70. Elianna

Chapter seventy

Elianna

As I raced down the several halls and staircases of Castle Isla, it became abundantly clear that Idina had exasperated nearly all of her armed guards within the city to aid her in the war, likely using Azenna and the crone as her only source of protection.

It didn’t matter, though; I would get my sister out of here, even if I had to trade her capture for my own. I would think of a way out of it—I always did. Her safety was what mattered, and after watching Idina use her own daughter as a shield, I no longer trusted her not to harm my sister.

It wasn’t until I came barreling around the corner of the main staircase that I came face-to-face with two patrolling guards, eating my own words.

“Shit,” I said under my breath as I unsheathed my sword.

“You!” one of them yelled in my direction as they both withdrew their own weapons.

“Come on, gentleman, we all know this won’t end well for you,” I taunted them.

They glanced at each other and laughed. “Solus, you look beat to shit. Save yourself the trouble of healing more and come with us. The queen will be delighted to see you.” The male’s smile was malicious, earning a snarl from me.

“If you’re afraid…you could’ve just said that.” I winked and then charged.

I ran at them full force, one of their blades instantly clashing with my own. As the other moved to attack, I pivoted my body and kicked him in the chest, sending him flying backwards into the wall.

Twisting back to the other, I lunged forward, slicing my sword through the air with precision, and our blades met the other’s each time. The guard reacted swiftly, parrying each strike, working to corner me. The clang of metal echoed through the corridor as our swords collided.

The next moment, the other guard was at my back, ready to strike. I dodged his attack, weaving between each of their swinging blades.

I disarmed one of them with a swift maneuver, sending his sword clattering to the marble tile beneath our feet, and didn’t waste a single second before plunging my own blade through his gut. His eyes flared in shock as blood trickled from his lips, beading down his chin.

A whipping sound of the other’s swinging sword echoed through my ears— fuck . I quickly lifted my boot, pressing it against the dying guard's torso, and ripped my blade free from his body. I pivoted just in time to send my sword straight through the other's chest. The momentum of his swinging blade faltered, and it dropped to his feet.

I held my weapon in his chest and watched the light leave his eyes as I worked to catch my breath. His body dropped to the floor with a thud, his blood pooling around both of them.

“Gods,” I breathed, chest heaving, as I glanced around the halls, making sure no one else had come from the commotion. Re-sheathing my sword on my hip, I took off in a run down the main staircase, leaving their bodies in my wake.

My once silent steps now echoed off the marble floors as I neared the closed doors of the throne room. I abruptly halted before them, and the sound of my blood droplets hitting the tile filled the otherwise quiet halls as they fell from my wounds.

As I stood there, I realized that everything in my life had built up to this very moment, and now it was finally here. Where I would make my final stand against the wicked queen for all she had done to me and my people. In this moment, I felt no sorrow or ache in the name of what I had lost. All I felt was fury-driven determination.

Gaze fixated on the elaborate door handles, one of my hands reached out for it as the other reached for the hilt of my dagger. I pulled the door open with all my might, my anger nearly pulling the heavy door from its hinges right before it slammed into the wall.

I stormed through the arched doorway, covered in the blood of those guards, and was met with two pairs of malicious eyes. The queen sat on my father’s throne, glaring at me through knitted brows as the High Witch stood before the dais, arms crossed, while giving me a knowing grin .

My feet continued to carry me through the throne room until I stopped in its center, breath heaving at the sight of her, sitting where my father once had. Our eyes remained locked on each other.

“How dare you,” I seethed, lip curling back ferociously. “How fucking dare you sit where he once did? Where the rightful Valderre ruler should be!”

My voice bounced off the walls of the room, and I was answered with a cruel smile from the false queen.

“How lovely to see you somehow made it past our wards, Elianna,” Azenna greeted.

“And how did she do that, witch? ” Idina hissed at her back, eyes never leaving mine. “Have our wards fallen?”

“They have not,” Azenna stated. “The shields remain intact.”

“Next time, try warding the skies.” I gave them a menacing wink accompanied by a mocking bow.

“Her mount,” Azenna growled.

“And Adler?” Idina barked.

“Dead,” I answered with a smile, tilting my head to the side as I imagined what it would feel like to finally send her to the depths of hell along with him.

My gaze snapped to the High Witch as a grin reemerged on her face. “She lies. He lives.”

Gods fucking dammit . He just wouldn’t die.

I huffed out a breath through my nostrils as my jaw locked. “Where is she? What have you done with Avery?”

“My daughter’s whereabouts are not, nor have they ever been, your concern, Elianna. ”

“You have kidnapped a member of my court and hold her as prisoner against her will. That is every bit of my concern,” I growled.

A vicious smile tilted the queen’s lips. “Brave of you to come here. And alone, I might add.”

“Gutless of you to hide behind your battlement as your armies fight for your treasonous cause,” I countered.

