Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

Dawn barely crests outside of the balcony as Lysander and Arden watch the Earth Court with me. Grayson walks out to us, nodding at Arden and Lysander, who stand apart like they might permanently be if I can’t find a way to fix this all. Arden strokes my arm. “You look tired. Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

“We can wait,” Lysander suggests, a dark promise lying in his words. He has avoided all the times I’ve tried to speak to him alone, and I’m not sure what I’d say anyway. Grayson told me he spoke to Lysander, but he didn’t say much more. I don’t have to answer, he knows what I would say. Emrys cannot wait. I will not leave him there. My air king needs me. “Then we fight, one more time.”

Grayson makes a portal, shimmering water like a veil, burning to life in front of us all. In between Lysander and Arden, I follow Grayson through the portal and out into the Air Court. The throne room of the Air Court is on a giant flat rock, floating in the middle of the blue sky. There is nothing and no one for as far as I can see. Aphrodite and Ares are sitting on a half-circle throne made of white onyx, and it is massive, as tall as a house. There are several rows of seats on either side of a white stone pathway that leads to the throne. The rock spreads out far, but I’m confused about where the rest of the court is. Arden leans down, whispering to me. “The cities are underneath, hidden in the clouds. Flying is the only way between them.”

Lysander’s hand brushes mine, on purpose, as we walk down the path to the throne. I link our pinkie fingers for a second, just to tell him I’m here, before letting go. My heart races when I finally see Emrys. He looks worse than he did a few days ago. Paler, weaker, thinner. I know they said they wouldn’t hurt him, but looking after him, perhaps that was not part of it. I blow out a breath of cold air as we finish our walk, standing before the gods, who are not welcome in our world. Aphrodite doesn’t look impressed now; she’s not laughing or smiling anymore. In fact, she looks downright pissed off. “You didn’t expect me to win three of your tests, did you?”

“Maybe I underestimated the granddaughter of Hera. I knew your grandmother an age ago. You’re smarter than I gave you credit for,” she claims, leaning her head on her hand, her long hair flowing around the onyx. “I always believe love wins, but I am the goddess of love, so I will win this. You will not prevail in this. Not without a great price.”

Grayson’s voice is like death. “Is that the word of a god, or someone desperate?”

She doesn’t answer him. Her eyes flash with anger for a second. She lifts her hand, and Emrys stands. “This one is my favourite, so handsome and strong. I saved him for the best idea.” My stomach feels like it’s full of lead as I try to ignore her. “The test is for you and Emrys alone, and you are not dressed accordingly to fight in it.” Her magic sweeps around me, every inch of my skin it touches feeling like it is being stung by lightning before it fades, leaving me in a long purple ball gown.

I’m suddenly pitched into darkness, feeling Lysander and Arden grabbing for my arms. Then they are gone. I fall, gasping in the icy air, before landing on a hard surface with a thump that shakes my ribs. I scream on impact, feeling like my shoulders dislodged from the fall as pain shoots through, down my chest. I groan, rolling on my back and trying to look around, but I can’t see anything. She’s blinded me. I trip over the layers of the dress as I stand, bits of it ripping, and my bare feet get cut on sharp stone.

It wasn’t that dark before, and even if it was that dark in here, I think I could see something at least. I reach out into thin air, but there’s nothing, and the dress makes it impossible to move far without tripping on it. “Emrys!” I scream his name, but only the wind answers me, echoing loud and howling away. My voice echoes like I’m in a cave, but it’s so cold here, too windy to be a cave. Suddenly something cold rests in my hand. A key, from the feel of it.

Aphrodite’s voice fills my ear. “Follow the air, trust your instincts, and unlock the cage before he stops breathing. He won’t be able to breathe for long, and if one dies, so does your world.”

Fear slinks into my chest as her voice disappears, and I scream, reaching in the air for her, for anything solid. I take a few steps forward before stopping, feeling like I’m about to stand on something that tips off the edge. I trace the edge with the tip of my feet, knowing I can’t go that way. I spin backwards, walking a few steps until I slam against a smooth, cool wall. Turning, I put my back against it and suck in a deep breath. I need to calm myself down. Breathe and focus. Emrys needs me.

“I’m here,” Lysander whispers into my mind, and I can feel Arden there too. “Grayson is with us. What’s wrong? What is going on?”

“She’s blinded me and it’s hard to breathe here. She gave me a key and told me to find Emrys before he runs out of air,” I reply, unable to hide my panic. What if I don’t find him in time?

“You must be in the cages below the throne room. It’s a place where people are taken who have betrayed the court,” Arden explains. “The air pressure is low there, and there are cages that slowly drain the rest of the air out until…” He pauses. “You need to move, Elle. Find him.”

“I know, but I can’t see!” I shout back. “She seems to have a real thing about these kinds of places. Why exactly do you have them again?”

Lysander fills my mind like water, the sheer opposite to Arden’s fire. “Calm, Elle. Focus. It’s a cage with a series of locks, but the top one opens it. It’s not a maze, it should be quite straightforward to find your way. Small steps. Terrin claimed Emrys was your mate too, right?”

