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Chapter 59

Chapter 59

F ey followed the trail of bodies.

It wasn't difficult. Alice was making no effort to hide her presence in the palace now, and some of the hallways were coated in blood almost deliberately, as though Alice were leaving a macabre trail of breadcrumbs in her wake. Fey had even stumbled upon a Lion Shifter, hunkered over a dead body, ripping chunks from the guard and crunching through bones as though they were nothing.

The Shifter turned as Fey approached, drawing blood-coated lips back in a snarl and baring her teeth.

"I'm a friend," Fey told her, holding her hands up, away from her weapons. Goddess help me, I hope I'm a friend , she thought. "Alice sent me."

The Lioness paused, cocking her head to the side, and sniffed the air between them. Then, as though satisfied by whatever she had scented there, she turned back to her meal.

"Thank you," Fey told her. "Uh … enjoy your snack, I guess."

Fey could have sworn she heard a chuckle from the giant cat behind her as she hurried down the hallway, but it could have just been her imagination .

The dead bodies became more frequent the deeper into the palace Fey ventured. The closer she got to the throne room.

She couldn't find Joy anywhere, but she knew her sister would have felt Lilith's death. And this time, Fey wouldn't be able to tell her that she wasn't at fault, wouldn't be able to look in Joy's trusting blue eyes and lie to her.

This time, she had taken Joy's sister from her. Joy's final, remaining sister. And now, she would be alone, truly alone. The last remaining Queen's Blade.

Her heart twisted in her chest, but Fey couldn't stop moving, couldn't give up now. Joy might never forgive her for what happened tonight, but Alice would. Alice would understand that she'd done what needed to be done. And Fey was determined to do whatever she could to make sure her sister succeeded tonight.

It was time to finish what they'd started.

She heard the fighting before she could see it, but by the time Fey arrived it looked like it might already be over.

Ten bodies littered the throne room floor. Some had been burned, nothing but charcoal and bones remaining, and the blackened skulls looked like they were frozen in an endless scream. Others had fallen to Alice's blade, their blood coating the floor, a vibrant red against the white marble.

Alice was fighting three guards when Fey arrived, whirling between them like a storm of blades and death. She wasn't even bothering to draw on her power, not even when one of the guards sent a blast of Fire at her. She simply danced to the side, the burst of flames missing her entirely, and spun back to land a deadly thrust right through the Witch's belly.

The remaining guards fell easily enough.

This was Alice's specialty, after all. She had been the deadliest of them all with her Blades, relying more on her sword work and speed than her power over Fire .

When the final guard dropped, clutching her chest where Alice's blade had dealt a fatal blow, Alice smiled.

Smiled, and raised her blood-coated blade to point at the Queen.

"There you are," Alice said, her smile growing. "Didn't you hear me calling your name?"

Queen Edelin did not run. She did not so much as flinch under Alice's heavy stare. Standing beside her throne, back straight, and head held high, she didn't even look frightened. And that, more than the dead guards at her feet, seemed to give Alice pause.

"Kill her," the Queen commanded, and Dameon, who stood at his Queen's side as her final defender, drew his sword and stepped forward, advancing down the dais.

"Gladly," he said, as he approached, eyes on Alice.

"No," Fey growled. Her throat burned at the words, damaged from her fight with Lilith. Dameon's eyes flicked toward her, and she was glad she'd left her mask in the Blade's quarters, glad for her uncovered hair. She wanted him to know exactly who she was when she killed him.

Fey drew both her blades, readying them at her side. "No, he's mine, sister."

Alice's eyes burned with barely restrained fury, but she nodded, turning her gaze from Dameon to the Queen, now unguarded and alone.

"Let's see what kind of Witch you really are, Edelin," Alice said, striding up to face her Queen.

Whatever shock Dameon had felt when he saw Fey enter, alive and well, was gone in an instant, replaced instead with a hateful sneer.

"Do you know what your problem is, Fey?" he asked, letting her approach, his sword held tight in both hands, the tip angled toward the floor. "You never respected the chain of command. I was your superior, I was the one giving you orders, but you were incapable of acknowledging that… You always thought you were better than everyone else, even me."

There was enough anger in his voice to confirm something Fey had always suspected—Dameon didn't like her. Had never liked her. And knowing it brought a smile to her lips .

"Oh Dameon," Fey laughed, circling him. "I am better than you. And I always have been."

He lifted his sword with a snarl and leapt at her.

There was a truth in what Dameon had said to her. Fey had never really respected his position over the Queen's Blades. After all, despite his orders, despite his training, despite the fact that it was Dameon himself who had taught Fey to wield her twin blades, at the end of the day she had something he never would.

She was a Witch. And that made all the difference.

His sword came down with a speed and strength unmatched by any others in the Queen's army, but he still wasn't fast enough. Fey dodged to the side, easily, knocking his blade aside with her own with a quick flick of her wrist.

She clicked her tongue at him. "You'll have to do better than that, Dameon," Fey mocked. With a roar of rage, he launched himself at her again, bringing his sword down over and over, forcing Fey backward from the strength of his hits.

He was trying to tire her out, Fey realized, parrying the attacks he rained down upon her. Keep her on defense, keep her reacting so she can't act. It's a common tactic when fighting a stronger opponent, and on someone else, it may have worked. But everything Dameon had known about swordplay, he'd taught to her, and Fey had made those tactics part of her life's work.

The next flurry of blows he tried to land hit nothing but Air, as Fey summoned a wall of wind between the two of them, pushing Dameon back and momentarily off balance. But the wall of Air did nothing to stop Fey as she dove right through the shield she'd created, bringing her blade up above her head and slicing the tip down his face at a sharp angle.

