Broken
I couldn’t think fast enough to process what was happening in front of me. Everything seemed sped up, moving in a blur.
Rebels had been here, Caedryn blamed Nella, and he was a fire demon. And I was stuck behind the king, queen, prince, ambassador, and a line of royal guards.
I had no way to get to Nella when two guards dragged her into the ballroom, kicking and screaming, and threw her to the floor, one pinning her there with a boot on her back.
The dread that filled me when she screamed my name was debilitating. I tried to break through the line of guards, yelling to Nella, but to no avail. One sent an elbow to my cheek, disorienting me, ceasing my thoughts momentarily.
“Secure her,” the queen yelled to the guards.
One wrapped his arms around me and forced me to my knees, hard enough to break the skin. Not that I felt it. I hadn’t even felt the pain in my cheek, which I knew was bruised.
“Your Majesty, please! She didn’t do this! We don’t know who the rebels are or how to even find them, I swear it!” I kept looking between Nella, terrified, the king, crazed, and the queen, flustered.
“The last time that fucking rebellion entered this castle, it was a mortal servant that orchestrated it from inside Ashthorn. I’ll be damned if I don’t kill every servant here until I find out who it was this time!”
This couldn’t be happening…
“Varyn, please!” I would do or say anything at this point. “If ever there was a shred of something real you felt for me, please stop this! It wasn’t Nella! She’s innocent!”
The prince clenched his jaw and looked from me to his father, then said nothing, did nothing.
I couldn’t see through the tears and the fear. Everything blurred.
“Noxie, help! He’s going to kill Nella, and I can’t get to her!”
“I’m on my way, Naci, just try to keep the king occupied until I can get there!”
I wasn’t sure how much help a crow could be, but he was all I had right now.
“Your Majesty, please, we had a deal! I’ve kept up my end. You can’t harm her!” I was grasping at anything I could say, anything at all.
“You dare tell me what I can’t do?!” Smoke plumed from the king’s nose, seemingly on the brink of releasing his vey again as his chest heaved with breath.
“I am the king! I will take every head off every neck in this room if I so please! Guards, round up every mortal in this castle and bring them here. Kill any that resist.”
The line of guards in front of me filed out of the ballroom, leaving just one beside the king, the one holding me down, and the one pinning Nella to the ground.
There was no reasoning with a madman. I had to get to her. I couldn’t worry about the rest right now. I had eyes only for my sister.
And she had eyes only for me, eyes that were spilling over with tears. She was terrified, and it ripped my heart open.
I struggled once more against the guard holding me, but all it did was to cause him to draw his sword and hit me in the stomach with the hilt, making me double over on my hands and knees.
“Naci!” I could hear Nella’s struggle, but it wouldn’t be enough.
“Queen Malvina, please,” I coughed out. “Please, I’ve done everything you’ve both asked of me. And I’ll keep doing it all. You just can’t let him kill Nella. Don’t let him take her from me.”
She was my last hope. I just prayed to the gods that they needed me compliant more than the king wanted Nella dead.
The queen just stared at me, expression unreadable, as the king paced the dais in front of me, waiting for the guards to return with the castle servants.
Gods, this would be a massacre. The first purge in Ashenholt.
She backed away from the king just a half step. “The king will do what he feels he must, for the sake of the castle and the kingdom.”
It felt like a knife went through my gut. None of them was going to stop this.
“Noxie, you have to hurry! The guards are rounding up all the mortals in the castle. I’m afraid he’s going to kill them all until someone confesses.”
“I’m almost there!”
But it was too late. The guards were bringing mortals into the ballroom in a single-file line.
I saw the moment Halden realized it was Nella on the floor in the middle of the charred room.
He ran toward her, calling her name, but a guard grabbed him by the back of the neck and threw him face-first to the ground, too, breaking his nose and immediately spilling blood.
Bleeding on the ground and held by a fae guard, he still reached for Nella, his love and terror clear. If heartbreak had a face, it was his.
I had to be stuck in a nightmare. This couldn’t be real.
“One of you mortal scumbags is working with the rebellion. I will find out who, or every last one of you will die in this room right now!” The king stopped his pacing in front of Nella. “Starting with this one!”
Time had been moving so fast before, but now it cruelly slowed down, every second lasting a lifetime.
