Chapter 55
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
BEFORE
It all happened so fast, and with only one torch staked in the ground, she couldn’t see. She had been too focused on the pain, on the burning stables, on the sickening betrayal.
Dolion was ripped from behind her in a violent jerk.
Flickers of light danced in front of her as she gripped her wrist in agony, trying to process what her eyes were witnessing.
Krysta and Dolion struggled with each other as the eldest princess clawed at him. One of the hideous twins pulled her off.
Her sister let out a warrior cry. Perfect, beautiful Krysta. With that fearless heart of hers. She had come to save Helaina.
Dolion lay on the ground, struggling to breathe, blood pooling in his mouth.
Her sister scrapped and fought, each grimy twin holding an arm behind her back.
“Let her go!” Helaina screeched.
“Run, Laina! Run now!” Krysta barked.
Dolion convulsed on the ground, reaching for his chest. In the torchlight Helaina saw what had brought him down. The Crestonian blade, the gift from Krysta’s betrothed. That bejeweled handle sparkled, blade sunk to the hilt, straight through the chest of Helaina’s first love.
The twins didn’t show an ounce of concern for their fallen leader.
“I wouldn’t make it harder on yourself, sweetheart. If you run, we’ll have to chase you, and you won’t like what happens when we catch you.” One of the twins licked his lips, letting his eyes roam over her body.
The other grinned at his brother in agreement, then smiled at Helaina through rotten teeth. “I don’t know, I kind of like the idea of running her down.”
“You will not touch her!” Krysta spat in one twin’s face, while she writhed between them. The other took his free hand and whipped it across her face, causing her neck to twist at an unnatural angle.
“Stop!” Helaina pleaded.
Dolion gurgled on the ground. Blood bubbled through his lips. He turned to Helaina. Those eyes locked in on her once more, freezing her in place.
“Helaina! Get out of here!” Her sister’s voice was already hoarse from her screeching.
Helaina couldn’t focus on that . . . because Dolion was moving, wrapping his fingers around the blade. He pulled it free from his chest, with a smooth motion that was agonizing to witness.
Krysta’s eyes mimicked her sister’s as they both stared unbelieving at what should have been a corpse.
With the knife free, Dolion’s chest wound swallowed any remaining blood. The skin Krysta had severed grew back together, forming a scar, and then that scar faded into nothing. Even the scratches Krysta had clawed into his face vanished like they were never there.
Both girls froze in horror, watching a man that should have been dead rise from the ground.
“Oh, Krysta . . .” His features were filled with menacing fury. “I thought you’d come after her. The assassination attempt, though, that was unexpected. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
Krysta’s fury matched his in every way. Like all hell’s creations were bursting forth through her very being. She was fighting—but not for her own life, not for her own safety.
“I don’t care what or who you are . . . you will burn if you lay a hand on her. I swear it on any gods in existence, do not fucking touch her again.”
Dolion approached Krysta as she continued to struggle. Helaina shot up from the ground, sprinting for her. He turned as quick as a lightning strike and with one hand gripped Helaina’s throat, lifting her off the ground. She choked for air. His strength was inhuman.
He brought her close.
“I’m going to enjoy this. Then we can be together, like you always wanted.”
“Put her down!” Krysta screamed.
“Gladly.” Dolion launched Helaina back with that impossibly strong arm. Her head collided with a nearby tree. She remained conscious, but she felt dazed. The trees were all blurring into a puddle.
“So brave to come out here all alone.”
“I’m not alone. My brother’s coming with his guard,” Krysta declared. “You won’t make it off the grounds.”
Dolion paid her threat no mind. Helaina’s vision cleared enough for her to witness Dolion leaning into a helpless Krysta.
“You know, I did always find you to be the more . . . alluring one.” He got nose to nose with Krysta, clutching her chin in his palm.
Helaina could hear the sounds of disgust from her sister.
“So ravishing . . . I would have loved breaking you in. But I’m afraid we only have room for one where we’re going.”
The twins cackled as her sister continued to resist their hold.
Dolion slid his hand from her chin to the back of her golden hair, arching her head up toward his face. Krysta’s eyes weren’t filled with terror. No, those eyes held pure, uncultivated hatred.
“You’ll burn in the six for this.” Her words dripped with abhorrence.
“Not before you, my dear.”
Helaina’s vision steadied just long enough to see it—Krysta’s own Crestonian blade rising in his other hand. She struggled to move, to do something—anything—but her body couldn’t catch up; none of her limbs were listening to her.
Krysta looked beyond Dolion to her sister. “Run,” she pleaded.
