Chapter Twelve #6
It was so dark. I couldn’t see past what was directly in front of me, but I was a child of the forest. The trees were my natural home, and the beasts below were the bastards of curses, mud, and dark holes. All I had to do was keep moving, keep climbing, keep jumping. They would never catch—
A hand grabbed my ankle and yanked me down.
“Ahhh!” I screamed, falling hard on the snow and dirt.
A chuckle sounded over the wind. “I may underestimate Shadowsoul”—a kick landed square on my middle, sending me flying into a tree—“but I overestimated you, War Wife Emiana, Queen of Nothing, wanted by no one.”
Their laughter echoed through the forest as I lay wheezing—pain wracking me with every shuddered breath.
“Kill her,” Meallan announced. “Slowly.”
Furry bodies pounced on me, their claws penetrating my arms, legs, stomach, and neck.
“Alisdair!”
“Scream for him all you want, whore.” Meallan laughed. “You’ll never—”
“Argh!”
Meallan oomphfed as a large, quick-moving shadow slammed into him.
I couldn’t see where he fell. I couldn’t see anything but the knife-tipped canines closing on my throat.
My captor was ripped off me so violently, I went flying along with her—torn out of the grasp of the others. Their claws raked gashes across my arms and legs, leaking excruciating tears from my eyes.
I crashed on a bed of snow—smothered by the freezing cold. All around me, all I heard were snarls, barks, roars, and the grim squish and snap of torn flesh and crushed bones.
Heat and light ripped through the dark, assaulting my eyes. Meallan staggered to his feet, bleeding heavily from a cut on his forehead. Fire magic consumed his hands—twin deadly torches aching to return the favor. But it wasn’t that bastard I cared about.
“Alisdair!”
My husband swayed on his feet, panting like he felt every mile of his run from the castle. And I had no doubt that he did. Never had Alisdair looked more... human. Not fae. Not faeriken.
Standing there wheezing in the snow, covered in blood and bruises, but not horns, claws, or fangs. He seemed smaller. Weaker. Harmless. As harmless as the clunky, awkward humans with their blunt ears and magicless bodies. He didn’t look like he could win this fight even if he had iron weapons.
The wolves picked themselves up, laughing as they circled him as if they were thinking the same thing.
“You fool.” Meallan’s laugh was nasty. “You came running to the rescue of a traitorous whore who poisoned you? She threw you off a cliff, then came to me to help her get away from you. That was our plan the whole time,” he taunted.
“From the very beginning, she poured nothing but lies in your ears, all so you and I could end up here on your last day.”
“Liar!” I screamed.
“Every word is true!” Meallan crouched, preparing to strike. “She stole the flower. She gave you a deadly kiss. Last night, she laughed about how easy it would be to tempt you into your own downfall—”
“So?” Alisdair sliced in—voice steady even as he swayed on his feet.
Meallan stiffened. “Excuse me? Did the poison stuff your ears? She planned this! Luring you to your death. Throwing you off the throne, and then running back to Lyrica and her stunted little life. She doesn’t love you.”
“Shut up!” I cried.
“She never loved you,” Meallan hissed, “and she never will.”
A strange, husky growl dropped from Alisdair’s lips. “And again,” he said, laughing, “So? What does any of that matter? She is my wife. She can murder me a thousand times, but no matter what, it is my honor to die for her... and my pleasure to kill for her.
“No one who wishes to keep their hand lays it upon my queen.” Alisdair began circling him, keeping in pace with a growling Meallan, but with his stumbling, it was more accurate to say my husband was tripping in a circle.
“But since it’s you, I’m going to rip off that filthy paw and feed it back to you.
“Come now, boy,” he barked, making Meallan jerk. “You lied, cheated, and manipulated from the shadows to get me this far, all because you were too much of a cowering little bitch to face me beast to beast.
“Now that you have made me as weak and helpless as you—attack. Claim the hollow victory handed to you by a little bird who’s smarter than you’ll ever be—”
“Kill him!”
The wolves charged, leaping on my husband four-on-one. Alisdair disappeared under a torrent of fangs, claws, fur, and blood. My scream shredded my throat.
For all his bluster, the poison had done its work.
Alisdair should’ve transformed into his unstoppable beast form and ripped out their throats without blinking.
He should’ve summoned fire from the pits of hell itself and burned their eyes out of their skulls.
He should’ve been sauntering over a pile of corpses, smirk riding his lips, and claiming his prize—me.
But none of those things were happening.
Alisdair covered his head and face with his arms, his only protection against the onslaught.
Meallan raked his fire-tipped claws across his stomach, spilling hot, steaming blood on the pure snow, sizzling his skin, and bellowing a roar out of Alisdair that made me sob.
The woman was right next to him, sinking her teeth in his leg and tearing free a chunk of flesh and muscle.
Alisdair couldn’t stop them biting and tearing him apart, while the two focused on his head—pummeling, stomping, kicking on his arms to get through and bash his skull in, ending the fight before it started. Their laughter howled above the whipping wind.
“Stop it!” I shrieked. “Get off him. Leave him alone!”
I may as well have been an ant before a thunderstorm. They didn’t hear my screams. They didn’t care for such a lowly creature when there was devastation to wage. I was nothing. Queen of Nothing and feared by no one.
I twisted this way and that, looking for a weapon—something. Anything!
Nothing met my eye except for more snow and dead trees. If that’s all I have, at least I have something!