“A queen needn’t fight her own battles when she has the resources to do so for her.”

A rage-filled, breathy laugh slipped from me as I observed her and took another step forward. “And that is where I am most proud—for our differences will always set us apart. My soldiers find peace in knowing I would never ask them to fight a battle that I wouldn’t fight alongside them myself.”

“You have led your soldiers to their deaths in a false hope that you will win this, Elianna. If you were a true queen that cared for them as much as you claim, you would have spared them their lives today by lying hidden until we sniffed them out throughout the realm. You have not granted them hope. All you have provided them is an early grave.”

“My people would rather fight for a life worth living than remain in hiding for the remainder of their existence. They have something worth fighting for. Their freedom!”

She stood from the throne, looking down at me from the dais. “Is that what you plan to give them? You believe that after all this time…fae and mortals will be able to just live in harmony? You foolish girl. ”

A spiteful laugh left me. “I have been called that many times by both friend and foe, and while it may still hold some truth to it, I believe in my cause. I know it’s possible to live in harmony because I have seen it.”

My eyes darted back and forth between the two of them. “The mortals welcomed our kind when they fled your reign. A race that had been slaughtered by our own for multiple generations…they accepted them because they finally realized that one individual’s actions do not define that of its race.”

“Laughable,” Idina spat.

My eyes narrowed in on her. “The only thing that’s laughable is that you started a century-long war with a race that had nothing to do with the death of your kin!”

Her jaw locked, and she stormed down the dais. “And what does that mean, Elianna?!”

I unsheathed the sword from my hip, but magic ripped it from my grasp a moment later, sending the blade flying across the room. My eyes followed it until it clattered to the floor. When my gaze found Azenna, she shook her head and tsked at me.

I took a step up to Idina. “Mortals were not responsible for the deaths of your father and brother! They tried to barter with centaurs and it went awry, because they were just as wicked and vile as you are! They were murdered by creatures of the forest, not humans!”

“Liar!” she screeched. “Your time has come, Elianna.”

She snapped her fingers, and Azenna’s arm shot out toward me, her power slamming into me and working its way through my veins .

My blood caught fire, sending my body ablaze as Azenna’s magic slithered through me—the blood magic Veli had warned me of taking effect and ruining me from the inside out.

My mind instantly flashed to Jace, knowing he would sense something was happening, and then I remembered Veli’s words, if there is ever a time where you need to block the bridge, you may build a wall in your mind if you concentrate hard enough.

So that’s what I did—I imagined a wall between our bond and minds and built it brick by brick, throwing everything I had into it to protect him from this.

Pure agony took over me, blurring my vision as my body was lifted from the floor, the High Witch guiding me upwards as she raised her hand toward the ceiling.

A scream tore from my throat as my body remained stiff as a board, levitating twenty feet above them in the center of the throne room. The witch was slowing the movement of the blood within my veins by slipping her magic through my bleeding wounds.

A banging rattled the bond as Jace slammed his mental fists on the shield. I desperately fought to keep it up as I heard the distant echo of his voice in my mind, begging me to let him in.

“Ah, and who might that be, Heir of the Realm?” Azenna asked, forcing my gaze down to where she remained on the floor beneath me.

I tried to lash out, but the grasp that her magic held me in kept me utterly still.

“Who whispers into your mind, Elianna Valderre? ”

Even through my blurry vision, I saw Idina take a step toward the High Witch. “What are you talking about? Surely her false speech of a mate was to distract us,” she snapped.

“A bond,” she answered as her eyes remained on me. “Someone calls to her through it, but she won’t let them in.”

“That is impossible,” Idina whispered, but then her voice rose. “She married a human. I saw it with my own eyes. I saw them the night of their wedding.”

A laugh left me through the pain, but it was filled with nothing but rage. “That’s right, Idina. My husband and mate is a halfling. And until he met me, he acknowledged only the parts of him that are human because of being sired by one of your vile soldiers. He wanted nothing more than to see every last fae head on a spike…until he met me. Until he loved me!”

“Once again, that is not possible,” she hissed. “Why would the gods grant someone of lesser blood a mate? And what makes you or Jameson think themselves worthy of such a bond?!”

Her tone was a swirling mix of wrath and heartache, making my brows furrow. My entire body was screaming in anguish as Jace continued to tear his way through the wall that I desperately clung to. I tried to force words out but couldn’t bring myself to move as Azenna continued to make my blood work against my own body.

“A mate,” the queen scoffed, crossing her arms as she glared up at me. “You are not worthy of such a bond, and neither was your father. It is beautiful, ancient, and all-knowing. Not only is a bastard born not worthy of such, but a halfling is even less. So, why would the gods place such beings together?” She paused as her lips curled back. “They wouldn’t! So you are a liar , Elianna.”

My lips parted as I gave her a blood-stained smile. “The malevolent gods wouldn’t have granted such a bond, but their mother goddess, Terra, would. For I am her heir and she has always wished for peace among her children.”

