30. Elena
“Alexei?” Blake says into the comm again, sharper this time.
Nothing but static answers him.
His jaw tightens. He drops his sleeve from his mouth and turns the ignition. The engine roars to life beneath us.
“What’s happening?” I ask, already knowing I won’t like the answer.
“Alexei ordered us to leave,” Blake answers, eyes flicking to me through the rearview mirror.
Leave. No. We can’t be leaving. Not without him.
The field behind us looks still. Calm. The torn earth sits quiet beneath the moonlight, as if it hadn’t split open minutes ago. As if the man I love and my friends aren’t somewhere beyond that tree line.
The quick, tight look Blake gives me tells me that stillness is a lie.
“Blake,” I snap.
“I don’t know,” he answers, shifting into drive.
The SUV lurches forward.
“Stop!” I shout.
He slams the brakes. The car jerks hard enough to snap my head forward.
“Elena,” he starts, already anticipating what I will say, turning fully toward me now, frustration and something close to fear in his eyes. “We have to go. If Alexei gave that order, something’s wrong.”
“Which is exactly why we’re not going anywhere,” I fire back.
I shove the door open.
Blake curses under his breath, throws the vehicle into park, and jumps out after me. “What are you doing? Get back in the car.”
I raise a brow at him. “Who gives the orders here?”
“You promised Alexei you’d stay put,” he shoots back, ignoring the question entirely.
“That was before I knew he was in trouble.” I step closer, meeting his gaze. “Are you going to help me, or are you going to stand there?”
He exhales sharply. “I’m definitely getting fired for this.”
“I’ll tell him I gave you the order,” I exclaim. “That you had no choice.”
“I don’t have a choice,” he replies flatly.
I pat his shoulder as I pass. “See? Then everything will work out.”
I start running.
“If we don’t die,” he mutters, drawing his weapon and following.
The woods swallow us quickly. The night air shifts, cooler beneath the canopy, somehow thicker. Branches snag at my sleeves as I push deeper.
Then I hear it. A low, unnatural rumble.
The ground trembles beneath my feet.
I stumble. Blake’s hand shoots out, steadying me before I fall.
“What was that?” I whisper.
For once, he doesn’t have a quick answer.
I move forward again, but he grabs my arm. “Careful.”
“They’re in danger,” I hiss. “We can’t stand here and do nothing.”
“Running in blind gets us killed,” he counters.
A gunshot cracks through the trees.
Both of us freeze.
Another shot follows, closer this time.
The sound punches straight through my chest like a fist.
Wendell was alone. He had no backup. Alexei, Ruslan, and Clara are some of the most capable fighters I know. There’s no way…
Another tremor cuts the thought short.
“Get behind me,” Blake orders.
I open my mouth to argue, but one look at his face shuts me up.
“There’s a backup piece on my right,” he informs. “Take it.”
My fingers fumble at the hem of his jacket. I find the holster and pull the gun free. It feels heavier than I expected. Colder.
“You good?” he asks quietly.
I nod, though my hands tremble as my finger settles along the trigger guard.
We move.
The clearing opens ahead of us, and I stop dead.
They’re suspended.
Alexei. Ruslan. Clara.
Each pinned against a tree, feet dangling above the forest floor, bound by thick, twisting vines that coil around their arms, their legs, their torsos. The vines writhe and tighten like living things.
My eyes lock on Alexei.
One vine snakes around his wrist, forcing his fingers open. His gun drops uselessly to the ground. Another coils around his throat, tightening. I see the strain in his neck as it forces his head back.
“Not so powerful now, are you, Novak?” Wendell’s voice carries through the clearing, smooth and pleased. “All that training. All that strategy. And you’re still at the mercy of my hands.”
“You’re still a traitorous coward,” Alexei grits out, the words scraping past the pressure on his windpipe.
My pulse roars in my ears.
The earth shifts subtly beneath Wendell’s feet, roots rising and bending toward him like obedient soldiers.
This is how he did it.
The dust. The stone. The power that was supposed to be gone.
It was destroyed. The last of it. The field. The source.
How…
A strangled sound jerks my attention back to Alexei. The vines crawl higher along his throat, tightening, the veins in his neck standing out as his head is forced back further.
“I am doing what must be done,” Wendell declares, voice echoing through the trees. “What you and that fickle queen cannot. When I reclaim the throne, Zurdonia will be feared.”
The vines pull.
