting on the hilt of his favoured short sword with intriguing etchings.
A male sat in one of the moonstone thrones, resting casually as his purple cloak spilled onto the dais floor.
He bore riding leathers, his frame wide and tall, and equally as muscled as Raiden.
The family resemblance was uncanny, the male’s features an aged replica of Skylar and Aerion standing either side of him.
The same slender features, dark brown eyes, light brown skin, except he possessed a full head of long, gleaming white hair.
Half had been tied up in a knot, and fanned across his shoulders and down his back.
“Respectfully, Father, Erick Cadell is here as a fugitive to the empire. He’ll be dealt with appropriately when he awakes.” Raiden’s voice was hoarse, his confidence dimmed.
When he awakes? What was wrong with Erick?
“Only members of my court shall address me during an audience,” the Windward patriarch retorted. Kora swallowed the lump in her throat as everyone stood to attention, sneering down at Raiden still kneeling, staring at the floor, his shoulders so tense they bulged through his shirt.
What in the gods? A brush of heat rushed to the surface, coiling her body tight. Raiden’s head moved ever so slightly, his chin dipping to the side.
“You shouldn’t be here, Huntress.”
How did he know she was there? Frustration rose within Kora, her mind hazing out the noise as she tentatively stepped forward.
They were discussing Erick’s life in there.
Raiden’s father—Zephyr, she recalled—wanted him dead.
And despite Erick’s faults, all his lies, his betrayal, Kora would defend it with her own.
She knew deeply, since the rescue where he’d nearly died on Bone Rattler, that she couldn’t sacrifice the only family she had.
Agatha would’ve wanted him to survive, just as he’d kept her alive until her end.
“There’s been evidence that Erick fought back against the empire. He desires to aid us in our cause,” Aerion added, his hands clasped together behind his back.
“That’s the same lie he spewed last time, and he left us with less than nothing!” Zephyr’s voice was loud, bouncing around the chamber. A boom resembling a firing cannon.
“We cannot do anything until he recovers, Father,” Skylar spoke gently, reaching round a vacant throne to rest her hand on Zephyr’s shoulder. He briefly touched it, his weathered face crinkling with the smallest of smiles at his daughter, before removing her hand.
“How long has he slept?”
“Two weeks. He shows no signs of awakening,” a voice squeaked from the right side of the room. Kora squinted against the sun—a healer. She recognised them from their daily visits.
Erick had been in a coma for two weeks.
Kora’s mind spun. She’d been so selfish again, crying into her cloud-like luxury pillows whilst he’d suffered.
She’d been fearing her dreams, when his had been stolen.
She hadn’t visited him once, unable to face him, or the truths that may have spilled from his lips.
Except this whole time he’d been on the cusp of death, incapable of granting her the answers.
She was still a fool.
Raiden twitched. “You needed to recover. You can’t be there for everyone.”
Frustration boiled into anger at the connection burning between her and Raiden.
At how in-tune he was to her feelings. Why did he even care?
Why was he trying to console her when he’d made it clear she needed fixing.
A broken thing to mend into something—someone else.
To erase her identity and replace it with someone pretty and shiny new.
Well, fuck this.
Kora stormed forward and audible gasps rang from the crowd on the right.
Raiden immediately straightened, the tendons in his neck pulsing as Kora stopped at his side, glaring up at Zephyr.
Was he a king? Was she supposed to bow? She didn’t care, and straightened her spine further before lifting her chin in defiance.
Zephyr’s gaze whipped to her scar, his mouth sneering, which only incensed her red haze, demanding retribution for daring to stare.
“Bow before he makes you,” Raiden urged, a rare tremble overcoming him.
Kora didn’t move. She met Zephyr’s doe-like stare, so eerily similar to his children beside him.
His jaw ground as he waited for Kora to bow, but instead, she folded her arms before popping her hip, recalling her captain’s flourish.
He was no king of hers. He clearly ruled with an iron fist, and his dark eyes caused revulsion to boil within Kora, as though he internally taunted her with his desire to sentence Erick.
