Page 185 of Black Sea

I forced myself to remain stoic despite his deeply shocked and betrayed expression. Then I turned my attention to our parents. Mother, sharing the same astonished look as her son, was desperately trying to appear haughty before her subjects while gripping my father’s arm to restrain both herself and him.

The king was staring at me with open contempt. He glanced at the axe in my hand, and his features hardened even more. “Do it, my heir.”

That ruthless command pierced my heart like a dagger.

The rational part of myself didn’t blame him for giving it to me. But the other part couldn’t believe that he demanded his daughter kill her soulmate without batting an eye.

And that part of myself was so sad and disappointed that I let that show in my gaze, just long enough for my father to see it. Then, with a solemn demeanor, I took my position before Amlach.

Still on his knees, he gazed up at me with a cunning, cruel, triumphant expression.

For he already knew what I was about to do.

Full of hatred for myself, I swung the axe.

Severed in one swift cut, the blessed rope slipped from his wrists, falling to the ground.

Aegel’s people jumped, crying out in fear. The soldiers drew their weapons. The archers pulled their bowstrings even tighter, eager to shoot their arrows.

As Amlach rose with cocky calm, I moved behind him and first observed with a calculating expression each arrow aimed at us, and then the soldiers prepared to shoot them. Araton and I had trained our archers to remain unwavering regardless of the enemy or situation, yet under my deadly gaze, even they seemed to falter.

Because they well knew I could deflect their arrows with the axe before they even had a chance to reach my mate.

So, slowly, with Amlach towering behind me, I turned to my father. “Let us go, Your Majesty,” I said loudly and firmly in the common tongue, leaving everyone stunned. “And I promise you’ll never see us again.”

A storm of emotions seemed to rage in the king’s eyes. However, as his gaze first shifted to the weapon I had instinctively moved back to shield Amlach, and then to the trickle of his son’s blood on the axe’s red blade, I understood he had made his choice.

A decision that would separate us forever.

“Seize them!” he shouted.

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In a heartbeat, the archers put the nocked arrows back into their quivers, slung their bows over their shoulders, and drew their swords.

“Go!” I ordered Amlach.

He sprinted the moment my axe collided with the archers’ blades. I pushed them back to the bottom of the platform with a swift, violent series of slashes, temporarily putting them out of action with a ferocity that caught them off guard.

I only had a flicker of time to meet my family’s eyes.

Father’s wrathful ones—he seemed ready to snatch a weapon from the soldiers to fight me.

Mother’s glinting ones, which seemed to conceal a spark of pride.

Araton’s shattered ones—he had no intention of trying to stop me.

The terrified cries of the citizens reached me suddenly: Amlach was hurling any elf he could grasp at the soldiers attacking him from all sides. Without hesitation, I jumped off the altar and plunged into the chaos as the crowd, in panic, sought shelter among the trees.

A soldier was about to stab my mate from behind while he was dodging the simultaneous attacks from another two enemies. I arrived just in time to block the fatal strike and kick the soldier in his breastbone, then moved Amlach out of my way to push the other two back.

In the brief moment Amlach and I exchanged glances, I saw in his eyes the same provocation he had once directed at me.

Still saving me, after all.

I gave him the same glare as that time, then suddenly blocked another soldier’s slash. “To the sea!” I commanded Amlach as I fought to clear his path.

We left behind the sacred altar, my annihilated family, and the frightened Aegel’s people, running alongside the increasingly impetuous river.