Alexei, Ruslan, and Clara are yanked in different directions, their bodies straining against the living restraints.
“Blake,” I whisper harshly. “What do we do?”
He scans the clearing, then looks at me. His expression goes grim. “Distraction. I pull him off. You get them free.”
I shake my head immediately. “No. I’m the distraction.”
His eyes harden. “My job is to protect you.”
“And he will either shoot you or turn you into another vine puppet,” I whisper fiercely. “He wants me. He needs me alive. I can hold his attention.”
Blake studies me for a long, silent second.
Then he nods once. “I’m definitely fired after this,” he grumbles.
He steps back, melting into the shadows of the trees.
I look down at the gun in my hand. It won’t matter if I shoot him. Not if he can bend the ground itself.
Slowly, I slide the weapon into the waistband at my back.
Then I step into the clearing. Hands raised.
The vines creak and strain overhead.
Alexei sees me first.
His eyes flare wide. He shakes his head as much as the vines allow, a strangled sound forcing past his throat.
Don’t.
But I’m already walking forward.
“Stop!” I scream.
The word tears out of me as the last vine snakes toward Alexei’s mouth, curling like it means to seal him in silence forever.
It freezes.
Not fully, but enough.
The vine recoils slightly, peeling back from his face. Alexei drags in a ragged breath, chest heaving, muscles straining so hard against the restraints that his arms tremble.
His eyes find mine. There’s fury there. And fear. For me.
And somehow that steadies me.
“And here,” Wendell drawls, turning slowly, “is our fickle queen.”
“I’m here,” I confirm, forcing my voice not to shake. “Let them go.”
He laughs, low and rich, as if I’ve offered him entertainment instead of a demand.
I don’t look at Alexei. I don’t look at Ruslan or Clara, all struggling to hold on. I don’t look for Blake.
I can’t.
If I break eye contact, even for a second, Wendell could notice something is off. He’s too sharp not to.
Still, at the edge of my vision, I catch movement, Blake slipping between shadows, closing in on Clara’s tree.
Wendell steps away from Alexei, steps grinding into the dirt as he approaches me instead.
Behind him, Alexei thrashes again, and the vines respond instantly, tightening, constricting, punishing the resistance. His jaw clenches. He goes still.
“See,” Wendell remarks conversationally, fingers twitching at his sides.
The ground between us ripples.
Not violently. Not yet. Just enough that the soil shifts beneath my feet, unsteady as breath.
Behind me, the earth splits with a soft, wet sound.
A vine breaks through. Then another. They rise slowly, testing the air.
“You see,” Wendell continues, “I found what your weak and pathetic excuse of a bloodline tried to bury.” His lips curve. “The power chose me.”
The vines behind me slither higher, brushing the backs of my calves like curious snakes.
“Look what I can do.”
“Having power,” I shoot back, “means knowing when not to use it.” My voice rings clearer than I feel. “Not twisting it. Not bending it to feed your own ego.”
His brow lifts. “Oh? Isn’t that exactly what you’ve done? Since you stole the crown?”
“I didn’t steal anything!”
He gives a mocking snort. “No. That began long before you.” He takes another step forward. “But it ends with you.”
My hand inches behind my back, fingers brushing the grip of the gun tucked into my waistband.
The vines surge higher at a flick of his wrist.
Alexei’s strained grunts grow harsher.
In the corner of my vision, Blake reaches Clara. A flash of steel catches the moonlight, a knife slicing through thick coils at her ankles.
“Careful,” he cautions lightly, fingers curling so the stone tightens around their throats. “You’re starting to make me impatient.”
I don’t move. Don’t look at them. I keep my eyes on him.
“You think this makes you stronger?” I ask, voice steady.
He huffs a quiet laugh. “Here it comes.”
“Power like that—” I continue, unshaken, “doesn’t just take from the people you use it on.”
He tilts his head, amused. “Let me guess.” A slow, mocking smile. “I lose my soul?”
I shake my head once. “It’s not that simple.”
“No?” he drawls.
“It’s you,” I explain. “Every time you use it like this, every time you choose this, you lose something. Piece by piece. That much I do know. Until there’s nothing left of who you were to begin with.”
For a second, the air stills.
Then he laughs. Louder this time. “Is that what you tell yourself?” he asks. “To sleep at night?”
My jaw tightens, but I hold my ground.
“I’m not the one slipping,” he continues, eyes flicking over me, sharp and assessing. “You are.”
