“Sign it,” he repeated. “Write his name on the scroll.”
I dropped his hand, falling back on my heels. His eyes followed me, the expression so inherently him that I couldn’t believe Elias might be controlling him.
Why? I asked.
It’s the only way.
I fought the conflicting emotions threatening to pull me into halves, fought the sense of those words even as I tried to convince myself that Hazen would never ask that of me. Was it really the only way? I rested on my heels, buffeted by the waiting silence hanging heavily around the room. I wouldn’t let anyone die for me. My existence had been marked the moment Nareon fell in love with my mother, and doomed the moment my Force power claimed me as a child. Right from the start, I had been a means to an end for Nareon, and now my death would be Elias’s means to my kingdom’s downfall. I existed as personal pawn for the Soulstoys.
I tried to help Hazen into a sitting position, but he groaned again, so I set him back down and calmly approached the table. Elias watched me with a patient expression, as if he had all the time in the world to wait for me to hand my life over to him.
I took the quill that he still held out, pulled the scroll toward me, and began to scribble his name down. His hand shot out before I even finished the E, and he tittered.
“This isn’t an ordinary scroll. It can feel you. It must feel your intentions, else the name will not stay.”
I swallowed, shook his hand off and scrawled the rest of the name. Wet ink shone on the page for a moment, and then the letters dissolved into nothing. Elias waved his hand and Hazen’s body jolted from the ground, flying through the open door and slamming into something beyond. A few minutes later, booted feet approached and soldiers dragged his body back into the room, propping him against the wall beside the door before retreating again. His head lolled to the side, leaving a smear of blood behind it. Elias moved behind my chair and placed his hand on the back of my neck, thumb brushing beneath my left ear, fingers splaying along the side of my throat.
“Again,” he said coldly.
My hands were shaking this time, and a tear dripped from the bridge of my nose, landing next to the tip of the quill, quivering above the old parchment. I wrote his name again, trying my best to will the parchment to accept it, and waited with clenched fists as the letters stared back at me. After a few minutes, Elias reached beneath me and snatched the scroll away, tucking it into his coat.
“Bring in the prisoners!” he shouted, causing me to jump.
The wait was excruciating, and for a few full minutes, I had the luxury of savouring the shredded remains of my fading naivety… until almost every last person that I loved was marched into the room by soldiers. They were dressed in the now familiar silver, black and pearl colour scheme, and the person leading them hammered the final nail into my coffin.
Leif.
Tell me this isn’t real, I projected to him, as something resembling a cry erupted from my throat. He didn’t answer me.
For a moment, I hung onto the trailing hope that Leif was only playing a part, but still remained loyal to me above Elias, as Quick did. That hope died when I heard the indrawn breath of shock, whispering over my neck from where Quick hovered behind me. Leif wasn’t just pretending.
Leif was a traitor.
Miriam, Cale, Rose, Gretal and Harbringer were all separated from their magic with silver cuffs. Ashen, Teddy and Sweet were nowhere to be seen, which—in light of how drastically things had changed—shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. Sweet should have been with Harbringer. Elias motioned for Cale to be brought to him first, as the others were restrained off to the side. Cale’s eyes went wide when he spotted Hazen, and then those frightened brown irises found mine.
“He’s alive,” I assured him, hating the joy that had been drained from him, and the fear that lurked in its place. It was not an expression I saw on him often.
Cale nodded, his fists tightening as he was marched closer to Elias. I ignored everyone but him, knowing that for now, at least, he was in the most danger. Would Elias drain him of energy and life as he had Hazen?
“Cale Sekron.” Elias was smiling. “You are mind partner to the Prince, yes?”
Cale looked like he didn’t want to answer, and shot Hazen another pain-filled glance. I wondered if he could feel what Hazen was feeling. Elias snapped his fingers, and Cale’s form crumpled, the soldiers on each of his arms needing to suddenly support his full weight. His mouth slackened, opened in a silent scream, and Elias breathed in deeply, his large chest swelling, his eyes rolling back.
