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“The Scourge has become worse, Princess. And the Prince…” he sighs, eyeing Neoptolemus, who presses his lips into a tight seam as if warning the blood bishop to maintain his proper respects. But it’s the first time Quillion’s veins truly blaze through his skin as he confronts Neo. “Good God, Neo! How can you do this? Does our friendship, do my services mean so little to you?”
“Tread carefully, bishop,” snarls Neo, his shades encroaching closer to Quillion.
“What’s going on?” I squeeze Quillion’s hands tighter but can’t seem to summon my Halo light to offer any sort of gold caress, no ripple of encouragement.
“The Prince stopped the treatment, sent all the aid workers home…and the medical supplies with them. In the name of the Angel Bride.”
“What?!” Dropping Quillion’s hands, I ball mine into fists and fume at Neoptolemus. “Don’t punish the people because of your anger with me.”
The Prince of Destruction curls a lip back to showcase a glimmering fang as a warning. “You dealt with Death, my bride. Now, you will pay the price. After all, I did say you would pay with your heart, didn’t I? They will see how the Everblood is not their salvation. We know you’d never make the ultimate price for them anyway.” He coils an arm around Lux and ventures into the breakfast hall.
And I fall into Quillion’s arms and weep. Just before Neo disappears around the corner of the wall, Quillion utters to his back, “Prince Neoptolemus, I can no longer continue in your services.” Neo inclines his head back as the bishop holds me, strokes my hair, and informs Neo, “I cannot bear to see the loss of hope in their eyes that was in mine when I suffered under the scourge of Father. If you will not allow me to tend to them as your bishop, I will go as a vampire with no title and a friend of the Princess.”
“Then, consider our friendship rescinded, too,formerbishop.”
Quillion and I do not join them for breakfast. Together, we share our grief, and I know Quillion feels every last stripe upon his flesh just as I feel those serpents nipping at my heart. Beyond tempted to go to the Soul Plane, I sink instead, sink to the floor with my friend, wishing our last hope, wishing Nita was here. If anyone can get through to him, it’s her. But she will not be at Court today, for whatever Neo has planned, he would never do it in front of his sister.
* * *
Neo is delayed morethan usual. The arena is far more packed than ever, and judging by the way Lux sits with her back straight and proud—the first-wife cat who ate the second-wife canary—, this will be so much worse than the time Nita invoked her Right of Substitution. Far worse. Despite how Neo can’t lift a whip or his hand to me according to our new blood oath, it’s the invisible scars that hurt the most. Noralice lurks along the back of my neck, hovering around the sickle mark, reminding me of my invisible scars from that night.
Everyone in the arena flinches, cringes, and startles at the sight of Neo charging down to his throne, shaking the foundations of the arena with his power, fracturing the very bones and teeth and skulls of his throne, cracks branching into the Inner Circle. More shades and flames than I’ve ever seen. That’s when I remember the blood moon phase will come to full fruition tonight. I imagine his dark force must already harness that harvest moon force. If he drained a canal last year with a frozen heart, I don’t even want to speculate about what he will do tonight.
After their official cursory sweep, his eyes settle on mine but not silver blades. They are dilated, black scythes. I flinch as Lux squeezes my hand and blows Neo a kiss before he tethers me with his shades, wrenching me right through the air until my body collides with his.
For all of one second, I’m pressed to him before he vaults from that throne to land in the Inner Circle. Statues topple, crumbling around us, causing the ground to quake. I buckle but don’t crumble to my knees. The sheer force of the Prince of Destruction’s power surrounds me in a net…no, a full-body collar. Nothing but shades and flames, fire and ice, to drown out the flicker of light that is my Halo. No dark erotic poems. No seduction. No lovely, dark, and deep. Only Neoptolemus circling me like a predator, like a Dragon, puffing embers from his nostrils to flick against my skin.