The guard holding her to the ground lifted her to her knees to face the king.
And then Caedryn drew his sword.
Her blue eyes found mine, and they were wide with fear.
“I love you, Naci,” she mouthed to me. Or maybe she spoke the words aloud, but I couldn’t hear over the hammering of my heart.
I tried to stand, to run to her, but my feeble strength was laughable against a fae male.
I screamed and screamed at the king to spare her, feeling like my throat was tearing each time, but I didn’t stop screaming.
Not when he reared back, sword gripped in both hands, nor when he plunged the blade deep into her chest.
Nor when Halden’s screams joined mine.
Or when the screech of a crow, who was too late, came through the broken glass window.
I didn’t stop until Caedryn pulled the sword from her, blood flowing down her laundry uniform way too fast. The horrified silence was louder than all the screams that had just stopped, pressing in on my ears.
Everything faded away except her and me.
She gave a small cough that left a bubble of blood at the corner of her mouth before her eyes left mine to look down at the gaping wound.
She fell to the floor, the mass of deep red spreading underneath her tiny body.
I tried again and again to get away from the guard, but his grip was too strong. I reached out for her. She was so close by, yet so far away.
“Release her,” Caedryn said to the guard. He obeyed and released me, and I crawled the few paces to where Nella lay.
Caedryn wanted me to watch her bleed up close, feel her fleeting life.
“Nella, no, please, stay with me,” I screamed, her face distorted through my steady flow of tears. I pressed a hand to the gaping wound in her chest and held her hand with the other. Her fingers were cold and shaking while the wound was hot and pulsing in time with her slowing heartbeat.
A lifetime of memories flashed before my eyes, remembering every smile, every laugh, every “I love you” we’d ever exchanged. The games we played, the quilts she’d made, all the times she’d braided my hair for me…it all flitted through my mind.
She hadn’t spoken, just gurgled around the blood staining her lips and teeth.
I had no idea what was happening around me, or where anyone was except my Nella. Noxie may have been speaking in my mind, but I couldn’t comprehend.
“You’re gonna be okay, little lamb, just keep holding on.” I lifted my hand from her wound that was still bleeding rapidly and knew in that moment that there was nothing I could do. Her lips had already gone pale, and her shaking hand stilled.
She twitched once, twice, then stopped moving completely, her chest no longer rising and falling, eyes no longer blinking. Her golden-blonde hair was forever stained red.
I was back in the dark purgatory of the banshee’s trial, except this time, there would be no coming back to a reality where all was right. All was wrong in the here and now, and it always would be from here on out. This would be the death of me.
I wasn’t even sure my heart was beating. I was in shock, too much to move or speak or do anything but stay here and hold her hand.
The king turned to me with a wicked smile as I clung to the lifeless body of the only person in this world that I loved.
He yelled something to the rest of the room that I never heard.
As I watched him walk toward the first mortal in line, I felt my heart literally break.
This wasn’t like the feeling when the prince betrayed me or when Caedryn captured Nella, not even like finding out my mother was dead.
This break was physical and visceral. Emotional devastation and pain turned tangible like my heart had actually exploded in my chest and released the beast that had been caged there for so long.
Like my mortal heart had died with Nella, replaced by a boiling ball of rage.
My tears stopped as I stood, taking one more look at my precious Nella before…
“What the…?” I heard the guard closest to me say, making Caedryn turn and face me.
Whatever was happening to me on the inside was clearly visible outwardly, as both had fear written all over their faces.
Suddenly, it felt like my veins were on fire, like the fiery thing in my chest was spreading through my whole body.
It was excruciating. I cried out, writhing, feeling like I was drowning in flames.
Maybe I was. Maybe I was dying by the king’s fire.
Or maybe I had already died and was descending into hell.
The world around me warped, color bleeding out as the endless darkness inside me opened its eyes.
“Guards, cuff her! Now!” Caedryn was scared, and the only thing I felt now was satisfaction at his fear, all anguish set aside.
My vision, tinted red with rage, found the queen. She looked shocked.
With one last look at Nella’s lifeless body, the anger took control, and darkness erupted from me in long, smoky tendrils. I knew the incomprehensible sadness was there, but the dark thing inside me only felt rage.