Chapter 47
Aella
The eggs and toast I forced myself to eat tasted like ash in my mouth. I barely slept the night before. After an evening of consoling Hadrien and Zelthor, I’d spent the rest lying next to Darrow as he suffered the God of Wrath’s punishment.
The goddess who’d told me to call her Desire had come into my head at one point, promising to end my husband’s torture if I agreed to a joining like before.
I’d told her no. She gave me the equivalent of a mental hug and went away.
It was strange. Darrow and I were certainly not the first couple she and Wrath had used, but I had the sense that an unusual bond had formed between us.
Of course, I could have been reading too much into it.
How could I begin to understand the gods?
It could be one big game with them, but when we’d joined minds, it was impossible to fake emotions.
Their love for each other had been genuine, so had their concern for us been sincere as well?
And what could possibly make us different than other couples?
Her offer grew more tempting as the night continued.
I’d had to bandage Darrow’s wounds and change the sheets twice.
Watching him suffer did something to me that I didn’t want to acknowledge, so I told myself it was how I’d respond to anyone’s pain.
He only held Wrath’s power for a couple of hours, so I’d hoped the price wouldn’t be as high, and his torture would have ended by morning, but it hadn’t.
Maybe it depended on the amount of magic he used, which had been considerable from what I’d heard.
Now, we sat at a table in the great hall, eating breakfast quietly. The prince’s eyes had deep, dark circles under them. Hadrien’s face was puffy from crying, and Zelthor’s expression was blank with his eyes staring sightlessly.
Rynn sat next to me, pushing food around her plate with a fork.
She’d done her best to console the princess’ daughter, knowing what it was like to lose both parents at once.
When I had to go and sit with Darrow, she’d stayed with the girl the rest of the night.
They’d become good friends this past month, so at least they had each other.
Still, I hated that we’d lost so much yesterday.
We’d had a plan, but we couldn’t anticipate every possibility, no matter how much we’d tried.
A disturbance at the front doors had us all looking up. Lord Gannon came striding into the hall with a grim expression as he moved straight toward the prince. He bent down and whispered something into the future king’s ear.
Armin stiffened before raising his gaze to look at us. “It appears that Kaius survived the battle and is recovering from yesterday’s events. My uncle has proclaimed that he is the official King of Zadrya and will eradicate anyone who tries to usurp him.”
We exchanged disbelieving looks. Just before Darrow fell unconscious after returning to Crystal Castle, he’d told us that he was nearly certain Kaius couldn’t have survived being thrown into a rampaging crowd mixed with venomous frogs.
It had seemed unlikely, and we’d hoped that would be the end of him, but apparently not.
Taking out Prince Armin’s terrible uncle would have weakened the dark elves’ position.
I could only hope that, with Radan dead, Karganoth would still be less stable.
Loden sighed. “They’ll increase security and make it harder to get back in there.”
“Yes,” the prince agreed. “With luck, they still don’t know about the tunnel. We will bide our time until the right moment before attempting to use it again.”
“Preferably after we retrieve the Naforya fountain because we’re killing the land faster with these large-scale battles, which is only helping their cause,” Loden said.
Lord Gannon cleared his throat. “I’m afraid there is more news.”
Armin rubbed his face, the weight of his duties no doubt wearing him down. “Go ahead.”
“The dark elves left the bodies of your sister and Lord Jacthor at Siggaya’s gates.”
“Where are they?” Zelthor asked, sitting straighter.
Lord Gannon turned his gaze to the young man. “I’ve brought them here so that you could put them to rest.”
I wondered why the dark elves bothered to give us the corpses, but maybe it was to ensure we had no doubt the couple was dead.
It could also have been a statement to the Veronnian people that no one was safe, not even the royals or the lords.
They had dumped them in plain view for the public, after all.
Zelthor cleared his throat. “I need to see my father’s body right away.”
“Why?” the prince asked, frowning.
The young man stood. “You’ll see.”