As soon as the word left her mouth, Dolion sank the dagger deep into her chest.
“no!” Helaina’s scream was shrill and devastating as her hands reached for her sister.
Dolion drove that blade down time and time again. A ruthless assault that left Krysta’s chest and abdomen massacred.
Helaina’s heart shattered into fine glass shards at the sounds. The squelching of metal into wet flesh. Blood trickled down Krysta’s shirt, glowing a fiendish red in the moonlight.
Her body went limp as they kept her standing.
“Krysta! Krysta!” Helaina shrieked again and again.
A ripple appeared in the tops of the trees as Helaina’s screams echoed into the night. An uproar of pure blackness that forced their torchlight to fight to stay alive. They all stared upward, completely bewildered at the sight of those menacing shadows.
Dolion turned to face her. His expression said it all. He knew those shadows belonged to her. He had known everything all along.
Before he could advance on her, the sound of an approaching crowd echoed in the distance. Familiar voices screamed her name, her brother’s distraught voice among them.
“helaina! krysta! where are you?”
Adriel. Adriel was coming. He had his men, he was bringing help. They could get Krysta to the castle healers in time.
The twins dropped her body. The sound gave the agitated churning in Helaina’s stomach new life.
Helaina tried again to stand. The pounding in her head kept her down. So she crawled to her sister, heaving Krysta’s chest up onto her legs.
“We can still take her,” she heard one of them say. “There can’t be more than thirty men.”
“No, we can’t. Her bitch sister struck my heart. I need to feed.”
Dolion kneeled before the disheveled princess. Sweat coated her body as she stroked her sister’s hair. Krysta’s breathing began to soften.
He ripped Helaina’s shirt down the middle to expose her chest. She didn’t care. She didn’t even fight him. If he wanted to kill her, right here and now, she would let him. Her hands continued comforting strokes on her sister’s smooth cheek.
He signaled to the twins to hand him the torch.
He gripped it and plunged his own hand into the flame.
He didn’t scream. His hand was submerged in fire, yet he did not scream.
His fingers emerged unburned, his iron ring turned a furious orange.
A ring she had never seen before today. He tossed the torch back to his comrades.
Dolion made a fist and, while holding her shoulder firm, plunged his knuckles down onto her bare chest, forcing that ring flush with her skin.
She wished she could remain quiet, but the scream was instinctive. She had never felt that kind of pain. The burning silver tore into sizzling flesh. He removed his hand, leaving the sigil upon her.
A brand.
“A reminder that I’m coming for you.” Then he kissed her forehead, all too gently. “You will always be mine. I will find you again, Helaina Ironblood. That is a promise.”
He glanced around the tree line once more, then back at her.
She blinked once and they were gone, vanished like phantoms in the night.
Krysta’s eyes were closed. Her chest wasn’t rising like it should. Her breaths weren’t enough, they were too slow.
The warm trickle of blood fell down Helaina’s arms and legs.
She pulled her sister in close, cradling that perfectly beautiful face.
She could fix this. She could save her; she’d watched Madge bring soldiers back from the brink of death. She just needed to get her to Madge.
“we’re here!” Helaina shouted into the night, trying to place her palms flat on Krysta’s chest, at the places she saw the most blood. If she applied enough pressure, the bleeding would stop. Even when the crimson began to stain up to her wrists, she forced herself to believe it would work.
“They’re coming, Krysta. They’re coming, hold on a little longer.
I can fix it, I can fix it all. You just have to hold on.
” Her voice was no stronger than a child’s as she continued to beg in her head and her heart for the gods to spare her sister.
Helaina rocked back and forth, letting her tears mix with blood.
“Wake up,” she choked out.
Krysta didn’t move.
Her chest stopped rising.
“Wake up! Wake up! Please wake up!” Helaina’s shrieking sobs grew hoarse as she shouted and shook her sister over and over. “I can fix it, you just have to wake up! Please!”
Krysta’s body remained limp, her hands hanging to the sides.
“Please, please, please. I’m sorry. Wake up! Krysta, please! I’m sorry!” Mucus dripped from Helaina’s nose as she struggled to take in gulps of air between her anguished words. She didn’t hear the storm of boots, didn’t hear her brother as he entered the clearing, covered in soot.
Dolion’s distraction had worked. Adriel had been trying to put out the fire.
He dropped to his knees as soldiers scattered through the trees, fanning out, screaming and searching.
Helaina released a guttural cry, a blaring sound that could be heard across the kingdom.
Adriel’s keening cry joined hers.