31. Chapter 31 #3
Rolling my eyes, I chug. Mostly because my leg fucking throbs.
Ugh. The antidote tastes like a concoction of wet moss and bitter sea wyrm piss.
It’s so god-awful that my lips pucker and my eyes squint.
Mid-gulp, Bronk hands me another drink topped off with chocolate cherries, which I assume is the chaser.
I gulp that down too, which only makes my mouth pucker for an entirely new reason.
Gods, that was unexpectedly sour. I wipe my lips with the back of my sleeve, until suddenly, the hair-splitting pain in my leg shudders to a halt.
It's quickly replaced by a warm, blissful, bubbling sensation as my skin stitches itself shut.
“You feel better,” Sylas observes, satisfaction pouring off him in waves. “I secured that little antidote the moment I got a whiff of your sword back in Trisda’s hut. It wasn’t easy.”
Pretending to be unimpressed with his antics, I twist my lips. “What’s in it?”
“You don’t want to know,” Bronk answers on Sylas’s behalf with a playful nudge to my arm. “But he nearly got us all killed in the process of obtaining it. True love, and whatnot.”
I shove the empty vessel away and gag. Then I fight back the overwhelming urge to smash my fist into the table and demand recourse. Oh, how I’d love to throw a knife into the wall like a dart in proclamation of guarding my heart.
I refuse to marry this pretentious bastard, I’m sorry to break all of your hearts.
I watch in heated silence as Bronk drifts off into pleasantries with Maxine.
“Do you feel anything?” Sylas asks me, dipping his head down low to keep our conversation private.
“I feel annoyed,” I admit with a little grunt, finding myself staring at the bare slab of oak that probably weighs less than my heavy, aching heart does.
“Anything unusual?” he presses.
I jerk my gaze up at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Sylas shrugs, then takes a nonchalant swig of his drink.
I study him suspiciously. “What was in that antidote, Sylas?”
“Nothing,” he quickly responds.
The taste on my lips triggers a memory, one from my poison lessons.
“The price was marriage,” I suddenly realize aloud, the words feeling more sour on my tongue than that drink had.
“That’s why you agreed to heal Lily without complaint.
That’s why you’re allowing Maxine to decorate.
That’s why you risked the lives of your comrades, and your own, just to secure this antidote.
That’s also why you placed bounties on our heads so that you could find us.
You wanted to force me into marrying you.
And you thought that by securing the statue, and forcing me to drink truth serum, that I’d profess my unwavering love… ”
Truth serum. That’s what the antidote was. The same potion that Augustine forced Sylas to drink back in the hut. I knew I recognized the smell of it. I grab his wrist and dig my nails deep into his skin, adding, “But it seems that you’ve forgotten something, King.”
Sylas’s brows rise slowly. “Forgotten something?”
“He will be coming,” I hiss. I don’t have to say his name out loud for the dragon king to know exactly who I’m talking about. His nostrils flare, his eyes flicker, and his lips pull back, revealing teeth.
Augustine.
He’s coming.
I lean back in my chair with a satisfied grin. If we were playing cards right now, my deck would feel like a lethal stack of power.
Sylas stands, drawing the collective attention of his court-goers once again.
This time, his eyes turn a tumultuous shade of dark blue, like a tempest storm is raging within.
“There's one more thing that I must address with you all tonight,” he says, pausing to run a finger along the rim of his wine glass.
His silence is so palpable, it creates an invisible, unbridgeable chasm between us, one that threatens to fling my mental cards all over the floor.
“As you all know, we have been working tirelessly with the Valenorians to dwindle down the numbers of the Divine Army in preparation for our call to war. Tonight, I am pleased to report that our efforts have worked. I can officially say that the Divine Army is no more.”
Excited hums and murmurs flow around the room as he draws another breath.
“With the Curse of Love weighing heavily on her shoulders, unfulfilled, the Goddess of Love is in her most weakened state yet. She’s certainly in no condition to wage war against us in retaliation.
And yet she will wage a war regardless, falling right into our trap.
