Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Burn it,” Isera presses out, her voice hoarse. Desperation pulses across her whole face as she glances to Alistair. “Alistair, please. Burn it. I need you to burn it.”
We all turn to look at her in surprise and confusion. Then understanding washes over me when I realize what she’s looking at and what she means by it. Bane’s body.
Isera is still standing a few steps away from where Emperor Bane Iceheart lies dead on the ground.
His black eyes are still open, and that massive amount of unnatural and slightly sickening sympathy that I forced him to feel is still etched across his features.
Blood from the wounds in his chest and throat have turned half of his fancy silver shirt red, and it stains the grass next to him as well.
A short distance away from us, the Orange, Purple, and Blue Clans have climbed to their feet and are dusting themselves off.
They glance at us and Bane hesitantly before looking to their respective clan leader for guidance.
It seems as though their leaders are not sure what to do either, because they just linger there while instead glancing towards Orion.
No dragon shifter has ever been allowed inside the Unseelie Court like this before, so they’re all waiting for the Unseelie King to take the lead.
Orion, however, has his full attention fixed solely on Isera.
“Burn it,” she repeats, that desperation still lacing both her voice and her expression. “I need to make sure that he’s dead.”
Alistair’s green and orange eyes begin to glow as he summons his magic. Then he quickly sweeps his gaze over the rest of us. When no one offers any protests, he turns back to Bane’s corpse and raises his hand until his palm is pointed straight towards it.
A torrent of fire, so hot that it’s blue in color instead of yellow, streams through the air and hits Bane’s corpse with a whoosh.
The blue flames envelop his body completely.
Alistair remains standing like that with his palm out, keeping the fire contained only to the body so that the rest of the landscape won’t catch fire as well.
For a little while, we all just stand there and watch the body of a six-thousand-year-old emperor burn.
Wicked satisfaction courses through me. This is the man who kept Draven enslaved for two hundred years.
The man who whipped Draven’s wings. The man who has kept me trapped in poverty and isolated in a forest of thorns my entire life.
Regardless of what he said there at the end when my magic was increasing his sympathy to unnatural levels, I still feel nothing but satisfaction at his death.
He deserved to die like this.
Isera deserves her revenge.
I deserve my revenge.
And I’m not done yet. I will carve my vengeance out of Jessina Iceheart’s body if it’s the last thing I do.
She ruined me. She destroyed any chance I had of finding out if my parents actually loved me.
She killed them. She took my parents from me before I could figure out how to fix things and make it right with them.
And she did it right in front of me in the most brutal way possible, which is a huge reason why I’m also struggling so badly with the effects of my own magic now.
I hate her. I hate her more than I thought it possible to hate a person.
And I will have my vengeance. No matter what.
Isera drags in an unsteady breath as Bane’s body is at last incinerated completely.
Only bone fragments and ashes remain on the grass now.
Alistair pulls his magic back. Swaying from exhaustion after using so much power in such a short amount of time, he draws in a deep breath while Lyra moves up to steady him with an arm around his waist.
A strong wind sweeps across the landscape, catching the ashes and making them drift towards the border. Orion says something under his breath right as they reach the wards, and the wind continues right through it, carrying the ashes with it.
Beside him, Isera stands there and watches the ashes drift off.
Her eyes are wider than I have ever seen, and her mouth is slightly open. She looks… lost. Utterly and completely lost.
Then a sob rips from her throat.
It’s so violent that she actually staggers a step back. Sucking in a panicked breath, she presses a hand to her mouth while another sob tears from her chest.
“Isera,” Orion says, worry pulsing across his scarred face.
He starts to reach for her but then hesitates, his hand hovering in the air between them. But she doesn’t notice, because her gaze is now once again fixed on the patch of grass where Bane’s body used to be. Tears well up in her eyes, and she draws in another panicked breath.
“I don’t feel any better,” she blurts out.
Snapping her gaze back up to us, she stares at us with those wide and utterly devastated eyes of hers. The sight of it makes my chest tighten with pain.
“I thought…” she begins, her chest now rising and falling faster as she begins to hyperventilate.
Tears stream down her face. “I thought I would feel better once he was dead. Once I had gotten my revenge. I thought the pain would stop. I thought this awful regret would stop strangling my chest.” Gripping the fabric right above her heart, she pulls at her fighting leathers as if she can’t breathe.
“But it doesn’t. Oh Goddess, it still hurts. ”
I begin to take a stride towards her, but she staggers another step back and desperately shakes her head. Her breaths come in fits and starts.
“Why doesn’t it stop?” she presses out in that broken voice full of tears.
