22. Someplace and Someone to Run To
22. SOMEPLACE AND SOMEONE TO RUN TO
RUSH
When Erasmus crowned Talisa the new queen, a position that had remained vacant since the death of his wife many years before, and the man vanished from court life, we fae celebrated. No one had dared crowd the streets or squares to expose our tangible relief, but we’d believed the hard times over. Queen Talisa Zafira Tatiana the First would dispel Erasmus’ darkness and return the Mirror World to its natural order. We’d have a chance to reflect the harmony of Faerie once again, as the elven King Spiro had intended.
We could hardly have been more mistaken.
After the queen announced the death of her father, she didn’t much bother to pretend she was anything but a monster draped in pretty skin—at least, not for long, and not for anyone who bothered to properly examine the signs.
Prince Lohan disappeared before I was born, and so I’d experienced the tail end of Erasmus’ reign. Ramana, too. Though many years younger than I, she’d known the “dark reign of King Erasmus the Bloody.”
But Larissa … Larissa had still been so young when the queen was crowned. Too young to accurately remember life before her.
Larissa was a surprise addition to the family, one our parents hadn’t planned. So much younger than Ramana and me, she’d been the baby of the family. Even now, when she was in her thirties, it was still how I thought of her.
Since she’d wrapped her pudgy little baby fingers around my own, I’d understood that, above all else, it was my job to protect her. I hadn’t needed my parents to remind me constantly of that duty. I’d known. With Larissa, it had been love at first sight of those wide innocent eyes and flushed chubby cheeks. Her smile still ranked as one of my very favorite things in this wretched world, where delights were so challenging to find, and far more difficult to hold on to.
Her first word had been “Ruh,” and Ramana and I had each fought to claim it was a fumbling attempt at our name.
And yet, after three-plus decades of protecting her … after traveling all over the bloody kingdom and back to do the queen’s bidding instead of prioritizing my clan’s needs … after almost four years of living continuously at court in exchange for Larissa’s ongoing medical treatment … here I stood.
My precious baby sister wept in my arms and trembled. She clung to me and expected me to save her. She sighed with evident relief that I was here?—
And broke my fucking heart.
I pressed a hard kiss to her head and tugged her closer to my chest. I noticed I smeared some of the blood that trickled down my face over her pink-rose hair but didn’t bother wiping it away—what would be the point?
A fury so righteous, so indignant, so fucking overpowering raced through my body, leaving me feeling flushed and heady, like I might either pass out or explode in a ball of fire that would finally kill the nasty bitch. My tattoos flared so brightly that they blotted out the details of anything beyond them.
My chest heaved against Larissa’s as I worked to get myself under control and figure out what the fuck I could possibly do to get her off this stage and as far away from the palace as possible.
I’d be willing to never see her again if it meant getting her beyond the queen’s reach.
Larissa whimpered, and I hurriedly pushed her to arm’s length.
“What? What is it?” I asked, willing my tattoos to dim so I could properly study my sister. As usual, they didn’t obey.
“It’s nothing,” she said too quickly, and leaned back into my chest.
“Lari,” I whispered. “What?”
She pointed her head away from our audience, the one I was trying very hard to forget was ogling us, recording our every move to later recount to the eager courtiers awaiting gossip of the Nuptialis Probatio. This would serve as currency for these females finding themselves so suddenly out of the running to become princess.
So softly I had to strain to hear her, even standing pressed against her, she said, “It’s my … nipples, that’s all. They hurt.”
In a pulse of light, my tats flared.
“My patience wears thin,” the queen announced from her throne, the warning in her tone clear.
After going rigid, I waited several long seconds until I could control the impulse to leap from the stage and kill her in the bloodiest, most painful, most gruesome way possible. I wouldn’t stop until I was dripping with her blood and gore, holding her still-beating heart in my clenched fist.
The fantasy ceased abruptly when I recalled I wouldn’t succeed in killing her— because she was fucking immortal —and then what would become of my sister?
I knew all too well. The queen would kill me and punish my sister for what I’d tried to do.
Because I would fail. Everyone who had ever tried to kill the bitch had failed.
Whatever King Spiro had meant for the Mirror World certainly couldn’t have been this, and now we were all trapped in it—with her.
Now that she’d done … whatever she had done to become whatever aberration she was, there was no where in this entire damned world I could stash my sister that would be far enough to ensure her true safety. Not even in the Sorumbra with its own inherent dangers.
“Get to entertaining me,” the queen commanded, “or else.”
I whipped my head in her direction, willing my tattoos to at least retreat from my face so I could see the fae I hated more than should have been possible. To my surprise, they did some.
I made out the cruel, smug, sneering tilt of her lips when I snapped, “Or else what ?”
