Chapter 30 #2
I ignored her. My gaze stayed locked on the castle.
Every heartbeat was agony now, every moment another inch of distance between me and her.
“Give me a second, I just need to patch Eve up,” Lionel said, folding the map together and rummaging through his belongings.
That was the last straw.
A second was all it took, one second was enough for us to be too late.
A second could be what would save her life.
“I’m not waiting.” My voice cut the space between us, too loud, too close. The stone answered with a hollow echo. Everyone flinched, even Jaden, who rarely reacted towards me nowadays.
Lionel looked up from his backpack.
“Malakai—”
“No.” I said firmly. “You heard me. She’s inside and every second we waste is another hand on her throat. I’ll draw them out—I’ll be bait if it saves her.”
Ashley barked, half-laughing, half- sobbing. “You said we would save her—” Her hands were fists at her sides. “You said we would do this together, not you going off on a grand solo adventure.”
“I’m not doing it alone,” I said. “You’ll go in. Find her, get her out. I’ll make sure they notice everything but you.”
She took a step forward, furious enough to strike. “You can’t be bait, Malakai. Not you. Ethalyn—” Her voice broke on her name. For a moment she couldn’t finish the sentence that always followed, the one that ended in ice and blood. She exhaled slowly. “If anything happens to you, it’ll ruin her.”
I watched the quick, ugly fear pass over her face.
“You don’t get to decide what ruins her,” I said, calmly. “I do. Let me be the devastation that keeps her alive.”
Nate made a noise that might have been a laugh or a scoff. “You’re serious?”
Eve, still clutching her wounded side where blood had dried and darkened, stared at me with something akin to terrible, relieved admiration. “You’re an idiot…” she said. “But you’re right. If anyone can pull eyes away from the place she’s held, it’s you.”
Lionel’s jaw clenched. He had never liked me. He had tolerated me. Now, his eyes darted as if searching for an alternative, an answer, desperately. “We don’t know what we’ll be walking into,” he said. “If the Demon King… If he’s in there—”
“He’s in there,” I finished for him. The words stayed in the room like a second breath.
I’d known. I had known the name and the throne and the way it hung in my blood like a rot I’d refused to smell.
I’d spent nights inventing ways around him, detours, misdirection, because I wanted nothing to do with him.
Ever since he left my mother, I had been battling between keeping him in the dark about my existence and claiming revenge for what he did to her.
However…
For Ethalyn, I had burned all of the reasons. “He is my father. I have been avoiding that fact my whole life, staying out of his reach. I don’t care about that now. I only care about her.”
Ashley made a small, strangled sound. Jaden closed his eyes. Even Lionel’s face softened, not to me but to the ragged truth I’d offered up like I was serving a bittersweet desert.
“You’ll be bait,” Lionel said finally, the plan finding itself in his mouth like a sharp tool.
“We’ll use the cliffs on the east side; Jaden will use his earth magic to make it easier for us to climb, Eve will watch our backs, Ashley and Nate will fire at anything moving.
And you—” He looked at me then, truly looked, and the soldier in him decided a sort of mercy.
“You draw them to the front. Be the distraction. If you can get him out, if you can pull him, then we get her and leave.”
Ashley stepped so close I could see the tremor in her jaw.
Her voice was raw. “If you die, Malakai, if anything happens to you, I will burn every inch of this place to the ground and then I’ll—” She swallowed, and for the first time I heard the child under the chaos, the girl who had loved and lost and was terrified to risk loving again.
“Don’t you dare make that choice for her.
Don’t sacrifice yourself for her, she’ll never survive it. ”
I wanted to tell her Ethalyn already made a choice. She chose me and by doing so she also chose the demon inside of me.
Even if choosing me was a risk, she’d do it twice, because she loves me. And hells, she was the person I wanted to show up for every time, without hesitation, without her asking for it. She was the one my soul leaned towards, even before my mind caught up to it.
Loving her stopped being a choice long ago, and instead it became the most natural thing I had ever done. She gave me that, and there was nothing I wouldn’t do for her in return.
But I didn’t tell Ashley anything, I let the silence do the work.
Eve huffed. “We’ll stick to the shadows, become ghosts. You be yourself, be loud and stupid and we’ll all be fine. We’ll come through the east, either roof or window, whatever opens up first.”
Jaden put his hand to the earth; however dead it seemed he still connected with parts of it. He sat in silence, calculating, perhaps using his magic to see where the earth stretched and arched.
Perk of trying different mages’ blood was that I got to wield their powers through my own hands for a short while…
Lionel nodded. “We’ll avoid wide open spaces, like the main halls. Find her, get out. If we’re compromised, we abort and meet up here. Malakai will have one minute, maybe two. That’s all.”
I smiled wide. “One minute is enough,” I said. “If not, then I’ll get loud.”
Ashley slapped my shoulder, half holding back. “You son of a—” She blinked fast, trying to clear something from her face as I cocked a brow at her. “Promise me you won’t be stupid.”
“If you call succeeding stupid, then no promises,” I said. “I promise to never let her die.”
They prepared in silence, each of them seemed as if they had seen a ghost or were, perhaps, about to.
Nate fussed with straps and bandages, always practical, hands trying to fix what they could not fix.
Eve checked her rifle, eyes on Lionel more than the weapon, while he patched her up to stop her from leaking.
Ashley loaded her gun and looked through her bombs with a conviction that resembled a prayer.
When we moved, it was tense. Lionel pressed a hand to my shoulder, the contact brief and steady. “Come back,” he said, no flourish, no command. It carried the weight of a man who had lost and learned the cost. It was close to a plea.
I should have objected, but I didn’t. Instead I turned towards the castle, the black teeth of its gate yawning like a maw, and felt the tether tighten one last shivering notch.
The others melted into the shadows of the east cliff, five of them becoming a single, silent plan. I watched them go until the fog swallowed their shapes. Once I was sure they were out of sight, I walked out into the open space.
The first thing that noticed me was the sky and wind, stilling around me. The castle’s gate opened in a slow, patient manner, as if it had been waiting for me all along.
I shouted then, not a call, a challenge, cutting clean through the mist. The threads answered in my blood, hot and bright. They uncoiled like beasts unleashed.
If the Demon King came for me because I was his son, I would be the son he wished he never had. If he came for me because I was standing in his way, then I’d become the wall he couldn’t break.
Either way, I would save her.