Page 24 of Crown of Betrayal and Blood (Dragons of Tirene #3)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Blood—a shocking spray of it—coats the ham and dribbles into the wine, staining the drink a deeper shade of crimson. It splashes across Bastian’s stunned face and Agnar’s open mouth, then splatters onto my own cheeks, warm and wet.

The world tilts into a nightmarish slant, and for several long moments, shock roots us all to our chairs.

I can’t…I don’t…how can this be happening? I don’t understand. Leesa would never launch an unprovoked attack against one of our friends.

Except, she’s not my sister anymore. The Leesa I know, with her dark golden blond hair and gentle eyes, wouldn’t wear that cruel smile or have hands drenched in blood. Her eyes, once a warm brown, are pits of inky blackness, voids where my sister’s love used to be.

While my mind scrambles to understand what’s going on and my heart tries to deny everything I’m witnessing, Agnar springs into action.

“Guards!” He rushes around the table to his friend, bellowing loud enough to shake the walls. “Get in here! Get the healer! Now!”

Two guards burst through the door, armor clanking, wings unfurling, responding to the horror only Agnar has been able to vocalize so far with a rush of feathers and steel.

Even the guards are stunned stiff as they take in the tableau of carnage that has erupted at our family dinner.

Bastian and Sterling both leap up from the table. I remain seated, a roar whooshing in my ears as everything around me unfolds. I feel as if I’m watching a spectator watching a play that I walked into the middle of. I can’t comprehend how the characters got here, or what led to the mess they’re in.

This can’t be real.

Awful gurgling noises come from the floor on the far side of the table.

“Blair, come on, buddy,” Agnar pleads. “Just hold on.”

Leesa’s black eyes roll up into her head in pleasure as she licks the blood clean from the knife in her hand. My stomach roils with nausea.

Fury radiates from Sterling as he fixates on my sister.

He’s going to kill Leesa. The man I love is going to kill my sister.

I open my mouth to scream for him to stop, but only manage to release a hoarse whimper.

Eyes wide with fear, Bastian throws himself in front of Leesa, using his body as a shield.

Agnar drops to his knees beside Blair.

More shouts ring out.

There’s movement all around me.

At some point, I stand.

Using his magic, Sterling shoots a torrent of water at Leesa, sending her knife clattering to the floor. He reaches for his sword at his hip.

“No!” Somehow, I find my voice. “Don’t hurt her. Please!”

With inhuman strength, Leesa lifts a chair and slams it into Bastian. He grunts, dropping to the floor and rolling out of the way.

Panic propels me into action. Calling on my magic, I flick my wrist.

Breathe. Keep it under control.

Fire encircles Leesa, caging her inside.

An otherworldly shriek pierces the air.

More guards pour into the room. Several draw weapons and surround their prince, creating a barrier between him and everyone else.

“Stay back, Lark!” Sterling’s eyes meet mine through the gap in the guards. “Someone grab Leesa!”

A guard rushes past me. “Put the fire out so we can get her!”

“Wait!” I grab his arm. “You will subdue her but not harm her. Understand?”

The guard glances at the crown prince.

“You heard her.” Sterling’s face is a hard mask as he shoves the guards encircling him away. “Lock her in a cell. I want two guards with her at all times. Ensure she doesn’t hurt herself.” His dark eyes glare daggers. “If any harm comes to her, I’ll put whoever is responsible on a fucking spike and use their head for a centerpiece in the dining hall.”

For a split second, he meets my gaze again, and I have no doubt he’ll make good on that threat if necessary.

A collective “yes, sir” echoes through the room. Only then do I rein in my magic.

The ring of fire dissipates.

Wings beat the air as two guards launch themselves at Leesa. She’s agile, feral, and shows no hint of hesitation as she ducks underneath them and lunges straight for me.

“Leesa, no!” Once again, fire erupts from my fingertips, forming a barrier between us.

My sister sneers at the flames as if they amuse her. She thrusts out her hands, and to my horror, my own fire bends to her will. She’s pushing it back toward me with a skill she’s never had and a strength she shouldn’t possess. Especially without using eyril.

What the fucking fuck? Since when can Leesa best me—a dragoncaller—in elemental magic?

But Leesa’s not the one staring back at me. Not truly.

It’s someone—something else. A monster wearing my sister’s face and taunting me with its newfound power.

The guards hit Leesa with the weight of their bodies, pinning her beneath their armored bulk.

My fire is mine to control again, and I banish it at once, as if the flames and not my family had betrayed me. I blink rapidly, heart pounding as my sister’s twisted sneer is hidden from view. Pushing myself up, I peer over the table at the floor.

Agnar’s cry pierces the room. “No! Godsdammit, no!”

Rubbing the back of his head, Bastian scrambles to Agnar’s side. “What can I do?”

Agnar ignores the question and instead stares intently at Blair’s chest. The fingers pressed to Blair’s neck are scarlet from his attempts to staunch the bleeding.

Tense silence gathers in the air. I don’t even realize I’m holding my breath until Agnar’s shoulders sag and his head bows. “Nothing. You can’t do anything. Not now.” A huge shudder racks his body before he lifts his head. The anguish contorting his face pulls a whimper from my lips. “He’s gone.”

