41. CHAPTER 41
Aveline
My heart dropped as I crawled out of the ruins. There was no more palace in Myros—only remnants. The great silver castle had been reduced to dust and ash.
“Sorin!” I called out his name, fighting my way to even ground with the bow held precariously in my closed fist. It was difficult to keep my balance, but I refused to let it go.
When I crested the last boulder of what had once been the palace, my feet refused to move forward. The breath rushed out of my lungs as I registered the horror that lay before me.
The realm was on fire.
If it weren’t for the sun making its slow descent beneath the horizon among the smog, I wouldn’t have known that it wasn’t already night.
Fire raged in every direction, smoke and ash filling the air and causing every inhale I took to be painful in my chest. I coughed, sputtering as I fell to my hands and knees in the dirt.
No…not dirt.
Ash. Soot.
When I lifted my hand and rubbed my thumb and forefinger together, cinders coated my skin in a thick, noxious layer.
How could he?
How could he do this?
Myros was still my home. I was raised here. These people…they were my friends and family. They had nothing to do with the war Myros and Gothryn raged against one another. They had nothing to do with the rivalry between Sorin and Kallias. They were innocent.
And yet…they suffered all the same.
Bodies were strewn about the debris where the castle had once stood.
Innocent palace staff—humans and fae alike.
The land around the castle was burned in a circle, scorch marks marring the cobblestone as the tall grasses of the planes burned beneath bright orange flame.
The front gates were melted, metal pooling across the earth as the wind brought a fresh wave of smoke to stir my hair.
Smog vapors drifted from the ruins, casting the sky in an ominous gray pallor. King Faris and Queen Dyata were somewhere among the rubble. Prince Kallias was.
All I felt swirling inside was anger and sorrow. An embittered tear dripped from my eye, tracking soot down my cheek as I laid eyes on Myros for the last time.
Majur was gone. The shops where the market had once thrived, where I had once bought my poisons from Osric. The apothecary where I had grown up—had learned everything there was to know about herbology and alchemy.
It was gone.
Tears fell in earnest now, dripping ash into my mouth as I turned skyward and cried. My voice was drowned out beneath the roaring of flame, beneath the rush of the fire as it spread in every direction.
There was only complete and utter destruction.
It had only taken one single dragon to fly to war and destroy an ancient kingdom. To demolish everything in sight—everything I had ever known or loved.
My childhood home in the apartment above the bakery. The cobbled street where Enora and I had played dice and cards. The stables where I had learned to first ride a horse. The tavern where I had shared my first kiss.
Gone. All of it was gone.
And for what? Because someone had stolen something that was his? This was how he chose to retaliate? I would have come back to him if I had been granted the choice.
But he had taken that from me. He had made the decision for me.
I had disparaged Kallias for doing the exact same thing. I thought Sorin held me in higher esteem.
“Sorin!” I cried, rising to my feet. I attempted to escape the ash that filled my lungs, staggering toward the shoreline where the smoke wasn’t so thick. “Where are you?”
“Aveline!”
I could hear his voice now, back the way I had come.
I could stand the smoke no longer. My eyes were watering and not only from grief, but from the sting of the air. I wanted to go back for my mother, but I couldn’t peel my eyes open. Couldn’t bring air into my lungs. I coughed again, spittle painting my cheeks as I continued toward the shoreline.
Toward safety.
The time it took to reach the banks of the Saltale Sea was interminable.
I dropped to my knees, dunking my soot covered hands into the fresh salt water and wiping my face.
There was no trace of the poison in my system now, and my magic hummed in my chest. I hadn’t the slightest idea how to control or summon it.
As I scanned Majur now, it was far beyond what magic of the tide might save. Even if I had the strength to summon the Saltale Sea, it would be no use.
Majur would burn.
I attempted a deep, heaving breath—only to be reduced to short, stifled coughs once more.
“Aveline!” Sorin was closer now.
His boots entered my blurred field of vision. I turned away, toward the sea. The breeze combed my sweat-soaked hair back from my face, stinging the fresh tears that relentlessly spilled forth as I gazed out across the water.
“I’ve been searching for you—” he started.
He reached toward me, my arm gentle in his grip, but I yanked it away. Hurt and betrayal were drawn across my face as I got to my feet and turned toward him.
“I’ve been searching—”
“I heard you,” I cut him off.
I took a step back from him, then another. I didn’t recognize the man that stood before me. How could this be the same man I was falling for? His brows drew together in confusion.
He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He opened it once more, gaze flitting between me and his boots, unsure. “Are you all right?”
“Am I all right?” The words escaped my clenched teeth, a humorless laugh chasing them. “Am I all right?!” My voice was loud enough to carry, but there was no one around to hear.
Whatever survivors there might have been were not seeking relief on the banks of the sea.
I cocked my head as I studied him. His jacket was pristine, pressed ink without a hint of ash or flame to be found. His trousers were still ironed smooth. Only his boots showed signs of the destruction and devastation he had wrought.
Standing on the banks of the sea together, we were a startling contradiction.
“Do I look all right?” I asked him.
“Aveline, I—”
I raised my hand. “Don’t speak. Don’t you dare speak to me!”
I turned, a gust catching my skirts and whipping them around me. The change in direction of the wind brought with it a fresh lungful of smoke. I coughed and fell to my knees once more, unable to fill my lungs with fresh air.
It physically hurt to breathe.
