by Elena Lawson
Patience was never my forte.
I filled a second glass for Finn and handed it to him, “I know I’ve already apologized,” I began, biting my bottom lip, “But I hope you know how sorry I am for making you do something you didn’t want to do. I—well—”
Finn pasted on a tight-lipped smile, “You are the queen, Liana. You don’t need to apologize.”
“Yes. I do. If it weren’t for the pain, I wouldn’t have—”
“The pain?”
He narrowed his eyes at me and I took another swallow of my wine, deciding he should know the truth, whether it seemed more an excuse than anything, “When that doorway opened, there was this pull,” I told him, pointing at my chest, “Right here. And at first it was just that, a strange pulling sensation… but it grew stronger until it was this horrible ache. So, when you stepped in front of me, I just knew I had to go down there to make the aching stop. I wasn’t thinking clearly, and I should’ve told you—”
“Your Majesty,” Kade bellowed, waltzing over to the fountain where we stood. His eyes glinted with mischief. He leaned in close to my face to whisper, “What do you say we have a dance and set this place on fire?”
“She hasn’t decided yet,” Finn said, raising his eyebrow in challenge, “Maybe she’d rather dance with me and cover it in ice.”
I would have to decide, eventually. The nobles in attendance wouldn’t want to be kept waiting in suspense for much longer.
Kade and Finn continued to argue in harsh whispers at my side. Both the Graces of fire and ice were highly respected and would make my court proud, though they saw fire as the stronger of the two. But ice was known as being easier to control and would set their minds more at ease. Morgana herself burned down an entire wing of the palace when she was learning to control her one known Grace.
Before I could decide, Kade grabbed me around the waist and pulled me onto the dance floor. Finn rolled his eyes, tipped the contents of his wine down his throat and stalked from the room. He would be back.
“I hadn’t decided yet,” I snapped at Kade but followed him onto the floor, not wanting to cause a scene.
“And I’m not forcing you to, I just want to dance,” he said innocently, smirking as he led me by the hand.
The fire awakened in my blood the moment he pulled me against him to begin the dance. I swayed under the sudden surge of power, intoxicated by the heat spreading through me.
Kade teased me with his hands, squeezing and releasing my waist, breathing against my neck when he came close. It only coaxed the burning embers into a blaze that begged for an escape from the shackles of my skin. Then Kade spun me outward, and I caught sight of Thana hovering in one of the entryways. She wouldn’t come in even though I told her she would be welcome, regardless of what the nobles thought of her attending.
Her eyes met mine from across the room and she beckoned me to go to her. That’s when I noticed her flushed cheeks and the way she wrung her hands together. Something was wrong.
“Kade, I have to go.”
His face screwed up into a frown, “Go? Why?”
I tipped my head toward Thana, and Kade saw what I did, “Is something wrong?” he asked me.
I shook my head, “I don’t know.”
Kade scanned the room, searching for Finn and Alaric, but Finn still hadn’t returned, and Alaric was in heated conversation with Silas, likely to do with Ronan’s execution or the missing Fae who had yet to be found.
Thana waved at me again, and turned away from the entrance, beckoning for me to follow. It could have been something as unimportant as a forgotten necklace meant to be worn with the gown. That female could make a fuss about anything with little effort.
“I should go, Kade. She probably just forgot something,” I said, breaking him out of his search for assistance, “It’ll only be a minute, are you coming with me?”
He pursed his lips, and I could tell he was debating whether to disturb Alaric—to let his captain know we were leaving for a moment. “Just a few minutes or Alaric will have my head.”
We walked from the room arm in arm and entered the dim corridor. The flourish of Thana’s off-white skirt flickered around the bend in the corridor ahead.
“Thana!” I called, and rushed to catch up to her, Kade on my heels.
We rounded the bend, and she looked back from up ahead, eyes wild and dark in the torchlight, “Hurry!” she urged us, rounding another corner, leading us towards the western wing of the palace.
