Chapter Fifty-Eight #2
“What is all this shrieking about?” She takes in the executioner, standing stiff at the bottom of the dais; Maxian, hands wet with blood, crouching before the throne; and then, lastly, me. Her eyes narrow slightly, and this is all that she gives away.
“Out, Kassandra,” Maxian snaps.
“I think not.”
He stands, the plane rumbling. “I said out.”
“That too,” she shouts over the quaking. “How can I get anything done when you keep breaking everything? I’ve gone through three quills today.”
The king stalks down the steps. I squirm in my seat, but the pain in my leg sparks. Blackness tugs at the corner of my vision, and I try to breathe through it.
Maxian reaches for the dagger. It slides toward Kassandra.
He reaches again—and again, it slides to her feet.
“Stop that,” he snarls. “You gifted it to me.”
Kassandra flicks out her wrist. The dagger flies up from the floor, hilt landing in her palm.
“It was my hand that made it,” she says. “It’s my hand it’ll always call home.”
The king throws out his arm and the Golden Whip zings to him. They stare at each other, the plane crackling with potent tension.
Finally, Kassandra sighs. “Not your best idea, Max.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Aren’t we friends?”
“I am the king. You will obey me.”
“And I am now heir to my House. If you whip me, then Reign will have declared war on Illusion. The council is already foaming at the mouth after what happened to Dominik.”
“Dominik got what he deserved,” Maxian spits. “And if you do not fall in line, if House Illusion does not fall in line, you will get a blade in your back as well.”
Silence.
Kass tilts her head. “Interesting.”
The executioner coughs.
“Speak.” Maxian waves a hand. The executioner’s shoulders drop and it’s only then that I understand how much he is controlled by the king.
“My king, an open act of war on Illusion would trigger the Trium Treaty. Healing and Death would then have to declare war on Reign.”
A war is fought with bodies, Dominik had said, and there was so much blood from that night.
“The one from House of Death is against war,” Maxian scoffs.
“Apparently, they don’t like that name,” I mutter.
But the king’s hearing pricks up. He pivots, gazing between Kassandra and me.
“How about a closed act of war, then?” he says. “Either I whip you, Kass, or I cut her out of that throne. If you do not choose, I will do both.”
Silence falls over the coronation room. Kassandra uses the dagger to pick dirt from her nails. “ ‘Avery’ does mean ‘queen.’ I think the exact translation was ‘rulers of the eaves’ in the old language. Or is it ‘elves’? I can never remember. Eli wasn’t the most exciting teacher.”
“Kass!” the king snaps.
“Elves?” I start.
“Female fae,” Kassandra replies. “At least, in the old Illusion tongue.”
“It’s more similar to the word ‘nightmare’ in the Death tongue,” the executioner murmurs.
The plane rushes with stony energy. Kassandra and the executioner drop to their knees, foreheads against the ground. The dagger clatters from her grip.
“I’ve had enough of this,” the king says. “I’ve made the decision.”
He picks up the dagger and marches toward me once more.
“Wait,” I say. “I—”
“I’m done waiting.”
The king drops to his knees. There’s muffled groaning behind us. Maxian waves a hand, and Kass and Death both gasp. He moves aside, and their heads lift in unison. Kassandra strains against the control, her face growing red.
She must watch him carve me up. No, I cannot pass the pain I hold for Jeremee on to her. Not after everything she’s been through and all we’ve accomplished together.
Maxian grabs my leg, positioning the dagger over the roots.
“I’ll take the Walk,” I say.
The dagger hovers.
“Send me on the Desert Walk.”
The king leans back on his heels, and a groan comes from Kass. Curiosity sparks in his expression, once again glancing between us. He tilts his head, and my mistress collapses out of his magical grasp.
“No,” she rasps.
“Yes,” I say. “Send me to the desert. It will get me out of this throne without sacrificing the power of the Tree, and I’ll most likely die.
Even if I survive the Walk, then banishment from Amyria will be my punishment, and you will never have to see me again.
I will serve out my sentence at the House of Death, protecting the kingdom. ”
His eyes land on my hip. “Your leg is out of your socket. You cannot walk.”
“Even more of a reason to do it, for I will most likely be dead in a day.”
“No.” Kassandra stands, emotion flickering in her eyes. “I will not allow this.”
“Why not?” Maxian asks. “What use do you have for a servant who can’t even listen?”
Kassandra opens her mouth, closes it, clears her throat.
“She’s mine,” she says.
“This kingdom is mine,” he snaps. “And you are just a temporary heir.”