The pressure on them tightens, more than enough to make his point.
“You hesitate. You question.” A faint sneer pulls at his mouth.
“Your not noble. You’re weak, he spits flatly.
His gaze hardens. “And weakness doesn’t lead.
” His eyes narrow at me. “It follows. Or it dies.” He steps closer, voice dropping.
His eyes lock onto mine, cold and certain.
“Children don’t run kingdoms.” Another pause, sharp, calculated.
“Real power belongs to those willing to use it.”
I have to keep him talking, realizing more than ever that he’s losing the ability to think clearly, intoxicated by what his newfound power can do.
“You can’t kill me,” I blurt.
That makes him pause. His head tilts, curiosity flickering across his face. “And why is that?”
“I was there when Oksana gave the order,” I answer quickly. “She wants us alive. She expects us to come to her.”
His eyes narrow.
“She won’t appreciate you going rogue,” I proclaim. “You kill me now, and you ruin whatever game she’s playing.”
“She doesn’t control me,” he snaps.
“But she freed you,” I counter. “And you’ve always had your own agenda. If you do this now, you show your hand.”
His jaw ticks. “Oksana’s mistake,” he says, “was thinking she could ever be the only one calling the shots.”
The vines creep higher behind me.
“No one orders me around.”
He’s losing patience. Stability. I can feel it in the way the ground vibrates, in the way the air seems to tighten around us. It somehow calls to me as much as it does him.
“She didn’t even know if the stone was still here,” I argue. “Or if it would work for you.”
He laughs, spreading his arms wide, as if presenting himself to an invisible audience. “And that was her flaw.”
He turns in a slow circle. The vines tighten around Alexei’s throat in response.
“With this,” Wendell boasts, “she won’t stop me.” He faces me again. “Like your soon-to-be-dead king.”
My heart stutters.
To the side of us, Clara drops the last few feet to the ground, Blake cutting through the final strands. She lands hard, nods once at Blake, then melts into the shadows toward Ruslan.
“I’ll go with you,” I spit out.
Alexei goes completely still.
“Right now,” I exclaim. “Leave them. Take me to Oksana.”
Wendell smiles. “You speak as if you have a choice.”
“There is always a choice,” I counter quietly.
Alexei’s head shifts slightly, the smallest shake.
Wendell’s gaze flicks over my shoulder. His lips curve cruelly.
“You don’t think I knew what your friend was doing?” he asks, tilting his head to the side.
His arm extends toward Clara’s position.
The vines behind me shift direction.
In that split second of distraction, I move.
The gun clears my waistband in one fluid motion.
I fire.
The crack of the shot explodes through the clearing.
For a heartbeat, everything is still.
Then, blood splatters the dirt.
Wendell staggers, clutching his forearm. A graze high across his forearm. Dark red seeps between his fingers.
Ruslan hits the ground seconds later, freed, feet slamming into the earth with a snarl.
Wendell tries to lift his injured arm.
The ground beneath us trembles, but far more weakly now. Unsteady. Like a pulse losing rhythm.
His eyes flash with hatred. “This isn’t over,” he growls.
He turns to run.
“Ruslan! Go!” Clara shouts.
Ruslan launches forward, but Wendell whirls back, one good arm stretching toward Alexei. The tree holding him shudders violently.
“No!” I scream.
The trunk groans, wood splintering under invisible pressure.
Clara, Ruslan, and Blake all hesitate.
“We have to get him down!” Clara yells.
Alexei’s muffled protest says otherwise. He’d rather die than let Wendell escape.
The wind whips suddenly, violently, and unnaturally. The upper branches snap with a deafening crack, plummeting toward the ground.
“Move!” Ruslan shouts.
Blake and Ruslan surge toward Alexei’s tree, knives flashing again. Vines fall away in thick coils at their feet.
The trunk splits with a sharp, sickening sound.
“Almost—” Blake grunts.
The final vine snaps.
Alexei drops at the same time the tree cracks fully down the center.
We scatter out of the way before the massive trunk slams into the earth where he’d been hanging seconds before, sending dirt and splinters into the air.
Silence crashes down over the clearing.
My eyes search frantically.
Alexei rolls off of me, coughing hard, clawing at his throat where bruises are already darkening.
Ruslan scans the tree line.
Clara’s chest heaves as she lifts her weapon.
But Wendell is gone.
Only the rustling of disturbed leaves and the fading tremor in the ground remain.