Chapter 61
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
BEFORE
Helaina sat atop the watchtower staring into the night sky, as she had done nearly every night since Krysta died. It was the only place she could avoid the accusatory glances that lingered in this castle, the disappointment and the disgrace.
Adriel still questioned her to this day.
“What happened? What were you doing out there?”
She had told him time and time again of the psychotic Dolion who had tried to steal her away. Of the secret time they shared, all under the guise that he had cared for her. She told him how she had snuck out over the years, building a relationship with a monster.
She left out the strange power she had seen him wield. She wanted desperately to believe she had gone insane from the shock, that she had hallucinated those frightful abilities in the forest. A wishful delusion she had clung to for comfort.
Every time she looked in the mirror, that delusion faded. Her brand would always confirm the events of that night had been very real. A filthy secret to memorialize her shame.
Adriel had been the one to carry Krysta home, walking the miles back to Oakmire. He had been the one to deliver the news. Helaina couldn’t speak, so Adriel took the blow for her, took all the weight. She sat back and handled none of the fallout—not a single piece of it.
Coward—she was such a coward.
He had laid that broken, bloody body down in front of their parents. The shrill scream of Queen Jayda was more wounded animal than woman. The king hadn’t made a sound.
Adriel had omitted pieces of Helaina’s tale, mainly the lover she had described Dolion to be.
For all the king and queen knew, Dolion had worked here under false pretenses to try and take Helaina.
Krysta had followed. They had used the stable fire as a diversion, and an unsuspecting Krysta had fought for her sister’s life and paid the price herself.
When Ildhor had arrived the day after the attack, he was prepared for a week of celebrations, for his bride to welcome him to her kingdom for the very first time.
Instead he received news of a burial. In the shock of it all, no one had thought to warn the Prince of Creston that his betrothed was no longer of this world.
Helaina had watched from afar as the man fell to his knees in the great hall, gripping the blade he had gifted Krysta, the same blade that had killed her.
A man who looked so strong from his days at sea, broken like shattered glass on the castle floor.
It was then that Helaina realized how much this prince from the coast had adored Krysta.
She had robbed them of the life they had dreamed of.
The Crestonian court left Keles the very same night.
Her sister was gone. Deep down she knew her family blamed her for it. She barely slept, replaying Dolion’s promise in her head, how he vowed to find her again. Part of her wished he would get it over with. It would be less brutal than the days she’d spent in this misery.
She deserved all the pain she’d endured, and all the future pain he had promised.
Days passed without pause, and yet time itself had stood still for Helaina. Life was stationary. She didn’t notice the taste of food any longer. Her stomach knotted as she watched the construction of the new stable, remembering the blaze that turned her favorite animals to cinders.
Helaina leaned over the bridge outside the gates, not permitted to go any farther than that until her father ordered otherwise.
Someone approached from behind.
She turned to find Adriel. He carried a bottle and immense pain on his shoulders. She could barely stand it.
“Adriel.”
He wouldn’t look her in the eye anymore.
“Why did you leave that night?” There it was again, the torturous question he had delivered nearly every single day.
Krysta had told him where she was going. She refused to wait while he rallied his men. Outright disobeyed his order to stay until he had his troops assembled. Then the fire happened, delaying their arrival even further.
Helaina shifted her eyes toward her brother’s vacant ones and gave the same answer she always did.
“I don’t know.”
His brokenness faded, and she saw the flash of rage as he lifted the bottle above his head and hurled it toward the ground. Helaina shielded her face from the flying glass as it shattered.
“you don’t know?” he seethed, hands fisting as a vein in his neck protruded. Her brother wasn’t there anymore. Something in him had changed; she found herself hating their interactions most nights.
It was the same conversation over and over, and no matter how many times he asked, she couldn’t deliver a logical response. What could she say? That she was in love? That she was sick of being treated like a secret? That the isolation was eating her alive?
She watched her brother turn his back to her and skulk off, stumbling as he faded in the distance along the path back inside the gates.
He wouldn’t speak to her for weeks now, until he worked up the gall to ask her again. Her answer would never change.
There were no more sword lessons, no plans to prepare her for the worst to come.
Everything good in her small world had been stolen.
She regretted ever wishing for better. She wished more than anything she could go back to the way things were, the way she was before.