“Very strong.” Elias exhaled, opening his eyes again, pupils dilated. “Very strong indeed. You have allowed the Prince’s power to grow infinitely, and you remain intact, sane even.”
Cale hunched over, retching dryly, before he managed to speak. “Death… you are… death.”
Elias grabbed his face, forcing Cale’s eyes to lift from the tiles. “You can tell even that? Interesting. It took Grenlow much longer to figure out that I was one of the Tainted.”
It wasn’t Cale who responded—but my own gasp, which drew every eye, including Elias’ deathly grey interest.
“Of course.” It seemed that nausea was now my constant companion. “You are a true Tainted Creature. You died long ago, but whoever killed you was not strong enough. Who was it, Elias, who killed you?”
Those grey eyes flashed with instant rage, burning in every shadow of his face, and he moved his hand to Cale’s neck, tightening his grip until my best friend was clawing at his arm, gasping for life. Elias never looked away from me, and by the time his fury had dimmed, Cale was slack. It took longer than expected for the fury and sorrow to descend upon me. Every person in the room seemed frozen in time, the soldiers holding Cale stepped back, and his body seemed to hang suspended in its fall to the ground.
Dark satisfaction glinted in the eyes of Elias Soulstoy as a piercing outcry assaulted us all.
It wasn’t me—my voice was broken, my breath failing. Rose had successfully fought off her captor, and was flying toward Cale. He still seemed suspended to me, but his body finally jarred against the tiles just as Rose fell to her knees beside him. My grief was traumatising, made all the worse because I was sure that I was feeling Hazen’s in tandem with my own. Miriam had fainted.
“I would have died. I would have done anything.” I knew the words were mine, but I hadn’t consciously spoken them. “You killed him. You didn’t need to.”
“Ah,” Elias dusted his hands off, although he hadn’t gotten them dirty. “But I wanted to. And you will still die for me. You will still do anything. I have only taken one person from you, several remain.”
With that, he held out his hand again, and Rose was pulled viciously from Cale. Her head whipped back as she hovered in the air, her hair rising in a small, dark cloud around her beautiful face. Her mouth opened in the same silent scream as Cale’s had.
“STOP!” I bellowed, wrenching my arms from Quick’s grasp.
He recaptured me, but I had managed to struggle closer to Elias, who was momentarily distracted from his bloodlust. Rose crumpled to the ground, sobbing but alive.
“Release them and I will die. However you want it. Just release them.”
“Dear girl, you are not in a position to bargain. But I will leave them for now. Perhaps they will be useful to me in the future…” He glanced down at Cale, his head tilted regretfully. “It is such a waste to simply dispose of them.”
He gestured to his soldiers, and one of them pulled Rose to her feet, another three similarly hoisting Gretal, Miriam, Harbringer and Hazen into a line which faced me. Gretal and Harbringer were the only ones aware of what was happening, though Harbringer looked severely injured, his handsome face creased in fatigue and pain. Miriam and Hazen were still unconscious and Rose was lost to a world of grief. Leif—whose betrayal I had momentarily forgotten about—strode along the line of positioned bodies, looking each of them over. He turned back to Elias once he had fi
nished and nodded his head.
“Come,” Elias ordered. “Leif will remain with your friends. He will be watching us, and has been ordered to kill one person for each instance of disobedience.”
I didn’t need to be prompted. I started to walk, Quick following easily behind me, my still-numb hands in his grasp. I didn’t look at the others. I couldn’t.
I will come back alive, I thought to Hazen’s sharply sorrowful presence in my mind. I will come back, just like Nareon did. Just like Elias did. I will save you all.
He didn’t answer.
The walk to Castle Nest was a blur. A contingent of Leif’s men were waiting outside the castle, far outnumbering the men belonging to Elias—segregated by their pearl, black and silver uniforms—though they were, of course, under Leif’s command. Teddy and Sweet were among them, and I tried not to look at them, really tried not to give in to my need to see their familiar faces, to read the betrayal written all over them. I didn’t succeed.