“Yes,” I whisper, moving across the wall, clinging to it like it might save me from suddenly falling off. The dress blows around my legs in the breeze, the soft fabric clinging to me.

“I could always find you. I could always sense you near,” Lysander tells me.

“Same. Your existence was a mirror to my own, even without the bond in place,” Arden agrees with Lysander. “Trust yourself and find him.”

Easier said than done. They aren’t blind, in a place that hurts to breathe, walking a ledge. “What if I fall?”

“You won’t,” Lysander vows. The trust between us all falls like ashes from a fire, slow and steady. “We trust you. We know you⁠—”

The wind howls and whips around me, and every breath burns my throat, my lungs. Silence. I can’t hear them anymore. Our connection is just gone. Aphrodite must have figured out a way to cut them off from me. Emrys needs me.

I can find him. If anyone can find him, it’s me. Emrys, who reads books and holds me when I’m scared. Emrys, who took me flying, made me laugh in my worst moments, and is always there for me with no questions asked. Emrys, the kindest dragon shifter king. He can’t die in this place, waiting for me. I close my eyes and try to feel for him, feel for that part of me that loves him. I scream in frustration when nothing happens. I can’t make it snap into place. “For fuck’s sake, someone help me! Gods, someone needs to help me!”

My scream isn’t answered, and any bit of panic I tried to bury comes rushing to the surface. If I don’t move, he’s going to die. If I move, there’s a very good chance I die. I already know my answer as my foot steps forward. Dying is better than doing nothing and being a coward. I’m Princess fucking Ellelin of the mighty Spirit Court, and I will not be a coward.

Every step makes my body shake, and I keep moving, careful not to step off the end of the ledge. Every step feels wobbly on the gritty rock as I walk forward, hoping and praying I’m going the right way by just following my instincts. Everything is just one giant pit of air and rock walls. I keep breathing in and out. It’s so cold. My skin is prickling all over. The gown isn’t keeping me warm in this place. The Air Court is my least favourite, I’ve decided.

I walk straight forward, hoping and praying that I’m going to find this cage, knowing his time is running out. I turn around a corner where the whistling wind sounds less strong, and I swear I almost hear Emrys. My heart pounds. “Emrys?”

I’m sure it was him. He shouted at me. I might be going mad, it might not be him, but I keep walking forward, faster this time. Faster even when I know there’s a chance I could slip straight off into the air. “Ellelin!” Emrys whispers, sounding louder this time, and hope makes my body feel on fire. He sounds breathless, like there isn’t much time left.

I slam face-first into some thick metal bars, and I wince, tasting blood in my mouth. “Emrys, is that you? I’m coming, I have a key!”

“Ellelin, you’re really here,” he manages to say. “Unlock the cage at the top.”

I search for the lock, reaching as high as I can get on my tiptoes. “Where’s the latch?” I say more to myself, and Emrys doesn’t answer me. My fingertips just about touch the door lock, and I lift the key, trying to push it in. I realise it needs to be upside down, and I turn it, finally getting the key in. With a click, the door opens and my vision comes back as I fall through the cage, right in front of Emrys. My Emrys, the handsome, kind air king, who took me flying above the castle when I felt trapped in a cage. Emrys, who stole my heart so easily, with words and protection he so effortlessly gave me. Emrys…who I didn’t get to in time. The world stops, slowing to a whistle in the wind, as I see Emrys on the ground, completely unconscious. Still, like a frozen statue of a mighty king. “No!” I scream. I feel nothing but pure dread sink straight into my soul, sickness rising in my throat as I rush to him. I roll him onto his back, watching his chest for a second. He’s not breathing.

HIS CHEST ISN’T MOVING. HE ISN’T BREATHING. NO. NO. NO. NO. NOT HIM. NOT ONE OF MY DRAGON KINGS.

“Emrys!” I scream, jumping on him and starting CPR. I don’t even know how to do it right; I failed the class at school, but I have to try something. I push down on his chest again and again, hoping it’s enough. Tears fall down my face, dropping into his pale face as time slips by, no matter how much I beg for it to stop. “Emrys. Emrys, please no. Emrys, don’t you dare die on me. I can’t…please don’t die. Don’t die!” I scream, my powers returning in a wave. My shadow dragon forms under Emrys and me, lifting us both up in the air. “Lysander. I have to get to Lysander. He can heal him.”

I command my shadow dragon to fly above, out of the prison, breaking it apart with my shadows. We fly up in the air and around the rock before landing back in the Air Court throne room. I leave Emrys’s body in a pool of shadows as I stand up. “Lysander!”

My scream just echoes, and I realise I can’t feel him nearby. He’s far away, but I can’t sense where. Too far. I reach for Emrys, ready to make a portal out of here and to the Water Court for someone to heal him, when Aphrodite’s laugh reaches me and her red magic wraps around me, launching me across the throne room and dumping me on the stone in front of her. She laughs at me. “You failed the test, and your heart is breaking. So sad.”

