Chapter 122 Rhea
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Two: Rhea
The screams that follow in my wake bounce harmlessly off of me, my magic cocooning me from the nobles’ judgment.
Though this half of my magic is cold and lifeless, I wrap it around me like a cloak, knowing that I need to find the king before the castle is overwhelmed with guards.
Wisps of black shiver around me at the thought, something eager taking root in the fissure that has split me in two.
The daggers in my hands pulse in time to the beat of my heart, that icy numbness spreading like a winter’s chill as I near a new corridor, and the king’s name comes tumbling from someone’s mouth.
“—Dolian knows. He knows about everything,” a male says, his tone giving away his panic. I slow my steps, pushing my shadows back as I press myself up against the wall, my ears perked.
“Xander’s going to be fucking pissed,” a deeper, raspier voice responds. “And keep your voice down.”
The two men drop their conversation to just above a whisper, and I get as close as I can to the corner to hear it.
“—he’ll kill them all.”
“If he ever manages to leave his rooms. The prick has been hiding in there since his return—”
The king is in his rooms. I step out into the juncture of the hallway, ignoring the men, and instead, turning left.
Though my exploration of the castle has been minimal, I know that I need to find the main entranceway.
If I can make it there, I can figure out how to get to the third floor, which not only holds my rooms—what were my rooms—but the king’s as well.
As I walk, aware there are screams of terror that surround me as people cling to walls or run in the other direction, I think about what it will be like to finally threaten the king to his face.
To perhaps pull on the rage that had been born of Alexi, Immie, and Tienne’s deaths and use that as an anchor within me to power me through it.
I do not think the king will beg for his life.
In fact, a sick part of me wonders if he will enjoy a death at my hands if only because I’ll be touching him willingly.
But as the stairs that I’ve climbed a hundred times finally show themselves, I find that everything surrounding the king’s impending demise feels oddly anticlimactic.
King Dolian has been such a large presence in my life—an unshakable sickness that has slowly rotted me piece by piece until I’ve turned into the very thing I once feared, yet he is also just a man.
No magic of his own. Nothing but his guards and a deal with a siren queen that seems more beneficial to her than him.
I climb the first handful of steps as I focus on drawing just enough breath that I don’t pass out, my head still fuzzy and the shadows still surrounding me, when my name is called out from below.
“Rhea!”
Looking over my shoulder, I meet a set of blue eyes that give a temporary resurrection of my broken heart, fear and joy mingling together as I take her in.
She stands in the open door that leads to this main foyer, the night sky a dark backdrop behind her.
“Eve,” I breathe, my magic drawing in a fraction as we stare at each other.
“Lady Rhea.” Her hands work nervously in front of her, a small thing, but it makes me more aware of how I must look than any reactions from the nobles and guards did, though they all seem to be hiding now.
“What are you doing here?” I ask as I turn around.
Eve takes in the way my magic surrounds and clings to me, a dress made of darkness for a woman barren of light, yet her expression shows no disgust. No judgement of any kind. Instead, she quirks her lips, which can’t be right because why would she smile at a monster?
“Did you really think I was just going to leave during your most important moment?”
I descend a single step, my fingers twitching around the daggers’ hilts. “I’m not going to marry the king,” I say, my voice wrong to my own ears. Eve notices the change in it too, and a look that I might have called proud gives way to concern.
“Of course, you aren’t. I was talking about your escape.”
Her lavender tunic shines beneath the flames of the chandeliers above, and the magic that flares for the briefest second isn’t frigid or numbing but…
warm. Just a flicker of it—no bigger than a candle flame—but I feel it come to life as our gazes hold, and I realize just how much I have missed her presence.
“You are supposed to be visiting your family.”
“And I was,” she counters, pushing away from the door. “But I didn’t feel right leaving you after…” She trails off, and I know we’re both back in King Dolian’s room at the moment I realized just what he was doing to her. What he had been doing to her.
“I’m sorry, Eve. I’m so sorry.” The words are not nearly enough, as if anything I say could make up for her suffering.
Her gaze softens, and it’s worse than when the king laid his hands on me because I don’t deserve her kindness. “There is nothing for yo—”
Eve’s body jerks forward abruptly, the motion strange and her accompanying gasp just as unnatural in its sound.
I’m so busy scanning her face—her expression twisted into outright horror—that it takes me a moment to recognize the metal that glints in front of her.
To absorb that it’s the bloodied tip of a sword protruding from her chest. Her eyes only grow wide for a breath—a single blink where her body reacts to the invasion of the weapon.
The blade retreats, and she collapses, the scene all too familiar in a way that pushes a fractured sob past my lips.
My vision flashes, replacing Eve’s body with Alexi’s, the pooling of their blood merging together in my mind’s eye as I rush down the stairs.
I reach for the warmth of my healing magic, fanning that small flame as I call it to my hands, the daggers melting away until only white glows.
But someone else is standing over her body, his eyes glaring at me and a savage smirk already painted on his face. Simon takes a step closer, holding a guard’s sword out in front of him as he stares down at the blood—Eve’s blood—spreading away from her body and towards his shoes.
No. No, this isn’t happening. Not again.
Not with Eve. Eve, who had endured the king’s vile attention and unwanted touch.
Who took in my somber attitude and judgement of her blood oath and still tried to befriend me.
Who showed me the tunnels and a way to the library because she knew I needed a place to escape, even if it was still within these stone walls.
Eve, who isn’t supposed to fucking be here! She isn’t supposed to be here!
I had tried—gods, how I had tried—to be someone worthy of this life.
Of the magic in my veins and the responsibility needed to wield it.
But there is no hesitation, no stopping the way I send the shadows out like whips, wanting him to suffer, my scream burning a savage path up my throat until I’m sure the whole world will hear it.
Simon’s stance shifts before the first onyx rope strikes him, as if he means to avoid it.
But my magic is faster, and it lashes at his chest with a brutality that can’t be explained, only felt.
I don’t watch him fall as I rush to Eve, kneeling and pretending I don’t feel her blood soaking through the fabric of my dress.
“You can’t save her,” Simon taunts with a pained laugh, turning to watch as I scoop her into my arms, my magic already filling her body.
I don’t lift a hand as shadows lash at him again, my intention to hurt him but not yet kill him.
His pained scream is nothing but an echo as I keep my focus on my friend, sure that I can save her.
That this time is different because how could it not be?
I am right here— But this close, I can see her wound more clearly.
It isn’t at the center of her chest, where there are no fewer vital things, but slightly off to the right.
Directly through her heart. Intentionally placed for instant death, and that knowledge slithers through me like poison.
Eve’s lips turn blue, and though her body feels warm beneath my touch, it is artificial. I don’t blink away any tears because there are none left in me to shed. There is just this void, empty and fathomless and eternal as it beckons me deeper into it.
Simon’s laugh is cruel, even as it wheezes from his chest. “You’ll never fucking escape him. You will never be queen of the Mage Kingdom, and I hope you remember what it is to fail like this over and over again.”
My hands are steady as I gently lay Eve down, her hands crossing her stomach as I commit her sweet face to memory.
Another failure. Another life. I lay my forehead against hers, and for all the sadness and rage that I know brews within me like a storm somewhere in the distance, when I rise, blood clinging to my skin and heavy in the fabric of my dress, I feel nothing but that ancient magic.
That knowing feeling. That brutal urge to end and decay and rot.