Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

It’s been two days since the fire test. Two long, excruciating days as we try to work out where exactly to go in the Earth Court. Grayson once told me that his people would be good at hiding and that no one came into the Earth Court without a guide. He wasn’t joking. Arden and his people are lost when it comes to the maps of the Earth Court, or lack of them. The Earth Court is a mysterious place, and it’s not until Aphrodite leaves a portal that we can even turn up. How did they manage to find where the court is and take it over so easily? Arden has been to it, but only through portals. He’s pacing at my side, both of us thinking the same things. “It’s a trap. She must be getting pissed that you’ve won two tests now.”

I touch his shoulder, and he pauses, looking down at me. “It’s Gray. I’m going.”

“I know.” He blows out a breath, touching my cheek. “The Earth Court could arguably be one of the most dangerous courts. They keep their secrets in the secret cities, buried deep within the ground. It’s like a maze, Gray once told me, and only the king can know the way around it. A mind map is inherited by each king, so the court is kept safe. That portal could drop us anywhere, and we would be lost in millions of miles of mazes.”

“Sounds brilliant.” I drop my shoulders. “It’s time to get Grayson back. We can’t just ignore the portal, no matter the danger. I’m going for my Gray. He needs me.” Arden doesn’t argue, leading me to the throne room. People bow as we walk past them, and some gawk at me, making me want to fiddle with the tight black armoured clothes I’m wearing. “Lysander should be here, maybe⁠—”

“I’m here.”

Arden goes deadly still as we both look behind us, watching as Lysander walks down the Fire Court like he isn’t the enemy, like he hasn’t done anything wrong. Oh, Lysander. His head is held high, like nothing’s happened, and he only stops when he is right in front of me. Lysander meets Arden’s fiery gaze, and both of them growl. “I would not leave you alone to face this.”

“Oh, now you’re honourable,” Arden sarcastically snaps with enough fire that I almost flinch away from them both.

“Enough.” I slip in the middle of them. They both leave zero space between my body, like they can claim parts of me with only their touch, and magic seems to lace the air I breathe with its own threat. They are huge, massive dragon shifters, and I feel like a tiny powerless human in the middle of them.

I’m not powerless. My shadows swirl around my feet, climbing up my legs and pushing them both a few steps back. “I mean it, enough! We have a lot to face today, and this is for Grayson, who you both care about. Right?” I turn to look at them both once, my shadows still dancing around me. “He’s not betrayed you, but he needs us. So does Emrys. We are going to put all of our problems behind us and go into another extremely deadly test as allies. I can’t fight the fucking gods and you two as well. I will break. I am holding on with everything I have to fix your mistakes by leaving me behind in the first place. So, unless you want that outcome, stop this.”

Both of them stay quiet. Lysander nods, looking at Arden. I follow his gaze, and a tic in Arden’s jaw pulses once, but he lowers his crossed arms. “For you, Ellelin, I would do anything. Even work with him today.”

“Thank you,” I whisper, letting my shadows go. We all head towards the throne room in the most awkward silence.

Lysander clears his throat, breaking the uncomfortable moment. “This might be more of a fight than we realise. Aphrodite might not let us enter the test with you, Elle. In the last test, she was welcoming to us both because it played a part in what she wanted.” Arden looks at him in disdain, but he says nothing, moving his gaze away. He tugs the throne room doors open, and I walk in, pondering Lysander’s warning.

“I’m not going to leave her side,” Arden states once we are all in the throne room, shutting the door behind us.

“Neither am I,” Lysander claims. “Her safety is everything to me.”

Arden shakes his head in disbelief. “Where were you when she was nearly attacked two days ago by a revengeful dragon and rider? If you cared, you would have been there like I was.”

“What do you mean, attacked?” Lysander turns to me, searching my face like the answer is written there. “Why didn’t you call for me? One word in my mind and I would have come for you. It only takes one word from you.”

This is all giving me a headache, and the hard part of the day hasn’t even begun. “I’m fine, let’s just… We’ll talk about it later.” I look at the portal swirling right in front of the throne that’s been waiting for us for the last hour. “Come on, we should go. I hate every second she has Grayson and Emrys under her spell.”

Arden and Lysander take my hands as we step through, and immediately I know we’re underground, far underground. The air is filled with a damp, musty earth scent, but mostly all I can smell and see are blue flowers. Shiny azure flowers line every wall, thousands of them bursting out of green vines. They cover every single wall, ceiling, and pillar in the massive room. There’s no natural light down here, but there are big beams of light coming out of circles on the ground, in rows leading to the back of the room.