” Sylas pounds on his chest and releases a battle roar.
It’s an outburst that’s met with triumphant applause and closed fists.
The dragon lords wham their fists against the table in a cadence of thunderous unity, the rising crescendo falling into sync with my hammering heartbeat.
Sylas climbs onto the table and raises his sword above his head, his voice rising in momentum.
I glance over at Bella and Maxine, who look just as horrified as I am.
“Tonight, my brothers and sisters, we will feast in celebration of the victory that is to come!” he shouts.
“And tomorrow, we shall have our vengeance against the goddess who took everything from us.” With every word he spews, his voice grows louder, until I’m clamping my hands over my ears and praying for it to stop.
“Tonight, we shall raise our armies and prepare for war. And tomorrow, we shall drink the blood of the gods and celebrate with wedding preparations!” His words clip me like a torrent of wind, whipping through the room with such violent velocity that I can almost taste the storm rising inside of him.
“The time of the dragons is upon us! Who’s with me? ”
A man clad in a fur cloak is the first to stand with his head held high. “The Rock Clan will follow you to the ends of the universe, my king. To the gates of Eternus, Sylas Skornborn, Veilbreaker, son of Ravik the Great, king of Skaldrathia, and leader of the Ice Clan. To war!”
“Here, here!” others shout in unison.
“And to the raven.” Lady Nadia dips her regal head in my direction as the room falls silent. “May she free the Mother of Chaos and gift eternal life to our beloved king.”
“Here, here!” come more bellows of appreciation.
Sylas glances over at me and grins.
A royal flush.
My gown suddenly feels too cinched, too restrictive, like a gilded cage. Bella shoots me a look of raw panic, and Maxine’s eyes burn like a tinderbox on the verge of exploding.
That’s when I realize… somewhere amidst all the formalities and prophetic scriptures, someplace threaded between all the promises of victory and talk of weddings, something else was implied. The queen is coming, and she is coming with a vengeance.
“Excuse me,” I mutter to no one in particular, rising out of my seat.
Quickly, I slip past the guards and take straight to the corridor, not stopping until the shadows consume me.
I pick up my pace around each bend, my leg no longer throbbing, unsure of where I’m going, yet going anyway.
Left. Then right. Then left again. My powerful, pain-free strides lead me down a set of steep stairs and around another bend, my heart lurching in my chest cavity as I careen to a halt before a titanium door, one that looks far too heavy for me to pry open by myself—yet my adrenaline somehow manages.
Winded, I tumble into a hall of shadows, where twilight clings to the hardened stone.
It seeps its chill through the soles of my boots and wraps itself around my throat.
It was foolhardy to come here. To trust him.
To put myself in this situation. To give him the advantage.
And now my shoulder is throbbing because I just used it to buckle open the door…
My breath shudders to a halt.
The Mother of Chaos is sitting on a stone dais in the center of the room, and my sister is perched on the step, draped in a gown of gothic mourning.
“I knew you’d come,” Solara says, rising to greet me. I approach her in slow motion. Then I drop to my knees in shock.
“Solara, you’re here,” I whisper.
“Of course I’m here,” Solara responds, her eyes twinkling. “I’m always here.”
I inhale a sharp breath of frost-nipped air as I touch the statue’s marble base, feeling the coolness of it beneath my fingertips and sighing in relief.
This is really it. Whatever happens next is entirely out of my hands.
Summoning all of my strength, I release my innermost secret from the depths of my heart.
It’s a waveform of sound and vibration that sails like an arrow across the room, embedding itself into the statue’s crevices, and stilling time itself.
“I’m the raven that is prophesized to free you,” I say to the statue.
But nothing happens. Nothing at all. Not even when I repeat myself.
Nor after I raise my voice up a notch. No one heeds my call aside from Solara, who frowns.
“There’s another secret that rises to the surface of your heart,” she says in a chastising tone.
“One that crashes against all the walls you have so tirelessly built to protect yourself. That is the secret that shall reveal all, sister. Not this one.”