All Along #2
Without breaking my stare-off with the king, I threw one of my daggers, spinning blade over handle, toward the mage, visible momentarily high in the air, where it lodged briefly in her stomach before she disintegrated into wisps of shadow and disappeared completely. Like she’d never even been there.
My blade, too, disintegrated and reformed in my hand.
What an interesting effect my black fire had…
Caedryn looked around to my tendrils still holding Zareth and Varyn, the only two alive on his side other than himself and Malvina.
“Your beloved son and only heir is next,” I said, almost bored. Despite Varyn changing back to his fae form, he had his clothes on. I’d have to learn how to do that.
“What are you?” Ironically, Caedryn’s demon voice sounded a lot like mine.
“A shadow wraith, here to end you and your reign. You have five seconds to surrender before Varyn dies.” I’d still kill Varyn if the king surrendered. I just wanted to hear it—hear Caedryn beg, hear him give up.
Then Caedryn could die.
“Naci…” I heard Varyn whimper from behind me, still in the clutches of my shadows, grappling at my grip the same way the blacksmith had on the ship deck and with the same result—he couldn’t touch the shadows wrapped around his neck. I could feel his quickening pulse underneath my shadowy tendril.
Drayce growled at him from next to me when the prince said my name. I found it quite funny.
Do we love or hate Varyn? I can’t tell if I can or can’t kill him, my beast-self said.
Hate! He betrayed me and lied to me.
I was ready to do it when the five seconds were up. But the king said nothing, and on the sixth second, Varyn was still alive… Why had my shadows hesitated?
“Enough!” It was Malvina who shouted.
If my shadow form had shocked the room, it was nothing compared to the shock I saw on everyone’s faces, including Caedryn’s, at the quiet queen’s intervention.
“Everyone will return to their fae forms now.”
Her voice was so calm, yet so strong and authoritative that it felt like the command burrowed into my brain, and I had to obey it. This vaguely reminded me of something that I couldn’t place at the moment.
My shadows released Varyn and Zareth and receded into me at the same time that Caedryn’s fire did too. Just as my emotions rushed back to me, I saw Aerie fall from twenty feet above in her fae form, landing in a heap, the sound of bones breaking making my stomach twist.
“Aerie!” Drayce and I yelled at the same time that Bramick ran to her and rolled her over.
Why had her air magic failed? Surely, she wasn’t…
She couldn’t be. I couldn’t bear it, would not allow it. I couldn’t stomach the thought.
It was Malvina’s voice that broke the deafening silence. “I was going to let you kill him, but apparently I must do that for you too.”
I couldn’t make her words make sense.
Just then, Caedryn raised his sword, and Drayce and I both prepared for the fight.
But before his steel met ours, he turned the sword on himself with shaking hands.
He gripped the hilt and, slowly, as if resisting some invisible force, sank the tip of the blade into his own chest, a look of shock and confusion etched on his face as his eyes frantically searched for his son and his wife.
“Father! What are you doing?” Varyn grew frenzied, attempting to stand on his broken ankle to get to the king.
“Good gods,” Kellan said from next to me, in complete disgust.
“Actually, before you kill yourself, Caedryn, I want you to hear this.” Malvina turned her attention from me to the king, who was grunting in pain but not moving, sword still raised against himself as a trickle of blood dripped from where the first inch of the blade sank into his skin.
Nothing made sense. Just as Varyn reached the king and stretched out a hand toward the sword, he froze, and the same confused look on Caedryn’s face was mirrored on his son’s.
Before my rampant thoughts could come to any logical conclusion as to what was happening, Malvina continued.
“You’ll all keep your weapons to yourselves and remain where you are.”
I felt more than heard her command. I tried to reach for Drayce next to me but found myself physically unable to move.
It was all beginning to make sense to me, slowly, absurdly—the horrid, unbelievable truth.
As I looked around wide-eyed, the king, prince, and every one of the rebels in the room wore the same expressions and were as still as stone.
I noticed that only Zareth and the queen had full movement.
What that meant I wasn’t sure yet, my mind couldn’t process quick enough.
“I do love a captive audience,” she said.
“Now, where to begin…I suppose with you, Caedryn. I’d hate for you to die without knowing how insignificant you’ve really been all these years.
You think you’ve been Ashenholt’s ruler, but once your dear mate was removed from the equation, it’s been I, the most powerful Umbrathren the world has ever seen, steering this ship. ”
Caedryn’s bellow of rage and sadness mirrored my own feelings. What was she saying?
Umbrathren…was it mind control she was using on all of us? Was that her umbra ability? It had to be. We’d all obeyed her every command thus far.
My stomach dropped.
“She was my mate! What did you do to her?” Caedryn yelled as a tear slipped down Varyn’s face.
Malvina just threw back her head and laughed. “She was already dying. I just sped the process along. You shouldn’t be too mad. I comforted you in your grief. I even eased the pain at times, once I’d wormed my way into your bedchamber.”
Caedryn looked demented in his state of anger as the sword penetrating his chest shook. I wondered how strong Malvina’s magic could be when spread across this many people. My mind was whirring, trying to figure out how to fight back.
From the back of the room, Sevrin moved toward Malvina. Maybe since he had deception magic, he was immune to her mind control. Or maybe he knew how to fight her off. A small bubble of hope formed in my chest.
But then he turned to face us from next to Malvina with a smile on his face.
“Sevrin played a part too. It was he who infiltrated your court, Caedryn, and worsened the queen’s condition to open the vacancy of Ashenholt’s queen to me. He also ensured you all made it here, today. On my request though, not the rebellion’s.”
“Sevrin, you piece of shit! I’ll kill you!” It was Drayce. His rage felt like a static charge around us.
If Sevrin was working with Malvina, then I had to assume she knew everything he knew about me and my magic. And the rebellion…
He was a traitor.
The world was both very still and spinning very fast. I had never liked Sevrin, but to betray us? To have been working with Malvina this whole time? I felt like I was going to be sick.
With immense effort, I twisted my face into a sneer at the filthy betrayer and clenched my fist. Malvina noticed this as a bead of sweat dripped down her brow and a muscle ticked in her jaw.
My defiance of her umbra magic seemed to be costing her, though she did her best not to show it.
So her magic did have limitations. I filed that information away.
“Any last words, Caedryn?” she continued. “I have some business here with Miss Corren.”
“You…bitch!” he sputtered, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth.
The way Nella had looked, too, that night.
“I really hate that word,” Malvina said.
Then his sword plunged all the way into his chest, straight through his heart and out his back. He gurgled and fell to the ground at Varyn’s feet, deep-red blood seeping out rapidly around him and pooling around the prince.
Holy shit…the king was dead. I’d wanted that for so long, but now that he was, like this, it felt wrong.
Varyn screamed as he fought against Malvina’s magic to try and reach for his dead father.
“Do you understand yet, Naci?” Malvina asked in my head.
Everything made cruel sense now. Every tingling sensation, every wave of calm that I couldn’t explain, every time I overshared facts about my life and family to the queen that I hadn’t wanted to.
Malvina was a mind-controlling Umbrathren.
She made us transform from our vey to our fae forms. She made my shadows avoid her. She made Caedryn take his own life.
Gods...this entire time, we had been trying to kill the wrong villain.