It’s a massive cavern with dirt walls, and even when little grows here this far underground, it feels like a greenhouse with the smell and humidity. The earth throne itself is one gigantic piece of slate with carved-in seats, and giant, tall, spiralling wood sticks line the back of it. They make the shape of a harp, with gold strings coursing through the wood, glowing softly.

The ground is covered in blood, and the smell of death is lingering over the beauty. The portal snaps shut behind us, leaving us in the empty silence of the throne room. Aphrodite and Ares are where they always are, like they rule the court, sitting on the green cushioned seats of the throne. The throne room is empty this time. Not a single person, not even a ghost, seems to lie in the many seats at the sides. The ground itself is a meadow of thick grass and more blue flowers that have made a pathway straight down the middle. The flowers themselves seem to glow red with the blood splattered on them, but even then, they’re absolutely beautiful.

I never would have guessed that Grayson’s throne room is the most beautiful throne room in Ayiolyn. I look at Grayson, the king of the Earth Court, on his knees, and my heart hurts. Grayson has always needed to be in control of everything, down to even how he is touched, and the gods are using him like a puppet.

Ares watches with so much hate it burns between us like a living thing. “Is your mother dead yet?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I taunt as we walk closer, stopping near Gray.

His sinister smile spreads. “She’s alive, I can tell from your eyes. Such frustration. She won’t wake. It’s not possible. I linked her to me.”

“What does that mean?” I demand, making the room dip into darkness at the edges without me even trying to.

Ares looks at the shadows near him, the way they are hissing like snakes ready to snap at his neck. “Keep begging me and maybe I might grant you an answer. I’m glad you stole her from me. She was annoying to drag around. Dead weight usually is.”

He laughs as I head forward, only getting a few steps before Arden stops me, tugging me back with our joined hands. “Whatever you’ve done, I’ll break it. You’re a sick bastard, you know that?”

“Family games, such fun.” He continues to laugh, and Aphrodite simply watches us both like we are a show of EastEnders or something. “How is my backstabbing daughter?”

“Better without her parents, I’d wager,” I snarl. “You talk about a family like you know the meaning of it. You don’t.”

Ares goes silent, moving to stand, but Aphrodite beats him. She rises up off her seat, her red dress moving with her. A princess gown this time. “Welcome, Ellelin. Do you like the Earth Court?”

“Where’s this next test?” I snap. I’m not doing small talk with her.

“Two down, two to go. I like the number three. It’s my favourite,” she begins. “Three is meant to be a number that signifies unity. You three are definitely not unified after our last attempt. You can practically taste the anger rippling off your bones, the thick tension I could feed off.”

No one replies to her. She wants us to fight and argue. It makes it easier for her to win. “How interesting you all are! Love really does conquer all, even betrayal. Will it conquer death?”

“Get on with it, bitch,” Lysander growls.

Aphrodite narrows her eyes. “So rude. The Fire Court and Water Court kings are not welcome in this test. It would be cheating to allow you in.”

“No! We do not leave her side!” Lysander shouts.

Arden looks at me, seeing the worry in my eyes. I can’t do this without them, I need them. “We are not leaving⁠—”

“That was not part of my agreement.” Aphrodite clicks her fingers, and a portal opens underneath both Arden’s and Lysander’s feet. Their hands are ripped out of mine as they disappear in the portals, and I’m left touching the dirt ground within seconds. They are literally just gone. “Get up.”

I can do this. I have to do this. I reach for their familiar presence in my mind, and even thousands of miles away, I can feel my mates. I’m never really alone. I haven’t been, and they are with me wherever I go. Steeling my back, knowing they’re going to be mighty fucking pissed, I stand up and face my enemy. The goddess who needs to be stopped.

She smiles, her painted red lips bright. “I put them back in their own courts. Wouldn’t want them to kill each other without your presence there to stop it.” She looks at Grayson. “Earth king, you’re needed.” She clicks her fingers again, and he stands, walking to me. “He loves you, that one, more than the others. You’re the beginning and end of his world. I’ve been in his mind, felt his love, and it is sad he might die in this test. Grayson will lead you to the entrance to the test. It’s here within the Earth Court. It turns out this place is dangerous enough on its own without my help. But I spent the last two days devising something truly spectacular here, worthy of the gods. You might even need to be a god yourself to win it.”

Ares sneers at me. “But you’re not, mortal. Mortals die, and gods? We live forever.”

