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Chapter Thirty-Four

RUNA

Unforgiving metal chafed my wrist. My arms ached from being chained to the wall. The damp and cold of my cell permeated my bones. With little but my discomfort to distract me, images of Yaga’s blazing room filled my mind.

I shouldn’t have left her side. What was I thinking, dancing about like a drunken fool with Custodis? People like me didn’t get to pretend they were free. Free of responsibility. Free of my many crimes. Free of guilt.

And I was…

Guilty.

My parents had died trying to protect Raelynn and me.

A sacrifice I didn’t deserve. I’d failed them.

Failed Carcerem. If only I’d dragged my sister through our mother’s portal and taken her far from Idris’s influence, even if it meant locking her in chains for the journey. Instead, I’d let her slip away.

Much as I had with Yaga.

I never should have let her out of my sight. I knew better. Still, I’d allowed a vulnerable old woman to gallivant around the village unprotected. Then, instead of returning to her side at the first opportunity, I was off rolling in the hay like some light-skirted trollop.

Tears welled in my burning eyes, and I willed them back.

Crying would do nothing to get me out of my current situation. I was Idris’s prisoner again . Only this time, there was no one around to help me. Not my brothers. Not some undercover allies sent by a queen. Not Victor.

I imagined that after my departure from the stable, he’d grabbed the closest horse and fled.

After all, he had little to gain from sticking around.

Given his skills with manipulation, I had zero doubts he’d find the guardian and convince them to lead him to the temple.

Perhaps he’d even find a way to have the mystic open a portal for him.

I envisioned Victor’s perfect body glowing with an ethereal light. Runa who? he’d say before the gateway opened and the vampire vanished from my life with the same suddenness in which he’d stormed into it.

Footsteps echoed in the hallway outside my cell door, and I tensed. Torchlight illuminated my prison cell, and Idris emerged.

My stomach clenched. I’d been dreading this moment since I’d awoken in this damned cell.

“Open it,” he ordered the guard, and his milky-eyed slave was quick to comply.

Magic pulled at my center. Purple energy glowed in my palms. I conjured a three-headed serpent and sent it lunging at the door.

Idris snapped his fingers, flicking a small ball of energy at my creation, and it vanished in an instant.

I sagged in my chains. I’d figured there was a reason he’d neglected to collar me with a torque.

“Cute.” He smirked, striding into the dank space.

Gaze glinting with a disturbing light, he scanned my form. “ Sweet Runa. It’s so good to have you back with us. I knew it was only a matter of time.”

“Aw, did you miss me?” I pouted.

“Desperately.” He sighed in a mocking way. “Tell me. What is my bastard sibling up to these days?”

“Ah. Figured that out, did you?”

Last time I’d seen Idris was in the pit. Custodis had shattered beneath the dragon’s fire, turning into a golden god while the false king had cowered beneath his royal chair. Apparently, Idris made the connection.

“I am curious.” He narrowed his eyes. “At what point did you become aware of our familial tie?”

“Not soon enough, sadly.” It was a shame Yaga hadn’t bothered to inform me my captive was, in fact, the lost king.

Yaga . My heart pinched.

“Right.” Idris slithered closer, planting his hand on the wall beside my head. “And where exactly is my brother now?”

I pinned my eyes over his shoulder. “Don’t know. Don’t care.”

“Spoken like a jilted lover,” he purred.

“Hardly,” I scoffed, hoping he couldn’t detect the skip in my pulse. “I’m certain Custodis is long gone.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” He toyed with a lank curl of my lavender hair. “See, there’s the pesky issue of the prophecy.”

“That old thing.” I snorted.

“Yes.” His grip on my hair tightened. “That old thing.”

I hitched a shoulder as much as my restraints allowed. “Custodis has his own agenda and little interest in your throne.” Nor me, it would seem.

“See. I want to trust you, but it’s a chance I simply cannot take.” Ruthless fingers gripped the top of my head, slamming my skull against the stone. “Tell me where he is. ”

Stars sparked in my vision, and my scalp screamed. “I don’t know,” I shouted.

“I don’t believe you,” he shouted back, saliva spraying my face. “In fact, I’m rather certain he wouldn’t travel far from his fated mate.”

Laughter spilled from my lips. “You’re so stupid. You know nothing.”

Idris’s palm exploded against my cheek. Pain detonated inside my skull. Bells clanged in my ears.

I tongued the cut in my cheek, snarling, “I am not his fated anything. He couldn’t care less about me.”

“That isn’t how it looked in the final challenge.

” Golden energy crackled in his palm, and a magical image formed.

In it was a picture of the finale. Tiny Runa stood before the fierce dragon, moments away from being burned to death.

Then, the image shifted to a view of Victor on his floating platform.

His face contorted into an expression of rage, possession gleaming in his glowing gaze.

Peering down at me below, he bellowed a war cry and leaped from the relative safety of his platform.

