Chapter 21

The panic that welled in Alex made it seem as though her heart had stopped cold in her chest. For a moment, she wondered if it had, but she was still alive. At least for now. That was about to swiftly change.

Valroy was standing atop one of the ruined stone walls. Unfurling his wings, he spread them out behind him like a dragon. The thin membrane of skin connecting the bones was translucent enough to see the moon behind him.

And in his hand was a sword that looked like it was two thousand years old in design—some enormous, ancient, two-handed blade he held with one as though it weighed nothing.

"A clever plan. And nearly successful." Valroy stepped from the wall and landed in the bloody muck with his bare feet. If it bothered him, it didn't show. It also seemed he was in no rush to kill them. Which was both good and bad.

Izael was now in his true form and standing in front of her. He hissed at the King. "You will not harm her."

"No. I shan't. Not until she has served her purpose." Valroy chuckled darkly. "If she is powerful enough to perhaps defeat even I—just imagine the ruin she will bring. What a wonderful toy you have made, Duke of Bones. I commend you, though it is a shame you will not be around to see our triumph."

Alex ran her hand over the ring on her finger, reassuring herself that she still had a way out. That she still had a chance to avoid being the weapon of the power mad Unseelie King. Maybe there was another way—maybe—her thoughts reeled and scrambled to go through all the possible ways forward for the few seconds she had left to act.

Izael was uncharacteristically quiet, every muscle in his body tense as he stared down Valroy, tracking every movement of his foe.

"I do wonder, however, what changed your mind. Why betray me? You, of all of us, yearn to return to Earth." Valroy tilted his head, pondering the Duke. It was clear he found them perfectly harmless.

"I yearn to return to Earth as it is now. As the humans would have it—not as what you would make of it." Izael clenched his fists.

"Hm." Valroy looked up at the tree behind them. "How gloriously short-sighted. Would you rather not own them all? You could rule a continent of them—raise them and breed them as you would see fit."

"We aren't cattle," Alex interjected.

"I beg to differ," Valroy replied with a laugh. "That is precisely what you are. Cattle, let loose to ruin the field. Unchecked in your numbers, unrelenting in your mindless destruction. Humans will destroy all of Earth's bounty before your ruthless need to consume sends you to the stars to repeat your sins."

"I—okay, fine—" she sputtered, hating that she couldn't argue with him on that point. "But what you're suggesting?—"

"Don't bother, songbird," Izael cut in. "You have a better chance of arguing with the moon and convincing it that it is the wrong color. And as for the humans? Respectfully, my King, I have decided I only need the one human."

"And here you stand, ready to die for her—ready to die because she has decreed it?" Valroy huffed and began to step slowly toward them. Methodically. "I never knew how weak you were. A shame. I will be glad to root out such rot from my court."

"I stand ready to protect the woman I love from suffering a fate she deems worse than death." Izael held his ground, though he obviously knew it was suicide. "That is the sacrifice I am willing to make for love."

"You insinuate that I do not know what it is to make such a sacrifice." Valroy's expression tipped toward anger for the first time since he showed up. "You know nothing of what I have surrendered in the name of love."

"Alex," Izael turned his head to address her but didn't take his eyes off Valroy. "Run. You may buy yourself some time."

Valroy laughed at that, clearly not agreeing with Izael's sentiment. "And where would she go? She has no friends who would help her now—no saviors to take her away from here. You would have her captured twenty paces yonder."

"Go, Alex," Izael insisted. "Remember all that I have given you."

The hint wasn't subtle. The poison in the ring. Tears welled in her eyes. She knew she should run, but she couldn't leave him. Couldn't abandon him to die. Shaking her head numbly, she felt frozen to the spot.

"How sweet." Valroy lifted his broadsword. "You wish to watch him die. Very well." The Unseelie King lunged at Izael, driving forward with a speed that seemed at odds with his size.

Izael dodged, his reflexes as fast as those of his kin. He hissed, baring his fangs, and she watched as the turquoise line that bisected his chest did the same, peeling apart to threaten the King. "Go, Alex!"

But she couldn't. She just…couldn't leave him behind. Even if it meant disaster.

Valroy lifted his sword and swung it at Izael.

And she did the only thing she could. She grabbed hold of his music, the pipe organ that sounded far smaller than the bellowing thing beside her, and changed it.

Just as Valroy's sword was about to remove Izael's head from his shoulders, it clattered to the stones before sliding into the pool of blood. Where the Unseelie King had just been standing, a cloud of white moths fluttered and flew away.

Izael's eyes were wide, his body shaking with adrenaline. "You have only bought us moments. But they are moments, all the same. Run, Alex—the ring?—"

"I can't. I—" love you, she had wanted to say, but never had the chance. Her words choked off as a hand closed around her throat from behind her, cutting off her air.

"Well played, little human!" It was Valroy. He sounded strained, as though what she had done had actually hurt him. But he seemed barely the worse for wear. He tightened his hand around her throat, dragging her back toward him. "I have been beheaded. I have been burned. I have been dismembered, gutted, turned to ash, and scattered to the winds—but never have I experienced that. I thought I had known every death a body could suffer. Thank you for the new lesson in pain." He lowered his head. "I will be sure to return the favor."

"Let her go!" Izael threw himself at them in a fit of panic and fury. Valroy threw her to the side, hurling her to the ground to meet his opponent.

Alex landed hard in the viscous blood and gore, its warmth still sickening. Scrambling back up to her feet, she whirled to face the two battling fae.

