Chapter Thirteen
ELYSSARA
Reality melds with visions—a confusion of Vessira’s blades, endless nightmares, and the conjurings of my imagination that plague me more insistently the closer I get to the Final Gate. But not even Morrathys wants me. No, even he refuses to take me, no matter how many times I beg.
The sharp tang of iron hangs thick in the air—my body a masterpiece of cruelty and torture, painted by Vessira herself. My blood leaks onto the floor, and I know this is real.
If Morrathys won’t have me, there is no escape.
So I endure.
Endure.
Endure.
No matter what I’ve been through, the threat of death has always been persistent. If it all got too much, death would save me. But now, in this rotten, suffocating place where death would be a mercy, it doesn’t come. It doesn’t want me.
Just like Kael.
I hate that I reach for him even now. My want for him is a sickness of the mind, dragged from me by pain.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
My blood spilling against the slick stones splinters through my desperation, pulling me back to the inescapable torment of the woman who craves to break me.
“Maldrak’s offer still stands, Gutter Rat—be his Queen, rally Dravara, unite the continent under one king. Or,” she takes a swig of acrid liquor from her flask, sucking her teeth as she swallows it down, “we keep going.”
I try to lift my chin to meet her gaze, but the hessian sack still hangs heavy on my head. My eyes are almost swollen shut, so sight won’t help me, anyway.
“Why? Do you wish to stop? I thought we were just getting started,” I gurgle, and a sick laugh rasps out of me like a wet crack.
I hate that I have to fake defiance. It’s the part of me that always answers. But not now. Now, I beg for death in its absence. But I’ll never let her see her see me break. So I pretend.
She will not win.
She rounds on me, and I brace myself in anticipation. She’s about to unleash another one of her predictable moves, then—
“Commander!” A voice booms from the top of the stairs, halting her mid-strike.
She huffs an aggrieved snort, “You’d better have a fucking good reason for interrupting me!”
“His Majesty wishes to see you.” I recognize the voice—Correk.
Vessira sheathes her blades back at her thigh, the metal rasp scraping through my mind like steel on bone, and she leans in close, “I have all the time in the world, Gutter Rat. I’ll leave you to hang here for a while. Consider my offer.”
Her footsteps retreat, and I let out a shaky, wet breath. Tears roll freely down my face, and I allow myself a moment of truth: I can’t do this. I can’t keep going. I simply cannot endure more.
I break.
A shattered, wretched cry rents the air, ripping from my throat without warning.
My mind ruptures into a storm of chaos.
Whipping, lashing, fracturing.
Memories—real and manufactured—crash through me like a tidal wave.
My parents being murdered, sending my friends to the Final Gate with nothing but my bare hands, Kael cupping my cheek and rescuing me, Virellin torched, Thornewood set upon by Maldrak’s army.
I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know what’s real anymore.
Are the memories mine?
Did Vessira plant them there?
Can Venomshades do that?
Heavy footfalls descend the steps and I pray to every god in the known realms that it’s not Vessira.
“Fuck,” Correk’s voice cuts through my panic. “Oh fuck. Come ‘ere, love,” he says, trying to smooth his fluster with gentility.
He removes the sack covering my face, and from what little I can see through the swollen slits of my eyes, pity or perhaps even shock stretches across his face. His lips press into a thin line. Speechless.
“So, not fit for dinner with His Royal fucking Majesty, then?” I rasp, coughing blood up and spitting it on the floor at his feet. A punctuation to my sick joke.
Correk takes a key out of his pocket and makes quick work of the shackles at my wrists and ankles. He catches me before I crumble to the floor, and a strangled gasp escapes me as I slap against his armor.
He lowers me down, unfolding me against the slick stone.
I break apart against the floor of this godsforsaken dungeon.
I heave a dismal, bubbling breath into my lungs, but I get little reprieve.
I have nothing left to give my body, only the acceptance that these are my last breaths. That this is how it ends—a gutter rat in the dungeons of a rotten kingdom.
I try again to drag a breath through my nose, and this time, there is no pain.
There is just a weightless, humming vibration.
A soothing calm that ripples through my body, like I’m floating in a body of water.
I feel… held.
Safe.
Like nothing can get me here.
Distorted sounds try to reach me, but they’re not loud enough to penetrate the peace I feel—a dull blade against stone.
A balmy summer breeze kisses my face, and rough, calloused hands find my cheek.