He didn’t fall.

Some small part of me had known, but still, doubts had plagued me.

He didn’t fall.

When he’d leaped to my defense, he had no idea he was a divine being. In that moment, he’d been prepared to die for me. How was that possible unless…

The mark on my throat. Was it some kind of sacred claim? Was Victor Custodis—the lost king—my mate?

My heart seized, and tears burned my eyes.

Oh, Yaga. Did you know?

The weight of Idris’s calculating gaze chewed into my flesh. Too late, I schooled my reaction.

“I know an illusion when I see one.” My voice wavered. “That image means nothing to me. ”

Idris’s cruel smirk warned he didn’t believe my denial. “Tell me what he’s planning.”

“He doesn’t confide in me.” The false king couldn’t know about the temple.

Idris heaved a deep sigh of annoyance that had the hairs along my nape prickling. “I suppose you leave me no choice, then.” He stepped back. “Guards.”

As if they’d been instructed in advance, Idris’s milky-eyed guards relieved me of my chains, dragging me behind their false king, up many levels of stairs, and down dozens of hallways until at last we reached the throne room.

Standing beside the sacred arbor was Raelynn, confirming this must have been Idris’s plan all along.

Except the brief look of confusion on Raelynn’s face indicated she wasn’t in the know. As her eyes shifted from Idris to me, her scowl tightened with betrayal.

Ah, were mommy and daddy fighting? Too bad.

Idris settled his royal posterior onto the seat of his throne, and the guards dragged me before him.

Raelynn peered down her nose as if she’d stepped into a pile of bula dung. “What is she doing here?”

Apprehension tugged at my insides. The presence of the ailing tree reached for me, and I was helpless not to answer.

The kingdom’s power twisted around me. Its essence was bitter instead of sweet, tainted with darkness.

With pain. Our great tree was sick. That illness spread into everything it touched. Even me.

“Now, now, dear.” Idris tsked. “Is that any way to greet your sister?”

Raelynn sneered in return. Once more, I found myself wishing her face would freeze. “That gutter rat is no sister to me.”

I forced my lips into the sweetest of smiles. “On this, we agree. I do not consort with traitors. ”

Rage flashed in Raelynn’s milky-violet eyes. She raised her hand, allowing purple energy to crackle in her palm.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Idris taunted, clearly enjoying his queen’s reaction. “No need to fight, ladies. There is plenty of room for both of you.”

Breath seized in my lungs. He couldn’t mean…

Raelynn tensed as well, snapping, “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, but I am,” Idris sang. “Runa has information I need and is proving uncooperative.”

Raelynn took an aggressive step forward, raising her clenched fists. “Then beat it out of her.”

“Oh, come now.” Idris fluttered a bejeweled hand. “We are more civilized than that. Besides, you know how stubborn she can be. She reminds me of you in that way, darling.”

Raelynn pursed her lips, tilting her chin. “What do you propose?”

“Only that we bring her into the fold,” Idris answered.

Drums took up residence in my skull. My heart pounded a frantic beat.

Raelynn shot me a murderous glare, then leveled a cajoling gaze upon her king. “My love. Don’t be silly. Let me spend some time with her in the dungeon. I will get the answers you seek.”

Idris slammed his fist into the armrest, sending dozens of burning leaves falling from the sacred tree’s limbs. “Do not argue with me. Guards!”

Firm hands clamped down on my arms, dragging my reluctant form up the raised dais to stand before the queen.

“Kneel,” the guard commanded, driving my knees into the marble floor.

I peered up into the face of the girl who’d been a fixture in my childhood. The woman who was my last connection to my parents.

“Raelynn, please, don’t do this. Think of Mamma. Papa. Remember all they sacrificed for us. We were a family once. Before him . We were happy. Surely, you remember your favorite doll, Princess Poppy. The three of us had so many adventures together.”

“We did.” Raelynn’s glare turned glacial, freezing me in place. “Until you tossed her into the river.”

Flark, I’d forgotten that part.

I squared my shoulders, jutting my chin. “I wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t pulled the head off of Mopsie.”

Despite my deplorable attempt to reach some long-buried part of my sibling, Raelynn grasped my head, digging her nails into my scalp.

Through Idris’s milky-eyed influence, her violet gaze gave off an amethyst glow. I realized too late that it hadn’t mattered how tightly I’d clung to her hand. She’d been lost to me long before Idris made her queen.

It wasn’t my fault.

None of it was my fault.

Nor was it fate.

As Victor said, our choices are our own.

This was Raelynn’s.

“Easy now,” my sister purred in a way that made my skin crawl. “This will only hurt for a moment.”

The assurance uttered in such a devilish manner only managed to increase my fear.

Tears flooded my eyes as helplessness washed over me. I was about to become one of Idris’s mindless slaves. My worst nightmare was coming true.

Pain exploded between my temples, and then my world turned white.