“Thana, wait!” I called.
Kade and I shared a concerned look when she didn’t return, before sprinting to catch up. My heel caught in a chipped tile, and Kade had to catch me before I sprawled face-first to the ground. His touch was heated and his eyes glowed yellow in the gloom, telling me his Grace was activated and at the ready should he need it.
I kept his hand in mine and felt the flames which had dwindled inside me come back to life in a great burst of warmth.
I couldn’t hear her steps up ahead anymore, but there were only two places she could go. The corridor ended in a sea-side terrace, and there was only one other corridor attached to it, leading to a collection of vacant chambers.
A miasmal sensation crept over me, raising the small hairs on the back of my neck, making me shiver. Kade’s jaw was set—his eyes narrowed, ready for anything.
We darted around the last bend. The moonlight spilled onto the floor from the terrace twenty paces ahead to our right. Where was Thana?
I looked down the corridor leading to the vacant chambers, but neither heard, nor saw anything. Kade wrapped his hand around the hilt of his sword.
“Liana, we need to go back. We’ll send guards to find her.”
I had been about to protest when Thana stepped from the shadows next to the terrace, the frightened expression wiped from her face. “You’ve already found me,” she said, and I hardly recognized her voice.
“Is everything alright?” Kade asked her, his back rigid.
She walked forward, and a glint of steel flashed in her hand. A dagger. Jewels set into its silver hilt gleamed with blue and purple and red, throwing reflections against the polished tile.
“Thana? What are you doing with tha—”
“I’m sorry, Liana, but you were never meant to rule,” she said, and a heaviness settled deep in my bones. My heartbeat thudded in my ears as she raised her hands.
Kade’s sword fell to ground with a clatter and I turned to find him on his knees, clutching at his throat. No. I ran to him, falling to my knees. His eyes were wide, panicked. He couldn’t breathe. His skin cooled, and then heated, and then cooled again. Thana. Thana was pulling the air from his lungs.
“Thana!” I screamed, my voice raw and breaking, my eyes brimming with tears at the obvious pain tightening the lines of Kade’s face, “Thana stop it, he can’t breathe!”
But she didn’t stop. Kade’s eyes bulged, and his face reddened.
“Stop, please! You’re killing him,” I cried.
I turned to her and found her smiling. Smiling.
I tightened my grip on Kade and felt the fire at my core build and burn, hotter and brighter than I had ever allowed it to be before. I swung my arm out in an arc, and the flames spilled from my fingertips in a roaring wave. She deflected them with a flick of her wrist, and they extinguished in mid-air. No.
With another flick of her wrist a tremendous gale crashed into me. My body left the ground. A shriek died in my throat as I collided with the stone wall, and all the breath abandoned my lungs. I gasped for air, unable to move. She had me pinned against the wall with a constant barrage of wind I couldn’t fight—couldn’t get free of.
I watched as Kade keeled over, his hands limp, eyes rolled back.
My heart twisted, cracking, on the verge of shattering.
“What have you done?” I shouted at her through the tears, “Let me go!”
She turned to me, releasing her hold on Kade, but my warrior didn’t wake. He didn’t so much as twitch.<
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Kade. My mind rebelled at the thought—at the possibility he wouldn’t wake. Searing fury replaced the fear, and the ring on my finger pulsed.
This is a nightmare. Not real. Not real.
But it was real.
I’d kill her. I’d make her suffer.
“It’s time for him to reclaim what’s his,” Thana hissed, moving closer to where I writhed against the force of her Grace.
“I trusted you,” I snarled at her, looking down the corridor. Someone must have heard, there would be help coming any second. But none came, and I realized they couldn’t hear. The music from the ball was too loud. Even at this distance, the drums and violin echoed against the walls.
“Stupid child,” she spat, “If you had just eaten the hawthorn, there would have been no need for this. You could have died in your sleep. Peaceful. And your sentry could have lived.”