At my tone, Braque—from the portly, squat, plump outline— tsked and approached the stage, stopping halfway between it and the throne. “Do not speak to Her Majesty that way, you insolent, ungrateful?—”
I continued as if he weren’t speaking. “You’ll deny my sister the treatments she needs to survive? To live?”
“Yes, Rush,” the queen said without hesitation. “That’s exactly what I’ll do. She’ll grow sicker, weaker, and before long, she’ll die. Will you fail yet another sister? Will you let them both die?”
“No,” I answered violently. “Never. I won’t let you hurt her.”
“I won’t be the one hurting her. That will be you … and your bad choices.”
My vision was still a bit blurry, but I didn’t miss when she casually crossed a leg over the other and draped her arms atop the sides of her throne as if we were enjoying a pleasant, idle conversation .
With a flash of gold as a lumoon reflected off her crown, she glanced at one of the armrests and ran a finger across what must be my blood. She sucked it into her mouth and moaned much as she did while she was ethercresting. How I fucking wished I didn’t know what she sounded like in the throes of pleasure…
A tremulous whimper rose from the rows of females as I struggled to keep at bay an especially disturbing memory of myself fucking the naked queen while I clutched Elowyn’s hand with open desperation, clenching my eyes shut and envisioning Elowyn’s face over the queen’s.
“Mmmm,” the queen hummed. “Delicious. Everything about you is delicious, Rush. So why don’t you and your sweet sister put on a good show for me now? She’s all dressed for it.”
Larissa’s crying ceased, but her shaking intensified so greatly that her teeth rattled. Careful of her abused breasts, I ran a soothing hand along her slim back.
“She won’t be doing any entertaining,” I told the queen, who rubbed a damp finger along the armrest, trying to pick up more of my blood.
She sucked whatever was left of it into her mouth with a loud smack . “Oh? So then you’ll provide a sufficient quality of entertainment to make up for my inconvenience?”
I should have said yes . Even then I realized it.
There was no defeating the queen. There was only placating and delaying her .
The queen was immortal. Inevitable . There was no escaping whatever fate she doled out.
Regardless, my mouth formed the denial all on its own.
My “No” rang out into the great salon firmly enough to fill the grand space.
She stilled. Dragged the finger over her bottom teeth before bringing it to her lap. “No?” she repeated.
I didn’t answer, unsure what I was doing. Did I dare risk my sister to preserve my already broken dignity? Had I lost my mind? Forgotten the myriad sacrifices that had long urged me ever onward in this doomed fight?
“Larissa will survive,” I heard myself saying before fully leaning into the courage to risk her to save myself. “I’ll find the way.”
The queen scoffed. “There’s no one in the entire Mirror World with Braque’s skills.”
The fat alchemist’s blurry silhouette preened like a trufy bird.
“I will save my sister.” I’d also save myself. And Elowyn. Somehow…
With a displeased scowl, the queen stared and stared and stared at me.
While everyone else in the room held their collective breath, I glared back, thinking frantically of what to do.
Run! was all that kept coming to me. Run, run, run! Fucking run!
But there was really nowhere to run to .
Perhaps the answer was not to run but to die, to offer Larissa a swift death and then deliver my own? But what kind of solution was that? And what of Elowyn? And my brothers? Of the realm I’d vowed to save before I’d understood the magnitude of that burden?
The queen rose.
Larissa’s nails dug into my shoulders as she clutched me with the same desperation as when I’d held on to Elowyn.
“The Fae Heir Trials are over,” the queen announced in a clear voice full of authority. It had been a long time since she’d been denied, I was sure of it. “Which means I can now kill you. The magic won’t…”
But I could no longer listen. I could barely stand, let alone hold up my sister.
My tattoos surged in pulses, revealing the queen, then concealing her to a fog of my light. Revealing, concealing, over and again.
All while Elowyn flooded my thoughts, my memories— my heart .
The first time I ever saw her, opening the door of her chambers to me, when I thought I’d never seen anyone or anything more beautiful in my entire life. Her fighting in the arena as the commoner Zinnia with the skill of a man and the ferocity and bravery of several. Her almost dying in the coliseum before the land’s magic saved her. Her, holding my eyes as I stabbed her through the heart .
Making love with me. Telling me she loved me. Calling me her mate .
A glowing map revealing itself across her skin, perhaps a possible way to weaken the queen.
“Rush. Rush .” Larissa’s plaintive voice rammed through the onslaught of all the moments the queen had stolen from me.
My arms had gone limp around Larissa. She was trying to hold me up now. “Are you okay?”
No, I’m not okay. Not even a little fucking bit.
I relived myself leaving Elowyn’s bed to answer a summons from the queen. That fucker Braque blew a potion over me from behind. When I whirled toward him, he chanted a spell and got enough of it out before I could stop him.
And then Elowyn was gone. Poof . Everything about her … erased.