Sorin kneeled beside me—though he didn’t touch me—respecting the distance I desperately craved. His voice was quiet. “Fire cannot burn my mate—”
I turned toward him, anger burning. “But the effects of such fire?” I asked, pressing back onto my heels. “Did you think of that? Did you think of all the innocents who would die beneath your flames when you left Gothryn?” I threw my arm out toward the wreckage. “Did you think I would be happy?”
He shook his head, brow drawn. “They took you. I needed to keep you safe—”
“Look how many you killed to save one!” My gaze dropped to my soot covered hands. “What made you think I wasn’t safe?” I asked, incredulous.
He reached out for me and I flinched. His hand dropped between us.
“She saw you. The oracle—you were in a prison. Forced to marry Kallias by days end or—”
“I had a plan!” I sobbed. “A plan that did not involve killing thousands of innocents! You do not think, Sorin! Though you accuse your brother of it, it is you who runs on emotion and impulse alone. Anger overcomes you. You think you are strong? The strongest prince this realm has ever seen? There is no strength in this,” I sneered.
He shook his head. “I didn’t—”
But his words drifted off on the breeze as it changed direction once more. I threw my head back, mirthless laughter escaping the back of my throat. I couldn’t believe this. I didn’t want to.
“You took the choice away from me, Sorin. You decided for both of us. I didn’t leave Gothryn willingly.
I saw Voirel. I thought…” I pressed my hand to my chest. “I was going to come back to you. I was going—” My words choked off on a sob.
Hope lit his expression, and I held my hand between us as the other darted to the ground to pick up the bow I had dropped there. “Don’t.”
He shook his head, anguish painting his expression. “Aveline, I don’t understand.”
I took a deep breath, pressing my eyes closed.
“And that right there is the very problem. You are ruthless. It is something I both love and despise about you. You want to be a king, Sorin? Take your father’s throne?
Then open your eyes. Your answer to everything is impulse and brutality.
And look what it cost you.” His brows were drawn together as I held his gaze.
“It has cost you me.” I took a deep breath, my words caught in my throat.
“My mother, Sorin. There is no way she could have survived the smoke. Her body lays among the ruins of your pride,” I sobbed.
I reached behind me, grasping an arrow from the quiver and knocking it. I leveled it at him.
He didn’t flinch.
“I only meant to keep you safe. Save you from a fate—”
“I will never forgive you for this.” My voice was a whisper on the breeze, barely loud enough for either of us to hear.
Sorin shook his head. “But we are fated—the gods—”
My gaze sparked with anger. “Fuck the old gods and their fates.” My legs were weak beneath me as my hair whipped around my face, tearing free from its braid. “I choose my own destiny.”
Misery colored his every feature. His endlessly dark eyes watched me as my hand trembled.
“You wouldn’t…”
I took a deep, stabilizing breath. My hand quieted. “Then you do not know me at all, Sorin Blackwater. Mate or not, it is not my responsibility to keep your darkness away. Go. Now. Or I will make you. If I loose this arrow…I will not falter.”
His expression morphed from one of confusion to one of hurt, bleeding across his features in a way that wrenched my heart from my chest. I needed to get this out before I lost the nerve.
“You hate your father so much, but you are just like him. Two of a kind.” I swallowed hard, taking a step back from him. “Deny it all you want, but he will always live on in you.”
I stepped back again. And again.
His onyx hair was tousled, his cape whipping out behind him as if it were a second pair of wings.
“I never wanted to be your villain,” he said, gaze dropping to his hands as if he didn’t recognize them.
“But you are, Sorin. You should have thought before you destroyed everything I have ever known.” My voice was raw.
“Before you placed the fated bond above your own morals—and mine. Before you waged a war that could have been prevented, simply because your emotions got the better of you.” I swallowed hard as my voice cracked.
I cast my gaze across Majur and watched for one silent moment as it burned.
“There is nothing here for me anymore.” My gaze snapped to his—one last time. “But there is nothing for you, either.”
I turned from him, throat swollen with emotion as I dropped the bow back to my side. I wished desperately for Enora to be at my side.
She remained across the sea, safe with Quinnick. The thought brought with it a short respite from the grief that threatened to drown me.
I carved a path through the remnants of Majur, toward clean air. South…toward Elenwyth or Lysvarin.
Sadness and anger warred equally in my chest. But I did not look back.
I could feel the bond between us now, drawing me back toward him as I left him standing among the ruins of his own hell fire.
The old gods would not choose my fate for me.
If I chose Sorin, it would be because I wanted to.
But I couldn’t want this…nobody could.
Myros had fallen. The Ashbourne royals were dead. My mother was presumably dead—her body lost among the rubble.
On summer solstice, I never imagined the prince across the sea would have the capacity to take my heart in his hands and crush it.
But he had.
All because the old gods had thought to match us, twining our fates together for all eternity.
It only took one dragon to fly to Myros to incite a war, and it only took one dragon to reduce it to ash.
As soon as Sorin was out of sight, I fell to my hands and knees.
Kneeling among the debris of a city covered in soot and embers, my heart shattered into a million pieces. I had lost everything. Innocents had their lives taken over a bond that was supposed to be a blessing.
It was more of a curse.
My gaze fixed on the burning sky as I wiped my soot-stained cheeks.
Sorin had betrayed me and everything I stood for. Everything good.
He had become the villain of my story.
And in the end…only flames remain.