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“He hurt you, didn’t he?” I asked. I feared if the answer was yes, my hands would twist, and his neck would snap beneath them.
“Given the chance he may have. After he came for me, there has been little time alone enough to know his capabilities, although his intention was clear.”
“Auriol, I wanted none of this to happen.”
“Me being here, or you becoming…” She could not say it.
“Everything.”
Auriol grimaced, reaching out her hands, but not for me. “Give him to me.”
The protective growl erupted out of nowhere. Auriol did not step back but pushed her hands forward to show she was not scared of me. “Enough blood has been spilled, Arlo. This is not you.”
It was not me before. But it is now.
Faenir’s demanding voice distracted me. I turned as Auriol took her chance to pry the elf from my arms. I caught a fresh scent on the wind as I regarded Claria, standing guard beyond the throne as though she protected it.Her attention was on Faenir entirely, who had snaked his way towards her.
“This ends now,” Claria croaked.
“Indeed, it does,” Faenir retorted, wings of shadow flaring out behind him. “It could have been different, Grandmother, I want you to know that.”
“No,” she spat, eyes wild. “I saw the destruction of our realm the moment you were born. Evil. Death. Decay. Everything Evelina stands against and yet you stand before me, the very omen of our destruction.”
“Your words do not—cannot—hurt me.”
Claria tore the crown from her head and cowered. There were no soldiers to protect her. They had run from the room along with the crowd who had been led here. “You will not have it. It is not yours.”
“If that’s true, then allow Nyssa to be our judge. You are not a Goddess as she is. You are a bitter old crone who led this world down the path it is on. Hand in hand, you have guided us to this moment. You may see me as the demon, as you have declared me, but I am merely a product of your hate.”
Claria fell backwards, stumbling over her weak footing. Still, she did not let go of the circlet of gold with the inset of opal and rubies. Her wrinkled fingers held on as though her life depended on it.All this blood and death because of that crown. It had inspired hate, greed and malevolence; it represented nothing of life and the beauties that came with it.
“Give it to me,” Faenir commanded, the grass rotting beneath his feet. “Make the end easier for yourself.”
She pressed her back against the base of her throne. Her gaze flickered between the crown, to Faenir and then to me where I stood. “As breath fills my lungs, I will never lay my blessing upon you.”
“Then you force me into a corner that I did not wish to be kept in. Just as you have done from the moment you had me thrown into the Styx in hopes of my demise.” Faenir’s voice cracked with sorrow. Whereas I wished to rip into her rumpled, old body and drain blood from her veins, he did not want death.
“You. Shall. Not. Have. It.”
“I will. Once I pry it from your cold, dead hands.”
I watched understanding glaze across her eyes. Her time was up. Her reign ended. Faenir gathered his shadows and sighed, dispersing them until they melted away and he was left mundane without them.
“Do it,” I hissed quietly. Faenir flinched, continuing his stride towards his grandmother.
“They will never accept you,” she spat, forcing her face as close to his as he knelt down before her.
“Mypeople will not have a choice in the matter. Just as they did not have the choice when you were given the crown. I will be forced to prove myself worthy. Earn it. Whereas you believed respect and admiration was given just because of the chair you sat upon and the gold that weighed down your head.”
“I hate YOU!” Claria screamed, clutching the golden circlet to her chest protectively.
Faenir replied, calm and clear, “I, Grandmother, forgive you.”
Queen Claria Evelina pinched her eyes closed as the King of Death brushed a careful hand across her cheek and claimed her soul as his own.
33
Days later and I longed for Claria to be alive just for my chance to take my fury out on her withered body. I did not imagine her taste was pleasing, but still I longed for it, now even more so than before.