The dragons, so connected to her, had been stolen too. They’d been enduring deep beneath this very palace while I forgot their torment, even when I’d promised them I wouldn’t.
Just like I’d promised Elowyn I’d never, ever, ever forget her … only to do exactly that minutes later.
Saffron arrived next. The dragonling Elowyn protected as if he were her own.
Elowyn, in the queen’s bed with me, for me, to ease my torment, as devastated and pained as I was. For her, watching me … do what I’d had to do … would have been an experience worse than enduring a slow, agonizing death .
Elowyn needs me.
Wherever that darkened doorway that swallowed her led, I’d find her.
Now, I had someplace to run to . Nay, someone .
“ Rush! ” Larissa said, an urgent plea.
I forced my eyes open wide. Willed myself to be in the here and now. In the clusterfuck of the present moment.
“I’ve had enough,” the queen snapped. “Braque. Kill them both. Guards, help.”
Braque was a short, roundish shape moving toward the stage through the light shining from my body. Several brawny figures emerged from the dimness beyond my light to give chase. Fuck, I hadn’t even noticed the guards’ arrival.
Dizzy, queasy, lightheaded—yet more determined than ever—I scooped my sister into my arms and bounded off the back of the stage. I wobbled so perilously I thought that might be the end for us both—but then found my footing.
I half stumbled, half ran in the opposite direction. Toward the tunnels I knew to be hidden behind a life-size painting of Erasmus, the queen’s mother, and a baby Odelia in her arms.
As I careened across the blessedly open space, cleared of furniture for the Nuptialis Probatio, the light faded some while the clinking of weapons and the pounding of footsteps drew closer.
“Kill them!” rang out in the queen’s voice. “If you fail me, you’ll pay the price. ”
I pushed harder. But so, it sounded, did those pursuing us.
Then a grumbled, “Must I do everything myself?” from the queen that made me nauseated for a whole new reason.
The queen had grown fast, unnaturally so. If she pursued us, that would be it. All she’d have to do was get in range and snap her fingers at me. I’d have no choice but to stand by and watch while she did whatever she wanted to Larissa and me.
That she hadn’t bespelled us yet told me that maybe, just maybe, the fortune of dragons was on our side. Perhaps the dragons themselves were rooting for us, if for nothing else than my promise to save them.
“Her Majesty,” yelled a loud, masculine voice I didn’t place. “An urgent message from Lord Ivar.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” the queen snarled from behind us. From way too close . “Braque!” she bellowed. “With me. Guards, capture them. I changed my mind. I want them alive.”
To torture us, no doubt.
Ivar’s message would be about my mate. But I didn’t slow before swinging open the painting from the wall. It opened easily, as it had when I’d first tried the entrance after learning the location of the Nuptialis Probatio. I hit my shoulder roughly against the rugged doorjamb, but squeezed Larissa and me through, set her down hastily, left her leaning against the tunnel wall. My vision was flashing now— not fucking helpful . I dragged my hands along the back of the door, searching for the latch. I scraped my knuckles, drawing more blood—“Fuck!”
My sister squeezed in next to me. Pulled on the latch that would be easy for her to spot. The door closed with a bang.
She grunted. “I can’t lock it. It’s stuck.”
I shoved my hands against hers, and she understood, drawing my fingers to the latch.
I dragged it into place the very moment someone yanked on the painting from the other side.
The shouts and grunts of guards were loud as they struggled to open the door.
It jerked against its hinges. The wall surrounding it shook.
My heart hammered as my surroundings continued to swirl. I might puke.
But my sister, my gentle, ethereal sister who rarely lost her calm, simply sidestepped me, pressed both hands and her forehead to the door. Braced her legs.
The guards knocked into the door so hard that she bounced off it.
“Lari,” I exclaimed. “Come. We’ve gotta go.”
“Shhhh.” She leaned against the door again.
With my hand reaching for her, the door itself disappeared. It became solid wall.
My vision cleared enough to register her grim smile. “It won’t hold them for long. But it’ll help.”
I gaped at her. The nausea receded along with the fear that this would be the day I’d have to watch my baby sister die in my arms .
“When’d you learn to do that?” I asked as the guards’ protests muted but continued.
“Did you think I sit on my hands all day while you’re away from the estate? Come on, Rush. You know me better than that.”
Apparently, I really didn’t.
“I’m not your baby sister anymore.”
I didn’t think I fully registered that either.
She chortled darkly, snatched a pair of tablecloths from a stack of supplies stored for the queen’s endless litany of fancy events, and stalked deeper into the tunnel. She wound one of the tablecloths around her waist, tying it off like a skirt. “I hope you know where we’re going…”
I didn’t. Unless heading toward Elowyn counted.
Elowyn, however, was unlikely to be deeper in the palace. And that was the only place this tunnel led.