61. AURELIA

Chapter sixty-one

AURELIA

N erves shot through my body. I didn't want to confront Tobias and my father. I was scared to find out who was behind the door. Was my father okay? Was my mother okay? Was my father in on it with Tobias? Was it only Tobias?

I would never confront them on my own. I needed the Scalebound with me to do this. Even then, I was still nervous, anxiety racking my body.

As we approached the door, my hand instinctively reached for the golden knob, readying myself for what may be behind.

The door shifted open, revealing the large chambers of my father's room. I immediately came across my mother tied up in a chair. "Mother!" I called out. Her skin had worsened from the last time I saw her. Bruises and ugly purple spots covered her body. Some sort of disease had overtaken her, but it wasn't the work of the Deathlies. It was clearly… poison.

In the dimly lit room, my father sat beside her, both of them bound tightly to their chairs with ropes that cut into their skin. Gagging material was wedged forcibly into their mouths, stifling any cries for help. Beads of sweat flooded the terror on their faces.

Tobias was also restrained in a chair, his cloth folded down from his mouth, his expression guarded.

Cora.

Cora stood in close proximity to Tobias, her grip tight on a knife, its blade ominously directed toward him. It was evident that we had interrupted an interrogation.

"Ahhh," Cora's words hung in the air, her voice piercing through the haze of shock that enveloped me. My expression remained frozen, a mask of disbelief as I struggled to comprehend what was happening. "Look at you, Aurelia. You have a team of Scalebornes. You think you're going to change the world or something?"

I knew everyone was behind me and could feel their presence. No one was saying anything in return, so they must be focusing on something. My eyes flicked toward Tobias, and I could see a small pillar of smoke billowing. Angie was using her Scaleborne ability of fire, igniting the ropes tied behind him to set him free.

Small vines were seeping in through the cracked window that I knew must be from Clemmy or Abner, undoing the ties of my parents behind their backs. Cora couldn't see behind her, as her attention focused on me.

I narrowed my eyes as she placed her knife delicately on a small, slender vanity table positioned behind her. With purposeful strides, she advanced toward us, closing the distance between herself and our group.

"Cora," I pleaded. "Why?"

"Where do I start…"

"I thought that we were friends! I trusted you! This was your kingdom! You had everything that you could've ever dreamed." Shock still ignited my veins, making it hard to move or talk.

"I didn't have everything, Aurelia. You scale slum, you don't understand." She was right. I didn't understand. "I didn't have my parents."

"But it was an accident," I said, recalling their deaths by memory.

She just scoffed. "Accident," she said, laughing again. "Your father killed my parents! They are murderers! They killed them cold-blooded, Aurelia!"

"I… I don't understand."

"Of course you don't." She moved closer to me. My hands tingled with fear. "Do you know how our parents knew each other before mine became the king's counselors?"

I shook my head. I didn't. There was no reason to question it, and it never came up.

"My father was at the same dragon-killing ceremony as yours to take the place of the throne. The Trials by Fire. My father had given up everything and gone into debt to learn about dragons. What makes them tick, their annoyances, desires, needs, and how to kill them most efficiently.

"My father shared this knowledge with yours. They were from the same small village. Isn't that right?" she said, looking at my father disgustedly.

Luckily, the smoke, fire, and vines had disappeared. However, they continued to hold their hands behind their backs to look the part. She shot her head back in our direction.

"He trusted Myre. That was until Myre drugged him the day of the games, unable to participate for even the chance. He lost everything. We lost everything.

"But it was okay," Cora sarcastically said, emphasizing her emotions with her hands. "Because Myre so kindly said that we could live in the castle and that my parents would be generously compensated for their roles as counselors to the king."

My gaze drifted to my father, and I saw tears tracing silent paths down his cheeks. Beside him, my mother's eyes were tightly shut, as if to shield herself from the painful truth that Cora was delivering.

"However, when I was a little girl, I overheard my dad talking to my mother about something. He said that he saw the skull tattoo of old magic on the king's back. He didn't even use the tricks that my father told him about. He simply killed the dragons with magic from the Old Religion. The same religion of the scaled creature. This was treason. Myre was then a hypocrite, killing off any magic holders from the Old Religion and the ban that was set up."

"All of this just for revenge?" I questioned.

She laughed again. "I am not even done. My father was sent on the trip. My mother did not go. Even though it is told to everyone that she did and that she died right alongside him, he died on the trip randomly, and then my mother got the plague after that."

Tobias rubbed his wrists and rose from his seat, making his way toward the knife resting on the table behind Cora. I averted my gaze, focusing on something else to avoid drawing attention to his actions.

"My father was killed just so my mother could then die by the plague. A disease that only entered the castle, and that she was the only one who received. Because of this, I couldn't even be there when they died. Neither of them.

"Isn't that odd? How was she the only one who died of the plague? The king told me how they both died, and I believed it. I went along with it, knowing I would pay him back someday. That he would know exactly how it was to watch those that you love die by disease."

My brows knit together in anger. "Why now? You've had years. What made you start this now?"

She scoffed. "The Sardanian King sent me a note requesting to speak with me. During one of my trips, I went that way, wondering what he had to say. After seeing his intentions, and knowing my history, I shared my plans with him and he said if I were successful that he would wed me to his son, making me queen of the Sardan Kingdom. After years of plotting, anyway, it was the push I needed"

I thought about what Tobias said at the dinner with all of the knights, and how he wanted to go to war with the Sardan Kingdom. They already started war. It made sense, the Deathlies never crossed the border of the Forbidden Forest into their lands.

"Everyone else in the castle? What did you do to them?" I raised an eyebrow, observing Tobias as he silently passed the knife's hilt to Myre. In that moment, I felt a surge of respect for him. He understood the kill belonged to my father, not him.

