Page 99 of A Deception of Courts

I stood, uncaring for the pain and the tiredness embedded in my bones. Glancing down at Erix, it was my time to offer him a hand. He looked at it as though it were the strangest of things. Then he took my offering, held my gaze, and smiled mischievously.

“Yes, for everyone who has lost their lives because of this mad petition of demons and gods.”

Erix’s jaw gritted. “Just like the old days.”

“Just like the old days,” I repeated as he towered above me. Inches apart, I allowed myself a moment to inhale him. A scent my body recognised and my soul had missed. If I stared into his eyes, I easily forgot the rest of his changed appearance. It was like looking into the man I had once known, before he left me in bed alone on that fateful day.

“Quick,” Erix muttered, his gaze flickering across every inch of my face. I felt my skin warm where his eyes graced. “Before there isn’t a single one left for you to enjoy yourself.”

My mouth watered at the thought of a fight. I glanced again at the dead Cedarfall family. I felt their fire course through my body. This was for them.

“I’m ready.”

CHAPTER 28

Althea severed the rope from her mother’s neck, the muscles in her arm tense with every saw of the blade. Once it finally snapped, Queen Lyra’s limp body fell into her daughter’s arms before being carried down to the ground and laid out beside the rest of the Cedarfall family. And not once did Althea cry. No tear escaped her defiant eyes. It was not sadness that billowed from her in powerful waves. It wasfury. Hot, melting vehemence trapped within the casing of flesh.

They didn’t need to die. As I watched the unnecessarily grotesque scene, I knew that Aldrick could’ve taken the keys without the need for murder. But he did it anyway, because this was all a game to him. A sign. And with every life lost, and the promise of more to come, I wanted to repay it back to him tenfold.

Gyah waited off to the side, never once taking her eyes off Althea. She held the pile of folded white sheets to her chest almost protectively. That pile lessened with each Cedarfall Althea freed from the noose at their necks. One by one, the bodies were then covered. Harsh burns marked their skin, left by the rope. The blue tint of their flesh and the wide, bulging eyes were finally covered when the sheets fluttered down over their corpses.

There was no hiding the horrific image of their bodies that could conceal the truth scorched into my mind. I still saw their deaths clearly, and refused to forget them.

Dawn had arrived, bringing an air of peace with it. The sky, still bruised with ominous clouds, no longer flashed with lightning. Everything seemed so still.

The giant trees of Aurelia shed their leaves, casting the city in a bed of gold. Even the earth grieved for what was taken from them. The air was still thick with the scent of charred wood and flesh, piles of Hunters’ bodies collected swarms of flies, whereas the dead fey were gathered like twigs and used to build pyres throughout the city.

Each one burned with Althea’s crimson fire, the rightful end of a Cedarfall fey.

Lady Kelsey, Althea’s aunt, sobbed among the crowd of survivors. She’d been among the small group of fey who’d barricaded themselves within the manor. After Erix freed me from the iron cuff, we cut through the remaining Hunters who’d also fled into the manor. The hallways toward the great hall in which Kelsey and the rest of the fey were hiding were soon littered with shards of shattered, ice-hardened flesh of the Hunters I’d fought. It was over for them before it could begin, and I was disappointed – disappointed I couldn’t take out my pain on more, destroy more, wound Aldrick as he had wounded us.

In time, I promised myself, he’d meet an end worthy of the monster he was.

My heart stung as I heard and watched the grief. I pressed my bandaged hand over my chest, hoping to keep my heart from bursting free from my ribcage. If I had tears left to shed, my face would’ve been sticky with them. But I was empty – a vessel of nothing but power that demanded to be released.

But I would wait until the time was right.

Throughout the crowd of survivors, there was a symphony of wailing and screaming. As we watched the last of the Cedarfall royals lowered to the ground, everything went still for a brief moment. Then every set of eyes turned to Althea, seeking the one thing desired in a moment of chaos.

Guidance.

The Cedarfall Court and its crown belonged to Althea now. All that was missing was the Cedarfall key that Aldrick had taken. But the snivelling, magic-wielding human, who took tenancy in the dungeon I’d not long left, would help us get itback.

“I can’t bear to watch this anymore,” I whispered, tightening my hold on Duncan’s steady hand.

He tugged on my arm in gentle suggestion, pulling me into his side. I turned to face him and buried my face, eyes closed, into his chest as he coiled his arm around me.

“I’ve got you,” he said, voice monotone with heavy emotion. “I’ll always have you.”

I hated how he sounded, as though his grief was lodged in his throat. There was no question, he felt some guilt toward what’d happened – Kayne’s deception.

Duncan had said little about what became of his friend after he chased Kayne through Aurelia. From the whispers I’d heard among the survivors, Kayne had been dragged through the city by his ankle and dumped within the manor. What happened beyond the closed door with just Duncan and Kayne was still a mystery, and I was almost happy to leave it as one. I did, however, know that Kayne was dead. The Tracker’s blood stained a path from the place Duncan took him, that was enough for me.

Duncan hadn’t been the same since he returned from that room. Quiet, distant, although never straying far from my side. Although he held me up as Gyah lowered the final white sheet across Lyra’s body, I sensed that, somehow, I helped hold him up, too.

I hated Kayne for what he did, but more so for what he had done to Duncan.

I swallowed my thoughts and focused on this moment, not wishing to give Kayne’s memory any more power. I had more important things to focus on now.

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