24. Delphine
“Traitor!”
This voice was also familiar. Too familiar.
It had only been a few months since I’d heard it, half a year at the most, but it felt distant in a way only the kind of life I’d led could make it. It was not just time that separated us, it was an entire life. The mere sound of it was like a relic of an age past, sparking a distant memory of a past life better left forgotten.
Draigh, my stepbrother, stood, shaking, at the edge of the crowd. His helmet had fallen off, revealing the sweaty mass of hair stuck to his forehead. He was uglier than I remembered him. Time had not been kind to the cruel man I’d once had the displeasure to know. The circle of guards shifted their feet away from him, leaving him standing on his own.
He’d always trained as a soldier, hoped to go to battle in a country that never went to war. He’d played at being a soldier, really—and yet here he stood before me, playing at the real thing.
Whether it was bravery or stupidity, I didn’t know.
He’d stood up to me. Against me.
I cocked my head at him, but didn’t answer. The silence stretched on, growing more uncomfortable by the second. My stepbrother glanced to the side, his hands shaking even more as he realized how alone he stood, as no voices joined in with his.
Still, he didn’t back down.
His breaths grew unsteady as he reached down to take the sword he’d dropped and held it out, the steel too heavy in his hands as he pointed it at me. I saw Armene reaching for his own again, but he glanced up at me and stopped.
I looked down at my stepbrother, but still, I said nothing.
In the silence, the words began to tumble out of him.
“Who are you to take the throne? You’re just a human. I know you. I know her.”
He stepped forward, the sword dropping slightly as he turned to look to the sea of faces around him, searching for some hint of support. He only half spoke to me, the other half beseeching the rest of the crowd to listen to him, to hear his words.
“I grew up with her. She’s no one. She’s my sister. She shouldn’t be sitting on that throne any more than I should.”
But his words fell on deaf ears.
He looked back up at me, and though he tried to meet my gaze, he shook more than ever. Even his own words fell flat, his own belief in them wavering as he took in the sight of me. It was not the first time he’d seen me since I left Avarath, but it was the first time he’d seen me as fully fae. I’d begun my transformation then, but hadn’t fully given up my humanity. Not yet.
Not as I had, now.
Now, as he looked at me again, I saw him waver. I saw him wonder.
And that was all I needed.
“Draigh, you may approach the throne.”
He hesitated for a second, his hand weighing the steel in his palm. But something about whatever it was he saw in me made him set it back down, his feet heavy with each step he took to stand before me. He looked up at me with a growing fear I’d never seen in him before, and I’d be lying to myself if I said it didn’t please me. All the years my stepbrother had taunted me, tormented me even more than the truth-bringers or the townspeople who had reason enough to fear and hate me.
I let him stand in silence again, let it stretch until his knees began to shake too, until the sweat that had beaded on his brow began to run in rivulets down his forehead, until his eyes could barely stay open for the salt that poured into them.
“Your sister, you say?” I asked him, at last. I made no move to stand from my throne. I leaned forward slightly, eyes hooded as I looked him over too, utterly unimpressed. “Are you, too, descended from the royal bloodline of the fae, then?”
I lifted one of my hands from where it rested on the arm of my chair, lazily turning it back and forth as shadows sprang from my fingertips to wrap around the pale length of my forearm, dancing like dark flames across the surface of my skin.
“Do you too have power like me? Brother?”
His lips trembled for a moment, his jaw locked in place as he suddenly found himself unable to answer.
I let the shadows die, turn to wisps of black smoke that trailed up towards the domed ceiling, now open to the air where colored glass once separated the throne room from the sky. A cold wind blew in from outside, where distant shouts still cried out as the citizens of Alderia’s capital still wondered what calamity had befallen their castle, causing that explosion of smoke and glass.
I let my hand fall between my knees as I leaned forward, unbothered, voice dropping.
“Fetch me your mother. Fetch me your sister.”
Fear, true fear, now flickered in his eyes. Before he could protest, however, I raised my voice, shouting out this time.
“Fetch them, now! Or I promise you that this hour will not end before you and all you love, all of this court, every human being present here, is smothered in smoke, taken from this life into the next, where I promise you there will be no rest.”
“Here!”
“Over there!”
“Right here!”
At last, at that threat, other voices finally broke out. Footsteps shuffled, and the crowd parted as Nerys and Ixora were pushed towards the front of the crowd, their faces pale. No sooner had Ixora met my gaze then she burst into tears, her shoulders racking with sobs as fear overwhelmed her. To my stepmother’s credit, she remained silent, but the color draining from her skin revealed the same fear.
As they should fear me.
It was a stark contrast to the last time I faced them in this very court. They stood before me then, eager to dishonor and abandon me yet again.
The crowd shoved them forward, drawing back even further to leave Nerys, Draigh, and Ixora standing alone in the middle of the hall. The three of them shook, Ixora so violently that she was unable to remain standing. She fell to her knees, hands bruising on the stone floor as her sobs racked her even more violently, her wails loud enough to drown out the distant sounds of the kingdom in chaos.
I silenced her with a band of shadows around her mouth, muffling her cries and sending the rest of the court stepping back again. They pressed into the outer corners of the room, their armor scraping together as they put as much distance between themselves and me as they could.
“Does anyone here stand with these three?” I asked. “Does anyone else here wish to defy me, after all they’ve seen today?”
