Nehelon’s outline shoving aside the headless body was the last thing she saw before she floated into an abyss of darkness.
No. Nooo!
There was a raging silence in Nehelon’s head. No more battle noise, for he had slaughtered them all … all of those guards who had been blocking him from Gandrett, all of those who had slipped through Kyle’s or Brax’s fingers. He had killed more men in the past minutes than he had in the past century—
And for what?
What was the point of his gods-forsaken life if he couldn’t even keep that least breakable girl he had met in all those centuries in the human realms alive … if he couldn’t keep Gandrett alive?
Brax was by her head, his hands gently reaching under her neck, her shoulder, as if he wanted to pull her up toward him. But Nehelon growled, not bothering to put his glamour back up—there was no point hiding anything now. Instead, he glanced at the dais where Raynar had almost unfrozen, his tirades of vengeance a song planting doubts in the Fae’s mind.
Maybe the gods were right to take her from him. Maybe he didn’t deserve—
He didn’t let himself finish the thought. The clock was ticking for the Child of Vala, and he had to make a decision. His depleted power wasn’t enough to keep Raynar contained and heal Gandrett. And Gandrett didn’t have much time left. If he didn’t do it soon … if he didn’t heal her, the choice would be taken from him with her last breath.
“What should I do?” he murmured at her so low that neither Brax nor Kyle, who was standing behind him, watching his back just in case any of the guards stirred again, could hear.
“Oh, Nehelon,” Raynar said from the dais. “You didn’t think you could win this without sacrificing something.”
Nehelon winced inaudibly. Of course, the Dragon King had heard him. Of course, he had been waiting for this moment to see Nehelon on the ground, devastated and exhausted, so he could torture him with words. So he could remind Nehelon of what awaited him if he let the Dragon King go free so he could save Gandrett. And if he saved her … how could he justify saving one girl if that meant the greatest threat Neredyn had seen in a thousand years would step out of his magic cage and do gods knew what before he set out to conquer the realms, one by one?
Gandrett’s heartbeat got weaker by the moment, and it was Brax who pushed, “Do something.” His words were thick with sobs as he was breaking, the immediate threat of swords gone, but the life of the girl Nehelon had seen him fall for coming to an end.
He heaved a deep breath and placed his hand over Gandrett’s wound, ready to free the Dragon King, to take the blame for each and every death that would occur if he let that monster run free. But halted, glancing up at Brax. “You know I can’t do both at the same time … heal her and make sure Raynar doesn’t get away…”
Brax’s eyes were red-rimmed as he bent over Gandrett’s face, resting his cheek against her forehead.
“If I let him go, Joshua will be gone with him—”
Brax nodded, his emerald eyes squinting as if he was trying to look away from the truth—that either way, he was going to lose someone he loved. For it was obvious, the depth of Brax’s feelings for her, as he straightened and said, “If you let her die, Josh must be gone anyway. But heal her, and she’ll help us hunt down Raynar and bring back Josh. We need her … for more than one reason.” His words ran through Nehelon like an absolution.
So he readied himself to let go of that magic on Raynar and direct it back into his hands to heal the human before him. He gave Brax and Kyle a last glance of warning. “If I release him … he might attack us.” Under his hands, Gandrett’s pulse was slowing further. He had to do it now.
“He won’t,” Kyle said to both Nehelon’s and Brax’s surprise, and Nehelon glanced at his loyal sentinel, hoping for a convincing answer. “He is not back to his full strength, and it cost him a lot of his power to perform the spell on us.” Kyle glanced from the dais to Gandrett, to the bloody mess around them, and back to Nehelon. “I was the last one to undergo the procedure … and I saw it with the others. After he put up those wards, he was already struggling before he got to me, and it seems his strength didn’t suffice to keep me spelled.”
If that was true … Nehelon studied Raynar’s icy gaze and realized that Kyle was right. That Raynar would have long broken through Nehelon’s diminished magic had he been up to his full strength. The Dragon King was still weak and drained from building his small legion inside Ackwood palace.
