Chapter 49
Everyone Dies
BLAKE
Idid not know how long I had been here, but if the deep ache in my body was an indicator, it had been a while. The more conscious I became, the more the pain spread through my arms. My back was against a wall, my arms above my head.
I jerked and my wrists caught on steel.
A pain far worse than the ache coursed through me.
I could not move. I tried not to breathe as I waited for the pain to abate but it never fully went away.
Everi manacles.
Forcing my eyes open, I could not see much except for the glowing embers of a dying fire. As my eyes adjusted, I recognized the painting above the mantle of Falls Palace—I was in the Raven Room.
I jerked the chains restraining me to the wall but they were secured by the blood mage who chained me here.
It was a strange feeling being helpless and not at all one I was accustomed to.
Anna had been one breath from death, and I was not sure if all of my everi was enough to save her.
It would take time to recuperate from that.
This was not a problem I would have in The Falls.
Groaning, I attempted to summon everi, but all it did was make the pain worse.
After a time, a sharp shift in the stillness snapped me from a deep meditation. The door creaked open and in came a slender figure with long dark hair.
I groaned as the door clicked shut behind her.
“What the hell do you want?” I snapped, my voice hoarse.
Her sharp, violet eyes glared.
“I figured you would be glad to see me instead of Malakai,” she sneered.
“Unless you are getting these things,” I jerked at the everi manacles, “off—then get out.”
She shot me a dark look. “You know I could not even if I wanted to.”
“Which begs the question: what do you want?” I asked.
She paced slowly, taking in the wounds across my body.
“Do you recall when we were children and we snuck into your father’s study?” she asked.
I scowled. Was she serious? She wanted to reminisce? Of all the times in my life when I had wanted Melanie’s attention, for her to show up now was proof of the Ryth’enir’s curse. But it was not like I was going anywhere.
“What does this have to do with—” She cut me off, her voice heated.
“Do you remember?” she hissed, her eyes flickering to the door.
Her urgency got my attention. A muted sound in the distance made her flinch.
She was not supposed to be here.
I wracked my brain, trying to figure out what she was talking about, when the memory finally surfaced.
I stared at her as a fresh wave of fear turned my blood cold.
“You know,” I whispered.
She met my gaze with no hint of mischief or jealousy—so unlike what I was used to.
“I know.”
Two words. That was all it took, and she had already won. My heart bruised my ribs as I tried to find a way out of this but nothing I came up with would work as long as I was fucking chained to a wall.
“I swear to the Gods of Old if you tell anyone, Melanie,” I said, quiet rage sobering me as I watched her but she was not fazed.
“I want things to go back to the way they were,” she said. “Before we came here. Give me that and no one has to know.”
Bile rose in my throat. Of course she would use Anna against me. This was standard for her—use anyone and anything to get her way.
“When did you put it together?” I asked, fury tensing every aching muscle.
“At the winter ball,” she said. “Do we have an agreement?”
Melanie—once the love of my life, my best friend’s twin sister, the vixen of Falls Court, and the desire of every man near her, no matter their age. She played the game well—she knew what to say, what tone to say it in, and all the right places to strip you of control.
But Melanie was a lie.
She offered you wine but laced it with poison, the kind that killed you slowly, drawing the life out of you in excruciating pain.
That was the life she was asking me to return to—one of solitude, obligation, and perception.
One without Anna.
But one where Anna had a possibility of still being alive, versus wherever she was right now.
“Why should I trust you?” I asked.
Melanie stopped pacing. “Because I am your only chance to get her out of here.”
“And you know where she is?”
She nodded.
I tried to swallow, but my throat was dry.
I had no other option. Not while I was chained up like this.
“Who did this?” I asked. “Why are you still here?”
Melanie looked down and to the left, a rare sight of guilt.
“The rumors are true, Blake,” she whispered. “I did not believe it at first, but it is true. I think I can get out of here without being stopped but I need to go soon.”
Rumors? She could not mean those rumors. I shook my head in disbelief. It did not matter. Getting Anna out of here was all that mattered right now.
“Fine,” I snapped. “But the deal is only valid if you get her out of here alive,” I growled. “If you do, then I will do whatever you ask.”
“I want your oath,” she whispered.
I should have expected this. There was little reason to object at this point. Whatever Ezreal had done, I was certainly going to be implicated.
“I will marry you,” I said, looking far deeper inside of her than I had in some time. Like before, I found a hollow void.
She released a shaky breath and broke eye contact. She turned to leave but paused.
I watched her, wondering what was going through her head. Why would she want this? Was being Queen that important to her?
“I heard what Ezreal said to you the day you were found in the sub-level training hall,” she said. “That if you kept looking for her, he would hurt me.”
The moment she referred to came to my mind in vivid detail. And the events that preceded it. It was not a memory I ever wanted to revisit, but it still came calling in the later hours of the night.
“Again.”
I could not hold my sword properly as it slipped from my grip due to the blood.
I glared at Ezreal, his bright red eyes unnerving me.
We had been training for hours.
“Again!” he snarled.
I scanned the vast torch-lit underground training hall, my heart racing as I counted the bodies.
“No more,” I said, my voice hoarse.
Ezreal reached out his hand. There were only three of the prisoners left. They screamed as Ezreal’s everi flared, and I heard bones snap. Their cries pierced my skull.
“They will only suffer more if you refuse,” he said.
I was desperate for it to stop and let the darkness flow within me. It called to their everi, harnessing it in full, and summoning it to me all at once.
The sickening burst sounded throughout the hall, and the screaming stopped.
Warm liquid drenched my armor.
I was done.