She shakes her head. “Eli has declared that Dominik will never walk again. Even if he recovers, House Illusion has written that he will never hold a council position except for advisor, for he cannot have children. I am the Illusion heir. I will be the head of House.”
Pride—this time, not for myself—floods through me.
The king watches her. “You wish for Avery to stay?”
“I do.”
Maxian faces the executioner. “Send her on the Walk.”
My body slumps, exhausted.
“Keep her hip out of its socket,” the king instructs.
“A moment alone?” Kass asks.
“One moment, and then I’m ripping you away.”
My lady nods, and Maxian even gives us the courtesy of stepping off, although he can still hear. Kassandra rushes to my side.
“You fool. What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t,” I say.
“How did you even get into this?”
I glance down at her hands, which clasp me. On her finger glints my golden moth ring. I lean my head back.
“So they’re safe.”
Kass looks over her shoulder at Maxian. The air between us shimmers—an Illusion. “He will think we are arguing.”
“Are we not?”
“Lila is safe and free. So are Benji and Briar. They are under Illusion’s and Healing’s protection.”
I meet her eye. “Benji?”
“His debts are fully paid off,” she says. “His balance hit zero last night.”
I laugh, tears rolling down my cheeks. Oh, how I would have loved to see his last tattoo disappear.
How I would’ve held him as we cried and giggled because the sensation tickles.
I cup the sound of his laugh in my mind and memorize it.
Yesterday was the last time I will ever hear it.
It hurts to never see him without debt, but that is legacy.
Jeremee gave Benji another chance at life, and my inheritance to him: hope. It is all and everything I can give.
Kassandra reads my expression, and her face knits with concern.
“Yes,” she says. “Everyone is safe. Everyone but you.”
We glance down at my arms, wrapped in vines and my remaining four tattoos. My Reign debt.
“You have to keep going,” I say.
“How?” Her voice cracks. “You suggested the Desert Walk!”
“To buy you all more time to find proof.”
“What is time without you?” She looks to me, her pretty blue eyes filling with tears.
“What is liberation, if not for all?”
“I am heir now. I could’ve protected you.”
“So protect the others, for we are not done fighting. I am not done fighting for my life and my loved ones and my people.”
My mistress looks away.
“Kass,” I say again. “You are stronger than him. Whether it’s because he’s a halfling doesn’t matter. What matters is that you can bend the hardest gem on this earth to your will—and no one else.”
We stare at each other, at the roots holding me in place. Kassandra tilts her head.
“He’s noticed the Illusion.” She holds out her hand, the dagger flying into her palm. She lays the dagger along my wrist, tucking the handle into my grasp.
“What are you doing?” I ask. “You’re not allowed to give me anything for the Walk.”
“Come back to me,” she says.
“Kassandra, I—”
“Like I said, you’re hard to replace.”
I stare into her face, pinched in pain, and I understand, with a striking clarity, that it is over me.
She weeps for me, my mistress. She has maimed and killed—we have maimed and killed together, all to be free, and I am not done sacrificing and neither is she.
But feeling her fingers grip mine, eyes pleading for me, for another way, I wonder if, in another life, we could have been something different, something more.
Something like the soft shape of companionship.
“I await your return.” She clutches my hands. “I will always wait for you, Avery. I promise.”
It is a promise I know she will keep. But can I keep mine?
I swallow. “You…you are—”
Kassandra jerks backward, Reign magic depositing her onto the steps.
The king maneuvers around her form, gesturing for the executioner.
The pair steps forward, blocking Kass from view.
The executioner reaches out a gloved hand, the hand of Death that took my friend.
My heart picks up. I am afraid. The cool leather of the glove rests on my forehead, and I feel what Jeremee felt.
“Good luck,” the executioner says. I pay him no mind. Instead, I raise my chin and stare, unblinking, at the king.
Rotten thing, others have called me.
They were right.
I think of my friends, my family, the king who could change it all, who has known the pain of death and lashings of the Golden Whip, who knows the depravity the Houses dole out, the debt that strangles, the babies maimed, the lives that are lost, taken, ruined.
All to feed their insatiable desire to hoard so that others cannot have.
A king who refuses change for the sake of convenience, who heads this monstrous system, this kingdom of killers.
I think of it all, and then I let my emotions fill in my eyes, let my hatred putrefy the plane around us. And it reeks.
The king’s face falters before smoothing out once more.
“Your death does not change my plans,” Maxian says. “I will just find another one.”
A female attendant to incubate his children, for the fae have become weak with incest.
“You truly are your father’s son,” I reply. “Death hunted him down in the end, and now it’s hunting you.”
Then I become nothing.