Chapter 36
“Release him,” Terym demanded.
A single drop of blood appeared at the point of the blade at my sister’s throat, rolling down her neck and into her dress. A dress already ruined by the torment on her back.
My pulse was loud in my ears, but her eyes demanded I stay the course. Demanded I continue to deny the king. Terym wasn’t bluffing, he’d do it. Everything he had shown me thus far proved that.
I couldn’t do it.
My breaths were too short, my vision darkening.
She couldn’t die.
She was too young. Too pure. Too important.
She may be my queen, but she was my baby sister first, and it was still my job to protect her, to shelter her from harm.
“Don’t even think about using your army. She’ll be dead before they can take a step.”
The king’s words were far away with my gaze zeroed in on the danger to my sister. The blade at her throat, the blood still dripping from the point it met skin.
I shook uncontrollably from my place in the dirt, pulling the lamp from my pocket along with the small knife.
Eleanor would never forgive me, but it wouldn’t matter because she would be alive.
“Don’t, Lia!” she called when I raised the knife to my hand, slicing my skin open. I ignored her pleas, our mother’s words pounding in my head and drowning her out.
Protect her. Protect her. Protect her.
I could hardly see through the tears coating my lashes, but I didn’t move my gaze from the knife at her throat when I palmed the warm metal of the vibrating lamp. Smoke immediately emanated from the spout, his familiar scent unable to break through the torture on my mind.
Not this time.
I’d failed.
My mother. Eleanor. I’d failed us all.
A familiar scarred hand rested on my shoulder, squeezing lightly. “Adelia?” Shade’s voice was so quiet, only I could hear him, but I didn’t respond.
I couldn’t.
There were no words for what I felt. For what had happened. For how terribly I had failed.
“Kill the Mortremon army,” Terym demanded, his voice laced with triumph. Shade tensed beside me, his grip on my shoulder tightening, and I felt, more than I saw, his head snap toward the king.
I couldn’t look at him. At either of them. At anyone but my sister.
Her hazel eyes were pleading, her mouth forming words I couldn’t hear. Terym had hit me at my weakest point, at my love and need to protect her.
There was no way out of this. No alliance with Mortremon was worth her life. No one’s life was worth more than hers. Not even mine.
She needed to live.
My stomach churned with the knowledge of what I was about to do. The words that would haunt me forever. I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath to try and steady the full body shakes consuming me, the metallic scent of her spilled blood filling my lungs and spurring me forward.
“I wish to kill the Mortremon army across the field.” It was barely a whisper, but Shade would hear. He was as attuned to me as I was to him.
The least I could do was watch when I destroyed so many souls, my own included, so I opened my eyes to stare at the border line.
No.
There were so many more Mortremon soldiers than before. Thousands of them lined up in perfect golden formation, ready to descend upon Terym’s forces.
Nothing would forgive this heinous act, and even if I could take back my words, I knew I wouldn’t.
Dark smoke billowed from beside me. From Shade. Darker than I had ever seen it. The black cloud spanned the distance between us and the Mortremon soldiers with inhuman speed and swallowed the swarm of shining gold.
A suffocating weight settled on my chest, just as it had the first time I’d made a wish. I could see nothing through the thick fog, hear nothing but the high-pitched ring of magic.
Terym’s soldiers shuffled uneasily, and my gaze alternated between the black cloud and my sister. Her eyes were closed and fresh tears shone down her cheeks. After a few agonizing minutes, the smoke dissipated, retreating toward us and into Shade, revealing the carnage left behind.
I leaned forward just in time to empty my stomach, vaguely aware of Shade kneeling beside me to hold my hair free of the splash zone.
They’re all dead.
All of them. Every. Last. One.
Because of me.
“Wonderful. Wonderful.” Terym’s gleeful voice was accompanied by his clapped hands. “Be a dear for me, Adelia and send Shade back where he belongs.”
Movement drew my attention back to Eleanor, Lenek’s blade drawing fresh blood. My heart seized. I didn’t think, just acted, placing my bloodied hand to the lamp.
“Wait—”
Shade didn’t get to finish his protest before he was forced to morph into smoke and disappeared into the lamp again.
“I’ve done everything you asked,” I croaked, my eyes trained on the blade, icy fear freezing my veins.
