Chapter 33 #2
The moment she speaks, every other door in the room thrusts open on an invisible wind. The lanterns on the walls die, and the stench of dark magic burns my nose.
“You should listen to her,” Invidia's honeyed voice—my mother’s voice—is amplified, coming from all directions. My ears ring from the volume, and the pain in my head is as though someone has taken an ax and cleaved it in two.
“Or aren’t you as obedient as your father was once upon a time?” The voice is below me now.
The demon wearing my mother’s skin, hiding behind the facade for decades, the one I’ve come to vanquish, finally stands before me.
Before I can answer, Eryk and his soldiers burst into the room behind Arina, who looks around in panic as two of them grab her arms. I am frozen in place, too afraid Invidia will turn me to stone before I can reach my mate.
Arina is composed, and she does not fight them.
“What is this?” I demand, and Eryk looks down at his feet. The growl rumbles deep in my throat, threatening death with my words. “Let. Her. Go.” Fucking coward.
“Ahhh, yes. Just in time,” Invidia coos as she makes her way up the stairs to Eryk’s side.
She places a hand on his cheek and pats it twice. He flinches at the contact.
I fucking knew I couldn’t trust him, but I can’t believe he would put Arina in danger like this.
The demon turns her attention to Arina now. I never thought to consider what it might feel like to see my mate and my mother meet, but all-consuming terror would not have been on the list.
Invidia is reaching out to grab Arina's face, but before her fingers make contact, Eryk makes his move from behind. His pommel comes down hard on the back of Invidia’s head, and she drops to the ground.
The soldiers holding Arina’s arms release her, and she reaches for her dagger.
Invidia is only mildly impaired by the blow, already pushing up from the ground.
She points a hand out in front of her, twisting her wrist and moving her fingers, manipulating the ground until it encases the soldiers nearest her. The material looks almost liquified as it climbs from their feet upward, turning them to stone that matches the marble floors.
Holy gods.
“You dare strike at me?” Invidia screams wildly, climbing to her feet and storming toward Eryk who turns to run. Many of the remaining soldiers on the upper level scatter, fleeing when Invidia aims for the captain. He’s turned to stone before he reaches the exit.
I don’t know whether to be relieved or worried, because when I scan the rest of the room, I do not see my mate.
Arina is gone.
I lock eyes with Baltas who has gathered the remaining fighters below the staircase across from me.
I lift my chin in a slight nod, hoping he’ll take the gesture as an order to leave. He stares at me, frozen in place for a heartbeat too long, shaking his head in panicked horror. But then my friend leads his men to safety.
I need to find a way off the floor. If I’m not touching the ground, will it be more difficult for her to use her magic on me?
“I think it’s time you learn a thing or two about how we ended up here,” she shouts across the room at me and puts a hand forward. The ground beneath me goes soft, and I blur to the dais.
“You see, I was the sea god’s partner for many years. His favorite. He showered me with love and adoration the likes of which I had never known. He loved me so fervently that when I asked him to forsake any others he might wish to pursue, he agreed.” There’s a hint of melancholy in her voice.
“Until we discovered I was unable to bear his offspring. Do you know what that’s like? Having a purpose and being unable to fulfill it?”
I don’t respond. I'm crouched behind the throne, hoping she can’t turn me if she can’t see me.
“After those first few losses, he grew distant.”
My father is a fucking dick. I want to yell it. I don’t see why I should be punished for his poor behavior.
She continues, “One year, we attended a celebration of the gods. Here, in Lukasia. In this very hall. It was much of the usual. Food, dancing, drinking. I plastered a smile on my face and pretended to enjoy myself.”
I know where this story is going, and I hate it. I want to vomit.
“All the while, noticing that he couldn’t keep his eyes off their pretty little queen.”
My mother.
“He insisted on staying in the castle for the duration of the festival. I agreed on the condition that he allow me to stay with him. Though it was a great sacrifice on my part; the beds here are nothing compared to those in the gods’ realms, wouldn’t you agree?”
Her footsteps are still coming from the upper level, but she’s almost directly above me now.
“One night, I woke to find he was no longer in our bed. I stole out into the hall, following the sound of…lovemaking. When I reached them, she was already gone, but my lover was there, smelling of her and looking guilty as all hells.”
I risk a look at the landing above me, and Invidia is there, poised to make me her next decor victim. I blur under one of the staircases, but it takes effort, and the well of magic in my soul is emptying fast.
“He promised he never loved her, and just liked the way her fragile fae cunt felt against his cock.” The disgust in her words is more than evident.
“We went home, and I pretended I didn’t notice when he’d be absent for long periods. Didn’t notice he wasn’t touching me the way he used to, and his eyes weren’t lighting up at the sight of me. The following season, we returned for another celebration. It was the same story.”
“But that next season? She was pregnant. Her king doted and fawned over her so voraciously it made me sick,” she spits. “I was heartbroken to hear their sweet babe hadn’t survived childbirth.”
I whip my head around, trying to find the demon and planning my next steps when something dark flashes by a doorway of the upper level. If there’s another fucking shadow demon, I don’t see how any of us will survive it. Not without Gideon.