A brazen, sensuous smirk appears before me, “You’re okay now. No one can hurt you anymore, darling.”
Kael.
That’s when I know I’m at the Final Gate.
Because here, there is only illusion.
I try to open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out save for a low, guttural moan. I move to sit—
“Don’t you fucking die on me, Princess,” Correk’s voice carves through the air and splinters my consciousness. His hand pats my cheek fervently, desperately rousing me back to awareness.
“Just let me die,” I croak, aching to return to the weightless plane beyond this one.
“You have too much to live for,” Correk rebukes, scooping his arms behind my knees and shoulders, and pushes to stand as I dangle across his forearms.
I huff a wicked laugh, and blood rises in my throat, coating my tongue in metallic acidity.
“Everything to live for is already lost to me,” I rasp, the words scraping against my throat.
Correk rushes into my cell, placing me on the cot, and I grunt when he lowers me down.
“Your throne and the entire Kingdom of Dravara isn’t nothing, Princess.
I need you to fight. I need you to heal yourself,” he urges, peeling my matted and bloodied hair from my forehead.
“I’ve taken the lillath chains off, Elyssara.
You need to conjure your magic. Fucking beg it if you have to,” he pleads, as if he needs me to live. As if he needs Dravara to live on.
“I don’t want to li–”
“I don’t give a fuck if you want to, Princess—you need to. Dravara needs you to! Your parents didn’t sacrifice their own lives for you to just give up when the Stars challenged you,” he bites.
My parents?
I want to ask him, but I can’t. Words evade me. Consciousness slowly losing its grip on me once again.
“No healer can fix you—your Lightborne magic is more powerful than any practitioner of the healing arts. Conjure your magic, Princess. Heal yourself!” he demands. Correk is losing his patience with me, his desperation palpable.
I can’t bring myself to do it for him.
Or Dravara.
Or even myself.
Hope has long since burnt to ash, nothing but dust.
Correk tries again. “Your mother gave up everything for you, Elyssara. She believed you were the last hope!”
My mother’s voice swims through my mind like rich honey. Live, Little Star. You are our only hope.
And the words awaken something within me.
The will to live claws its way up from the graveyard of my soul like a revenant soldier—a monster that refuses to die.
Because my mother? She deserves better. She refused to yield for me. She stood strong in the face of certain death. She resisted, even when it was hopeless.
And I will do the same.
I wheeze another rattling breath, but this time, I clench my fists in defiance.
I close my eyes, remembering Kael’s lesson atop Skaedor’s Crest. I find the place within me where my magic lives—my chest. With the last shred of my life force, I coax it out from its cage, and unspool it through my body.
To the wounds cleaved through my skin, the brand between my shoulders, the swollen sockets of my eyes, my split lip, cracked ribs.
My magic is eager—a caged beast held captive for too long.
It travels through my bloodstream, seeking out all of me that is not whole.
If only it could mend the wounds that can’t be seen.
My magic arrives at the wounds, but instead of having to hold it back as I did with my palm atop the crest, I can barely push it far enough to reach the gaping rips in my skin.
I’m too weak.
Please, I beg. Let me honor my parents. Heal me.
As if sentient, my magic draws on the last vestiges of life inside me—the will within that refuses to die—and pushes, with one final surge to my injuries.
Hot Starlight erupts in a golden plume around me, and I cry out in agony as it lances my torn flesh.
White-hot and burning, my magic heals as if destruction is not all it knows.
The slits I’ve been peering through widen, expanding my vision as the swelling recedes.
The wounds that hang open knit back together—scarred but closed up.
The brand tingles at my back, and I beg the lost gods that it’s gone.
I trace my fingers along my arms in awe, jagged flesh has stitched into risen scars.
I did it.
I fucking did it.
“You did it, lass,” Correk commends, exhaling deep, and something like pride gleams in his eyes. “She chose to stay and fight,” he whispers, as if talking to someone else.
“The brand?” I blurt, twisting my neck to see.
Correk lifts my shoulder to inspect it, eyes closing in quiet resignation.
“Well, the good news is it’s not infected anymore,” he says, voice tight. “The bad news, princess, is that it’s very much still there. Along with scars from every Starsdamned injury that fucking bitch inflicted,” he looks away, hardly able to stand the thought of Vessira’s cruelty.
I exhale sharply through my nose, and it’s the first time I realize I can breathe without feeling like I’m drowning.
I suck in slow, deep breaths, replenishing what’s evaded me.
I’m still branded.