Chapter 35
Late the next morning, when Eleanor stalked into the tent, I was barely awake and hunched over my breakfast. Her face was set in determined lines, though her brows hit her hairline when she caught Shade placing a tender kiss on my neck.
Hazel eyes flicked between me and the man at my side, whose fingers were running circles over my thigh and eliciting a craving that would never be satisfied.
“What is it?” I asked when she didn’t immediately speak.
Instead of responding, she looked at Shade apologetically. “Can you please give us a moment?”
He inclined his head slightly, then pressed a soft kiss on my forehead and murmured, “Keep me close.” Then he disappeared in a swirl of smoke and sandalwood, leaving a light caress along my hand.
As soon as the last of his smoke disappeared, I tucked the vibrating lamp in my pocket, turning to face Eleanor.
“What’s going on?”
She glanced toward the entrance, eyebrows pinched. Biting her lip, she stepped toward me, leaning close to breathe her next words. “Promise you won’t make the second wish. No matter what happens, don’t give him what he wants, even to protect me.”
I straightened, slightly taken aback by her words. Why would she ask this of me? Something she knew I couldn’t give her. “I can’t promise that. You come first. Always.”
“This is bigger than me, Lia. Bigger than all of us. Terym is destroying people’s lives, don’t help him do it,” she hissed in a rush.
I shook my head, ready to refute her words, nothing was more important than her life. We would try and get out, but if it came down to it, if it was a choice between Eleanor’s life and using the second wish, I wouldn’t hesitate.
“You never have any faith in me. I’ve told you, I can take care of myself.”
It was the same way she spoke when she confronted me about the betrothal. With strength and determination shining bright in her eyes.
It wasn’t a plea but a command. The command of a true queen. I didn’t know when it happened, but my baby sister was no longer the young na?ve girl I had desperately clung to all these months.
She was a woman. A strong and kind and brave woman.
She was ready.
I had been so blind, content to stay in the past and not face the future and its reality. So much so, I convinced myself she couldn’t handle it when, in fact, it had been me who was scared.
Shade had known, had said she was ready to accept the burden of her fate. I should have listened. After all, a leader could recognize their own, and he recognized her as a queen from the very beginning.
I couldn’t hold it back any longer, I would tell her the truth.
“Eleanor, I need to tell you something.” The change in my tone sent her brow furrowing. It would be a risk to say the words aloud. Here. But I suddenly had an intense need to get it off my chest. She needed to know before we faced what came next.
We were running out of time.
“I have to tell you the truth about our parents. Your parents.”
She drew back, eyes wide. “What do you mean my parents?”
I swallowed thickly. This was it. I’d tell her the truth.
“When Mom died, she told me—”
“What do you mean when she died? You said they were already gone when you got home?” Her desire for the truth, for all truths shone in her eyes, and I braced myself.
“I lied.”
Eleanor stepped away from me, a slight tremble in her hands and betrayal lining every inch of her face. “What really happened?”
“That’s not important.” We were running out of time, I needed to tell her about her heritage, about who she was.
“Tell me, Adelia,” she insisted, and the look in her eyes told me she wouldn’t move past this reveal.
“They … they were murdered.” My chest constricted as the words left my lips. All this time, she’d believed it was an accident, and the truth was so much worse.
She shook her head, her wide eyes not leaving mine. “How do you know?”
“I-I saw the killer.”
“And they didn’t kill you?”
Sweat gathered on my neck, the events of that day rising to the surface. This wasn’t the truth I wanted to give her today.
“Just tell me what happened Adelia, please.” It was her plea that made me crumble.
“I killed him. The man who murdered our parents.”
Admitting my worst sin, especially to my sweet sister, brought it all back. Scenes from that day flashing in my mind.
The silence when I arrived home from town early. The panic as thick arms grabbed me. My instinct driving me to blindly thrust that broken vase. The man’s dark eyes staring at me, his hand clutched to his throat with blood pouring through his fingers.
“Adelia …” I met my sister’s gaze with bleary vision, unable to make out her features clearly, my hand gripping my throat, just as he had.
“It’s all for you, Eleanor. Everything I do is for you, to protect you.” There was a pause, and I blinked several times to clear the fog away.
“Your life is just as important as mine, Lia.”
No, it wasn’t.