Still, I do not kneel before him. Still, I tempt Destruction when all I have for weapons are my tears. If tears have anatomy, mine are a lost bride searching for her husband.
“Princess Elysia Rose!”
Neoptolemus’ voice rumbles the entire arena, shattering stained glass windows on the upper levels, causing some of the humans present to scream. For the first time, Neo’s harem girls sit in one of the front rows close to the Inner Circle. I meet Piper’s eyes only for a glance before she lowers her head, whether ashamed or pitying, I can’t tell.
I snap my focus to Neo as he completes a full circle, his shadow monstrous as it dethrones me as if commanding me to kneel. But I don’t. I will never kneel before abuse. I will never kneel before the Dragon. If I were to kneel, it would only ever be for myself, for something outside myself. I would kneel before the heavenly throne surrounded by the Goddess and all the saints while imagining the crown of gold and stardust that awaits me. To my dying breath, I will hold fast to my Ezer, to the warrioress of light inside me.
And Neo smiles.
So, I tempt Destruction more by journeying into that bond, into that dark haze that is his mind where I discover his Dragon setting fire to his drawbridge! Not just raising it. Not just casting me out of the fortress but leaving me on the other side of…a canyon.
“Deeply divided, we gather here today to bear witness to the dissolution of a union.” His words echo the burning of that drawbridge, and I am unashamed to shudder at the profession.
No! Neo, no!Wild and desperate, I scream within our bond from the opposite side of the canyon with no hope of a Bridal Path, but the Dragon roars to smother my voice, refusing to hear me, refusing to listen. He incinerates the drawbridge into embers.
Beyond the bond, Neo’s smile spreads into a grin, cocking his head to mine. Not his hand. Not his whip. His words and the breaking of our bond, of our marriage.You will pay with your heart…His words catch onto the ends of his new ones. “Your grievous transgressions against the crown are of such: playing the whore, soul-theft, and treason. For such crimes, the punishment is death by a million cuts.” Fear rockets into the back of my neck:run and hide, Elysia!But then, Neo raises his hand, staying the explosion of the Court while his dark shades encompass me like a cocoon, like the shadow of his Dragon wings. “However, out of respect for my sister and the blood oath, I am reducing your sentence to banishment.”
Coward, he knows he cannot lift his hand to me, but instead, he raises my hand to his, which is already bloodied. I whimper when he gashes my palm with his fang, when he joins our blood to confirm his destruction, which nearly forces me to my knees. All those serpentssqueeze. “From this day forward, you are the princess of a fallen kingdom I destroyed. You will never be welcome in my Court. Should you step foot in my Court again, you will die! Let all bear witness to this dissolution: Elysia Rose, the Everblood, is no longer my bride.”
The horned crown mark on my wrist disappears until there is nothing but my naked skin.
In a soft Dragon purr that strokes its way across that Canyon to tickle my ears, Neo whispers through the last string of the bond, the last tether:Checkmate, Elysia.
It snaps. Nothing but drawbridge ash left. The only dignity Neo allows is a permissive nod when Quillion arrives to halt the Prince’s knights so he may escort me out of the Court instead. As Quillion sets a hand on the center of my back, he is the only reason the serpents have not sunk their non-venomous fangs into my heart. No, there is one another. The people at the border. The refugees afflicted by the Scourge.
“Tonight, this Court will be reclaimed through our Valentine’s Day festival,” announces the Prince in the background as Quillion leads me down the walkway. Gluttonous, debasing Dragon will feast tonight while the people, my people, suffer and die at the border!
“Tonight, before the blood moon sets, I will meet Court Mordere’s army with the full force of my Destruction. And while I recover with my first wife at my side, I appoint Rook Idrys as Tenth Court Overseer and Ruler in my stead.”
Neo!I buckle against Quillion, and my friend, my ally catches me, pulling me into his arms and exiting the Court with the last words of Neoptolemus piercing my ears. “This is my word and command that you will obey him in every regard as you would your Prince.”
