72. Avery

Chapter seventy-two

Avery

The castle halls were dimly lit by torchlight as I navigated through its shadowy corridors. My dress flowed behind me as I darted down the halls, my steps barely making a whisper against the cold stone floor.

My race came to a skidding halt as the bloodied bodies of two guards were laid out across the corridor. My eyes flared, and I quietly went to move past them, stepping over their ruined corpses that someone had left behind.

Nausea threatened to consume me at the sight of them, but an overwhelming sense of hope crashed into me, realizing that someone from Lia’s court or army must’ve been the one to have killed them.

My heart sang at the thought of Gage coming to rescue me if they had breached the castle, but knowing the possibility of him running into the vile witches or my mother made me panic.

I reached the grand staircase leading to the lower levels, where the main entrance and throne room awaited. My steps halted at the top of them, contemplating the best way to sneak out of the castle, but my thoughts were interrupted when a wicked cackle from the western tower staircase caught my attention. Chills ravaged my body at the sound, but something in my gut was telling me that was where I needed to go.

I blew out a breath and took back off into a run, gliding up the spiral stairs of the tower. As I ascended the upper level, I sought refuge in the shadows as I spotted one of the staff’s rooms—where the crone’s sinister chuckles echoed from.

My eyes scanned the dimly lit hall for any sign of movement. As I approached the door, a sliver of hope surged within me, masking the danger that lurked in the room’s depths.

I could make a difference. I could fix everything that I had accidentally destroyed for my sister, Gage, and our friends. Not only that, but the kingdom we desperately wished to rebuild.

I stepped into the sunlight that peered in through the room’s window, where the crone’s back was to me while she gazed out at the scenes of war. Her arm reached through the window while she weaved a powerful spell of wards, fortifying the city against Lia's army.

My mind raced, and I wasn’t even sure if I was breathing as I tiptoed silently toward her—pleading to all the gods that she didn’t hear me enter or sense me behind her.

I glanced down at my hand, where one of the curved daggers remained, and my grip tightened around its hilt. My hand trembled as I realized how insane what I was about to do was, but this was my chance.

Once at her back, I lifted my arm high above my head. The shadow of the curved blade cast off the wall next to her, and I sensed her awareness a moment too late .

My arm moved to plunge the dagger down into her back, but in the same breath, she whipped toward me, her glowing crimson eyes blasting a pulsating fear through my entire body as they narrowed in on me.

While she looked ancient and decrepit, she was entirely too fast for even me to react to and strong . Her taloned, withered hand shot out at me, grabbing me by the throat.

The crone’s sharp nails dug into the skin of my neck, and I felt my blood slip from the wounds. My breath caught, gasping for air as she lifted me up by my throat. My arm was still frozen above me in the same stance I had been in when I went to kill her—but now she was going to kill me.

“ I see inside this heart of yours, Princess .” Her ancient voice echoed through me before she spoke aloud. “You will never be like the heir. You believe yourself to be brave, but it is stupidity that runs you, making you think you could sneak up on an all-powerful sorceress.”

A whimper left me, but it wasn’t sadness that I felt—it was anger. I had been trapped my entire life. In the castle, in Isla, beneath my mother’s manipulation, and now here, trapped within the clutches of a witch. When would it end? Certainly not this way. I had plans. I had a kingdom to deliver to my sister, and a man that I promised I would come back to.

“I could smell you the second you took the first step onto the spiral stairs, hear you the second you slipped that blade from the library. And now, you will die. All because you just couldn’t listen. Once I am through with you, I will send your body through this window behind me. It will be such a shame that you fell to your death trying to sneak from your bedchamber. The queen…she will be so very sad. Her only daughter.”

Her talons dug further into my flesh and I tried to gasp for air as she held me above her, but my vision was darkening.

My eyes drifted upwards to my hand that still levitated high above us both with the dagger in its grasp, unable to move.

I glanced down to my hip, where the second dagger remained tucked in the belt of my dress, and slowly placed my other hand on its hilt. Carefully slipping it out from its makeshift sheath, I prayed to every god imaginable that she didn’t notice the movement as she continued her speech on my impending death.

It was now or never. Once I knew I had a firm hold, my lip curled, revealing my canines, as my gaze narrowed in on the crone’s withered face.

With a suffocating battle cry tearing from my throat that remained in her talons, I used all my strength and plunged the curved blade into the witch’s heart, twisting it within her chest.

Black blood sprayed me as her grip remained, but pure horror carved itself into her features as she glanced down at the dagger that now protruded from her ruined heart.

The crone’s eyes glowed brighter than ever, threatening to blind me as I remained before her, screaming an ear-shattering screech of death. A moment later, she burst open—her body vanishing before me and replaced by swirling shadows of malicious smoke and slick, onyx gore.

My body dropped to the ground as she exploded, the blade I killed her with clattering on the tile next to me. The floor, walls, and my clothes were covered in what remained of the crone, and I stared up at the window she had just stood in front of in disbelief.

And then a laugh left me—it started as a giggle and morphed into a full eruption of manic, disbelieving laughter as I sat there in shock at what I had just done.

I killed the crone— me , Avery Valderre. The princess, whose only purpose in life was to be sold to a far-off lord as a bartering chip, just destroyed an all-powerful sorceress.

Pushing myself to my feet, ignoring the aches in my bones and pain from the puncture wounds in my neck, I brought myself to the window and peered out.

Black smoke still filled the air, the battle continuing on the ground below—but the wards were down. The spell the crone had been casting, shielding the gates of the city, had dropped. Which meant that our armies could now breach the gates.

“Holy shit,” I breathed.

A scream echoed in the distance, snapping my attention back to the spiral stairs.

“Mother of the gods.” My voice was a whisper. “Lia.”

I didn’t waste a second. I crouched down, picking up the curved blade I had just used on the crone, and rushed through the door. Sprinting down the staircase, I aimed for the throne room, where my sister’s screams continued to erupt from.