“Stab him in the thigh if he moves an inch,” he ordered, not waiting for Brax’s reaction, for they didn’t have time. And if there was the slightest chance they could achieve both, save Gandrett and keep Raynar in check—
Kyle inclined his head an inch and headed for the dais. Nehelon inclined his head back. A silent thanks for everything the man had done for him—for Gandrett—in case he had just sent him to his death. Raynar’s words of contempt echoed through the great hall all the way until Kyle took position in front of the Dragon King.
Nehelon prayed to the goddess—to Vala, to bestow her mercy upon him and upon her Child—as he tugged on his magic and pulled it from the invisible cage of solid air that he and Gandrett had formed together and poured his power into her instead.
The blackness enveloping Gandrett was soothing, almost peaceful. After years and years of pain, she felt light, the wound in her side no longer tormenting her, the fear of what would happen when she returned to the priory—how the Meister would punish her—no longer filling her. Even the fear of the sensation that usually filled her when she looked at the Fae male who had collected her from Everrun almost three months ago … it no longer scared her.
She had done what she could, spending her last reserves on containing Joshua so they could figure out how to free him from Raynar’s possession. She had fought and bled to save Brax and Nehelon, the latter having hidden that he was Fae royalty—another detail that no longer mattered.
She let the darkness pull her away and floated upon it like a flower petal in a stream. There was only one direction she could go, and it was away from the voices that were debating something that no longer was within her field of influence. The only thing tethering her to her body was the slowing beat of her heart. But in only a matter of moments—she would be free.
Chapter Forty-Seven
A scream of pain was the first thing that pierced through the veil, followed by a curse.
“Don’t let him escape,” Nehelon grunted at someone.
Gandrett let her mind wander through her body, assessing her limbs, her spine, her head—
General tiredness enveloped her whole, her arms and legs so heavy she wondered if she could ever lift them again … but the pain in her side overrode every other sensation. The mild pounding in her head, the hollowness in her chest … everything. So she left her eyes shut, breathing through the pain with shuddering breaths.
Steel met steel somewhere far away, the sharp sound muffled by the darkness that was slowly lifting off of her.
“Joshua!” It was Brax’s voice tearing through the black layer as he screamed his brother’s name—and the swords halted—
Then nothing.
Nothing but her own shallow breaths and a pained panting that seemed to come from the other end of the room.
The chopped silence hung so heavy in the air that Gandrett wanted to blink her eyes open to see if this was the silence before the storm or if the storm was finally over.
Someone had gotten injured … Brax? Kyle, who had been fighting with them when she had blacked out? Joshua—Raynar? Or Nehelon? It had been him who killed the guard right before the darkness had swept her away. Had he been hurt?
As if in answer, warm, calloused hands brushed against her side where that gushing wound had been, lifting the pain with their touch, letting her breathe more evenly. There was only one person she knew who was able to heal like that—
A gentle voice spoke her name, soft as a breeze, like a whisper of leaves in the forest, and G
andrett opened her eyes to meet Nehelon’s diamond-blue gaze, leaning toward her head as his hands did the work that meant she wouldn’t part from this world just yet.
For a long moment, he just stared at her, emotion clouding the brightness of his gaze, his fingers halting and reaching for her face as she blinked a tear from her eye. He caught it with his fingertip, his skin hot on her cheek as it traced the salty line back to the corner of her eye.
“Next time you decide to get yourself killed, please wait for a moment when I am not tangled in combat with five undead,” he breathed, a half-smile on his weary, glamourless face.
Gandrett held his gaze, noticing the relief in his eyes as she returned his smile and tried to sit up.
He placed a hand on her shoulder, gently pushing her back. “You shouldn’t move,” he said in a tone that was so unlike the Nehelon she had gotten to know. So full of something that she had lost that day they had found her incinerated home—hope. “Not until I’m finished here.”