“But Hydreos was devastated when the news reached him. He didn’t even bother to hide it, just went on a rampage and demanded to see her.”
Another flash, and I locate Invidia at the top of the stairs across from me. At the same moment, the shadow runs at her from behind.
Invidia clicks her tongue, holding my mate by the throat. Arina drops the dagger with an echoing clatter. Fuck.
“I’m telling a story, dear. It’s rude to interrupt,” she chastises. “I couldn’t imagine why he would be so irate over a fae princeling.”
Arina is choking, using both her hands to relieve the pressure Invidia is placing on her windpipe. Tears cut paths down her cheeks.
I can’t conjure enough power to move, so I make a run for it. Invidia shoots out a hand without looking, manipulating the marble at my feet just enough to hold me in place in the middle of the room.
“I followed him, watched as he cornered her after dinner on the last night of the celebration, demanding she tell him what happened. He held her as she wept, something he had not deigned to do for me.”
It hits me then that she's been toying with me in order to confess. She could have turned me to stone this entire time. She wants to tell this story. She's probably been holding it in, suffering with her grief alone. She needs someone to know her side, and I pity her for just a moment.
"But it wasn’t true, was it? No offspring of a god would make it to birth just to die in such a way.
I knew then that you had to have been hidden away somewhere.
So, I went looking for you.” Her words line up with what my mother had told me, but it hits me with the same gut-wrenching pain that it had then.
“You were just a little thing, and you looked so like your mother. But those molten gold eyes of yours were the thing that gave you away.” She turns to look at me, and I cannot hold her stare.
Her words turn animalistic, other. “I came for her then. In such a rage, I didn't really know what I had done until it was finished. I finagled my way into her body, and used her like the vessel she is. Her own hand murdered her weak, pathetic, loving husband.” The sad laugh that she releases makes me wonder if there’s any part of her that regrets what she’s done. How far she’s taken this.
“Hydreos left me to my tantrum, abandoning me. And I've been enjoying my little game ever since.”
Sheer stupidity tumbles from my mouth, “That must be so lonely for you.”
Invidia smirks. “Oh, I’m never alone. She’s still in there, and she cries out from time to time, but her true fight died out long ago. Or so I had thought.
“When you appeared at the games, something came alive. She saw you and was too stupid to keep the joy and excitement she felt to herself. Weren't you, Daph?” she asks, staring down at her own chest. No answer comes. At least, not one that I can hear.
“The gods have had enough of this depravity,” I spit, trying to free myself.
“Yes. Well, I knew it was only a matter of time. The gods don’t love when one of us takes the spotlight for too long, do they?”
Invidia stands at the top of the stairs, still holding Arina by the throat and lifting her off the ground. Her dark magic seeps into the healer, turning her skin and veins an unnatural shade of grayish-purple.
I work my feet, attempting to stretch my boots and slip out from them.
“You love her?” Invidia taunts, tearing her eyes from my mate to watch me. “Let me tell you something about love, princeling: it doesn't exist. It’s a myth made up by fools and starry-eyed buffoons.”
The stone around my own feet vanishes, and I fall forward without warning. I’m on the floor, looking up at the top of the stairs as my world stands still, shattering the same moment Arina’s body turns to stone that flows out from the demon’s hand.
Invidia cackles, and it occurs to me one moment too late what she’s doing.
The hand holding Arina releases, opening wide, and the stone statue of the woman I love slips to the ground before I can form a clear thought.
Even without the bond set in place, I expect to feel something more significant the moment my mate is lost to me. I’m frozen in horrified awe as a deep fracture spiderwebs through the stone when she hits a corner of the stairs.
I blur, one final time, to the top of the stairs.
Invidia doesn’t move when I dive for the dagger and thrust it into her with all my might. She must have thought I would be too stunned to act, because she doesn’t fight at all. The blade rips through the skin and slides between her ribs, sinking into her heart.
I slump to the ground, cradling my mother’s body as she gasps through shallow breaths.
Her eyes soften, and a wisp of magic swirls from the blood leaking out of the gash, though I’ve left the blade in. The green smoke is sucked into the askios stone, trapping Invidia for good.
I know it’s finished when all the smoke is gone and the stone glows green.
My mother reaches up to touch my cheek. “Raiden,” she croaks, and I shush her, holding her close.
“Save your strength, Mother. I’m going to save you.” I resist the urge to rock, not wanting to spill more of her blood. Fuck! Arina was my only plan. I cannot save my mother without her. How did everything go so wrong?
“You have done so well.” Her voice shakes, and blood drips from the corner of her sad smile.
Her eyes close, and my heart cracks. Pure agony courses through me until I am numb. My mother is gone, and my mate is made of stone.
Tears drip from my chin onto my mother’s lifeless body, mixing with the blood that’s still rippling from her.
The dagger slides out with a soft, wet hiss.
My natural instinct is to clean the blade, and after dragging both sides across the fabric of my shirt, I lift my eyes to find the statue that lies cracked and broken at the bottom of the stairs.
This was the home I had hoped to give to her, and instead I’ve lost her. Left to watch the land heal as my heart is chipped away, piece by piece.