Page 115 of Royal Captive
“You filthy little bitch!” Feyanna screamed. “You were prophesied about: the queen who would come to ruin everything, bring us to nothing but smoke and ruin! I will kill you and prove it!”
My heart stopped at hearing it finally said aloud; all of the nightmares that had plagued me my entire life had led to this moment. So much so, I’d even thought I was dreaming that night on the balcony when I’d first met Eve. If I hadn’t, would I have been able to save my family? Had she already brought ruin and destruction without even meaning to?
No. That wasn’t fair to her. If Eve hadn’t been on that balcony, the only thing that would have changed was that my body would have been on the pile along with the rest of my family.
I took a shuddering breath, glaring at Feyanna, this female so filled with blind rage and vengeance she had killed her own sister and father.
Wait. She had killed her father with her attack on the palace.
Shyllon was dead. Fallon was dead.
Feyanna was now the eldest remaining child of Fennis, as far as I was aware.
Which meantshewas the queen that had brought ruin and ashes to this land.
Not Eve.
Never Eve.
Eve thought no one ever saw her compared to the other noble girls at court, but I saw her. Her choices set all of this in emotion, and I now understood what Hayida had been trying to tell me.
There are no prophecies. Only the choices we make.
People poured out from the entrance into the cave, crying and yelling for help as the mountain threatened to collapse under us, carrying children and valuables in their arms. They swarmed Alihandro and Feyanna, heading right toward Eve and I.
And the edge of the cliff.
What had Feyanna said? Something about just blindly jumping off the cliff to cross the barrier?
“Die, you fucking bitch!”
Feyanna unsheathed her sword in a motion so fast it was only a silver blur. I lunged forward, but in the back of my mind I knew I was only half of a fae compared to Feyanna.
She was faster.
I wouldn’t get to Eve in time.
But I didn’t need to.
Alihandro streaked between us, catching Feyanna in the ribs and driving both of them to the ground. He did nothing to stop his momentum as he wrapped his arms around Feyanna in a vice grip, both of them rolling off the side of the mountain.
Feyanna’s screams of rage mixed with Alihandro’s laughs of victory, until they abruptly were cut off.
“NO!”
Eve shot toward the edge of the cliff and I grabbed her, hauling her back. She fell to her knees, grabbing at me and holding on as she cried inconsolably.
The mountain’s tremors decreased, and the lightning and thunder abated.
“Ellis! We have to take them with us—the refugees,” she began through her tears. “I get it now! The problems … the unstable magick and the land … It’s all tied to a lack of trust between us! That’s what Alihandro was trying to show me. Long ago we had a treaty to help each other. To restore the balance,we need to do the same once again. We need to take who we can with us.”
Blinding light flared from the bottom of the mountain where Alihandro and Feyanna had fallen. Eve gasped and clutched her chest, and the fae mark on her neck illuminated as if a light shone from behind it. Then it simply disintegrated into dust.
Because the fae who’d given it to her was dead.
A large lump grew in my throat and stuck there, just as a portal of light opened in front of us, just a few feet beyond the cliff.
Because there now stood a human on this side of the barrier with no fae taint.
