Chapter 57
Chapter fifty-seven
Esmeray
The hard snow broke my fall as I landed, claws digging into the frozen earth, skidding to a stop against the broken columns surrounding the ruins of the temple.
Still in Sentry, my ragged breath left behind plumes of hot air as I scrambled my way up and over one of the half-buried pillars, trying to steady my breathing as I dove into a small recess that hid me from view.
Adara stalked around the ring of the ruins, growling deep in her throat, her massive head shaking off snow drifts from our crash landing.
Her tail steadily bashed against the temple, breaking huge chunks of rock off the pillars surrounding me.
I had gotten a lucky hit in the moment we appeared high above the mountains of the Obsidian Palace and I freefell down into the ruins themselves, where the haphazard rubble granted me a little coverage.
“Where are you, little sister?” Adara hissed venomously as she blasted through a large wall of the ruins with a burst of spell enhanced silver magic. It shattered to the ground, much too close for comfort.
I shifted back into my normal body to fit under the broken pillar easier.
My entire being hurt. Now, in this form, without the bonus of thicker skin, I shivered against the cold wind that stirred up snow flurries all around us.
Crawling on my stomach, I surveyed the battlefield from my vantage point, the moonlight gilding everything silver.
We were way above the highest spires of the Obsidian Palace, on the mountaintop itself, where the air was achingly thin and the temperature dropped dangerously low at night.
Even though the stars illuminated the mountain brightly, a hundred yards down the mountain, dark shadows of a tree line stood tall and bare, defiantly growing in the harsh conditions.
Snow blanketed the ground up here year-round, and the deserted ruins were rarely, if ever, visited.
Sometimes Sentries would come up here for training, but I doubted I would get lucky enough for a pack of elite gargoyle warriors to find me.
Not that I wanted them to. Adara’s wing was bleeding profusely where I’d bitten her, the blood dripping down her side and bouncing off the snow. If I could get her to shift, I could get her subdued. Slowly, I reached into my pocket of space and pulled out Goldriel.
She wasn’t healing fast.
But I didn’t know if that was a side effect of whatever spells she cast or because her magic was burning out. I prayed it was the latter. Her nostrils flared, trying and failing to scent me as the wind thrashed through the jagged ruins, scattering Adara’s hope of detecting me easily.
I waited for that wind to blow past again, and the moment the swirling and eddying gusts snapped through the barren ruins, I slammed the tip of Goldriel through the frozen layers of ice, activating the wards I’d placed along the rim of this very temple as a contingency plan in case everything went to shit, and I needed to finish this alone.
The containment wards flared to life as I forced my depleting magic into them.
Merrick always complained when I disappeared for hours, since I never told him what I was up to. But now, seeing Adara irrevocable trapped in the ring of wards I’d placed here a few days ago, I felt a small slice of relief that at least this plan was working.
Gingerly, keeping my wings tight to my sides, I stepped into her line of sight.
“Adara–” but like a wild beast caged, she lunged at me, my wards forcing her back.
She was good and trapped now. “Adara, you need to shift back. We can figure this all out, but I cannot talk to you like this.” I raised my hands as a show of good faith, Goldriel disappearing.
Really, I couldn’t get the damn manacles around her if she was the size of Sparrow’s house.
“You planned this.” Adara pushed her front paws against the wards, her white wings pumping hard in an attempt to fracture them. They held her in. “All because you wanted my throne.”
I blinked in surprise. “I never wanted the throne, until you killed our parents.”
“I did what was necessary,” she grunted, turning to lash her spiked tail into the wards.
“You received the first soul tie. You were going to take the Opal Palace, the one thing I wanted my entire life. Ninety-eight years, Esmeray. I went to all the diplomatic meetings, I built all of the connections, I engaged with every single boring suitor Father deemed appropriate. And yet it wasn’t enough.
Why?” With those bitterly spat words, she stopped fighting the wards, pinning me in place with one, dull, blue-grey eye.
“Why did you get everything and I got nothing?”
“You would have gotten the Obsidian Kingdom,” I said quietly, taking a step closer, trying to keep my demeanor calm. “You could’ve found your mate while you ruled from the Obsidian Palace, and we could have been the sisters I always wanted us to be.”
“You never saw me as a sister,” Adara stated flatly. “You were too busy training, or sneaking out of the Palace with Sparrow. If I ruled from Obsidian, you would’ve pitted your court against me, taken it all anyway. You considered me your rival from the moment your acat manifested.”
“Do not play the fucking victim, Adara,” I sneered, my wings flaring out at my sides as my hold on my attitude slipped.
Hale told us once Adara was separated from the spell book, she wouldn’t be able to enact any spells.
By waning her this far, depleting my magic in the process, she should not be able to feel its effects.
But she continued acting frenzied, twisted and furious, just as she had in the Opal Palace’s throne room.
Was she even under the influence of the book?
Or was this my sister all along–a beast under that beautiful skin, finally revealing her true self.
My mind churned, thoughts muddled from the pain that continued radiating through my body.
She had silver battle magic now, and hadn’t wielded a drop of water during the fighting.
But we came from a strong lineage of fae on our Father’s side.
Maybe she couldn’t manipulate a lot of water because she had that second form of battle magic hidden away all along?
Or was the silver hued power purely a gift from the spell book?
I wracked my fuddled brain to try and remember what magic she showed in our youth, but I didn’t remember her power ever presenting as silver.
Adara wouldn’t be the first to keep a deadly gift under wraps and out of sight.
Growing up in court, I’d learned just how cunning fae could be.
And after hitting my head hard on the dais steps, everything was processing a bit too slow.
I blinked back the fog in my brain, trying desperately to straighten out my line of thinking.
Adara sighed, stretching, and settling on her haunches, one giant paw resting against the wards. “Do you know the only regret I have in this life?” She cocked her head to me. Lost in thought, I didn’t see it coming.
“What?”
“My only regret in this life is that I couldn’t find you on the night I murdered our parents,” Adara said smoothly. “I wish I could’ve killed you too. Even if that meant killing Keerian in the process.”
And with that, Adara hurled forward, breaking through my wards with a mighty bang that shook the mountain top itself.