Chapter 46 No Mercy
No Mercy
“There are whispers, too many to count, of Elorengail Steele. She is no princess, but a dark heir. They say she brands her name upon the skin of her victims, tempts men toward rivers steeped in poison, and carried off a babe as its mother fell to her doom.”
— The Lyonscliff Press, urgent edition
In the void, there were no dreams of castles or training.
There was only darkness. Was I dead? Was this my eternity? I couldn’t move or speak. Only think and wait.
After what might’ve been an hour or a year, the faintest swirl of silver and black glimmered in the distance. It moved like a wraith, spindling and sliding through the void.
I wanted to call out to it, but I did not exist beyond my mind.
My soul pulled towards it. I needed it like it was a missing part of myself.
The silver swirl got closer and closer, until a sound echoed from it.
Xavian’s voice.
“Elora…” he called quietly. He was so far, but the swirl was right there.
Closer, my soul pleaded.
As if it understood, the swirl molded into me, revealing that I was nothing but a wisp of violet.
When the silver began to blend with me, reality and darkness blurred together. I could hear, and my vision slowly returned.
“Holy tits, I think it’s working,” Avan exclaimed, his red hair unruly. He appeared utterly exhausted.
We were at Lady Jocelynn’s house, sitting in the parlor. There was a black coffee table, with parchment and an ink pen on it.
“Princess Elorengail, are you in there?” Lord Draven asked calmly. He sat in a black armchair across from me.
I wanted to speak, but I couldn’t. I stretched my fingers—Xavian’s fingers. It was difficult, and being in his body felt like holding a heavy weight. I couldn’t do this forever.
I grabbed the pen.
The weighted words came out sloppy as I scratched them across the page.
‘We tried.’
My consciousness was forced back, the whisper of my brother’s spirit rushing past me as we crossed soul paths, never meeting.
I sucked in air as my eyes flung open. I yanked my arms—wrists bound.
Cursing, I frantically pulled against the black cuffs holding me to a table. My legs cuffed apart.
There were no windows in the cool and dingy room, and only a single torch cast shadows across the cinder walls. As I caught sight of the two men across the room, my breath halted.
Ansel and Riven were against the wall, both bound by the same cuffs.
“Easy,” Ansel warned quietly.
“Don’t tell her what to do,” Riven bit out.
By the looks of the both of them, bruises and cuts along their arms and faces, it hadn’t been easy getting them here.
“Where are we?”
Riven’s eyes were dark, torchlight barely glowing within them. “Under the Southern Waywards.”
I frowned, glancing at the low, dark ceiling. There was one rounded door, likely locked. Aside from the table, the room was empty. The stench of bodily fluids was horrid. What horrors had the walls within this room seen?
“What day is it?” I rasped. “Where are Amzee and Beck?”
“The ships arrive tomorrow,” Ansel said, face full of quiet fury.
Days.
It had been two days.
“Where are Beck and Amzee?” I asked again.
Ansel’s head hung low, dark hair falling over his face. “I don’t know.”
“Likely dead,” Riven said curtly.
My lips fell into a flat line. “No, they’re not.”
Neither Ansel nor Riven mustered up the energy to argue with me.
“You have lightning. Break the cuffs,” I urged. Had he forgotten his Nature?
Ansel shook his head. “They’re obsidian, coated with something I presume. I can’t use my Nature. Neither can you.”
A hollow feeling echoed through me. My Nature, the one I’d cursed myself for having for years, wasn’t there when I tried pulling it to the surface. It felt like the very lungs I needed to breathe had been ripped from me.
Pulling harder against the cuffs, I winced at the burn of my skin tearing.
“There’s no use,” Ansel mumbled.
I swallowed, trying to think.
The heavy door opened. A healer with a grey jacket and white gloves walked in. Behind him was a woman in a gold gown and a satin lined, bronze cloak.
Brown skin, caramel hair, and hawk-like eyes stood before me.
Queen Delaina herself.
I watched her from the table, eyes tracing her every move.
“I would’ve thought they’d clean you up a bit in Castivian,” she droned.
My face twisted. “Why do you care what I look like?”
She clasped her hands together and gave a half smile. “It’s just pathetic to see that Lord Ansel is with the filthy likes of you after making love to me. But… I suppose he is just a man, after all.”
Turning, she scowled at Ansel. “You left my chambers in the middle of the night like a common whore. Did you think I wasn’t aware of your wedding? And you actually thought it wise to bring your new bride back here?” She snorted. “Well, at least you’re pretty, Ansy.”