Meallan snarled when I jumped on his back and smashed a handful of snow in his face. He tossed me off and spun around, eyes widening in the bare second before I smashed the branch into his face.
His head snapped around, but didn’t bring his body with him.
Meallan weathered the blow without rocking an inch off his feet.
His growls ratcheted up tenfold as he slowly turned on me—eyes red and fangs glistening with his blood.
It was impossible to me that this monster had anything to do with the sweet, kind, patient Foalan.
“I’ve had enough of you, bitch!” He raised a backhand, fire dancing on his knuckles. “Shadowsoul, I hope you’re watching this!”
“Don’t you fucking dare!”
His hand fell.
A hard force tackled me, blowing me off my feet. Meallan’s claws raked the air my neck no longer occupied.
Alisdair and I tumbled through the snow, his body shielding me as the wolves chased us—raining blows on his back.
“R-run,” Alisdair rasped. “Get far away from here. Leave me—”
They tore him off me. Throwing him on the ground, they descended on him—united in one goal: killing Alisdair Shadowsoul.
“Stop it!” I screamed, and screamed, and screamed.
Every ounce of Meallan’s hatred, brutality, and obsession with ruling fed his blows and the heat of his fire. They kicked, beat, bit, and clawed him again and again, my screams the backdrop of their fun.
Alisdair wasn’t going to survive. No one could.
Rage, fear, and desperation swelled in me, igniting the deep and pulsing well of magic resting within my soul. It bashed against its bindings—surging, swarming, swelling to reach the far corners of my being, and then burst beyond—eager to do my bidding.
It smashed against the barrier, and stopped.
“No!” I pulled harder—demanded more! “You’re my magic! You cannot be kept from me. You cannot be taken!
“Eldur,” I bellowed—unearthing a spell from another time and another life. “Eldur!”
My magic thrashed against the barrier, pummeling and beating it harder than the wolves beat me. It felt like I was being savaged from the inside out—taken apart by the seams. Any more and I’d explode.
I pushed harder.
My screams pierced my eardrums. My nails bent painfully back digging in the ice and dirt. Agony! Heart-wrenching agony!
And still I kept pulling, drawing, forcing my magic free of its chains.
Alisdair would not die like this—murdered by a pack of dim-witted wolves, led by a cowardly fuck who was too afraid to face him at full strength. If anyone was going to kill my frustrating, harsh, smirking husband, it was going to be me.
And I will fucking kill him if he dares to die and leave me forever cursed, forever lonely. Forever without him. “Eldur,” I screamed. “ELDUR!”
I broke.
Glowing, white light erupted from my skin and escaped the tree line, reaching for the heavens.
Dark, swirling clouds heavy with ice cracked down the middle—peeling before the light beam.
Our moon, our mother, our Meya of the moon, earth, sea, and stars rose from behind her own barrier and shone down on me.
Long, white locks swirled around me—alive with the same energy bursting beneath my skin. I knew as my lips parted that it was over. Meallan would wake up minutes from then in the pits of hell, cursing his failed coup to the far corners of his fire pit and back.
“El—”
Pain exploded in my temple. I went flying, thrown off my hands and knees—tumbling through the snow. The glow left me, racing away with my magic behind the barrier as if it was never there. Never anything but a fool’s desperate dream.
Meallan stood over me, holding the branch in his grip. Behind him, Alisdair lay broken, bleeding, and still.
“What was that?” the woman whispered. “How did she do that? I thought her magic was bound.”
“I don’t care why or what the fuck she is. Kill her and be thorough,” he said. “I’ll take care of Shadowsoul’s body.”
I lay in the cold, my spinning vision making my stomach twist.
Meallan snarled when no one responded to him. “Tullia! Kuan! I told you to—” He spun around on their bleeding corpses. Three bodies littered the snow, and my husband wasn’t one.
“Wha—? Where is he!”
“I believe I promised—”
Meallan twisted, raising his meager wooden weapon high.
Alisdair severed his hand at the wrist.
“Ahhhhh!”
“—to feed this to you,” Alisdair finished. Snatching up his hand, he shoved it in Meallan’s bellowing mouth—choking him on his own fingers.
Bronze flashed in the moonlight. Alisdair buried the sword in his abdomen, cutting his muffled cries short. Meallan thudded to the ground—the shortest coup in Lumenfell history over in a blink.
My husband dropped down beside me. “Princess.” He touched the side of my head, his fingers coming away tacky with blood. A furious growl rumbled his chest. “I’m sorry,” he said, apologizing to me for the first time ever. “I should’ve... been f-faster.”
Somehow, I smiled. “You were fast enough. Let’s get you—”
He collapsed.
“Alisdair!” Scrambling up, I fell next to him—a cry trapping behind my teeth.
He looked terrible. A frightening mass of blood, torn skin, and gore. I didn’t know how he’d found the strength or magic to summon a sword, let alone use it. He looked like it was long past the time he should’ve entered the Meadows of Meya.
Alisdair coughed and blood spurted from his lips. “I always knew... you’d be the death of me, woman.” He chuckled a laugh that was more a gasping wheeze. “Leave it to you to... do it cleverly.”
“Stop your nonsense,” I sobbed. I gently cradled his head, placing him on my lap. My tears dripped down his cheeks—shedding the tears he couldn’t. “You’re not going to die. You can’t because...” I moved down, laying my palm over his scar. “Because I love you.”
“C— C—” He reached for me, straining to speak.
His hand flopped down at his side. Alisdair’s final words to me disappeared with the light behind his eyes.