"A sleeping potion. No one to walk around and question what was happening. Everyone else who didn't take it is staying in their chambers. Because no one wants to get the plague," she said like the monster she was.

Sleeping potions? How had she learned to brew them? The realization struck me, and my mind raced back to the missing book in my room.

"You stole my books on potions? That was you?" I said, fury rising in my throat. "You must've been the one to steal the map as well." Everything started to make sense. "But why?"

"Oh, that's not the only thing I used your little potion book for. A sweet addition to the book also helped me to poison your mother. I needed a little leverage on your father. He wanted to host games to find a ruler, but I begged him to make me the ruler. He wouldn't budge. He knew that Tobias would marry you and protect you, and he didn't want to risk you being the face of everything. He knew that you would have the kingdom, but still remain safe." I could feel my eyes glisten with tears. My father cared about me. It was never about not wanting me to be a part of the kingdom because of who and what I was, but it was about protecting me.

"Your father had then sent Nana Claudia a note by raven, letting her know what I was capable of and that I had poisoned Queen Dyla. However, your lovely past lover, Tobias, had intercepted the raven. This, unfortunately, got him involved. He had already known about the egg and came to confront me about the note, accidentally spilling the information about the golden egg.

"Silly Aurelia, they were making plans to find the egg not for the wish it granted, but to open up the dragon gates and to end the extinction of dragons. They wanted to make dragons more prominent in the lands to make it so that you could show yourself. Tobias and your father were doing that all for you, and you had no idea."

"But the map? Where did you get it?" I demanded.

"When Tobias had told me about your map, I had gone through your tower and Nana's belongings to find it. I knew that one of you would have to have not only the map but more information on magic from the Old Religion.

"I had already been plotting the Deathlies, but the map was the perfect touch to my plan. I would create the Deathlies to distract the kingdom while I looked for the dragon relic to grant me my wish. But wedding the Sardanian King's son was my back-up plan. Which worked out when you left to search for the egg, leaving me time to take care of everything else here. It was only right for what happened to my parents. My father deserved to be king, and my rightful place was to be the heir to this throne.

"However, people got in the way." She looked over at Tobias. Tobias and my parents still had their hands behind their backs, not showing they had been released. My father was waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

"Tobias, you stole the map back from Cora? For me?" I questioned, realizing that was why he had it that night. Cora was using me to find the map for her. She knew I was the only one he would be vulnerable with. Tobias swallowed hard, his eyes shifting to Cora as he nodded in silent agreement. Tobias had always been on my side, and I had no idea.

"Pity that you didn't know that he actually cared for you. He was always looking out for you, blah, blah, blah." I couldn't believe it. I saw him as evil this entire time. I blamed him for all of this. "I just wanted everyone to know what it was like to watch their loved ones shrivel up with death and disease. The Deathlies are the best pets, ya know. They will listen to my every command."

Thinking back to the night of the masquerade ball, I thought of the girl that entered the castle. I remembered her sickly face as she laid on the ground, begging for help. Someone had to let her into the castle. Nana mentioned there being tunnels and other hidden entrances below. It had to be someone that knew the tunnels and hidden passageways that I never had the luxury of learning. Someone that grew up in the castle. Someone that was able to sneak her in to make everyone fear what the Deathlies were capable of.

It was Cora all along.

"And the knights," I said, remembering the knights sent looking for me by Evler. "You sent them?"

"I had to know where you were at," she said smugly.

My gaze flickered from my parents to Cora. How could she have been powerful enough to do this? I watched as my father stood up, about to stab Cora through with the knife. But I wanted the kill on my hands.

I remembered the maxz 1 that was gifted to me. There was a reason that I was meant to have the lunar abilities. I knew that I was always dark on the inside, ready to kill. It just brought it out in me even more.

My fear didn't fuel the weapon I was.

I was the weapon.

Flushing the conflictions of my emotions to the side, I twisted Cora's own shadows between my starry-nailed fingers and drifted them up to where her neck was. Her caramelized skin shone brightly from the light of the moon drifting in through the window, but that wouldn't last for long.

I wrapped her own shadow around her neck, digging deeper into her skin, blocking off her ability to breathe or to scream. Her face whitened to the shiny color of bone; her mouth fell open in utter horror, awaiting her next breath that she wouldn't receive.

For a split second, I wondered if I would've been able to do this before I left my tower and met Damian and the Scalebound.

No. I wouldn't have.

For a fleeting moment, I grappled with the realization that my abilities were hurting my best friend–killing my best friend.

But I refused to dwell on it, pushing the thought to the side. I refused to be underestimated any longer.

There were strangled and depleted breaths escaping her throat, choking out like unnatural gurgles. The texture of her skin started to melt, her copper-toned skin burning to a deep purple, the oxygen fleeing her blood. Her hands thrashed to grab at the shadows closing her airways. I wanted her to know that I was in power. I was in control.

"Don't mess with the Shadow Queen," I uttered, as her body fell limp to the floor, her remaining sobs escaping her throat. A piece of my heart whimpered at the sight of watching her body fight for air.

My best friend was fighting for her life.

My best friend betrayed me, and I made the choice to kill her.

Her last breath screeched out in a haunting wail, saying something in a language I had never heard before. In a matter of seconds, Tobias seized my mother, bringing her past the door and through the hall we were standing in, as black creatures held out their taloned claws toward the window.

The pane cracked and broke to the ground, the shards of glass clinking as they shattered, bringing in large Deathlies, swirling throughout the room. Their wings were tall and distorted, their fangs bony and unnatural, and their talons long and pointy. Their eyes were bottomless and lifeless.

The creatures were answering Cora's pleas for help.

1. Maxz (Mahz): Ability