He nodded at her flank where his bloodied hand was still resting above the cut that, by the feel of it, had to have knitted mostly back together.
Gandrett reluctantly turned away from those eyes, from the beautiful face that seemed to glow as he let his magic weave her flesh and skin back together.
“Did you kill him?” she asked, searching the dais for Raynar, who had been locked in place the last time she had seen him.
Nehelon shook his head—all the answer he could muster as he focused on finishing his work.
At the end of the room, atop the dais, a lifeless shape was sprawled, dark hair hiding a familiar face … Kyle … and beside him, Brax was half-sitting, half-lying, grasping his thigh where a blade was sticking out of it. His face was twisted in pain, and Gandrett instantly knew from whom the panting was originating.
“Brax,” she whispered, shoving back against Nehelon’s hand on her shoulder, hardly seeing the light in his eyes gutter as she gritted her teeth against the pain and got to her wobbly legs.
“He’s next,” Nehelon said from behind her, also on his feet, one arm reaching around her waist to support her weight as she made her way to the dais. “And you should really not be walking around in your condition.”
Gandrett gave him a glare that made sure he understood that if he held her back now, she wouldn’t forgive him.
It took them a long, long minute to wade through the blood and gore splattered on the floor with Gandrett’s stomach twisting and turning as she tried to ignore the stench of it. She turned her gaze on the dais, the view of which didn’t improve the sensation in her guts much. Lord Tyrem’s body was still there below the steps that led down from where Raynar had placed his throne. However, there was no sign of the Dragon King—of Joshua—the normal temperature of the air a reassuring indicator that he was really gone…
Brax, however … his injury seemed the least of his concerns. Now that Raynar had taken Joshua with him … as they were one and the same … she didn’t want to consider what must be going on in her friend’s mind—and heart. She had heard him shout his name, had noted the devastation in it—
“I couldn’t do both,” Nehelon offered when she glanced at him, eyes inquiring. “I couldn’t heal you and keep up the trap we set for Raynar.”
Gandrett slowed her steps and halted, gingerly turning toward the Fae whose grasp around her waist loosened a bit to give her space, her eyes darting back and forth between Nehelon and Brax.
“You should have made sure Raynar didn’t get out of here. You shouldn’t have let him go just so you could heal … me.” He held her gaze and locked it there, eyes intent as if he were about to speak, about to free his chest of words he had been arranging and rearranging in his mind while she’d been lingering on the threshold to the afterlife.
“He chose you,” the male explained, something like shame creeping into his expression as he freed her from his gaze and gently tugged her forward—her flank protesting, her legs unstable, her head still not fully coherent—and she searched Brax’s face as they got to the steps that led up to the throne against which he had rested his back.
“I chose you,” Brax repeated, out of breath, no shame in his eyes as he said the words that meant he had chosen her over his own brother, over Joshua’s chance to break free from the Dragon King—over the fate of Neredyn.
Gandrett let Nehelon guide her up the stairs to where Kyle’s lifeless body had stopped bleeding, the pool of crimson just inches away from the trickle of blood that collected under Brax’s knees.
She held, tucked away, the emotion that wanted to well in her chest where her depleted magic left no trace it had ever existed … Kyle had given his life for her … for them … buying them a chance while the rest of the Brenheran guards had turned against them—even if it had been against their own will, under a spell, and they might have been even in there, watching themselves slaughter and fight their own—
“He stabbed Joshua—Raynar,” Brax corrected himself, “in the leg to keep him from running after the chancellor’s magic”—his lips twisted in a frown at the verbal acknowledgment of Nehelon’s otherness—“released him.”
If Brax’s reaction bothered Nehelon, the Fae male didn’t show. He also didn’t put his glamour up again. Whether it was because his own magic was near-depleted or because he no longer cared to keep up the pretenses, Gandrett couldn’t tell.