He refused to look at her, much less speak. I was speechless myself. I had no part in Ansel and Queen Delaina’s history. She’d just been married to my brother, for Fate’s sake.
She snapped her head back to me. “This isn’t about me and Ansel,” she said coldly. “It’s about you and your bastard brother.”
“Are you so offended by us,” I began, “that you would go against your late husband's wishes?”
She scoffed. “Clarke didn’t even know you. But I knew him,” she said, dragging her finger along the table. “I knew Clarke better than anyone, and let me assure you, I am not an idiot like him. You should’ve never been allowed to live to begin with. All of you Blackhearts. You’re vermin!”
The more Delaina talked, the angrier she became.
“You are the vermin,” I snarled. “Selling and murdering the Dark Natured like cattle.”
She slammed her hand on the table, barely missing my face. “Your kind hurts little girls! All of you Dark Natured blights are a plague that cause nothing but grief!” she yelled, voice cracking. There was a pain there, so deep that no light would ever find it.
I was quiet long enough to let the room go still.
“There are little girls in the Waywards, too.”
She smacked me across the face, scowling at the hurt it caused her own hand. I was too angry to feel pain—too stunned to care about anything other than escaping.
“If you kill us, Xavian is going to hunt you down and string you up like forest game,” I warned.
She rubbed her palms together. “I owe Xavian Steele and our friend Ansel a present. Killing you would be too easy.”
Riven’s eyes darkened as he struggled against the cuffs.
“Xavian’s not much of a gift person.”
She was not amused by my response. Instead, she locked me in her sights.
“Your brother will watch me win. An heir for an heir, Blackheart.”
My brows knitted together in confusion. We had no heirs to give, nor had we taken hers. What had happened to Princess Clayvarie was terrible, but a crime I did not commit.
“I don’t have any heirs.”
She slid her hand along the table once more before turning to the door, giving the anti-healer a nod. “And you never will.”
Ansel’s head shot up. “Touch her, and you’re dead,” he warned.
The false healer paid him no attention as he began setting tools out along the table. A guard held the door open for Delaina as Riven yanked wildly against his cuffs.
“I’m returning north, but I highly anticipate hearing all about Xavian’s tantrum when you return to him spayed, just before I take my lands back,” Delaina called as she headed out.
“You worthless, spiteful bitch!” I screeched, voice cracking. “You cannot cage people and be anything but evil. You are irredeemable! You are a murderer!” The door had already closed, but I prayed my voice followed. “You are the one with a warped mind! You are the one with a black heart!”
My chest rose and fell rapidly. Riven and I locked eyes, his anger rivaling my growing fear.
This was my legacy. There was so much I couldn’t do, but growing our bloodline was supposed to be my opportunity.
My arms trembled as the man pulled out a knife, similar to those used to prepare fish.
I frantically thrashed away from the blade, but there was nowhere to go.
Riven jerked against his restraints like a wild animal, cursing the man and his honor. Every threat in the book was thrown out, but the false healer did not waver.
I’d been scared before, but now I was petrified.
Ansel scanned the room, cursing himself as he tried to think.
“I’m so sorry, Elora,” he croaked as the blade entered me.
Burning met tearing agony as he began the procedure. There was nothing I could do to stop it.
I tried to cry out, but it was not my voice that screeched from within my soul.
It was my bloodline.
Every woman who had come before me—the royals on my father's side that had endured birthing heirs, and the Blackhearts on my mother’s side who’d done the same. My ancestors cried out with me, their wrath unrelenting.
“The river of our blood does not end here!”
My legs shook uncontrollably, teeth jamming together.
The screams became louder.
“The river of our bloodline does not end here!”
The false doctor jerked his knife upward.
“Do not let our bloodline end here!”
Their spirits fueling me, I sat up fast, my teeth reaching the false healer's neck before he had the chance to move. Following the advice I’d received from a child, I bit down as hard as I could, ripping the artery from his neck.
His knife fell to the table, just in front of my boot as he grabbed at his neck.
It was mere seconds before he was cyanotic, blood pouring out of him. He tried to make it to the door, but failed, his pale body falling to the floor.
“Riven,” I whimpered. I kicked the knife towards him, the pain of the first cut settling in. It was the worst thing I’d ever felt, sending contractions through my abdomen and lightning pain in my back.
He caught the knife between his knees and raised it to his mouth.
Ansel stretched his long legs toward the false healer’s boots.
I panted, my head spinning.