An even deeper silence fell. No one moved, not even so much as dared breathe. I let my step family take it in, let their faces grow stony as no one came to their aid, no one stepped up to defend them.
Only then did I stand from my throne and take three steps forward toward the top of the stairs.
Draigh and Nerys fell to their knees then as I towered over them, their own weight giving way to the power my glamour exuded.
“Do you see how quickly your own kind betrays you?” I asked, standing tall over Draigh as he knelt before me. It was an image I’d never imagined, Draigh cowering before me. “You, the only one among them with the courage—or the stupidity—to stand against me after witnessing a mere glimpse of my power.”
I leaned in.
“I have come here today to claim the throne offered to faerie so long ago. It is my right, my destiny. After all that you’ve done to me, it would be my right to end you now, too. Would it not?”
Draigh shook now too, almost as violently as his sister.
“And yet…” I straightened up and fixed my face towards the crowd. “I am not here to bring destruction. To bring enslavement. To destroy the humans who raised me, however cruelly,” I said.
I looked between their faces, their mortal bodies suddenly seeming frail, even the largest amongst them. I raised my voice as I stepped back towards the throne, standing before it as I addressed all those gathered before me. More had gathered in the halls too, drawn by morbid curiosity or some other force, to witness the undoing of their humanity.
“The age of war between fae and man is nearing an end,” I said. “I come today to claim this throne, not to further the hate between our kinds, but to unite them. I come not to conquer, but to take what was already given to me. So, King, what do you say?”
All eyes turned towards the king as he appeared, escorted by his own guard, dressed too hastily in a mess of royal regalia. He looked as if he hadn’t sat upon his own throne since the day Lord Gayge took over as his advisor.
He puffed out his chest and straightened his shoulders, teeth baring as he spoke.
“I will never give up my kingdom,” he proclaimed. “I will let every one of my men die, my women, my children, every last one of them before we give ourselves to your cruelty.”
They were strong words, the ones the king spoke.
But they were easy for him to say when he hadn’t witnessed my power.
The rest of the crowd had, however.
The crowd began to stir with anger, an anger the king misinterpreted to his own downfall. Buoyed by the whispers, the agitation in the air, he lifted his hand and pointed at me.
“I declare war on faerie. Soldiers, kill her. End this now before it goes any further.”
And they did.
But they did not kill me.
One of the king’s own guards stepped forward, raised his sword, and cleared the old king’s head from his shoulders in one, swift movement. The crowd did nothing, just stayed silent, their footsteps taking them a measure back from the body as it fell to the ground, the severed head thudding to the floor in a gush of scarlet beside it.
Even I stood shocked by how quickly it happened.
I’d not meant for blood to be spilled in the conquest of the human throne, but in the end, I was not the one who spilled it.
The soldier who did it then looked up at me, and as he did, slowly the rest of the eyes in the hall followed—not to me, but to Draigh. To Nerys. To Ixora.
I felt the rush of adrenaline, of fear racing through them. I felt their alliance shifting from that fear. Felt how close the kingdom was to chaos, to falling apart on itself as brother fell against brother.
Before that could happen, I raised my hand and let my shadows creep forth again. The sight of them curling in the outer corners of the throne room brought a hush over the agitated crowd.
“Nerys, you were supposed to be a mother to me, but instead you showed me only neglect. Draigh, you were supposed to be a brother to me, but you never protected me. Ixora, you were supposed to be a sister to me, but you offered me no companionship. You represent everything that is wrong with the bond between fae and human. I should have you killed here for defying me still, for disrespecting me once more. I could have you killed for what you did to me, for giving me up to the fae so willingly, for betraying your own kind out of pure spite for me. But look around you now, look at your fellow man, and then look at me again. You betrayed them more than you know, because if you had not given me up that day, I would not be here, now—taking the human throne. You stand up to defy me, but you are the reason I stand here to begin with.”
More glares turned their way, more faces turned angry and hateful. I felt the rage towards them simmer, felt the ill will of men like poison seeping deeper into the crowd by the second.
Before it could infect all of them, I cut it off at the source.
“Bow now, before your new king, before me, and I promise you I will rule you fairly and justly. I will not enslave you. I will not seek to destroy you. I come only to honor the pact made between our two kinds. You have seen my power. I would have you see my mercy, too.”
I descended the stairs slowly, then, until I came to stand before my stepmother.
I knelt, rested my hand on her shoulder, and offered her something I never imagined I would.
“No more blood need be shed this day. You should have no fear of losing your lives if you will agree now to fulfill the deal your own king made so many years ago.”
I raised my head to the rest of them, scanned the crowd, preparing myself for some sort of fight, for a final bid to save their throne, for even Draigh to stand against me again, to take up his sword and try to end me as his own companion had ended the king so quickly. But instead, he steadied himself andkept his head bowed as the rest of the court followed suit.
As they did, as each one of them slowly knelt, heads bowed, I felt something stirring deep within the glamour. Maybe deeper than the glamour itself even, something ancient sealed itself, and at the same time, something awakened.
The human throne had been taken.
The ancient deal finally fulfilled.
I felt the shift in tides, felt fate begin to shiver—and as much as I should have been proud of what I’d accomplished, all I could hear in my mind were the words of the god that sent me here, the god that once again intervened on my behalf, giving me the power to take the throne before Mordrigal could.
Fate has set the price for the future of Avarath, and you are that price.
That price, I knew, had not been paid yet.
This was an end, yes, but I will still at the very beginning.