Grayson walks to my side, my heart pounding. He doesn’t reach out for me; he doesn’t move much more, and he still has that red haze on his eyes from her magic. His hand moves to the small of my back, and he pushes me forward. I look over my shoulder at Aphrodite as she sits back on the throne, a big smile on her face. “Good luck, princess.”

My heart feels lodged in my throat as Grayson leads me out of the throne room, through massive, decorated wooden doors and into empty corridors with little light pooling at the edges through cracks in the earth. I feel Arden and Lysander reaching for me, Terrin too, but they are so far away that it’s nothing more than a faint echo. I can’t tell them I’m fine; I can’t shout back. I’m lost in my own thoughts, and soon I realise the corridor seems to have changed just as we have walked down it. It doesn’t look the same.

Maze.

The Earth Court is a maze. I’m instantly lost. Every wall is dark mud and looks the same, and there are no markers or signs. No way to know one corridor from the next. Within minutes, it feels like I’m lost and alone, even with the Earth Court king at my side. Grayson keeps walking, robotically, before we come to a pair of metal gates. Two people are dead outside the gates, Earth Court guards by the look of their uniforms. I try not to stare at them too long, knowing I need to focus. I hate how dead bodies aren’t all that shocking to me anymore. Grayson opens the gates, and I instantly feel the magic of this place, dark, engulfing magic wrapping around me. It reminds me of Grayson, earthy and strong.

As Grayson steps in behind me, the gates slam shut behind him, sealing us in before they disappear into the dirt, like there weren’t gates there at all. I look up at Gray, the red haze fading from his brilliant silver eyes. He looks down at me, his smile widening as he reaches for me, pulling me close to him in a tight hug. I’m not used to being hugged by Grayson. Not like this. Not with my entire body pressed against his hard one. He hugs me so tightly. “You’re alive. You’re alive.”

He keeps repeating it as I breathe in his scent and hug him back. It’s hard to be mad at him about the leaving me on Earth thing when he is shaking and clinging to me. The king who doesn’t like to be touched is not letting me go. “I missed you too, Gray.”

“You came back,” he breathes down my neck, softly kissing my skin.

I shiver, his kiss like a branding that shoots pleasure through my body. “Let’s not discuss that right now. Do you know where we are? It’s a test.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he mumbles into my neck. “I know—” He lifts his head, and he looks around. If I ever thought I’d seen Grayson scared before, I hadn’t. Not like he is when he looks back at me, pushing off me. “NO! Not here, anywhere but here.” He slams his fist into the wall. “NO! NO! NO!”

He falls down to his knees, shouting no over and over. My heart cracks at the fear in his voice. Where the fuck are we? “Grayson!” I grab his shaking, sweaty hands. Blood coats his knuckles, but I don’t care. “Grayson, look at me. You’re okay. It’s me, Ellelin. Your Ellelin. Come back to me from wherever you are.” He breathes in deep, finally lifting his head. His eyes are filled with tears, but none dare drop between us. “Okay, what is this place?”

“It’s called the Labirinto,” he whispers, like words are a weapon here, and he looks around. “It’s a deadly maze, built before even the courts were created. My mother used to bring me here, a lot, and she loved it here. It used to lure her in, my father said, but he didn’t know about it until it was too late. They say a mighty dragon god died in this place, and his spirit made the maze as a way for him to live and torment. This place, it…makes your worst fears come true, makes you see things that are not there while promising you your dreams. My mother went mad in this place. I was with her, trapped with her for months. While she slowly went mad, my father couldn’t get me out. No one in the court could get me out. So, she just hurt me over and over again, not even aware of who I was in the end. She just thought I was an enemy sent to hurt her. For so many months, it was just me and her bumping into each other again and again. I wouldn’t hurt her back, and sometimes I went to her, knowing she would hurt me but just needing to speak to someone. Anyone. I was only five; I needed my mum.”

Sickness rises in my throat as my heart shatters for him. I knew he had scars on his body, that he went through something terrible, but I didn’t know it was this. This is worse than I ever could have imagined. “That’s why you didn’t want to be touched anymore. How long were you in here?”

“A year.” The two words crumble between us as horror lances my heart. “I was trapped in here for a year. The scars…she made weapons and used to cut me every time to make the darkness get out of my blood, as she put it. She found me, thought she could drain evil from me. I don’t know how to explain to you what it’s like to have your mother not even recognise you and hurt you over and over again. I never wanted to come back to this place. I locked it up and guarded it so that no one would ever get in and out.”

I stroke his palm. “How did you get out in the end? How did you and your mother get out in the end?”

