Chapter Fifty-Two
Analleia
I blinked. Frozen. The queen crumpled to the floor, King Zaricor staring in shock. The chancellor moved toward him next, but Valeris grabbed a sword from one of the fallen guards and stepped in front of his father, holding the chancellor at bay.
“I would like to thank you, Analleia,” the chancellor said, grinning as he backed away from them. “For being the perfect candidate to blame for the deaths of the royal family. An orphaned girl deranged with blood and vengeance, it makes for a far more believable story than I could have concocted.”
“Concocted?” I wasn’t following, too stunned from what had transpired in the last five minutes.
The queen was bleeding out on the floor.
The chancellor had killed her.
The explosion.
“You blew up the dais,” I said. “Why?”
The chancellor glanced at the door as if expecting company. Had he wanted Valeris to become king so he could kill him and assume the throne?
“Ezrielle.” Realization filled Valeris’s voice. “That’s why she wasn’t on the dais. You planned this with her. She wanted to be the only successor. She wanted to be queen.”
“And she will be,” the chancellor smiled. “She’s made plans with people far more powerful than you could imagine, Valeris.”
A dagger.
I had a dagger in my hand.
I should kill him.
But I couldn’t move.
Five years.
I’d trained five years for this only to be speared by shock.
A dark form darted through the balcony doors and tackled the chancellor to the ground.
They grappled on the floor, both fighting for dominance as blows fell.
The chancellor rolled away, grasping for King Zaricor again, slashing at his leg, but the shadow yanked him to his feet and shoved him against the wall, arm locking across his throat and not allowing him to move.
Wylan Athello.
King Zaricor crawled to the queen. The queen who had murdered my family. Who had destroyed my entire kingdom—but it had been on her husband’s orders. I lifted the dagger without thinking.
“Analleia, no,” Valeris pleaded.
I let out a shuddering breath, unable to look at him.
He’d watched his mother die. Would I force him to watch his father die as well?
Five years. Five years of hating this man only to find out he wasn’t the culprit behind all of this. The real accuser hung dead in his arms, my vengeance bleeding out like her blood on the rug.
King Zaricor looked up at me, saw the weapon in my hands.
“I’m not going to kill you,” I said, stepping away from them. An unnamable burden lifted from my shoulders. He wasn’t the mastermind behind my family’s downfall. He was simply the head sergeant. The executioner.
What had all of it been for?
Do not let this destroy you.
My mother’s words from the night our kingdom was attacked echoed through me, but let it destroy me, I had.
Disappointment and failure enveloped me in their cold embrace.
Blinding light flashed through the dim room. Stars exploded across my vision, and I shielded my eyes, turning away. After a moment, I lowered my arm, squinting to find the Enchantress standing in the midst of us, hovering over a foot above the ground and shaking her head.
“Two simple tasks, Analleia Kallistar.” She glared at me. “Bring me the ring and kill the king. That’s all I asked of you in exchange for my help and you couldn’t even complete one of them.”
She lifted her right hand, and a burst of swirling light shot from her palm, striking King Zaricor in the chest. He gasped, falling to the floor, eyes lifeless. Dead. My mouth hung open, unable to believe my eyes.
Valeris collapsed to his knees, staring at the bodies of his parents.
No.
“Now,” the Enchantress continued like she’d done nothing more than eliminate an annoying insect. “Richard Wylan Athello, you will remove the ring from your finger and slide it across the floor to me.”
He shook his head, shoving the chancellor to the side. “You know I would never do that.”
The Enchantress laughed. “Just because I can’t take it from you and kill you myself doesn’t mean she can’t.”
Her attention shifted to me, and my heart beat faster, the terms of her deal coming back to me. She would claim me as her own personal assassin, as a puppet to direct.
I shook my head. “I won’t help you.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Are you sure about that?”
Her hand shot out, beams of magic taking hold of Desmond and Valeris. They clutched at their throats, their chests, unimaginable pain etched across their faces as they tried to breathe but couldn’t, their feet lifting off the ground.
“No, stop it,” I gasped.
The Enchantress’s face furrowed with concentration, both men fighting for air. “Either Wylan Athello gives the ring to you willingly, or you kill him and take it. Fail, and these two will die at your hands. They’re dying now as you stand there and gape.”
I faced Athello, blocking out the strangled sounds of my brother and Valeris as I held my dagger out to the side.