The throne to Zephyr’s right caught her eye. Identical to the one he lounged in, but empty except for a glistening palladium crown and a single, purple iris flower.
Zephyr raised one finger and a crushing current of air swept over her.
Kora groaned as her knees buckled, but she still refused to bow, forcing herself to keep her spine straight.
Her body wasn’t fully healed yet, her bones still brittle, and every second she spent resisting his power, the agony increased tenfold.
Zephyr’s stare darkened and he raised a second finger.
Kora cried out as her knees slammed into the carpet, a band of air strapping across her back, forcing her head to the ground.
“Stop!” Raiden yelled.
“Do not speak to me,” Zephyr replied with as much enthusiasm as a bilge rat.
“Enough, Your Highness,” Aryn’s wise voice echoed around the room as he appeared at Kora’s side.
Within a moment, Zephyr’s magic ceased and Kora sucked in a shaky breath, her limbs quivering.
His power rivalled Barron’s, his manipulation of the wind reminding her of Barron’s inky, dark tentacles snaking around her until she could no longer breathe.
She choked down a growl. She’d once been at the mercy of males choking her, now they manipulated her with their magic. Forcing her body to yield, to succumb because they saw her either as a weapon, or their enemy.
Kora would prove to them all that she was so much more. That she didn’t need a male’s approval, that nothing would stand in her way of protecting those she loved, and ensuring the darkness infecting the islands would be burned into Umbra and beyond.
“She disrespects Haizea’s heir. She must be punished,” Hector spat from his side of the chamber. Kora reined in her distress at the thought of being shackled once again. Aryn glared across the room, and Kora wrinkled her nose at the pirate who’d made it his personal mission to ruin her.
Zephyr waved a hand and Hector’s mouth slammed shut. “Do not forget your place, Hector. You may be King of Pirates, but I am King of Galen. I offered your people sanctuary on my island as a new home, to coincide peacefully. It does not mean you have the right to authority within my royal chamber.”
Raiden’s fists clenched beside Kora as she wrapped a hand around Aryn’s surprisingly strong arm, using his body for stability as she continued to tremble. Yet, something about what Zephyr mentioned sparked in the back of her mind. Peril Cove had fallen over two hundred years ago . . .
“Your Majesty,” Hector hesitated, glancing at the three of them on the carpet. “I’d never cross that line. She’s not the same as she once was, she must be contained. She’s stolen from us.”
The tremors grew violent and Aryn leaned closer, amber and cypress washing over Kora.
She was safe. She wasn’t with Barron. She wasn’t in a dungeon.
Just breathe.
“Are you a healer, Hector? Do you understand the complexities of the mind? No, you do not. Remember, we have all lost something.” Zephyr’s fingers brushed the throne beside him.
His gaze swivelled back to her and she tried not to vomit from the weight of it.
“Now, what do you wish to say, Kordelia Jones?”
“I’m here to represent Erick Cadell as his next of kin. I will speak for him.” Relief sang through her at the clarity of her voice as she ignored the sting of her old name.
Zephyr sat back, an amused curve playing with his lips. “You desire to maintain your relationship to the male who destroyed your life?”
“Erick has proven his loyalty. He kept me alive for ten years . . . I could’ve ended up in Barron’s clutches instead.
He hid me for as long as possible, trained me to survive.
He atoned daily for his actions, and he’s suffered enough already.
” Kora glanced at the pirates in the room.
Had one of them killed Eleanore? Had any of these people been involved in the rebel’s retaliatory attack?
“I see.” Zephyr’s fingers drummed the armrest of the throne, his stare sliding from her, to Raiden, and back. “As his declared kin, you can offer your life in place of his.”
Time stopped. “I . . . what?”
Shouts rang from the pirates, their feet stamping in that all-too-familiar wave of sound. The sound of sorrow, of a crew’s demand for justice, to reap what they’d once lost.
“Hang her!” a pirate cried.
“Aye! Kill the hunter!”