Page 65 of A Deception of Courts

“A wasted wish if you are dead.” Rafaela glanced behind her, and we both watched as the remaining two monsters righted themselves and focused back on the castle. Not on me or Rafaela, but on the towering walls behind me. Globs of saliva dripped from their maws; ferocity twisted like red fire in their large, snake-like eyes.

“You,” Rafaela shouted above the roars of war the monsters released, “are my priority.”

My thoughts drifted to Duncan. Had he woken to the noise and thought it was more sinister than a crash of thunder? I wondered if Seraphine glanced out her window, expecting a storm, instead finding winged monsters claiming the sky of Icethorn as their own.

How much time had passed since we had first been attacked? I had to hope they were aware, preparing themselves for the horror that would follow if I failed.

“We destroy them,” I snapped, lip curling over bared teeth. “It’s the only option.”

Rafaela just looked at me, her brow creasing as she came to her own conclusion.

I longed to tell her I could deal with it, but every inch of my body ached. The power I had exuded had taken it out of me. Looking at the two monsters that flew with frenzied determination, I knew deep down I couldn’t take them. Not like I had with the other – not without them draining me.

I watched in frozen awe as the two creatures careened toward me. They showed no signs of stopping, no signs of slowing down.

“You’ll one day forgive me for this,” Rafaela said a moment before she flew directly toward me.

Rough hands grabbed at my body, and the ground fell away from my feet. Rafaela’s nails pinched into my skin as she tore me from my castle and threw us both into the air. I gripped onto the bloodstained ivory shawl she wore and screamed.

Winds swallowed my cry with their own. The sound ruptured against my eardrums. My eyes streamed with tears from the slapping of cold upon my face.

“Wait!” I shouted, unsure if Rafaela could hear me above it all. It was one thing running, but leaving Imeria behind, forgetting those who still were inside of it… “Rafaela, release me.”

Her hold on me only tightened, until I felt as though my ribs would snap. I struggled to breathe as the pressure worsened. It then filled my head. The higher she climbed into the sky, the more I felt the hands of air press into me, the harder breathing became.

I forced my eyes open, streaming tears, and glanced back toward the two remaining monsters.

They didn’t follow us in chase as I expected. Yet there was no relief as I realised it. Because they never wanted me – that wasn’t why they were sent here.

I finally discovered what the Draeic desired a split second before they got their wish.

Both remaining monsters split apart at the last moment, before smashing straight into Imeria’s outer walls. Their power and speed gave the impression that they melted through stone as they disappeared into the castle’s body. But that was wishful thinking.

It took a moment for the explosive sound of carnage to reach me.

Rafaela slowed in her flight. I felt the breath leave her lungs as she looked down at what had caused the noise.

The monsters hadn’t been sent here to claim me. This was a suicide mission – and they had succeeded.

An entire side of Imeria Castle buckled and fell before our eyes. Towers folded in on themselves, walls exploded outwards, unable to hold the weight of stone above them as the two gaping holes the creatures left weakened them to the point of no return.

Soon the sky was full of dust and rubble as the castle continued to break and shatter, a cloud of it rupturing up from the distance around and swallowing the entire castle – or what remained of it – from view.

My mind screamed for one person. Duncan.

He was in there. The castle was falling around him. I imagined him in the bed, asleep and unaware, as bricks fell upon him. It took everything in my power not to blink and see visions of his head caved in, his body squashed to a pulp by the mounds of the castle that had stretched above the room he slept in – the room I’d left him alone in.

As the castle continued to fracture, as though made from glass and held in careless hands, my heart shattered in a symphony. Each brick, each slab of stone that crumbled beneath me, matched that of the pieces my heart snapped into.

Pain reverberated through my chest, and my grip on Rafaela fell slack. She was saying something, repeating the same words over and over. But I lacked the care to listen to them. There was nothing I could focus on more than the massacre laid out beneath my dangling feet. Or from the cavernous hole of loss that returned, like a vagrant tenant, to my soul.

The light of dawn revealed every horrific detail before me. Shards of golden light cut through the wisps of clouds and graced the mountain of rubble that stretched ahead of me. Dust clung to the air, invading my lungs, and making it feel like each inhale was full of grit and dust.

I cared little about my pain compared to the sea of agony that had overtaken me. If anything would destroy me, it was the knowledge of what I’d just lost.

Standing on a boulder, I looked out over the remains of Imeria Castle, and cried for Duncan until my throat bled raw. His name was a blade in my throat, scoring deep marks into it each time I shouted for him.

Rafaela didn’t try to stop me. Instead, she continued her solitary search among the ocean of broken brick and dust-covered ruins for bodies. Corpses. Death. One of the Draeic had been completely buried, but another was still visible at a distance, a single ripped wing stretching out of a mound of stone like a sail of a submerged ship.

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