I turned my back on Ezreal, but his voice cut through the silence.
“You must learn to master this skill,” he said. “If you do not, it will control you and you will murder everyone you care about.”
I thought of him and his blood being ripped from his veins.
“And if I do,” I said. “I will kill you.”
Ezreal said nothing as I moved to the waterfall that flowed down the wall and across the floor and into the ground. I rinsed myself of my sins but an odd change in Ezreal’s everi caught my attention.
I jerked my head up, the water beading down my face.
He was still and his eyes had become black. I tensed. What was happening to him? A dark aura emerged around him. It was powerful, an energy I had never felt before. The power only grew.
“Ezreal?” I called.
But he was locked in a state, his mind elsewhere.
My heart raced as I fled to the door, but it was pulling me. I braced, using all my strength, but it wasn’t enough.
The dark mist surrounded me.
Everything was dark. A woman was screaming in the distance.
A powerful blast of light flooded me. There was no sound as I was thrust back. I struck the ground hard, the sound of a strange bird calling out somewhere in the trees above.
I touched the surface and dragged my fingers through dirt.
How did I get here?
Ezreal. What had he done?
I growled in frustration and moved through the forest, pushing branches out of my way. As I moved with a speed and agility I had never had before, it struck me.
This wasn’t the Realm.
But how did he get us here? The only way out of the Realm was through the rift and we were nowhere near it.
I paused, trying to get my bearings.
Where was Ezreal?
Crack.
A sound like a stick snapping. I whipped my head in the other direction. There was someone there, on the ground. She did not seem to notice me and tried to stand up but quickly stumbled.
I rushed forward, catching her around the waist.
“Are you okay?” I asked, but she did not answer me.
When I lifted her into my arms, I was stunned by how young she was. I looked in the direction she had come from and walked a short distance before finding a small cabin.
The door stood open.
When I entered the small kitchen, I stared at the woman on the floor. She looked like the girl who was unconscious in my arms.
This was Ezreal’s doing.
Fury flooded me as I clutched the girl tightly.
I would not let him hurt her, too.
I rushed to the door intending to get her as far away as possible, but the black mist had returned. I fought it, but like before, it pulled at me from deep within, the darkness latching onto my everi and pulling me under.
In the darkness, I saw Ezreal’s bright red eyes before anything else.
I clutched the girl tightly, my anger at what he had made me do, and what he had done to that woman seeping out of me in dark tendrils of everi.
The mist retracted and the dungeon training hall reformed around me.
“Why?” I growled.
He looked down at the girl.
“This has nothing to do with you,” he said. “Set her down.”
“No,” I said. “And if you harm her, I will tell my father you are dabbling in forbidden techniques.”
Ezreal’s expression never changed.
“Your father already knows.”
“What? He approved of this?”
“You’re out of your depth, Prince Rykiren,” he said. “The girl will not be harmed but she does not belong here.”
I clutched her tighter and summoned my everi.
I had dreamed of the day I would see Ezreal dead at my feet ever since Roslyn was taken prisoner. I called for his blood, ready for this to be over.
But the warm spray never came.
Instead, Ezreal’s everi latched onto me like claws, and the pain seared through me before I lost all connection to reality.
Even as I fell to my knees, I kept hold of her for as long as I could, until everything slipped away into darkness.
“Where is she?”
Ezreal stared out at the city, dark clouds low in the sky.
“It is not of your concern,” he said.
I slammed my fist against the balcony’s edge, cracking the black stone.
“You have no right to keep her against her will,” I said. “I demand to know where you are keeping her.”
“Do you not tire of this game? Your incessant attempts at heroics are entertaining, but I am afraid the joke has worn thin. There are many of your people you could be expending such time over. This girl is not of this Realm, yet you worry for her as if she were your lover,” Ezreal said.
“Bring this to me again, young prince, and it will be your actual lover that pays the price.”
I had been so in love with Melanie, and I could not imagine anything happening to her.
How ironic and cruel fate could be.
This must be because of him.
Ezreal.
The man that forced me to lie to Anna, lest she learn he was the one behind her mother’s murder. An insane blood mage she had no chance of defeating.
She could never know, or she would die trying to kill him for what he did to her and her mother.
“I will get her out, Blake,” she said, never looking at me. “I know that my heart will never feel what you do, but I can see that you can feel it. Let this be how I earn your trust back.”
She vanished back into the corridor.
I stared where she had stood, stunned by her admission. She was different, and I was not sure it was for the better, but one thing was certain—she was not playing games anymore.
Melanie had not been gone two minutes when the door opened again.
Anger closed ranks in my mind as Ezreal Kalmont entered the room.
“You,” I growled.
Ezreal briefly looked at me from the corner of his eye, a slight glint in his eye enough to set my muscles ablaze with rage.
“Prince Rykiren,” he said, sounding bored. “There is someone I would like for you to meet.”
My fists tightened as I imagined wrapping them around his neck.
My fury was raw as I sharpened my everi to attempt to slice through these everi manacles, but a sudden change in the air sent a jolt of pain through my body, arcing my back as I yelled out.
Sweat poured down my forehead and into my eyes as the door opened.
The pain was throbbing already, but the man that entered the room brought in radiating waves of pressure that made my vision blur. His cloak was long and thick, his stature tall and lean. I could hardly breathe in his presence, and fear spread throughout me like a cancer.
It could not be.
He turned his head toward me, his expression calm, his eyes lidded. They were the most intense red I had ever seen in a blood mage—like the deepest red of the setting sun after a bloody battle. They were haunting, blazing, yet familiar.
Because if they were their usual color, I was sure they would have been a cool steel just like mine.