Who was she? This monster before me. She was not my Thana. Not the one who nursed me back to health when I first poisoned myself with verbane berries. Not the one who chastised me for hiding in the forest instead of attending my lessons. This Thana was a stranger with eyes like a serpent and the voice of a madwoman.
“You won’t get away with this.”
She laughed, raising the dagger before me, now only an arms breadth away, “I already have, thanks to you. Once you drank of the water of the Sidhe, I knew he was right—that you were the one Morgana had chosen. All he needs is your power and he can return.”
Thana eyed the ring on my finger and considered the blade in her talon-like fingers. There was a jewel missing. Four stones ran a line up its hilt, but a diamond shaped setting sat empty at the butt of the blade. “Well that, and one more thing,” she said, “May you find peace, Liana.”
She raised the blade.
I screamed.
A flash of movement, and then Thana was knocked to the ground. Her Grace released me, and I fell to my feet. Tiernan charged Thana again, using his Grace of earth to pull the vines from outside. They grew with vicious speed, hurtling toward Thana.
I ran to where Kade lay and rolled him onto his back. His flesh was cool to the touch, his body still. His beautiful face was pale and twisted. I felt for a pulse, for anything, anything that would tell me he lived.
A clattering sound had me flipping onto my back. Tiernan lay on the ground, dazed, but still alive, his arm bent at an odd angle beneath him. Thana clutched the blade in her grasp, rage glinting in her dark eyes, her teeth bared. She surged toward me, blade out, a feral battle-cry tearing from her throat.
I jumped to my feet, my pulse galloping and my body tensing. At the last second, I twisted, catching her wrist, and diverting the blade from my chest. I tightened my hold on her, gasping at the rush of power as her Grace activated another of my own.
A torrent of air roiled within me, filling me until I was near bursting. She raised her hand, but before she could use her Grace against me again, I released the violent storm from my core, driving my palm into the centre of her chest.
She catapulted backward. And I watched as sheer terror flitted across her face before she vanished from my view, falling from the edge of the terrace—her screams fading the further she plummeted, until they stopped entirely.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Running footsteps rebounded through the corridor. A group of nobles came to a gasping halt when they saw me. The tears were flowing endlessly, streaming down my face and dropping onto Kade’s cheeks.
He wasn’t breathing. But I thought I could feel the faintest of a pulse, slow and off-kilter when I felt under his jaw.
“I need a healer!” I shouted at the nobles who were standing there, dumbstruck, not doing anything to help. Where was Alaric? Finn? I searched for their faces but couldn’t find them and the hurt in my chest intensified. “Now!” I commanded, my voice straining, when none moved to get help.
A female stepped forward, knocking two nobles out of her way. She knelt on the other side of Kade, her eyes wide and hands shaking as she searched for the injury.
“He suffocated,” I whimpered, “He can’t die. He can’t.”
The healer placed her hands over Kade’s chest, and closer her eyes, concentration drawing hard lines in her forehead. Her mouth tightened, and she removed her hands, “Not even the strongest of Graces can bring someone back from the brink of death, majesty. I’m so—”
My chest split wide open, “No,” I growled at her, and grabbed her hands, forcing them back onto Kade’s chest. “You will not give up on him.”
I placed one of my hands atop the healer’s and prayed to the gods that Morgana was also Graced with the ability to heal. The healer bowed her head and pushed her Grace into Kade. I did the same, digging deep within myself to find what I needed to heal him. But it wasn’t a healing force I felt there. Thana’s air still lingered within my core, and I felt the ring pulsate on my finger again.
Bent in concentration, I opened my palm and coaxed the air from my center, forced it to listen to my call and do my bidding. It left me in a rapid gush, and my chest contracted at the release. Kade’s chest rose, his lungs filling with the air I shoved down his throat.