Dameon howled in pain, letting go of his sword hilt with one hand, and bringing his hand to his face. He touched the deep wound that now crossed from one side of his face to the other, curving down and angled over his nose. A mirrored match to the scar on the other side of his face .

"There," Fey said. "Finally balanced."

On the dais, Alice and the Queen fought, seemingly oblivious to Fey and Dameon. They fought not with weapons but with power, and the room itself shook with the energy that they threw at one another. Fire and Air rushed back and forth, but Fey knew she couldn't risk glancing at the fight to see how her sister was doing. Not until she finished this.

Glaring at her, blood dripping down his face and over his hand, Dameon took up his sword with both hands again and came at her.

He was no match for her—for any of the Queen's Blades. Even Willow, young and untrained as she had been, would never have fallen to him if he hadn't slit her throat from behind like a coward.

The fight would have been over quickly, and Dameon would have fallen to her blade without any trouble, if Fey hadn't forgotten one thing: they weren't alone. And while Dameon was the Queen's protector, she was also his.

Queen Edelin had never been to war. She had never been trained as a soldier, never been an assassin. Even with her power over all four elements, it had been easy to discount her as a threat.

Easy, yes. But a grave mistake.

As Fey parried the blows from Dameon's sword, as she tempted him ever closer and prepared to finish him off, prepared to finally make him pay for Willow's murder, a gust of Air hit her shoulder, impossibly hard, twisting her off balance and knocking her to the floor.

Stunned, Fey had no time to recover, no time to get up, before Dameon's sword sank into her, through the right side of her abdomen and all the way through to her back. The metal tip clanged like a bell as it exited her back and struck the marble floor beneath her.

With a scream of rage, Fey summoned a blast of Air and Fire that flung Dameon away. He hit the marble wall on the other side of the room and collapsed into a heap on the ground. Alive, for now. On the dais, Alice and the Queen still fought, the very air and marble floors of the throne room becoming weapons in their battle, but Fey couldn't focus on what they were doing.

Dameon's sword remained behind, embedded in Fey's side. She couldn't reach the hilt, and trying to move, trying to shift her body at all, felt like she was being torn apart from the inside .

Struggling to remain calm, her breaths quick and shallow, Fey gripped the sword blade in both hands. Gripped it, and pulled , ignoring the pain as the sharpened edge cut into her hands, ignoring the pain as the blade tore again through her body, widening the wound. She whimpered as she pulled at it, hands slick with blood, until finally, painfully, she pulled the sword from her body and let it fall from her hands, where it clattered to the ground next to her.

She was bleeding heavily, and the ground underneath her was wet with it, but Fey could already feel her body responding. Water rolled through her, uncalled, and began to heal what it could.

Shaking and dizzy with blood loss, Fey stumbled to her feet. Dameon was doing the same, across the room from her. Unarmed, still stunned from where she'd thrown him, he rose unsteadily. With a snarl of fury, Fey flung her hand out, wrapping Air around his throat and pinning him to the wall.

She let the Air lift him, until his feet were several inches from the ground, while he struggled and thrashed, his hands pulling at the invisible force that held him in place.

But his hands found no purchase on the Air there. The Air Fey commanded.

"This is for Willow," she said, feeling the breath in his lungs, the life-giving oxygen inside of him, and gathering it together.

"This is for taking her away from us," Fey continued, one hand pressed against the wound in her side as she approached him, blood seeping through her fingers. She gathered all that Air inside him and dragged it out.

Dameon's eyes went wide and bulged. He struggled against the force that held him in place, struggled to draw breath, but he had no power over the Air. She did, and it obeyed her command, refusing to be drawn into him, refusing to fill the vacuum now occupying his lungs.

On the dais, something crashed and broke, and Alice screamed in pain, but Fey wouldn't look away from this. Wouldn't look away as Dameon slowly suffocated to death in front of her.

Another blast of Air hit her, making Fey stumble, but still, she didn't look, still, she didn't lose her focus and drop the power around Dameon. Instead, she called Fire, wrapping them both in a cocoon of flames, shielding them both from the outside.

"Her name was Willow," Fey said, softly. It hurt, Goddess it hurt to talk. Her throat was so damaged, so inflamed, but she didn't care. She needed to say this, needed to get these words out. "She was our sister, and we loved her. She was so smart, so funny. And she deserved better. She deserved better than to die at the hands of a miserable coward like you."

She was inches away from him now, staring up into his eyes, watching his face turn blue and pale.

"I felt her die," she told him, froth and saliva dripping down his chin as he struggled. His eyes protruded unnaturally in his skull and began to redden as the blood vessels within popped and bled. "And now, I'm going to send you to whatever afterlife exists, so she can have her revenge."

Dameon strained against her hold one more time, releasing a dry gurgle from deep in his throat, and then convulsed violently, before going limp. His eyes were wide and frightened, unfocused, staring at nothing.

Only then did Fey release him, letting his lifeless body crumple to the ground. Only then did Fey recall the Fire that surrounded them, pulling it back inside herself, and turn toward the dais.

To where Alice knelt, stone binding her hands. To where the Queen stood, one hand gripping the back of Alice's head, and the other holding a blade to her throat.

"Stand down," the Queen said, and for the first time, Fey heard emotion in her voice. Rage .

"This foolishness is over," the Queen said, her fingers digging into Alice's skin. "I must say, I am very disappointed in the two of you."

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