“To this day, I do not know how I got out. It just finally let me out a year later. Maybe this place was bored with me. I’d all but given up by then and was thinking of ending things,” he admits, and he looks up. “I’m glad I didn’t. I wouldn’t have met you, the greatest reason for living I’ve ever known.”

“Gray,” I whisper, searching his eyes and moving closer to him. “And your mother?”

He looks beyond me, at the walls of ivy that make the maze. “She wandered out too, but she was never the same.”

“Grayson…I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. How did your father deal with it all?” I whisper. As a child, no one spoke about the Earth Court, around me at least. I never met Grayson or his parents as a child.

“It broke what was left of my father’s soul when we came home. My mother never came home mentally. It was like this place stole her soul. And when my father couldn’t even hug his son, and his son wouldn’t let anyone touch him? He tried his best to heal me, to be a righteous king, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t exactly the greatest person at being kind and loving. But he tried with me. I think a part of him left when we went missing, and that part never came home either.” He sighs softly, pulling me onto his lap. I wrap my arms tightly around him, leaning on his chest, listening to his racing heart. “You can always hug me. It doesn’t… I’m not scared of you. I will never be scared of you. We need to get out of this place, Ellelin.”

“Do you remember how you did it all those years ago at all?” I ask once again. Anything would be useful at this point.

“No, there was nothing memorable to it. I just woke up one morning, and the door was there. It didn’t make any sense. The mystery of it almost drove my father insane. He sent so many people in here to get my mother out, to get me out. Hundreds. They were never seen again. At the beginning, it was volunteers happy to try to save the prince and queen. After a few hundred, the volunteers waned, and no one wanted to come in here. Can you blame them?” I shake my head. “So my father just started sending people in. You can say, when he died, there wasn’t much cheer for his life, for their ruler. Many didn’t want me either, ‘the broken maze king,’ they named me.”

“Love cripples people sometimes,” I whisper.

He leans in, brushing his lips across mine. I gasp at the contact, at the amazing feeling from just a brush of his lips. A slow dance that takes my breath away. “I understand him now. I never did, not until you were taken from me at the end of the Dragon Crown Race. To not know what happened to the woman you love…madness becomes a friend. I think he loved my mother. Dearly loved her. From what I remember, she was a good person, but…it’s all bled into misery. I have a little sister who is her image. I’ve tried to bring her up, and when we are out of here, I’d like you to meet her. She is safe. I hid her with guards before the Dragon Crown Race, just in case it went wrong.”

Madness, it’s what I felt on Earth at the thought of never seeing them again. “I love you, Grayson. I wanted you to know that I loved you from the first training session, from the first time you were vulnerable with me. I didn’t know what it was I felt for you, but it’s just grown, and now you are part of me. You always will be. I don’t see you as broken, Gray, I see you as my perfect king.”

He kisses me again. This time it’s different. A desperate passion, his hands digging into my hair. He breaks the kiss, looking deep into my eyes. “I love you with every crumbled inch of my scarred heart.”

The ground shakes violently, and Grayson pulls me to my feet with him. Aphrodite’s voice echoes loudly. “Find the monster and destroy it to be free!”

We run just as the ground cracks under our feet. Grayson reaches a hand out to stop the ground splitting under us, but nothing happens. “She has taken my powers, or this place has!” I try to call on my shadows, but they don’t move. We both leave the idea of using magic to help us, and run through the maze, around the ivy-walled corner, as the ground cracking follows us.

My heart pounds, thinking of Grayson in here, being chased by his own mother. He and Lysander have a lot in common with their fucked-up parents and childhood. I was lucky my parents never did any of that. I never once felt scared when I was in their presence, and I can’t imagine what it’d be like to feel scared like that.

We’re just going around a corner when Grayson goes still. I hear a deep growl echoing and vibrating through the walls near us.

“What the fuck is that?” I whisper, clutching Gray’s hand.

“Some of the maze is alive,” he informs me. Could have mentioned that small bit of information before. Something bursts out of the ground, looking very much like a dragon, but it’s made of vines, with snapping sharp green teeth, and it lunges straight at us. Grayson pushes me behind him in one swift move, and he reaches out, grabbing the mouth of this gigantic creature before it can bite him. His muscles strain against his shirt as he roars at it, and with nothing but strength, he pulls it apart with his bare hands, letting the vines shatter to the floor. Breathlessly, he looks back at me and smirks. “Their mouths are their weak place.”

My heart is racing as I smile. “That was sexy.”

