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No one stopped me from sweeping into the throne room. My dark reflection flickered across the metal breastplates from the soldiers who tried to calm the panic my presence had caused.
I lashed out with my shadows in warning to any who got too close. My touch would not be what killed them. The power they had scorned had now changed. It was poison, leaking into my shadows, as though they hungered for death more viciously than before.
The countless elves parted for me. Bodies moved to each side of the forest.
Then I saw them.
Claria sat forward on her throne, smiling with hysterical glee. Gildir stood before her, sword drawn and raised, towards where I walked. It did not deter me from taking another step. I regarded them both, lips curling above my teeth.
Then I heard a sound that seemed misplaced. Crying. I turned my attention to the sobbing woman to my side. She looked up at me, not with horror, but sadness. One blue and one brown eye blurred red with tears. I recognised her. How could I not with such telling eyes? Arlo’s sister. Auriol.
There was no time to make sense of how she was here.Not as I regarded the cause of her grief. Arlo was cradled in her arms. His skin was grey. His arms limp at his sides. And the glow of life that I had memorised so perfectly… was gone. In its place was thick, lingering darkness. The mark of death.
“Careful where you step, cousin.” Gildir was before me, his sword still brandished between us. Now there was little distance between the tip of the blade and my chest.
I glanced down at it with no concern.The sword was pressed through my jacket and into my skin. I could not feel it. Did not care. My shadows curled around the blade like armour.
“Arlo is dead,” I confirmed aloud.
“It was not I who killed him,” Gildir replied. “Did you not know? Did your dearest Arlo not reveal his lie whilst he had the chance?”
I glared down the sharp edge of the blade towards the hand that held it. Unlike the crowds, thin now, as many had run—clever choice—Gildir showed no concern at my proximity.
“Lies,” I hissed, my shadows echoing the sound as though starved serpents dwelled within them.
He shrugged. “Faenir, for the murder of Frila, Haldor and Myrinn Evelina, it has been established that you are not worthy of succession.”
I did not deny it. Their deaths, one way or another, had been caused by me. But their lives did not compare to the one that lay wasted across the lap of a grieving girl.
“You took him from me,” I said, shadows crawling up the blade, inching close to Gildir with each passing moment. “All I wished was to be left alone. Never did I care for the crown. For Evelina. For any of this, yet on and on you forced this idea that I wished to rule down my throat… and at what price?”
I spoke to Gildir. To Claria. To anyone left listening as the grinding, painful reality that Arlo lay dead near me slammed through me, and there was nothing I could do; no power over death itself could prepare me for seeing his cold, stiffening body in the hands of his loved one.
“It was never as simple,” Gildir whispered, for only me to hear.
“What have I done to deserve this?” I felt oddly calm as I asked.
“Well,” Gildir laughed sharply, as though my question was ridiculous, “you were born.” His words had no effect on me. He intended to cause me pain, but pain was an ally. I longed for it, desired it in more ways than one.
“As Nyssa’s chosen heir,” Claria called out, voice hardly heard over the shouting and screaming and pounding of running feet. “I decree Gildir will be King. It has been decided.”
“I lay no claim to your throne,” I spat, stepping forward as the sword pierced further into my chest. Gildir’s steeled expression faltered at this. His eyes widened only slightly, enough for me to notice his confidence waning. “Have it if you are so desperate. But you will rule over a world of waste, I promise that.”
Gildir stepped back. I strode forward, skewering myself upon his blade in hopes it would finish me. I wished to die, to give into that peace which had been dangled before me for years.
I glanced over his shoulder to Claria, who sat watching. “Rather, a powerless runt takes the crown and seals the fate of Evelina. The death of a few may stain my hands, but the destruction of us all will scar yours.”
“I will save it.”
“Just as Claria has? Keeping the humans in pens like cattle, instead of dealing with the threat that our own creations caused? I look forward to seeing you fail.”
Gildir dropped his hands from the hilt of the sword. He stumbled back. Onward I stepped.
“Stand down,” Claria warned, bones clicking menacingly as she stood. “You have caused enough damage to this family.”
Hate boiled within my bones. My shadows gathered and grew, draining what little light that still spewed from the haggard Queen of Evelina. There was not one person I despised more.
“It is done, Faenir,” Claria’s voice cracked as she spoke. “My last decree is to banish you to your dark dwelling and ban you from ever leaving its shores for the sake of our people and their safety. You, devil, are not welcome here.”