“It was supposed to stop! But I still miss my mom. I still regret wishing her harm.” Desperate sobs rack her entire body.
“I just want her back. I want to tell her that I love her. Tell her that I understand. That I know. That I know that she didn’t abandon me. Oh Goddess, I miss my mom.”
Orion reaches for her again.
But Isera, who has been completely on her own since she was ten years old, isn’t used to being comforted. She isn’t used to relying on others or leaning on them for support. So she just staggers another step back while shaking her head in panic.
Orion, however, doesn’t let her pull away. He doesn’t let her push us all away just because she doesn’t know how to handle affection. How to be loved.
Grabbing her before she can retreat again, he pulls her tight against his chest and wraps his arms around her.
She breaks down completely.
Her entire body shakes as she clings to Orion’s shirt and cries into his chest.
He just holds her tightly, standing there like a calm shelter in the storm. I can’t see the expression on his face, though, because he has his back to the rest of us. Neither can Isera, since she still has her face buried in his shirt. And I have a feeling that that might be for the best.
“I feel like I’ve spent months trying to break into a locked room,” Isera gasps out between sobs.
“Only to finally kick the door down and realize that the room is empty. That after all of these months and all of this effort, there is nothing inside.” Her fingers grip Orion’s shirt harder, and her body shakes violently as she cries.
“Oh Goddess, I just feel so fucking empty.”
Pain hits me like a stab to the heart.
And also a deep sense of recognition. Isera has been single-mindedly pursuing her revenge against the man who tormented and killed her mother in the hopes that she will stop feeling grief over her mother’s death and regret over the fact that she spent a hundred and fifty years hoping that her mother had a terrible life because she thought that her mother had abandoned her.
But getting that revenge apparently didn’t change either of those things. It didn’t make the loss easier to bear and it didn’t just magically make her regrets vanish.
Uncomfortable feelings twist like vines between my ribs. Because I’ve been doing the exact same thing as Isera.
I still want my revenge, and I’m going to fucking get it. But maybe it’s time to start fighting for something instead of against something.
My gaze drifts to Draven, who has moved closer to me and slipped an arm around my waist.
I’m not just fighting to get revenge against Jessina.
I’m fighting for my and Draven’s future.
And for my friends’ futures too. I’m fighting for freedom.
For a new dawn. For a time when Draven and I can just fly off into the open horizon and explore every inch of this wonderful and messy world.
Maybe it’s time to focus more on that instead of just on how much I hate Jessina Iceheart.
Orion twists his head and gives us a pointed look over his shoulder.
A ripple goes through the rest of us, and we quickly take the hint and move a short distance away so that Isera can finish breaking down and picking herself back up without all of us gawking at her.
Orion remains, though. He keeps his arms around her as he murmurs something, his voice so low that only she can hear.
On Draven’s other side, Galen awkwardly clears his throat, sounding incredibly uncomfortable.
For a few seconds, we all just glance from face to face while trying to figure out how to move on from that topic. The other dragon clans are still keeping their distance, but they’re staring in genuine shock at the infamous Unseelie King as he comforts Isera there on the grass.
“Question,” Alistair begins, thankfully saving us all from this suddenly awkward silence.
Seriousness descends on his features as he narrows his eyes slightly.
“Why would Jessina just leave like that? If my mate of six thousand years was lying dead inside someone’s wards, I would prowl outside, watching like a hawk for a chance to get through.
” He arches an eyebrow in question. “But she just suddenly whirled around and sped away.”
“Maybe she just realized that it’s futile,” Grey replies with a shrug. “This is the Unseelie Court. Not the Seelie Court.” He flicks a glance at me and Alistair. “No offense.”
“Offense taken, but it’s fine,” Alistair replies with a short huff of amusement.
A slight smile tugs at Grey’s lips before both seriousness and pride return to his expression. “No one gets in or out through these wards without His Majesty’s permission. And she must have realized that.”
“Yeah, but then why not just leave? Why speed off like her ass was on fire?”
“Maybe—”
“Oh fuck,” Draven suddenly interrupts.
Dread flashes over his features, and his eyes widen as if he has just realized something. The sight of it makes panic crackle up my spine like lightning.
“What is it?” I ask, my pulse now thrumming in my ears.
Draven turns to me, that awful sense of realization still pulsing across his features. And before he even opens his mouth, I suddenly already know what he is going to say. What he told us would happen the last time we suggested killing Bane before we had Jessina under control.
“The Seelie Court,” Draven says. “Jessina is going to destroy the Seelie Court.”