I chuckled at the look of disgust on her face, the ache of it rattling my body. A thought hit me then.

My eyes darted back and forth, all over the throne room as quickly as the pain would allow, realizing that Callius wasn’t here with her—nor was he atop the city gates when we had first arrived. He would never be on that battlefield with it being this close to the castle, no. Callius would be right here at her side, as he had always been.

The queen was getting emotional—an ache in her voice I had never heard. A defensive notion against mates, saying we weren’t worthy of such a thing. That my father wasn’t worthy of such a thing when he claimed to have found that with my mother.

I forced my eyes back down to her. “Where is Callius, Idina?”

Her jaw locked; the veins in her neck were pulsating beneath her skin—amber eyes radiating a blaze as if they would burn a hole through me.

“Release her,” she demanded of Azenna.

“Your Majesty?” the High Witch asked, half turning to her as she held me in the air.

“Now!” she roared .

Azenna dropped her hand, releasing me from the despair of the blood spell, but also from her hold in the air. My body violently slammed onto the floor, the tile beneath me cracking from the force of it. My ribs fractured from the impact, and every open wound I had from the wyvern attack was pouring blood even worse than before as its natural flow in my veins returned.

My shield dropped as the pain of everything overwhelmed me, letting Jace’s voice through.

“ Lia! ” My name was desperate from his lips, pleading for an answer, but I could barely focus enough to respond. “ Lia, please, are you alright? I will come and find you. Just tell me where you are! Nox is here and you’re not with him! Sweetheart, please. ”

I groaned from the agony tearing through me as I moved to push myself up to sit. My eyes locked with Idina, who was standing not even two feet before me, waiting to end me here and now herself.

“ I love you ,” was all I was able to push through to him before I put the wall back into place, his fists beating into it once more. I knew he could still sense my pain with the shield, but neither of us could afford the distraction of each other’s voice.

My thoughts were consumed by the thought that the bitch was this close to me. All I had to do was reach for my dagger quick enough to cut her throat, and this would be over.

“Keep her still,” she ordered Azenna, and I lost all use of my limbs .

My body fell to the floor as the arm I used to hold myself up slid out from beneath me—my skull felt as if it had cracked as it slammed into the marble. Idina approached me then. She reached down and grabbed my face, squeezing my cheeks tightly between her fingers, pulling me closer to her as her eyes bore into mine.

“You have the fucking audacity to ask me about my mate when you are the one who plunged a blade into his heart?!” she screeched in my face, her fury-filled words rattling the throne room.

Shock took over me, eyes flaring wide at her declaration of Callius being her mate, but also that she believed I had killed him—and so specifically.

“You killed my mate, and now claim to have one of your own. Well, little Elianna, I have now changed my mind. You will live through this day, just long enough to watch me rip your own mate’s heart from his chest with my bare fucking hands. And then you will die, but not before you know what it feels like to have the other half of your soul ripped from you.”

I thrashed against the hold the witch had on me while a smirk crept up her face. On the inside, I was flailing, scratching, clawing, and biting at anything I could to tear the bitch’s eyes out and watch her bleed out on the floor—but on the outside, my body remained perfectly still within her hold.

“Your father thought that your birth mother was his mate, but I knew better. I knew what that bond was like—what it smelled like. It’s what I had with Callius since we were barely older than younglings. I had a duty to uphold for my family, and your father did as well…”

Her nostrils flared, eyes glazing over as if she had transported back to a distant memory.

“One of us held that bargain…and it was not the king.” Her breathing turned heavy as her focus returned. “I did everything I was told, Elianna, everything ! Including making my mate suffer. He suffered every time I was forced to bed your father for an heir. And then he gets that stupid bitch healer pregnant before he did me, claiming that he loves her and you!”

I was screaming. Internally, I was screaming a raging battle cry at the top of my lungs, choking the life out of her as she spoke of my father and mother. However, every time I tried to lash out, Azenna sensed it against her magic and sent a shockwave of icy flames through me, rippling through my veins—but I still wouldn’t stop.

Idina chuckled wickedly. “Did I expect a few bastard children? Of course. Did I hope the male would occupy himself in the bed of another female? Obviously ,” she hissed. “But not the first child. Not his heir. And certainly not one he loved.”

Idina released her hold on my cheeks, and my head fell to the floor once more, causing me to wince in pain as my entire skull ached.

“That’s why your mother had to disappear. And your father, well, he outlived our plans by decades. Plans change as years pass—they evolve into something greater. But do not worry, darling Elianna.” Her hand reached down and gently brushed over my cheek, as if it were from a loving mother’s touch. “You will be with your parents again soon.”

She stood tall and turned to Azenna. “Break her.”

An eruption of power slammed into me once more, making my body soar through the air and into the back wall of the throne room—and then all I knew was agony.