At first, they only stared back at me and Quick squeezed my hands. Was it sympathy, because he was the only Synfee left on my side? I was just about to turn away when Teddy unfolded a small, red cloth, which had been clasped in his fist. It was embroidered with the death mark, rippling slightly in the wind. I stared at it, transfixed, until he hid it away again.
Our parade moved further north; for hours we walked, while I contemplated many things. I thought about everything that I had gone through, which had led to this. I thought about my father and Cale, two softhearted people who had not survived in our hardhearted world.
The morning sun was beginning to tinge the sky, illuminating the grisly scene of the synfee girl-queen escorted by her own army to her own death. Sleepy-faced people were appearing in doorways and windows, some of them tacking onto the end of our procession. I didn’t want them near; I didn’t want any more innocent people to die. Still, we continued to walk. I didn’t know how I managed it, after already walking so far in the night. The sun soon began to rise to my right; glinting off the golden-hued skin of the synfees around me, tiny spots of heat prickling along my cheek, drying my tears even as they fell. I could tell when we reached our destination, as we couldn’t walk any further. We had come to the concrete barricade where the river separating Castle Nest from Kingsbed escaped its confines. The thundering sound of water vibrated below and I walked up to the edge of the barrier, peering over the railing at the cascade where the Raven River violently collided with the sea.
“We have arrived,” Elias announced, though he hadn’t needed to. “Release the girl.”
Quick removed the metal bracelets and I immediately felt my Force flooding back into me with the overwhelming intensity of my grief and panic. The sky darkened and ripped open, lightning flashing as a sharp wind descended, knocking me into the railing.
“Calm yourself or your next friend will die,” Elias growled, just as an image blossomed inside my head.
It was Miriam, and I had her throat in a flexing grip… except that the hand wasn’t mine. It was a man’s hand, encased in black leather. Leif. She was no longer unconscious. Her pain-filled dark eyes were focused on Leif’s. On mine. Her beautiful face was open and sorrowful. You were not meant for this, I thought, even as Leif spoke.
“You were not meant to be a Queen.” His voice sounded from within my head, and even though he was talking to Miriam, I wondered if he hadn’t meant the words to also pertain to me. “You are too soft, too naïve. You could have lived a simple life elsewhere, but the universe called, and you answered. Now you will pay.”
I shoved the vision away, snapped a cage over my emotions and willed the storm to calm. It did so immediately, and the world settled into a colourless, lifeless fog. The vision did not reappear, so I hoped that Miriam was still alive.
“I have had the water poisoned.” Elias approached me, pressing me back against the railing as he peered over my shoulder to the water below. “I am sure that you are aware. There is a drain at the base of the wall, a smuggler’s niche that has proved fruitful to me in the past. I am a sentimental man, you see, dear Beatrice. This drain is leaking a steady stream of poison into the water, enough to be fatal for a suitable distance in every direction before it becomes too diluted. Even if you attempt to use Force to break your fall, the chemical will cover your skin the moment you hit the water. You will die slowly, painfully. I would advise against trying to save yourself. We will be watching. If you somehow prevent yourself from submerging… all will die. The dark-haired girl last, for she cries so prettily.”
I turned my face away from him, feeling faint at his proximity. He was powerful, yes, but there was something rotten about him. A scent of disease, decomposition… blood and bones. His dead eyes returned to my face and he raised a finger to stroke down my cheek. His fingers came away wet with tears.
“Time to go,” he said lowly.
I had expected him to wait for me to sacrifice myself, but his hands came around my waist, their grip searing and painful. He hoisted me into the air with barely a strain, and then I was flying. I only saw a flash of red from the group of gathered soldiers, the sound of someone yelling, of steel against steel, and then I was plummeting. The concrete flashed before me until my hair blinded me, and I tried to curl inwards. I was seconds away from releasing the thread that held my powers inside me, but I clung to it desperately, until something tugged on my wrist.