Izael had a dagger in each hand, doing his best to dodge and avoid the strikes from Valroy. But there was a reason the King was the one in charge. Izael was fast, vicious, and fought like the creatures he resembled, darting forward and back.

But he was also very large, his tail long and curling, and made it difficult to defend all parts of himself.

Alex screamed as Valroy brought down his sword and stabbed it straight through a thicker portion of Izael's tail. Blood the color of tar shot from the wound as Izael howled in pain.

Valroy left his blade there, keeping the snake pinned in place, and laughed. "No one will come to save you, Duke of Bones. You are unloved. Not even your father is here to protect you now." Lunging forward again, he struck Izael across the jaw with his fist, knocking Izael to the ground.

I love you— The words stuck in her throat. She was weeping now, tears streaming down her cheeks. She didn't bother to wipe them away. What was the point? "Stop—leave him alone?—"

Valroy grabbed Izael by the hair and jerked the other fae upright. A second punch. A third. Izael's lip was bleeding.

"Stop! Please, stop—" she begged, running a few steps forward instinctually.

Valroy dropped Izael to the ground with a chuckle, wiping the blood from his knuckles onto the dark blue sash he wore around his waist. "I will bargain with you, witch. I will spare his life—I will spare both of your lives—if you use your wish to break the treaty." He turned to face her. "I know you have not spent it yet." He dropped Izael, who fell limply to the ground.

"I—" She was shivering. Absolutely shaking like a leaf.

"Destroy the treaty, little human, and I will allow you both to live peacefully wherever you like." Picking up his bare foot, still covered in blood from the pool, he stepped down on Izael's throat, pinning him there.

Izael gagged and writhed, his hands weakly trying to pull Valroy away.

"I can't, I…" She couldn't take her eyes off Izael. Valroy was going to make her watch as he crushed the life out of the Duke of Bones. She went to lift her hand to turn him into moths again.

"Ah—I recommend against that. As amusing as it was once, it will lose its luster a second time." He sneered. "I will win, and then you will be forced to listen to him scream as I skin him alive."

Defeated, Alex lowered her hand. "Let him go."

Valroy smiled, almost sympathetically. "My, my. What is this? Do you care about him?" He stepped down harder on Izael's throat.

"Stop!" She took another instinctual step forward. "Please—stop."

He eased up on the pressure, letting Izael gasp and cough, before stepping over Izael to approach her. "Poor, lost witch. Do not think I do not understand the suffering you endure. And I can make it all end." He placed his hand to his chest over the dark blue ink that tattooed his skin in the shape of a maze, tangled and twisted up in jagged Celtic knots.

When she took a step back, he stopped his approach. She couldn't take her eyes off Izael. Couldn't stop staring at the duke as he lay there, wheezing, bleeding from the mouth and from the sword still keeping him pinned to the stone.

"Alexandra," Valroy used her full name, snapping her attention back to him, "here is the bargain I will strike with you. Wish away the treaty that binds us all. Let us return to our true nature. And in return, I will allow you to live your days with your duke, his life and your mortality intact—and neither of you will shed a drop of blood upon the battlefield. You can disavow yourself of it all."

"But I'll have caused it. It's the same thing." She shook her head. "Whether you're using me as a cannon or if you do it yourself."

"Perhaps. But it will be far away from you, a distant concern of those who do not concern you. You will spend your days happy, your nights content." He gestured behind him at Izael. "With the creature who loves you. Who would give anything for you, including his most valuable possession—his life."

Gods above and below, it was tempting. She couldn't deny it. All this madness would stop—all the suffering, all the pain. They could live together in peace. Far away from war, from death, from destruction. They could just be.

But at what cost?

Could she go on, knowing what she had done to the Seelie? To Earth?

She wanted to say no, she couldn't do such a thing. That death was the right choice. That she would rather die than to know all that was happening because of her.

Valroy walked away from her, ripping the sword from Izael's tail. The duke groaned in pain and struggled to move—to fight back—but with one swift kick from the king to his stomach, Izael lay still. Valroy stood beside the fallen duke, placing the tip of his sword against the other fae's chest, ready to plunge down and end his life. "Decide, Alexandra."

"I'm so sorry, Izael." Her words were little more than a broken whisper. "I'm so sorry." I won't be far behind you.

"Shame." Valroy lifted his sword an inch, and then with no further ado, drove it down into Izael's chest.

Alex screamed. Izael's howl of pain was worse, his tail thrashing and writhing as he wrapped his hands around the blade. But he did nothing except cut his hands—dark black blood coating the Unseelie King's blade.

Valroy ripped the sword from Izael's chest, his expression utterly passive, as if this were nothing more than a typical Thursday evening.

Alex ran forward, not caring about Valroy's presence anymore. She collapsed to her knees beside Izael, picking him up and cradling him in her arms. "Izael—Iz?—"

"Don't cry." Izael smiled weakly, his sea-green eyes already losing their shine. He reached up a trembling, bloody hand, but could not quite gather the strength to touch her cheek. She caught his hand and closed the distance for him, not caring for the smears it would leave on her.

She'd be joining him in a few minutes, anyway, should the gods be kind.

Sniffling, she leaned down to kiss him, not caring for how bitter his blood tasted on her lips. When she broke away, she rested her forehead against his. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry…"

"Shh…" He tangled his fingers with hers. "I shall not die alone. That is…that is more…than I could have ever wished for…"

His eyes slid shut.

His hand in hers went limp.

His head rolled to the side.

The sound that left her was not one she thought she could make. Clutching him close, she rocked back and forth on her heels as she sobbed.

Izael, the Duke of Bones, was dead.