Then I felt it, a peaceful warmth—a calm spreading inside me. The healing Grace. I sobbed at the discovery and pressed my hands firmly against Kade, careful not to lose contact with the healer. The ability radiated through me, coursing through my fingertips and into Kade, finding and fixing. Healing. His body warmed under my palms, and his heart beat strengthened. I pushed harder. Spots danced in the peripherals of my vision. My body swayed with the effort and a cold sweat broke out over my brow.
My breaths came in ragged pants, but still I forced the energy within me to keep flowing. Kade’s intake of breath was sharp and long. He choked on the air as it filled his lungs, his hand flying to his chest, clutching at his black tunic. Without thinking, I took his face into my hands and kissed him. He tensed in surprise, his skin heating in defence before he softened and pulled me against him.
The gathered nobles emitted sounds of shock and dismay. But I didn’t care. Kade was alive. He would be alright. I pulled away from him amidst the echo of footfalls charging toward us. Alaric and Finn barreled through nobles, knocking several right off their feet.
Finn raced to Kade, and seeing that his brother was awake and without physical sign of injury, he placed two gentle fingers under my chin, caressing my jaw, “What happened?”
Alaric took stock of the scene before him, and I swore I could see the relief rolling off him in waves when our eyes met. He seemed frozen, unable to move save for the shaking of his hands at his sides and the rapid rising and falling of his chest. Then his sights fell on something behind me and I heard a moan, turning to find Tiernan struggling to get to his feet.
The grating sound of steel being unsheathed was the only predecessor to Alaric’s attack. He flew at the Day Court emissary with a fury beyond any I’d ever seen in his eyes. It took the last dregs of my energy to stand and put myself between him and his prey.
“Don’t,” I said, trying to stave off the dizziness. I clenched my fists hard enough for my nails to draw blood from the palms of my hands, “He saved my life.”
The weakness in my limbs intensified, and I let my body slump back to the tile, “It was Thana,” I told him, burning claws scratching up my throat, my stomach twisting in protest.
He knelt before me, a look of mortified shock crossing his features, “Where is she?”
I looked to the terrace, an image of her face as she fell, twisted in horror and pain came unbidden into my mind, “Dead,” I told him, clenching my teeth against the string of her betrayal.
Chapter Thirty-Three
My eyes burned from exhaustion. I’d stayed up through the rest of the night and was watching dawn break over the bay in an explosion of soft colors. My males were all with me, lounging about my bedchamber. Finn was bent in pensive focus, twirling a small blade between his thumb and forefinger. Alaric sat next to Kade, who lay in m
y bed, now almost fully recovered, but drained. They were deep in whispered conversation.
The room was tense with unspoken words. I hadn’t wanted to talk about what happened. Every time I had to say her name, I winced, a lancing pain shooting through my heart. The palace guard had been searching for her body since the incident but had found nothing. The only explanation was she had been swallowed up by the sea, in which case, they weren’t likely to find her.
I overheard a snippet of Alaric’s conversation with Kade and sighed. The nobles who watched what happened had spread word of my Grace through the entire court already. They had witnessed me bring a Fae back from the brink of death with only the aid of a newly Graced, and unskilled healer. They were saying I must be the strongest healer ever known to our kind. No one could bring the dead back to life, but in their eyes, that’s what I had done.
No one noticed the air I forced into Kade’s lungs, and no one was there to bear witness to my use of Kade’s fire. I’m a healer, I told myself for the umpteenth time, preparing myself to speak the lie when asked. It was too risky, Alaric said, for them to know the truth. Different is dangerous—unpredictable. And the Night Court didn’t embrace change well.
“Tiernan, majesty,” a servant said, entering my bedchamber after a gentle knock on the door.
I still hadn’t thanked him for what he’d done. He saved my life not once, but twice now, and I wasn’t sure how I could ever repay him for that. After Kade awoke, Finn helped him back to the royal quarters and Alaric had had to carry me back. I was too weak to walk and blinded by tears at the death of my closest friend—but more so for knowing she was never my friend at all.