It was as if I had been on the end of a length of rope, one end tied to the barrier that Elias had tossed me over, the other attached to my wrist. There was no elasticity in the rope, and my shoulder took the impact with a jarring snap, filling me with excruciating pain. Before my face, the water parted to reveal Ashen, standing on a concrete platform, the water guided around him by a concrete arch.
“You’re late!” he called.
“My shoulder is dislocated!” I screamed back, the swinging motion of whatever had stopped me from falling was twisting, pulling at muscle and bone.
I looked up and saw that I wasn’t hanging by a rope, but a bracelet; the bracelet that Nareon had given me. His token was still tied to the end, seemingly striving upwards, wanting to pull me into the sky, preventing me from falling the remaining few feet into the poisoned water. Ashen reached out an arm and I grabbed his hand. As soon as he had a good grip on me, the bracelet disintegrated, and the power keeping me suspended snapped. He grabbed a hold of my other arm, drawing another painful scream from my throat, and swung me onto the platform with him.
I pushed away from him, my right arm hanging limply by my side. “What have you done! Now they are going to kill everyone!”
“Don’t be silly.” He turned around, grabbed something from behind him and hoisted it over his shoulder, moving past me. “They’re occupied up there. They aren’t even watching. Has Leif projected any visions of death into your head?”
I didn’t answer his question; the face of the girl slung over his shoulder arrested me. She looked just like me. Her hair was a golden-hued, burning fire, alighting around a face possessed by wide, violet eyes. Those eyes stared unblinkingly at me. The girl was dead.
“W-what?” I stopped him moving, a hand on his arm.
He turned briefly, lifting one of her wrists, where a token was tied. It was different to the one tied about my wrist.
“Cloaking medallion,” he explained, as if that explained anything. “They’ve all seen that thing around your wrist, they won’t look twice at this.” And with that said, he tossed the girl off the platform and into the water.
“W-who?” I stuttered, still staring at the spot in the water, where waves were rolling her around, pulling her under.
“One of the human bodies that Grenlow was trading for compliance in Flintwood. Come, there is no time to lose.”
“Wait.” I jerked away from him again. “Leif—“
“I didn’t know anything until you left, I swear upon my life. Your guard cooked this entire plan up and waited until Leif had been separated from me tonight to tell m
e. Teddy and Nareon never went to the human kingdom, all of them were here all along, rallying the Queen’s army.”
“The Queen’s army?” I repeated dumbly, remembering the flash of red, the death mark.
“Yes. Beatrice. We must go.”
He grabbed my good wrist and dragged me further into the dark tunnel, his hand trailing along the wall for guidance. I could make out a darker shadow up ahead, and thought that it might be a doorway, until it shifted.
“Oh my. Oh my…” Gretal ran forward, crushing me in her arms and causing me to cry out once again, hastily pulling away from her.
“My shoulder, Gretal, I’m sorry, I’ve hurt myself. I am so glad to see you.” I pulled her into a more gentle hug, and allowed her to fuss over me for a few moments before Ashen hurried us along again.
“If Teddy never went to the human kingdom… then what happened to Nareon?” I asked, following them further into the darkness, feeling water pool about our feet.
We came to a fork in the tunnel, which I only discovered from the shock of cold air suddenly buffering my right side, and the sound of trickling water echoing in more than one direction. Ashen forged ahead, ignoring the other opening.
“Nareon,” he replied in a tense whisper, “was quite insistent on a family reunion.”
“This is not good,” I ground out. “One Tainted Creature is enough to deal with. What if he turns on us?”
Ashen gave no indication that he had heard my concern, and some time later we emerged into an underground, stone chamber. There were several people crowded within, some of them soldiers, none dressed in Elias’ colours. A woman rushed at me, skirting around my shoulder as if she sensed my injury; a healer. I endured her attentions in silence, my mind deep in contemplation as the talk diminished, people beginning to gather and stand about me, also in silence.
“This could take some time, my Queen,” the woman said quietly, a line of sweat already gathering across her hairline.
The Soulstoy Inheritance (Beatrice Harrow Series Book 2) Page 24