“And Raynar—” Gandrett didn’t want to finish the thought, waiting for the others to fill her in instead of letting her imagination run wild. She wasn’t nearly ready to go through the multitude of scenarios that may have happened there on the dais where the Dragon King had killed Lord Tyrem, where he had commanded for the guards, who now all were strewn—bodies and heads apart—across the room, to take her to the tower to do the gods knew what with her…
Gandrett took a deep breath, feeling Nehelon’s hand lightly pulling her closer as she swayed, his muscled arm leading her to Brax’s side where he lowered both of them until Gandrett could lean against the throne next to Brax. Then he let go and knelt, his fingers closing around the hilt of the knife in Brax’s thigh, and said, “Raynar killed Kyle the instant my magic withdrew and was about to come for you with this”—he pulled out the knife without warning, ignoring Brax’s gasp of pain, and held it up while the other hand pushed down on the wound to stop the now gushing blood flow—“but Brax got in his way.” He eyed the panting noble for a brief moment then dropped the knife and focused on his task while he continued, “I don’t know what it was that made Raynar stop. And believe me, hadn’t he stopped, my magic wouldn’t have been enough to do it.”
Gandrett studied Brax beside her … brave Brax, stepping up against the Dragon King, a creature most Sivesian kids knew from horrific legends rather than true history. He gave her a weak smile and gritted his teeth, dark waves plastered to his forehead hiding the crease between his brows… and Gandrett reached over and took his hand into hers, squeezing.
His emerald gaze clung to hers as he breathed through the pain that seemed to be ebbing as haltingly as the one in Gandrett’s side, even with her skin knitted back together.
“Thank you,” she said to him … and from the corner of her eye, she noticed Nehelon’s head lift an inch as if he had thought she had been speaking to him … then lower again, face unreadable.
Gandrett, however, kept her attention on Brax, holding his hand through the worst. It was the least she could do.
Armand was drenched in sweat by the time he made it to the main hallway that led to the great hall. He had stumbled down the stairs, taking two or three steps at once, rushing down the tower where Addie had disappeared along with Isylte and Selloue. He had been prepared to fight, to take a blow, to die even, if it meant he could have saved her … but they had taken her away, just made her disappear with whatever damned magic they had been using. The chalk marks hadn’t revealed anything—at least nothing he could comprehend—as he had studied them for minutes, trying to step onto them and burning th
e leather of his boots where they touched the marks. He couldn’t tell how long he had spent up there in the moonlit, circular chamber, examining every surface that hadn’t been decorated with those runes, how he had prayed to Vala that Addie would just reappear the way she had vanished—but she hadn’t. Gods, he would have even been grateful about Isylte or Selloue just so he could carve them up as he withdrew from them where they had taken Addie—
He skidded to a halt, gulping down air—warm, breezy summer air—and checked both sides for potential patrols. There were none. The hallway was silent, no sign of the fighting that had been going on in the great hall earlier when he and Taghi had set out to rescue Addie.
How could he have been so naive? How could he not have seen that Taghi had had his own interest in mind? That the Prince of Phornes had sold out the Prince of Sives to protect his own realm?
And now, Joshua’s sister was in that man’s hands … Armand suppressed the urge to scream at nobody in particular but just to vent his anger, his disappointment. He had failed—in saving Addie, in helping Joshua, in basically everything he had come here to achieve. Thanks to his being unobservant, not noticing the changes in Joshua, the warning signs that he might be back under a spell, the Prince of Sives’s body was now hosting the one enemy Neredyn had hoped to have buried for good. The one evil that had managed to unite human and Fae in the past millennium.
Armand clasped his sword more tightly and, from a distance, eyed the bodies in front of the open doors to the great hall. What was left for him to do but to return to that room and face the creature that would destroy whatever freedom existed in Neredyn if they didn’t manage to bring down the Dragon King now?
His stomach squirmed at the thought that killing Raynar meant killing Joshua—and all hope for a united Sives.
Wicked Crown (Shattered Kingdom Book 2) Page 35