We glanced at each other in confusion, but no one appeared to understand why he’d made the request. I noticed Zelthor’s mood had lightened with Lord Gannon’s news. Why would his parents’ bodies returning help him feel better, other than for closure?
Without another word, everyone abandoned their breakfast to head outside.
The air was cool enough that I wished I’d brought a cloak, and the skies were overcast to reflect our somber mood.
Darrow’s father took us to a door on the side of the castle that led downstairs.
I expected us to end up in a dungeon. As we made our way down, though, it opened up to something far different than what I’d presumed.
There were numerous food stores down there. We passed crates and shelves full of vegetables, fruits, bags of flour, and a sizeable alcove packed with meat on ice. At the very back, Lord Gannon stopped at a door and produced a key to unlock it.
We entered a room cold enough to raise goosebumps on my arms, with half a dozen marble tables evenly spaced.
My heart constricted as my gaze landed on two still bodies, riddled with terrible wounds.
Someone had cleaned off the blood, perhaps before transporting them here, but they couldn’t erase the damage.
Only yesterday afternoon, I’d seen Lillian and Jacthor alive and well, each so strong and vibrant with life.
Now, the sparks that animated them were gone.
With a sob, Hadrien raced to her mother.
The deceased princess’ brown hair was unevenly shorn and partly matted to her head, her tunic and pants had slices and rips, and numerous wounds marred her body.
Her serene face seemed to have escaped the worst devastation, with only a few cuts to spoil its perfection.
“What did those monsters do to her?” Hadrien asked with a wail, running her hand over her mother’s chopped hair. Notably, she avoided the nasty, gaping wounds across Lillian’s chest.
Tears ran down my cheeks at seeing how violent her end had come, though she somehow seemed at peace with it by the expression that remained from her final moments.
I remembered the look in her eyes in the tunnel when I’d tried to stop her.
She’d been determined. Lillian had said if I ever had children, I’d learn that no sacrifice was ever too great.
That didn’t make her death any easier to bear.
Zelthor stood next to his father’s body with his hand over the deceased lord’s heart.
The Frostdar had suffered many deep wounds that would have made him bleed out in minutes.
He must have fought very hard. Darrow said he and the lone royal guard had stood protecting the princess until they drew their last breath.
Jacthor’s son, who looked like a younger version of him except with light gray skin and slightly longer, tousled blue hair, took a deep breath and looked up. “Rynn, they told me you’re a healer?”
“I am,” she said, brows knitting. “But I can’t bring people back from the dead.”
The young man hesitated. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone this, but most Frostdar can shut down their bodies before they die.
It stops the bleeding and fools their enemies into thinking they’re dead.
If they are taken to a healer before one full day passes, there’s a chance they can be brought back to life.
It’s one of the main reasons there are many of them left.
They often faked their deaths in the hopes they’d be brought back later by their brethren. ”
That explained so many things. Several of Paxia’s native races were entirely wiped out during the wars that began two millennia ago.
All we had left of them were tomes with drawings, and a museum in Porrine to remind us of them and what had been lost. King Worden’s father had designed it during his reign.
Three races managed to hold higher numbers after the devastating battles ended.
First, the druids, who still had almost a million at that time, since they held their continent with the dragons’ help.
Second, the Andalagar, which had been reduced to about eighty thousand by the end of the wars, but they were a little over two hundred thousand now.
Third, the Frostdar, who ended up with about ten thousand by the time the killing stopped.
That was a rough count since many hid in remote places like the mountains of Zadrya and Alavaar or in Hisgar with the ice giants.
Their population had increased to about seventy thousand at last count, but once again, some pockets remained elusive.
They might have more. Considering some fae still targeted them during the summer when they were at their weakest, their reluctance to blend with the rest of the population was understandable.
That had become less of a problem during King Worden’s reign and the subsequent marriage of his daughter to Lord Jacthor.
The part that baffled historians was that the first native races to be eradicated were those who appeared the least like elves.
They were pursued relentlessly. The Frostdar fit that category, and many accounts agree that the fae—including non-elves—hunted them down with a singular focus.
We’d never understood how they kept their numbers from dwindling faster.