17. Chapter Seventeen #2
Eliaz takes a step towards her, the muscles in his jaws taught and his gaze rigid and cold.
There as he scrutinises my mother with restrained contempt, he begins to morph into the haunting creature that whispered torment into my ears and reduced my power to ash in my very hands.
Even in the sunlight, he looks pale and ghastly, the blades of his cheekbones sharpened by the brightness of the day and his eyes the colour of hot metal as they stab at my mother.
That glint of gold returns across his throat, slow and intentional this time.
He wanted me to see it. Wanted her to see it.
‘You look so tense, dear Queen. It is no surprise that your guards gave me such an appalling welcome last night, if you are responsible for their guidance.’
A tear wells in my mother’s eye but she does not blink it away, nor does it fall on its own accord.
It just teeters there on the edge of her lid threatening its descent.
She looks pained but blank, appalled yet distant, as though trying to convince herself of a terrible dream melting into wakefulness, that this is not, indeed, happening.
‘The girl stays,’ she repeats, her voice twisted and strangled in her throat this time. She does not dare to remove her gaze from the king.
Eliaz takes another few steps forward, body tilted as though primed for a lunge at the Queen of Reyhen, the movement stiff, displaying some form of mental restraint.
It’s almost as if he made the last-minute decision to hold himself back.
His eyes become dark and narrow, as though he is tunnelling his focus on the shrinking image of my mother, who stands rigid in her stance a mere five feet from him.
I hesitate to interfere, unable to quite piece together what is happening in this precise moment. There is the expected amount of tension between the rival monarchs, but with an added layer of festering disdain that is thickening the atmosphere around us.
For some reason I take a step backwards, feeling vaguely like I’m intruding on something, whilst also fearful in the anticipation of what all these intense stares might culminate into.
The backwards movement seems to be the trigger action that the royal guards stood in wait for, a signal that the queen requires back-up and assistance in holding us hostage any further, for they all come clambering from all directions.
They assemble in two parallel rows, one behind my mother, and the other between us and the closed mouth of the gates.
Myla begins to weep at the sight of their primed weapons, a spear head coming perilously close to her eye as she turns to see them all standing in formation.
She drops to the ground in trembling, childlike fear, whimpering into her hands.
Eliaz simply shakes his head at the guards, finally breaking his stare from my mother to walk back to the servant girl, kneeling to meet her before caressing her to sleep with one stroke of the forehead.
She slides gracefully the rest of the way to the ground, her head now resting atop a raised bump in the cobbles.
‘What wicked tricks have you inflicted on the girl? Heresy!’ my mother screams, raising her flat palms in front of her body.
Before Eliaz can even glance back up at her or shoot out some infuriating quip, he is jolted upwards as though being hoisted by the shoulders by an unseen force, arms flailing limp and motionless without the time to instinctively brace them.
As quick as he rises, he is slammed downwards into the ground, crushing into the stone like a piece of unripe fruit.
Bruised but not smashed to a bloodied pulp.
‘The only heresy here is your act of violence,’ I shout at my mother who refuses to so much as regard me in her peripheral vision. ‘He wishes to help her, not cause harm.’
Eliaz gets to his feet, clutching at his ribs and groaning at the labour of it.
He grumbles at my mother’s outstretched arms, inferring what he had suspected, that she had just thrown him around like a ragdoll.
Not the usual treatment of a king. His wincing in pain could almost be mistaken for a baring of his teeth when he fixes on the queen once again.
‘I do not need to prove myself. Your actions speak louder than any words I can vocalise in an attempt to change your mind. You are just as he was, cruel and immovable.’
His words spark puzzlement in me. No cheekiness or sarcasm, not even anger or malice. Just disappointment, like this is not how he had hoped this interaction would go. And who is this he that he speaks of?
The way my mother’s arms drop and that singular daring tear falls tells me it is who I most suspected. The cruel and immovable man he speaks of with such upset and hatred is my father, I do not need to ask to be sure.