Sterling’s face leeches of color. “ Fuck .”

I shake my head and dig my fingernails into my palms. “Why?” I whisper to no one in particular.

Agnar begins murmuring a prayer to the gods, commending Blair’s soul to them. Bastian joins in.

Spine rigid, Sterling braces his hands on his hips and glares at the floor.

I don’t know what to do with myself. Agony rips my heart in two, but there’s no time to stop and mourn.

Leesa shrieks as she fights the guards restraining her, aiming her flames at Bastian and Agnar, who are too distracted by their grief-stricken prayers to sense the danger.

The fire curls at my command, switching directions as I draw my sister’s flames toward my own palms.

Leesa screams and lashes out again.

I snag each flame, ensuring that none of her attacks land. That does little to soothe the terrible pain in my chest.

I couldn’t save Blair.

Another guard runs into the room, holding a metal tube in one hand. “Open her mouth!”

I have no idea what he plans on doing with that, but the other guards seem to recognize it. They fight harder to keep Leesa in place, twisting her arms behind her.

One grabs her jaw. He squeezes until she can no longer keep her mouth closed.

I’m numb as they force the tube between her teeth. The guard pulls a tablet from his glove and drops it down the tube. There’s no doubt in my mind that this is the same medicine I was given as a child to dampen my magic.

Leesa kicks and thrashes, but her fighting proves useless. They hold her nose and clamp her jaw shut so she has no choice but to swallow or suffocate.

“Good.” Bastian’s numbed gaze fixes on Leesa. Is he seeing her as I do? Not as the monster she’s become, but as the woman who once laughed with and loved him?

I can sense the drugs taking hold. Confusion clouds Leesa’s blackened eyes as she tries to use her magic and nothing happens. Maybe it’ll bring her back to me.

But it won’t change what’s happened. Too godsdamned late for that.

There’s blood everywhere. On the tablecloth. Spattered across the once-immaculate walls of the dining room. And I can’t tear my eyes from Blair’s unmoving form.

Sterling strides over to Leesa, his eyes never straying from her.

Four guards follow, hands on their swords.

One of them speaks up, a tinge of disbelief in his tone. “Your Highness, she?—”

“I know what she did.” Sterling’s gaze hardens as he glances at Blair’s body, his jaw clenching. “We couldn’t have done anything to stop her.”

A commotion rattles the doorway, and another guard bursts in, half dragging Healer Luci by the arm. Her belt pouches jiggle and her dark blue robe is hiked up to her knees as she struggles to keep up with him.

She shakes the guard off like an irksome fly as her eyes land on the fallen figure before us. She rushes to Blair’s side, her yellow and purple stained hands searching for life. Her head bows, showing glimpses of pale blond hair under her head wrap.

She closes his eyes with a gentleness that belies the violence of his end. Then she murmurs something, most likely a prayer much like Agnar’s.

As she rises, Luci’s gaze locks onto Leesa. She freezes, her blue eyes brimming with fear. The healer’s fingers sketch a sign in the air.

The same ward against evil she made when we spoke of my sister’s…problems.

A dark, hollow cackle escapes Leesa, one I’ve never heard from her before. It stirs a primal fear in me, lifting the hair on the back of my neck and sending goose bumps rushing up my arms.

“Why did you kill him?” Agnar’s muscles coil as he steps toward her.

Sterling halts his friend’s advance by placing a hand on Agnar’s shoulder. “Enough.”

“Leesa?” I approach, voice trembling less from fear and more from the heartbreaking realization crashing over me. Those black eyes—so unlike hers—meet mine, and I’m staring into an abyss. “Why?”

Her lips twist into a smile that chills me to the core. “I do as I’m bidden.”

My blood freezes, and I have a foreboding sense of dread that her unnerving declaration is the death knell of the sister I knew.

In that moment, I understand what Queen Aero meant about the corruption she was fighting. Corruption didn’t refer to the drachen themselves, but to the blighted souls trapped inside drachen-infected bodies.

Leesa’s eyes, inky pools devoid of my sister’s warmth, latch on to Luci with malicious delight.

“You’re just too slow, stupid little healer,” she taunts, a serpent’s hiss underlining each word. “Lynnea called for you, begged for your help. Had you hurried, maybe you could’ve saved her from me too.”

My heart skips, stumbles, then hammers with dread as the implications of Leesa’s words sink like stones in my stomach. The realization is a physical blow, doubling me over with its ferocity.

She killed our mother.

Leesa murdered our mother after we returned from the Lost City.

She’s the one who spotted the drachen by the lake and lured Sterling over.

She’s been working against us this whole time…and we had no fucking idea.

A startling memory hits me. When Mother went searching for Leesa after we returned, she told me she found her in my rooms. Since then, I’ve spent every night with Sterling.

What if she had found me alone that night? Or any of the nights since then? What if I had been sitting next to her instead of Blair?

“Take her away.” Sterling’s order breaks me out of my galloping thoughts.

His face is stone, but his eyes betray him. They’re wellsprings of sorrow as guards remove Blair’s body.

A sudden, terrible thought sucker punches me in the gut. Sterling’s suffered from the headaches as well. Does that mean he’s as corrupted as Leesa and is only pretending to be Sterling?