I gripped her hands, pulling her closer. “You don’t understand—”
“Adelia!” Wista’s worried voice interrupted us when she rushed into the tent, her face harried and filled with fear. “We must hurry. The king has demanded your presence. Now.”
She gripped my elbow and tried to drag me away. Away from Eleanor and the truth I was about to reveal.
“Can I just have a few minutes?” I asked, chest tightening more the longer this conversation drew out. I had to tell her. Eleanor needed to know.
“No … Adelia, he’s furious. The army isn’t responding and Mortremon’s forces are gathering.”
Her face told me more than her words. If I didn’t go now, there would be dire consequences. I sent a pained look toward my sister as Wista hauled me to the tent’s entrance. I would just have to tell Eleanor once I appeased the king.
Her eyes were wet with the emotion of my recent admission, but her shoulders were set with determination. “Promise you won’t give in to him.”
That demand coming from my sweet sister, I couldn’t deny. Not now.
I spoke just before Wista dragged me from the tent. A whisper floating between us like a vow, because it was, and unbeknownst to Eleanor, it was her first true act as queen. “I promise.”
Wista led me to the plain separating Torglea from Mortremon.
The sentient army stood to attention on the bare earth, eerily still, more so than I remembered.
Not a rustle of wind through capes or the creak of shifting leather.
Though their faces remained cloaked in shadow, the shimmering smoke usually curling around them was absent. They lined the ground like statues.
Terym’s soldiers formed a semicircle facing them, leaving space between the two armies.
My eyes were drawn to the large platform in the middle of the clearing.
The timber was worn and stained, built high enough you could glimpse both Yinora and Mortremon upon it.
The sides were bare, providing an unobstructed view of the three single poles rising to the sky, a set of shackles on each.
A whipping post.
An offensive display for all to witness.
I’d heard of Torglea’s punishments of captured enemy soldiers, it was even sometimes used on our own people if they defected. The sight of it elicited the same abject horror that filled me in Terym’s dungeon—sweat breaking out along my skin and pressure building across my chest.
The king was waiting, and as Wista said, he was furious. He stared with crossed arms at the unresponsive army. On the horizon, I could just make out the gray flags marking the border and Mortremon beyond.
“We have a problem, my dear Adelia.” Terym’s voice was clipped, and he began to pace before me, hands clasped behind his back. “You see, my army has stopped listening to commands. Your commands.”
Of course they had, because I’d ordered them to.
Terym’s soldiers surrounded me, a wave of deep blue closing in at my back. Some stationed to watch the enemy, others the spectacle that was me and their king. My breaths shortened. Wind whipped streaming capes around armored legs, the sound a cacophony of drums beating in time with my racing heart.
“I don’t understand,” I offered, soaking my tone in confusion.
“Your letters aren’t working. Order them to listen!” he barked, pointing at the motionless men and women.
Fuck. What if the phrase didn’t work? What if they listened to my order? Any alliance or help we hoped to gain from King Siro would end before it began.
Swallowing through the dryness in my throat, I approached the army, palming the warm lamp in my pocket so the thrumming vibration echoed through my bones.
I wish Shade were here, at my side.
I banished that line of thinking; I had to be strong.
Shade couldn’t be here, not while Terym commanded me.
At least Eleanor was out of sight. I couldn’t imagine what he would do to her were she in reach when the army didn’t respond to my command.
Because they wouldn’t respond, I had to believe the letter Fallon read to them worked.
Wind seemed to blow harder and faster the closer I drew to the sentient army, or was that just my mind on the brink of an attack?
I aimed my order at who I assumed was once one of Shade’s generals. “You must follow the instructions I have written.” I spoke as loud as I could, though still barely audible over the steadily increasing gusts.
They didn’t move.
It worked. They wouldn’t listen until I spoke the correct phrase. I released a long breath, loosening my chest. My relief was short-lived when Terym gripped the back of my neck, nails digging into my skin when he squeezed.
“Make them listen,” he spat in my ear, and a high-pitched ring pierced my skull.
The tightness in my chest returned with vengeance, my panted breaths growing labored as panic threatened to consume me.
“I-I tried. I-I don’t u-understand,” I said between gasping breaths.
He snarled and threw me to the cold ground. On instinct, I threw out my arms to break my fall and landed on my right hand, twisting it at an odd angle. I cried out—more in surprise than actual pain—as I crumpled in the dirt.