Her lapse in blocking emotion from view is all Eliaz needs to get into her senses, and I swear I can see smoke slithering into my mother’s eye-sockets as he tenses his gaze and bites down on his lip hard enough to bring forth blood.
Her head seizes and her eyes roll into the sockets until they are a white abyss in her face.
He is controlling her blind. Her scream rattles through my bones, evoking something primal in me that would do anything in order for the sound to cease.
I make a dive for Eliaz’s neck, throwing all the weight of my body into his.
I am not heavy enough to create any real amount of force, not enough to knock him over anyway, but the action allows his focus to waver just enough for my mother to gasp free of his mental hold.
His attention slaps into me, and I sense his dark fingers in my mind as soon as he pushes me from him.
‘I’m sorry,’ his whisper sounds almost remorseful, his eyes glistening with emotion. He is trying to push me into sleep, and I resist with every ounce of my soul. Please. I beg him silently with my eyes. Please let me stay awake.
‘Guards! Seize him. Do what you must to get the girl,’ my mother screeches, and from the way her voice cracks I am unsure whether she refers to Myla, or to me. Why couldn’t you just control yourself, Eliaz? She needed to see you do good, not shove me down into an unwilling slumber.
I give him a pleading look once more, tears spilling over my cheeks and sticking my hair to my face. Help me, don’t hurt me.
His eyebrows kiss together in his creased forehead, the muscles in his jaw tensing as he clamps his teeth tight. The touches of shadow release from my mind, and I heave a breath of relief at how wonderful it is to think freely with one’s full autonomy.
‘Guards!’ my mother shouts, and I realise that they are yet to heed her orders. Instead, they all stand wide-eyed and dreamy, as though closed off from the events entirely.
A wall of men indifferent to calls for violence, that’s a first in my books. But of course, there is another form of violence at play here. Eliaz loosened his grip on me, in order to solidify his control on them.
‘Your guards see no need to take orders from a crazed queen it seems.’ Eliaz smirks darkly. ‘And now, all I need to do is get one of those men to bring the gates up for us and we will be off, no harm done.’
My mother’s eyes widen at the motionless guards behind us, blatantly appalled, before narrowing in on Eliaz. ‘What are you doing to them? I demand you stop this instant.’
‘I will do no such thing, dear Queen.’ He gestures towards the guards. ‘They seem obliging enough, don’t they?’
The row of men displays nothing of the sort, strained cries escape agape jaws, eyes open and glistening with pleas for the violation of their minds and bodies to end. The men are petrified. Rightfully so.
The Umbrian king takes one idiotic step towards my mother, features twitching and hardening with the intent to harm.
He is a fool for not taking the opportunity for us to run as she stands there stiff with shock – even if we have to climb the damn walls.
He grins cockily as he plants his other foot forward, but the arrogance fades as soon as he realises that he is unable to move forward any further, looking down at both feet firmly grounded on the stone. Fixed by the same unseen force.
My mother’s hands are raised once again, only a little, pointed directly at Eliaz’s boots. Her face still frozen with disbelief, her gaze remains fixed on her guards and not on Eliaz as he tries to pry his feet from the ground with hands clutched around his leg.
‘Release me,’ he snarls, spit flying from his mouth with unbridled rage. This is the most colour I have ever seen in his face, the flushing of life pooling in his cheeks. Veins protrude from his forehead. ‘Let me go or I will make you!’
This snatches my mother’s attention. Her eyelids twitch as she takes in the sight of Eliaz as he struggles to break free from her forceful grasp.
My heart rate leaps as she lifts her right hand upwards, as though she is grasping the air and tugging something out of it.
I fight to comprehend what the action means and then I see it – the sword lifting from a tall guard behind Eliaz.
It swiftly slashes through the air with the movement of my mother’s hands, dangling directly above Eliaz writhing oblivious below. My mouth dries of all saliva.
She is using the Relic’s power. She is using the energy of the Relic to commit the violence her guards won’t.
And she intends to kill with it.