Page 63 of To Scale the Emerald Mountain
My heart cracked in two when Ellya accused me of not wanting to be with her at all. She told me to fuck off and burn when I said I would be back for her. The two halves of my heart withered to ash when she told me not to bother; she was glad that I was leaving; she did not want a life with me after all. I pathetically apologized and turned on my heel, leaving her crying and alone as I closed the door behind me on the way out.
I should have told her.
I should have told her, rather than give in to my primal demand to defeat the threat to my precious mate myself. I should have refused to leave Ellya’s side. There is so much Mhaylene and I should have told her but did not, not wanting to steal her innocence or frighten her. But we failed Ellya that night and the days after. We tried to protect her peace instead of warning her that a madman might be plotting to steal her gifts.
I had never been more determined in my life than I was in those coming days. Determined to keep Ellya safe by whatever means. But despite my best efforts, it was all in vain. Only a few days later, Mhaylene and Milo found me—scouring the Emerald Mountains to take down the only other person who could truly crush me—to tell me that Ellya was gone.
And so, madness took me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ALEC
The first days following Ellya’s capture are a surreal blur fueled by animalistic rage. We have every available guard and tracker of both Quinndohs and Brhadir searching for them in every corner of both Kingdoms. We even send some to Salhaas.
There is no telling where Locane might have taken her. The only positive is that he can not jump her across the sea. If he plans to take her to the Mother Continent or Bokhaii, they will have to sail. We have every port up and down the coast watched.
We attempt to keep it quiet that the Princess has been kidnapped, knowing if we shout it Locane will certainly hear and lie low. I hold onto hope that he will immediately attempt to sail away with Ellya, trying to put as much distance as he can between us. He no longer has ties here after abandoning his title, Kingdom, and family.
But Locane is chaos and unpredictability personified, even before he tainted himself with dark and forbidden blood magic. Channeling the unnatural magic will increase power but make it unstable. The stain that shows on the hands also seeps into the mind, quietly eating away at humanity. A catastrophic combination paired with a fanatical obsession to obtain god power. I do notallow myself to think of the ramifications if Locane achieves such power.
Not yet.
Sleeplessness grips me tight. When I try to rest—when I stop moving long enough for thoughts to form—my mind races to dark places with the possibilities of how Locane may be forcing Ellya to bend to his will. She is strong, but that gives me only slight comfort compared to the dangers of a desperate man who has everything to gain and nothing to lose. Ellya’s training in mental shields has not yet begun, and she only has a basic understanding of minimal blocks. Against Locane’s vast power, she is virtually unprotected. Every time I mull over what Ellya could be enduring at any given moment, fury I have never known takes me over and drives me to want to inflict physical damage.
The ability to compel another; see into their mind; alter or implant memories; spin an illusion of any reality I wish does me no good in my raging desire to burn and destroy until what is mine is returned safe and whole. I have never wished for a different gift until now. The swell of power that comes with my fear and rage threatens to incinerate me. I drain the well by making long jumps to search every area until I find Ellya.
I will rip the world to shreds to get her back.
What brings me the most fear is that while I still have her gentle, pulsing glow inside of me, I can no longer grasp our tether pulling me in her direction, that tug that begs me to go to her. I pull on that connection constantly, trying to find my way to her.
Why can I not follow her? Nor is anyone able to find any sign of her at all.
New levels of desperation and despair claw at me as it has been half a moons’ cycle without a whisper. But Milo tracks me downto tell me that his pack of kyniors—said to have been created by Dhystros, God of Creatures, as a gift to the Rhydelle line—had tracked Ellya down. She is gone by the time Milo informs me that the kyniors had found her.
My furious rage bursts free from me in a bellowing roar that shakes the treetops. Milo takes me to the spot where they lost her, and I use my gift on the beasts, searching their memories for anything that might lead me to her. It is always a flip of a coin if my gifts will work on animals or creatures, but I will try anything.
To my relief it works; I see her. My solace blows away like leaves on a wind when the kyniors images of Ellya imprint into my brain. She is filthy, thin, and nearly naked. Her feet are bare with streaks of dried blood marring her skin. Even more alarming than her general undress is the vapid expression she wears. She is completely unaware of anything as she digs in a blueberry bush, absentmindedly pushing them in her mouth without picking away the stems or leaves that come away with them.
Then it is as if a light is flicked on behind Ellya’s eyes, her awareness coming to fruition. Her sudden fear as she hears the kyniors nearing is smothering when she attempts to hide from them in a thicket of littaweeds.
I am utterly confused by Ellya’s reaction. She knows these beasts. She has spent her entire life surrounded by them, knowing they are nothing short of docile, loyal puppies for her family. The kyniors would sooner combust into flames and burn to nothing before harming her, a princess they were created to protect. The implications of how deeply Locane has affected her by the simple unrecognition of her lifelong pets punches me in the gut and bile creeps up my throat.
But it is not over.
Ellya begins to run in her panic, but she trips. Then Locane is there, appearing from nowhere before grabbing her nightgown by the neck and pulling her to her feet. The way Ellya looks at Locane tells me she has no recognition of him either. And then they are gone.
Staying with the kyniors after that, I cling to the possibility that they may track her down again; but this time I will be there.
Kraeston finds me on a particularly hot afternoon, apologetic and beside himself at his failure. He and two guards under him were stopped off in Glehsdor, a small village at the base of the mountain. A group of women found them to report they saw the princess on the road leading into the village, disheveled, trying to hide beneath a cloak, and traveling with a menacing looking man. One woman said she knew it was the princess because she had accompanied her father to a meeting with King Milo that the princess was present for. Kraeston and the guards saw Locane on the road just in time before he turned and disappeared into a break in the trees.
“We didn’t see Elly, so we tried to follow him quietly, hoping he would lead us to her,” Kraeston tells me.
“And did he?” I grit, balling my fists at my sides and willing myself not to break Kraeston’s jaw. I have increasingly been allowing my anger to bleed and swipe out at every undeserving person around me. This encounter is no exception.
“Aye, he did, my king. But he caught on to us before we saw her. We had to chase Locane through some dense woods. We shot darts at him, but he dodged them all. In a desperate attempt to stop him, I threw a lasso of flames at him, but he reached a clearing where she was waiting and grabbed her. I had to pull my flames back in to keep from hurting Elly. Then they jumped.”
I have known and been friends with Kraeston since we were children, and he has been my personal guard since my coronation. “I understand if you replace me, Alec. We are all failing you. Failing her.”