“Give me the ring,” I ordered.
He shook his head. “I can’t. You don’t understand the power it holds.”
“I don’t want to kill you,” I said.
“You can’t kill me.”
I schooled my features. “Then I will watch my brother and Valeris die while trying.” I transitioned into a fighting stance, mapping my way past his defenses. “Don’t tell me you’re going to stand there and watch your nephew die.”
Athello’s attention flicked to Valeris, pain overcoming him. “I can’t.”
I lowered my dagger, stepping forward. “Then let me take it.”
The last time I had tried to take the ring an invisible force had shoved me away, but something told me I could take it if he allowed me to. I inched closer, keeping a close eye on the warring emotions scrawled across his face. His hands clenched into fists at his sides.
He watched me as I reached for his rough hand and uncurled his scarred fingers. With every movement, I expected to be attacked, but Athello remained still. I slipped the elaborate ring off, and his arm fell back to his side in defeat.
My heart skittered in my chest as the ring rested in the palm of my hand. Whatever resided inside the opal stone was dangerous, the ring seeming to pulse against my skin, humming with power. I had an overwhelming urge to slip it on my finger, but I ignored it.
“Bring me the ring,” the Enchantress commanded.
I turned back to her, enclosing it in my fist.
“Release them first,” I ordered.
“Not until you give me the ring.” Her green eyes glittered with greed, the golden specks in them brightening.
“No,” I said. “Release them.”
She lifted her chin in annoyance, but the swell of magic in the room slackened. Valeris and Desmond both gasped for air, dropping to their hands and knees as they clutched at their chests.
I tossed the ring to the Enchantress and she snatched it from the air, admiring it for a second before slipping it over her ring finger.
It fused with another band of gold she wore, becoming one.
The ethereal light enveloping her exploded into power, magic shooting around the room as she transformed, her appearance growing younger, more beautiful, more powerful. More deadly.
She rolled her neck, eyes coming to rest on me. “Such a shame you’re so willing to save the one who betrayed you and sealed your family’s fate.”
I glanced at the lifeless bodies of the king and queen. I hadn’t saved them. They were dead.
“Oh.” Her mouth formed an O. “Your brother never told you, then? Never told you how he was the one who betrayed the secret gate, allowing Paravellia’s soldiers to infiltrate the castle in the dead of night and murder your family?”
I stared at Desmond, looking for the same confusion amplifying within me, but all I found was his pale face held hostage by fear.
“Desmond—” I couldn’t find the words.
The secret gate. How the Paravellians had managed to get in. It had never made any sense to me. To any of us. We knew someone must have betrayed us.
He didn’t try to deny it.
“You knew I wondered,” I forced out, voice barely above a whisper. “Five years. I went over everything with you, always voiced my suspicion someone had betrayed us—and all along it was you.”
Torment ripped across his face, tears shining in his eyes.
“I was stupid, Analleia, naive. Father and mother, they—they told me no at the last Paravellian Balls. I had wanted to marry that girl, but they told me no. And I was angry. Angry enough that I didn’t return home until a few weeks after they had.
I sat in a tavern, nursing my sorrows with drink, flat-out drunk.
There was a man there, and he listened, offered advice, said he had a ship, that he would help me get away from my kingdom.
And in the midst of our plans, I told him how we could sneak into the castle without being seen. ”
I shook my head, unwilling to believe what I was hearing.
“In the morning,” Desmond continued, “the man was gone. I continued on my way home, never giving him a second thought. But when I saw the smoke, when I met you on the road and you told me what happened, said they must have broken in through the secret gate, I realized what I had done. That everything was my fault.”
Tears slipped down my cheeks, betrayal slicing through me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” he rasped. “Couldn’t break you like that. You were all I had left, and I didn’t want to lose you too. I knew you wouldn’t have forgiven me. That’s why I followed you. Why I joined the Dark Walkers, so I could make it up to them. To you.”
I wanted to say I would have forgiven him, but in the moment I didn’t know.
Didn’t know if I could forgive what he had done to our family.
All this time, he had been lying to me. It made sense now.
Our fight. Why he had looked so ashamed when I asked where he’d been the night our kingdom had burned to the ground.
“Enough with the family issues.” The Enchantress’s voice cut through us. “I expect my end of the bargain, Analleia.”
I glared at her. “I’ve already fulfilled it. That bargain is void.”