“And how did she do that,witch?” Idina hissed at her back, eyes never leaving mine. “Have our wards fallen?”
“They have not,” Azenna stated. “The shields remain intact.”
“Next time, try warding the skies.” I gave them a menacing wink accompanied by a mocking bow.
“Her mount,” Azenna growled.
“And Adler?” Idina barked.
“Dead,” I answered with a smile, tilting my head to the side as I imagined what it would feel like to finally send her to the depths of hell along with him.
My gaze snapped to the High Witch as a grin reemerged on her face. “She lies. He lives.”
Gods fucking dammit. He just wouldn’t die.
I huffed out a breath through my nostrils as my jaw locked. “Where is she? What have you done with Avery?”
“My daughter’s whereabouts are not, nor have they ever been, your concern, Elianna.”
“You have kidnapped a member of my court and hold her as prisoner against her will. That is every bit of my concern,” I growled.
A vicious smile tilted the queen’s lips. “Brave of you to come here. And alone, I might add.”
“Gutless of you to hide behind your battlement as your armies fight for your treasonous cause,” I countered.
“A queen needn’t fight her own battles when she has the resources to do so for her.”
A rage-filled, breathy laugh slipped from me as I observed her and took another step forward. “And that is where I am most proud—for our differences will always set us apart. My soldiers find peace in knowing I would never ask them to fight a battle that I wouldn’t fight alongside them myself.”
“You have led your soldiers to their deaths in a false hope that you will win this, Elianna. If you were a true queen that cared for them as much as you claim, you would have spared them their lives today by lying hidden until we sniffed them out throughout the realm. You have not granted them hope. All you have provided them is an early grave.”
“My people would rather fight for a life worth living than remain in hiding for the remainder of their existence. They have something worth fighting for. Their freedom!”
She stood from the throne, looking down at me from the dais. “Is that what you plan to give them? You believe that after all this time…fae and mortals will be able to just live in harmony? You foolish girl.”
A spiteful laugh left me. “I have been called that many times by both friend and foe, and while it may still hold some truth to it, I believe in my cause. I know it’s possible to live in harmony because I haveseenit.”
My eyes darted back and forth between the two of them. “The mortals welcomed our kind when they fled your reign. A race that had been slaughtered by our own for multiple generations…they accepted them because they finally realized that one individual’s actions do not define that of its race.”
“Laughable,” Idina spat.
My eyes narrowed in on her. “The only thing that’s laughable is that you started a century-long war with a race that had nothing to do with the death of your kin!”
Her jaw locked, and she stormed down the dais. “And what does that mean, Elianna?!”
I unsheathed the sword from my hip, but magic ripped it from my grasp a moment later, sending the blade flying across the room. My eyes followed it until it clattered to the floor. When my gaze found Azenna, she shook her head and tsked at me.
I took a step up to Idina. “Mortals were not responsible for the deaths of your father and brother! They tried to barter with centaurs and it went awry, because they were just as wicked and vile as you are! They were murdered by creatures of the forest, not humans!”
“Liar!” she screeched. “Your time has come, Elianna.”
She snapped her fingers, and Azenna’s arm shot out toward me, her power slamming into me and working its way through my veins.
My blood caught fire, sending my body ablaze as Azenna’s magic slithered through me—the blood magic Veli had warned me of taking effect and ruining me from the inside out.
My mind instantly flashed to Jace, knowing he would sense something was happening, and then I remembered Veli’s words,if there is ever a time where you need to block the bridge, you may build a wall in your mind if you concentrate hard enough.
So that’s what I did—I imagined a wall between our bond and minds and built it brick by brick, throwing everything I had into it to protect him from this.