Terym tsked. “Not when I first asked though, my dear. Such disobedience requires correction.”
“I-I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” I would do anything to keep her safe, I’d just proved that. Lenek removed his blade, and Eleanor sagged again, shoulders still straining from the shackles around her wrists.
“Pierce! Take them away and see to it they’re restrained.” A malicious smile graced the king’s face again when he stared down at me. “They are to be kept separated, and little Eleanor isn’t to see a healer.”
“You fucking bastard!” I screamed up at him, anger and fear and guilt creating a storm in my chest and sending me beyond hysterical.
The king didn’t respond, turning his back on me.
He disappeared between his dutiful soldiers, and the darkness in my soul unleashed, splintered into my being and burned my veins.
I vowed then and there I would make him pay for what he had done.
I didn’t know when or how, but one day, he would pay dearly for the pain he’d caused my sister.
Pierce sidled up to me and, without a word, gripped my hands and tied them together before me. I stared into brown eyes, once filled with amusement and warmth, now cool and calm. A blank slate.
“Please help her,” I murmured. “You said I can trust you. Please help her.”
My shadow didn’t respond, shattering me further. It was a pointless plea. Despite stepping in, he was still loyal to the king. That was more than clear when he stared back at me with cool indifference.
Two soldiers hauled a limp Eleanor from the platform, her feet dragging as she sagged between them.
Unconsciousness had finally claimed her, and whether it was the pain or the decisions I’d made, I wouldn’t know.
Because she was being taken in the opposite direction, her flayed back on full display for those who remained.
The sight of her torn flesh oozing with blood sent me manic.
“Help her!” I screamed at no one and everyone all at once, begging someone to step in, to heal her despite the king’s command. I screamed the plea over and over, but no one listened, turning their backs on me while I was dragged away.
I was taken to the edge of camp, a section that had been here a long time.
The scent of death and rotting flesh hung heavy in the air.
The men who congregated around fires were rough and hardened.
Some stared with narrowed eyes while others wore a look of depraved hunger I recognized all too well, a look I had seen reflected across Terym’s face when he stole from me.
I had to get her out. I should have worked harder, fought harder to get her out the first time. We should have dug through the blockage in the tunnel. We should have fought our way out of the castle the night before my wedding.
She was still in so much danger. With one wish left to make, Terym would do anything to get it, that much was abundantly clear.
Pierce brought me to a threadbare tent and pointed to the dirt floor, a stark contrast to my previous lodgings.
The space was entirely bare, save for a stinking bucket in the corner covered in filth and flies.
Pierce bound my hands to the single post in the center, tugging them above my head so I couldn’t reach my pocket.
“Please help her,” I choked out, desperate to have someone check over her injuries. Pierce’s eyes met mine, and I swear there was a flash of pain before he masked it again.
Then he left me alone with the phantom sounds of the whip echoing in my mind and the metallic scent of blood in my nose.
Roburvirtus, give her strength. Vanimalis, protect her from the Taker.
I repeated the prayer in my mind, then the words fell from my lips.
It had been hours since Pierce left me in this suffocating tent, the scent of the evening’s stew barely filtering through the filth and my own bitter fear.
Those long hours were filled with the echoing whistle of the whip sailing through the air and the thwack as it hit skin. They’d quickly morphed into other horrifying flashbacks. To the day I’d made a promise to my mother while she choked on her own blood.
The day she had flipped my entire world on its head.
Even after she destroyed everything I had ever known by uttering the truth of my own heritage, I had done everything I could to keep that promise.
I wasn’t Eldeira Rymes’s daughter, but Eleanor was, and she was worth everything.
“Roburvirtus, give her strength. Vanimalis, protect her from the Taker.”
All my mother had given me to prepare was a letter and new identities, but it did little to answer the questions filling my mind upon her revelation.
She’d explained who I was, who Eleanor was and the importance of keeping her safe until she was ready to take her rightful place.
But I would never get to ask my parents why they took me in and why they lied about it my entire life.
Only when she is ready, Adelia, not before.
Perhaps she thought the same of me, thought I wasn’t ready to know the truth.
The realization that I had done to Eleanor exactly what my mother did to me, sank heavy and sour in my gut. Blinded by my own pain, I hadn’t wanted her to experience it, and in doing so, she would. She would feel the same deep betrayal but twice over. From our mother and from me.