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“I do not care for your mate enough to kill him. Time will catch up with you, and I am confident in my belief that you shall complete that task yourself.”
“Then who is it!?” I shouted, feeling Claria’s backhanded threat sting across my cheek. “Who—”
The human spluttered a wet gasp behind me. I turned to look at her and saw how she clung to her neck; her face painted red; the whites of her eyes darkened with veins.
“Stop that, Faenir!” Claria commanded.
I stared at my hands as though they were to blame, but it was not my doing.
Haldor was up, racing across the space and reaching out for her. “Samantha, I have got you!”
“It is not me.” No one seemed to listen to me as chaos gripped the room.
The ground rumbled beneath my feet; stone slabs cracked as Gildir threw out his power towards me. “Enough, leave her.”
An icy chill spread through my body. I raised my hands up to my sides, trying to prove that I was not the cause of the human’s sudden pain. “I am not doing this.”
Claria was the only one left sitting as Gildir and Frila raced towards Haldor to help him. That was when the convulsions began. Samantha’s eyes bulged in her head. Foam began gathering past her pale lips and dribbled down her chin. No matter how hard Haldor had hold of the girl, she did not stop the violent spasms that had her body rocking in the chair.
It was over in moments.
Samantha’s mouth split into a scream, which never made it out. Her head lolled backwards, neck at a terrible angle. Her body finally stilled. The glow of life that surrounded her extinguished in a blink, as though it was a candle’s flame devoured by the weakest of winds.
Dead.
Haldor pressed his head into her lap and wept like a child. Frila expelled a cry of horror which was muffled by the chest of her twin, who gathered her into his arms and shielded her face. The only noticeable reaction on Gildir’s stoic face was the peak of a single, dark brow.
Claria sat quietly, watching me with eyes overwhelmed with hate. It twisted her face into a mask of disdain that I had taught myself to mimic. It was an expression that I was most familiar with when looking at my grandmother.
“Are you happy now?” she asked.
I ignored her, pacing towards the dead body of the human. “Haldor, I promise it was not me.”
He replied into her lap, his words muffled; I could not make a single one out.
“You demon,” Frila spat, eyes swollen but lacked the tears I had expected.
I ignored her. Looking down upon the face of Samantha, I expected to feel relief. She had attacked Arlo, and she deserved death. But the feeling did not rear its head. Peering down upon her, I registered the greying of her skin. It seemed my proximity sped up her decaying as though my aura demanded it. For a moment, it surprised me. Being with Arlo and his resistance to my power had numbed me to a point of forgetting what I was capable of.
I had not been the one to kill her.
A strange, overwhelming urge to place a hand upon Haldor’s shoulder overtook my mind. I wished to console him, that felt natural to do so. Instead, I turned my attention to the girl’s tormented face, how her wide-open eyes made it seem that she looked at something horrific before her death. I studied every detail of her, searching for the cause, all the while repeating that it was not me, over and over, as though I willed myself to believe it.
As they fussed over her stiffening body, I noticed something fall from the foam upon her chin. A seed. Haldor looked up, heat radiating from his body, as I reached towards her chin. He said nothing to stop me as he also noticed what had captured my attention. I plucked it from the foam, noticing how cold the human was; where the tip of my finger brushed over her skin, it flaked away as though turning to ashes beneath me.
“What is it?” Haldor whispered; his voice as steady as steel.
As I held the seed, it rotted in my hand. I fisted it, nails digging into my palm as my mind whirled with possibilities. “It would have been easier for you to become King,” I said to Haldor, ignoring his question. “Believe me when I tell you I did not wish for death, as you may all think. I am sorry for your loss and more so what it means.”
He blinked, grimacing as my words settled over him.
I did not stay to hear what he had to say in reply. As the seed turned to liquid in my hand, decaying quickly beneath my touch, I left the room. No one stopped me. I focused on my breathing, wishing to hear Arlo’s calming voice in the back of my mind. But it never spoke up over my inner thoughts that thundered and crashed as violent as a storm.
All I desired was to take him far away from this place. To lock him within Haxton to keep him safe. But how could I do that when my presence still threatened to kill him? Even if my touch would not, just him being mine put him in danger. And the seed that was now nothing but rotten ash in my hand held the answers, I was certain of that.
Each step further from my family was another closer to him. I should never have left his side, even with Myrinn’s promise to…
Myrinn. The invitation.
