Chapter 22 #2
Bane shoots desperate attacks at us to keep us all back, but we are all gaining ground on him. Leaping and twisting, I zigzag across the grass while walls of ice shoot towards me.
Isera gets closer.
Panic flashes across Bane’s features as he yanks up shields to protect himself.
A shard of ice shoots through the air.
And slices him across the cheek.
He gasps. Blood slides down his skin as a red cut opens up across his cheek.
“Now!” I scream, and make as if to lurch forward.
Bane snaps his gaze to me.
Isera rams a spear through his chest.
His black eyes widen in shock as the sharp ice pierces his body.
Somewhere outside, Jessina lets out a screech of raw panic.
Orion and I surge forward right as Isera lunges at Bane again. Leaping forward, she tackles him while driving the ice spear deeper into his chest. A choked breath rips from his throat.
Toppling backwards with Isera on top of him, he crashes back-first down on the ground with utter shock still flashing across his face.
He tries to slam up an attack with his own ice magic, but Isera quickly dismisses the spear in his chest and instead blocks his attack with a shield of her own.
Ice shatters as Bane’s shards slam into her solid defense.
Orion and I throw ourselves the final distance across the ground right as Isera summons an ice dagger and drives it straight towards Bane’s throat.
“Wait!” I scream, grabbing her wrist right before the dagger can find its mark.
She whips her head towards me, and the sheer fury on her face makes me flinch and jerk back. It looks like she’s going to kill me.
On her other side, Orion searches Bane’s body in a mad fury until he finds something that looks like an hourglass that hangs from his belt.
“You—” Isera growls in my face.
“Remember the plan!” I snap before she can finish threatening to kill me. “I swear to you, you will deal the final blow. But we need the location first.”
Some measure of sanity returns to her face, and she whirls back to Bane. I suck in a sharp hiss when she moves the ice dagger to his throat anyway. But thankfully, she just presses it against his skin in warning instead of stabbing him with it.
Bane, however, barely even seems to notice. And he doesn’t need the extra warning.
Because he is already dying.
That massive spear pierced his chest and left such a huge hole that it can’t be fixed without a healer.
His body convulses, and he coughs blood onto his fine silver garments.
“Orion!” I yell. “Hurry!”
If he dies before we can finish this, the rest of our plan will die with him.
The Unseelie King lets out a hiss as he grabs that hourglass, which is apparently made of iron. Gritting his teeth, he yanks it away from Bane and throws it across the ground.
Summoning my magic, I immediately try pushing it towards him. But I don’t create a new emotion. I just search for ones that are already there. Because if I create an emotion from nothing and shove it into his chest, I know that I won’t be able to stop. And that will risk our entire plan.
Relief hits me when my magic makes it through. That hourglass thing must have been what kept the shield in place around him.
I shove my magic towards Bane in rapid bursts to see what sticks, and jerk back in shock when I find a pale pink spark of sympathy burning in his chest. Following his gaze, I notice that he is looking up at Orion’s eyepatch.
Latching on to that spark of sympathy, I start increasing it steadily since that will keep Bane from trying to attack us. Not that he is in any state to do so regardless. But better to be sure.
Next to me, Orion straightens again and his eye begins to glow as he starts to rapidly flip through Bane’s memories. He’s not showing Bane any of them. Just looking for one specific memory. The location of the Soul of Trees.
Isera is still crouched above Bane’s chest, keeping her ice dagger firmly against his throat. Fury and vengeance burn in her eyes. He coughs and looks between the three of us. Deep sympathy now lines his features as I continue to increase that emotion in his chest.
“Perhaps,” he begins, then he coughs again. Blood sprays into the air and then runs down from the corner of his mouth. He drags in an unsteady breath and tries again. “Perhaps… our revenge… got a little out of hand.”
A low snarl rumbles from Isera’s chest, and she presses her ice blade harder against his throat. The signal is clear. She doesn’t want his explanations or apologies. All she wants is revenge.
Emperor Bane drags in another strained breath and tilts his head back, looking up at the open sky above instead of at us.
“At first, we just wanted our freedom. But I was so angry about all the years that the fae took from us.” He coughs again, staining the collar of his silver shirt even more red.
His chest shakes as he draws in another labored breath.
“So it became less about freedom and more about revenge.”
“But that was generations ago,” I retort, my voice hard and merciless, while I still continue to increase that flame of sympathy in his chest. The sympathy that is no doubt the reason why he is admitting all of this now.
“We didn’t do any of that. We weren’t guilty of any of those crimes against you. ”
“I know.” He tilts his head back down to meet my gaze.
But then his body convulses, and he coughs for a long time before he manages to drag in another shuddering breath.
“But it was just so hard to stop. Once we finally had power, we just wanted more. Even over our own race. The other dragon clans. Because they hadn’t suffered the way we had.
They hadn’t been slaves like we had. So we deserved to rule for once. ”
His words echo my own thoughts from just a few weeks ago, before I had my little breakdown in the Osteria family’s house after I almost killed Ferver’s sister and mother just because they were members of the Silver Clan.
My stomach turns and nausea crawls up my throat.
I have no problem being a villain to my enemies.
But it terrifies me how close I was to becoming exactly like the Icehearts.
“And the more power we got,” Bane continues, his voice hoarse and strained.
“The more people obeyed us without question, the harder it was to stop.” Another wet cough racks his chest again, and his eyes slide in and out of focus a few times before settling on me.
“You have no idea how intoxicating, how addictive, power can be.”
A cold hand grips my heart, squeezing so hard that I can barely breathe through the sudden panic. Because I know exactly how addictive power can be. I’m struggling with the magical effects of it as we speak.
I flick my gaze between Orion and Isera, desperately hoping that neither of them noticed. Thankfully, Isera is still only glaring down at Bane, and Orion is still frantically flipping through the emperor’s memories in search of any trace of the Soul of Trees.
“Orion,” Isera growls.
“Not yet,” he replies, his eye still glowing.
Stress courses through my veins like lightning as I look down at Bane again.
His eyes are sliding in and out of focus, and half of his silver shirt is now red with blood that wells up from the wound in his chest. He looks half delirious, even without the huge flame of sympathy I’m manipulating in his chest.
“I think,” he begins. Then he coughs again. This time, it takes him even longer to catch his breath and focus once more. And when he does, there is a wet gurgling sound as he sucks in a strangled breath. “Perhaps the millennia…”
“Orion,” I push while alarm crackles through me. If Bane dies, we will never get a second shot at this. We will never find the Soul of Trees.
“…have messed with our minds a little bit,” Bane mumbles, blood bubbles popping at his lips. “Six thousand years is a long time. Too long. I can feel it… weighing on my—”
“Found it!” Orion snaps.
Isera rams her ice blade straight into Bane’s throat.
He chokes, his eyes almost bulging out of his head.
I pull my magic back at the same time as Orion’s eye stops glowing. Then we just stand there, watching Isera twist her ice blade inside Bane’s throat with a snarl on her face until his body is spasming violently.
Then at last, the final light fades in his eyes.
And Emperor Bane Iceheart dies.
Isolated, vulnerable, and surrounded by enemies.
Isera gasps out a breath, as if she hasn’t been breathing for months, and scrambles off his body while a storm of emotions pulses like shockwaves on her face.
A world-shattering, animalistic scream from a dragon’s throat shatters through the air.
I whip my head towards the invisible wards around the Unseelie Court.
Jessina, still in her dragon form, shrieks with such raw agony that my skin prickles and the blood freezes in my veins.
She throws her head from side to side, that screech echoing across the plains.
Then she goes completely berserk.