“No, I didn’t!” I scream, crawling to my feet. “He is not dead.”

She waves a hand at me, rising. “It doesn’t matter. We only needed to go to each court to retrieve something to open portals to every world.” She looks to the side where Ares is waiting with the staff. The top of the staff has four crystals on it, one for each court, and they are glowing. I wipe my tears away. “What is that?”

Ares spins it. “It will open a portal to a world we’ve wanted to return to for a while, where the gods were born. Lapetus. Where wolves think they’re gods. Where the gods bound themselves, their souls, to wolf shifters to try to live forever. We don’t have any intention of doing that, but ruling what is left of that world would be better than ruling the carcasses of here. We’ll come back, of course, when we have more power.”

Ares slams his power straight at me. The test doesn’t protect me this time, but my shadows come up in a wall, pushing his magic to the side. He’s strong, knocking me back a few steps and pushing on the limit of my power. I look behind me at Emrys, who is still not moving. He can’t be dead. I refuse to believe it. A portal opens to the side, and Arty steps out. Her eyes widen as she looks at us all. “Stop, mother, father. That’s enough. Just go to your world and don’t come back.”

“Where are they?” I demand.

“Haven’t you lost enough?” Aphrodite questions. “We tested the staff with your kings. You could say they are not in this world anymore. I left you the air king, but that’s a shame. Dead king.”

“He’s not gone!” I scream at her. “He’s not.” I desperately look at Arty, who is near Emrys. “Get him to the Water Court. GO!”

“She won’t,” Aphrodite coos. “She isn’t powerful enough to make a portal. She used a drop of my magic left in a device to make a one-way portal here.”

Hopelessness threatens to sink me onto my knees. “Love is delusional, just like you are, my daughter. Come with us to this world, and we will forgive you.”

Arty sinks to her knees next to Emrys and takes his hand. “I’d rather stay here and die with my friends if that is what fate wishes.”

Ares starts making a portal, nothing like I’ve ever seen before. Green spiralling magic in strange patterns bursts into the air, spitting green embers in every direction. They’re going to go to another world. They’re going to go and try to destroy another world. I run at them, knowing I can’t let them do that. I must stop them. Aphrodite slips in front of me, red magic exploding into the air, but my shadows cut through it as I pull my daggers out of the shadows and head straight for Ares. He’s the one that needs to die first. He took everything from me. My father…my court. Everything.

I run straight for him with the daggers, and the staff drops to the floor by the portal that is half open with a thud. He grabs my wrists, stopping me, knocking one of the daggers out of my hands, and it clangs onto the stone. Screaming, I push the other between us, and he uses all his magic in his hands to push against me and my shadows powering me. “You will die for this, princess. Do you think my wife will let you kill me? She’s going to kill this court and you, then we’ll leave this world. You should have died all those years ago. I should never have let you escape.”

“You never let me escape. My father made sure I escaped. The Spirit Court made sure I’d escape so I’d come back and destroy you.” I see Aphrodite coming for us in the distance, bitter anger written all over her face. I have to kill him before she gets here. Pulling all the power I can, I push at the dagger between us, cutting through his hands. He slams power into my arms, and one of my wrists snaps. I scream, accidentally dropping the dagger, and he grabs my wrist, leeching my power. I literally feel my power draining from me to him. As his eyes brighten, he laughs and laughs as I fall in his grip, weakness hitting me like a wave.

“No…”

“You’re weak and alone, princess,” Ares sneers at me.

“She is not alone.” Suddenly, one of my daggers plunges straight through Ares chest, through his heart, and his blood sprays across my cheek. My eyes widen as Emrys steps up from behind Ares, weak but standing. He uses his air powers to make the dagger go through his chest. Another one of my daggers lifts out of the air and cuts through his chest on the other side, impaling him completely. I hear Ares choke as he lets me go.

I glare up at him. “Those daggers are blessed by the god of nightmares and horror. They are alive, and the souls in them are worse than any evil you’ve met. They’ll destroy anything they touch with the most unimaginable pain as they claw you apart. A present from my uncle. Now go to hell and beg Hades not to curse your soul.”

“This is for the Spirit Court. This is for all the courts,” Emrys whispers to him. “There will be peace in this world when you’ve gone, and no one will remember you.”

Aphrodite screams as Ares roars in pain and collapses, dead. Aphrodite runs through the portal that Ares opened, and it blinks out of existence right after her. I grin, wrapping my arms around Emrys’s neck, leaning back to kiss him. He looks pale as I hug him again, needing a moment to know he is okay, and I glance at Arty, who is pale and on her knees, looking at her hands. She saved him. I don’t know how, but she did, and Emrys then killed her father. Ares’s staff catches my eye where it lies on the ground behind his dead body. It might be over in this world, but my other dragon kings and Aphrodite are in another world of wolf shifters…and I have to go after them.