Chapter fifty-two
Aged brown bricks of a walled rose garden grew around us where we walked. It was darker here as the fae lights failed to spill past the high wall.
“I am sorry, Imogen.” Eryk’s voice was wrung out.
Remorse sat in my gut for how I didn’t react to his kiss well. It was a stupid way to feel. It would have been less awkward if I’d just relaxed into it. But it wouldn’t have been right.
Despite that, I smiled. “Let’s just forget about the kiss.” I waded farther into the rose bushes.
“No.” He paused somewhere behind me, but I couldn’t see anything anymore with the night all around me. “I’m sorry about this.”
In the dark, a yellow glow shimmered to life, and I felt it lash to me the second it touched my skin.
Panic filled my lungs as I remembered the horrendous pain of the soldiers’ magic that night. How it had hemmed me to the ground, forced me to bend under its will.
Screams tore from me before I even knew what was happening.
Whatever this was, it was different to the magic the soldiers trained for.
It wasn’t crushing. It was draining.
My muscles burned as the acidic magic stripped away layers of their strength.
More magic fell into me and my body crumpled. That night outside the gates, when the soldiers’ magic had touched me, it had weighed me down like an iron cage. But this, this was drawing my strength straight from my whole being.
Stuttered screams were punctuated by bouts of blunt and agonising pain. “Eryk! Please! Stop …” I panted.
But the pain continued, and I wailed as it ripped through my arms and down my back. The weight of the magic was like the ocean bearing down on me.
“Eryk can’t stop anything. He was only my broker. He’s been very helpful. For the most part,” a voice hissed through the darkness.
I let out a gasping cry as the power in my legs was drained away into the corn-hued magic, and I stumbled.
“I think I’ve been more than patient,” the voice spoke again.
“Huxley, what’s wrong with her?” Eryk said, as his hand landed on my shoulder. I tried to throw it off, but I didn’t manage more than a shrug.
“Huxley! You’re killing her!”
“Nonsense! I’m hardly channelling any power.”
“What do you want?” I rasped. My throat was raw from the screams already wrenched from it.
I didn’t expect an answer from my attacker, but Huxley actually knelt down beside my aching body. His magic never let up.
“Eryk has sold you out, I’m afraid. And I agreed to help him get what he wants.”
My mouth tried to form words but nothing came as pain stole my voice as well as my will to control my body.
“I’ve wanted you since I saw you first,” Huxley continued, “and I knew you’d never choose me if you had other options.
I knew my chances against Kaedian were slim.
My own mother cares for him more than she does me.
So I knew I couldn’t play fair to get you.
And I don’t mind that.” His smile was harrowing in the ghoulish glow.
With that, he added another wave of magic. I screamed as my head felt like it was going to crack open.
“Huxley. Enough. What’s happening?” Eryk’s usually steady voice had a slight stammer as he watched Huxley’s magic strip me of my strength.
“Eryk … why—”
Eryk sighed, and then he took a steadying breath.
“I’d have gotten you out. I’d have taken you with me …
I tried to convince you …” He hung his head.
“But I’m practical, Imogen. And I need to ensure this city, the Corners survive what’s coming.
Huxley is not my first supporter towards a council seat, but he is instrumental in furthering my place within this city.
And once Kaedian tears through this city looking for you, they will need a strong hand to help rebuild. ”
As though the tide had pulled out and left behind its wreckage on the shore, I felt I could finally see all the pieces come together. Eryk had planned to remove me from Kaed’s side. And when I hadn’t gone with him, he’d offered me up as collateral in his plans.
He wanted Kaed to tear through the city? Why?
“Eryk …”
Huxley was a piece on his board to that end. I just didn’t understand why.
Agony shot through me like roaring fire.
“But … you helped me?”
“I helped myself. I put Kaedian in a position where the moment he steps out of line, they will come for him, with force. They would never punish me over him, if given the choice. And he won’t be able to resist fighting back. Not when you’ve gone missing and there is no one to blame.”
I was sobbing now. Each one rolled out of me like a boulder in an avalanche. My bones were going to be crushed. “Please …” I rasped.
Eryk faltered for a moment. “Shouldn’t she be in less pain? This doesn’t happen.”
Huxley didn’t answer.
All I could hear was my heart and the blood that was threatening to leave through my ears. Everything sounded wet as though I was underwater.
“There’s something different …” Huxley sounded confused. “There should be a well of magic to pull from, but my own magic is hitting a wall and drawing from her instead.”
He sent out a probing tendril of magic that blinded me behind the eyes, and my blood curdled at the scream that broke from me.
“Enough!” Eryk pulled Huxley up, and I felt the briefest sense of relief.
“What are you doing! Stop it! She’s mine,” he snarled.
“Huxley, I agreed you would get her. It helps me with Kaedian. But we never agreed you would kill her.”
“I don’t want to kill her!” he snapped, like a beast that had been beaten.
“Well, you are!”
“That’s not my fault. She’s different.” Huxley pushed away from Eryk and was back kneeling over me.
“What are you?” His fingers gripped my face, forcing it side to side as he examined me.
He wasn’t looking for any answering words but screams as more yellow light seared into me and drowned any hope I had of staying conscious.
“Killing her isn’t part of the plan. Not yet, at least.”
It sounded like Eryk was speaking, but all I could see were dark shapes towering over me, lit by the hideous yellow light that gouged into my body.
“What do I care what he wants?”
Who? Who were they talking about?
“Because neither one of us is strong enough to best him. And we need him. I need him. Keep her alive.”
Alive. Something in me rocked. They weren’t going to kill me, despite what it felt like. Their voices were muffled now, my ears ringing from the pressure building in my head. “Get her out of here, before you do damage.”
The magic Huxley had been pouring into me stopped.
“All you have to do is get her out of here so the prince plays his part.” Eryk’s voice finally rang clear in my head, and he knelt down to me.
“I’m sorry it had to end this way, Lady Imogen.
I’d have taken you with me. All he wanted was for Kaedian to retaliate.
You could have been by my side instead of his … ” His voice trailed off as he stood.
A fresh wave of raging yellow magic engulfed me and I wailed.
And then it went black as shadows reached for me, blocking out the world.