“I aim to please you.” He grins and holds my hand once more. “But we need to move right now.” We run again. It feels like we run forever, for hours, when it’s probably only minutes, before we come around an ivy corner to a clearing. In the centre of the clearing is a house in the middle of the maze. Grayson looks down at me in confusion for a second. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

It’s a giant house, made of vines too. The roof is made of wicker, and it must be at least four stories high. The wooden door swings open. “It looks like something out of a horror film, and if horror films taught me anything, you don’t go into the creepy house.”

“We should go inside. This is a test, remember?” Grayson quietly replies.

I look behind me to see that the passageway we came through is gone, replaced with ivy walls. I rub my hand over my face. “Okay, possibly we do need to go inside there, but why do I feel like we shouldn’t?”

He tightens his grip on my hand. Even with Gray at my side, I know that place is evil and we shouldn’t go near it. “I feel it too. You’ll be okay,” he reassures me. “I’m not gonna let anything happen to you, Elle.”

I blow out a breath. “I really hope you don’t.”

He stays close to my side as we head to the house, the feeling only getting worse. We walk up the few broken steps and through the open door into the clearly haunted house. I’m not into horror movies or anything scary, even with my uncle being the god of horror. Hell, I don’t even watch horror movies on Halloween. Each step creaks and echoes as we walk inside, and we stop as the door slams shut behind us.

It’s one massive room and there doesn’t seem to be a downstairs or upstairs of the house, even if it looks like there is from outside. It’s just one giant room. We aren’t alone. On a chair in the middle of the room is an older woman. I don’t need Grayson to tell me who she is. I can see from the way he goes still, everything in him seems to pause, like the world has stopped. I don’t know if she’s real or an illusion. Gray said this place makes you see things that are not there. Maybe it’s her soul, or maybe this place lured her back here instead of the spirit castle on the night my parents died, the night we thought she died.

Suddenly, vines lash around my body, yanking me up in the air. As Grayson reaches for me, vines wrap around him too, pushing him to the side. The vines wrap around my throat, around every part of my body, and even my mouth. “Touch is a killer, son. The goddess told me who you really are, the monster I always knew. Now you have a bride, and you will make more monsters with her to fill the Earth Court unless I stop her. I promised the goddess I would stop her and teach you a lesson too.”

“GRAYSON!” I shout against the vines as something begins to grow on them. Thorns. They cut into my arms and legs first, and then they stop. Until Grayson steps closer to me. I scream, my blood pouring down the vines. With every step closer to me, the thorns grow, but he can’t hear me. I notice the second he realises, blood draining from his face as he goes still.

“She will die, my son, unless you free her. The thorns will pierce her heart by the time you free her,” Grayson’s mother, the Earth Court queen, taunts. He takes a single step towards me, and they cut deeper, and I scream around the vine in my mouth.

Grayson turns to her, fury and pity written all over his face. Sorrow too. “I’m sorry, Mother. I’m sorry you never truly got out of here and a pathetic goddess is using you. But if you don’t let go of Ellelin, I’m going to kill you, because she is my world. My touch won’t hurt her, not like you hurt me.” He moves away from me, and the thorns freeze. The only sound is my blood dropping on the ground, drip after drip. “Your name is Becca. Becca from Cornwall. From a small little village, a human who fought to be a dragon queen and won. You had two children, a boy and a girl, and they loved you. This shouldn’t be your ending.”

“Gray,” I whisper, feeling weak. It shouldn’t be him who does this. He goes to his mum, picking up a knife made of green rock off the ground between them. There are dozens of green knives around and, sickeningly, I realise that’s what she used to cut him with as a child.

“I’m sorry,” he thickly whispers, pulling his mum into a hug even as she fights him. He stabs her straight through the chest, through her heart, as he does. The vines around me fall away, and I slam onto the ground, bleeding everywhere. A roar, male and ancient, shouts over the house as Grayson begins to glow green. Softer vines wrap around me as the house cracks open, and they raise me up in the air with Grayson until we are high above the maze.

The Earth Court king has his powers back. With a scream full of anger and fury, Grayson tears the maze apart, illuminated by flashes of green light. Through the haze of blood loss, I witness the maze being obliterated, torn to shreds by a fiery green light as if the earth is submitting to its true king. No dead god owns this land, King Grayson does, and it is finished.

When it’s all silent, there is a broken metal gate left in the middle of the pit of ruins. Grayson picks me up out of the vines, holding me to his chest as everything fades to darkness, and I hear Aphrodite’s scream of anger haunt me to sleep.