Page 75 of Once the Skies Fade (Immortal Reveries #2)

Chapter 75

Calla

T ree roots shifted around Isa’s feet, slowly pulling her into the ground like a snake swallowing its prey. Vines, though, kept her upright, wrapping around her arms from shoulders to hands where they had pierced her palms, their spiked ends wriggling in the air as if inviting me to come free her.

Ice shot through my veins, pulling all the color from my face. Heaving, I nearly doubled over as my stomach lurched, sending bile up into my throat. I fought it back and focused instead on stoking the fiery rage they’d kindled.

Someone was speaking, but I couldn’t hear their words. All I heard was Isa’s thready heartbeat. Her eyelids fluttered, but didn’t open completely. She wasn’t dead. Yet.

Each breath fed the flames in my chest. My shadows curled and writhed within me, like they were gearing up for battle.

“Hang on, Isa. I’ll get you out of here,” I said, only realizing I’d uttered the words aloud when the Assembly began to laugh. Ursula’s cackle broke through my muffled hearing, so I heard her response clearly.

“How are you going to do that, Your Majesty ?”

Her mockery of my title only served to feed my fury. I shot my hands out at her, a silent scream escaping my lips, but the chains pulled taut as the anchors held fast. Searing pain engulfed my palms as my shadows met the inside of the iron gloves. My fingers clawed against the metal, agony tearing through my hands. Still I persisted, spurred on by Ursula and Warren’s jeering.

“I think she’s actually trying to free herself,” Warren noted.

Fern’s hand lifted to her mouth, her eyes tearing up, though still she remained silent. The entire Assembly—aside from Ursula and Warren—simply stood there, watching, letting this happen.

Warren, chuckling haughtily, strolled forward to peer up at Isa’s slackened face.

“Wake up, general! Would be a shame for you to miss this display of affection from your queen.” He glared at me over his shoulder, but continued to speak to Isa. “You should really see her try, though. She must actually care about you. Too bad it won’t work.”

As if on cue, another vine dropped down from the canopy and began to wind itself around Isa’s throat.

Ursula turned to Warren, shaking her head. “This is so much better than having to rely on others to kill the king and queen, isn’t it?”

My parents? Did they know who—had they been the ones to?—

I tried to push more of my energy into my hands, but the excruciating pain threatened to blind me as my vision started to warp at the edges. My shadows pushed back against me, crawling back into my veins.

No. They couldn’t retreat. They couldn’t give up.

My hands fell to my sides. My chin dropped to my chest. My whole body trembled.

Silently, I pleaded with my shadows. With each ragged breath I begged them to listen, to regroup, to try again. I tried to lift my hands, but they seemed so heavy now, like the earth had a hold of my chains and was fighting me. I peered down, sure I would see the vines working against me, but there was nothing there except the dirt and leaves beneath my boots and my chains secured to the anchors.

My shadows gathered in my chest, embracing my heart, as if promising me it would all be okay.

Ursula leaned forward, bending down as if she were speaking to a child and not her queen. “Just stop, Calla. We all know you can’t win here. Stop fighting it.”

Do not let them win!

Raven’s words roared through my mind, and my shadows reacted. Releasing my heart, they billowed into a savage tempest, but instead of rushing to my palms, they flooded my lungs, choking off my breath. My head snapped up, and my eyes met Ursula’s. Fear flashed in her expression when my jaw fell open and my shadows surged from between my lips, heading straight for the female.

Ursula tried to scramble backwards, but my power punched through her body, impaling her as effortlessly as if she were mere shadow herself. Blood gushed from countless wounds, soaking through her bodice. Her hands clamped down over her stomach in a futile attempt to staunch the bleeding. Falling to her knees, she gaped in terror as my shadows gathered around her.

“Stop her!” Warren screamed, but he made no attempt to help his fellow advisor. My shadows, however, were no longer tethered to me as they normally were, and the guards shifted nervously beside me as I stood calmly watching my enemy’s demise.

“Call them back,” one of the guards—the nicer of the lot—requested.

“Not yet.” I bit out the words and pursed my lips, refusing to glance away from where my shadows now poured down Ursula’s throat, flowing into her ears, drowning her in my bitter darkness and sweet revenge.

In my periphery, Warren crept backwards, foolishly thinking I wouldn’t notice him trying to retreat. He was behind two of the other Assembly members when I jerked my head in his direction. Whether some invisible connection still existed between my shadows and me or not, they heeded my command regardless, abandoning Ursula to chase down the fleeing male.

Two other Assembly members darted forward to avoid my shadows’ path, but I wasn’t after them—not yet, anyway. The darkness coiled around Warren, lifting him off the ground and whisking him back to face me. They held him tightly, a little more than an arm’s length away. Though the stench of his fear hovered in the air around us, he glared at me with burning defiance.

“Kill me. Kill us all. But you won’t reach him in time. He’ll die across the sea, just like your parents.”

The shadows tightened until he gasped painfully for air. Still, he sneered at me.

“No amount of spilled blood will fix your failings. They’ll still be dead, all because you?—”

I lifted my chin and gulped down a deep breath, and I couldn’t help but smirk at the traitor as my shadows flooded his yapping mouth. Choking, he lifted his hands to his neck, clawing at his throat as if he could somehow rip the darkness out of himself. Suffocation alone was too good for him, though. My next command rumbled in the back of my throat like a feral growl, and jerking my chained hands behind me as far as they would go, I summoned them.

Bursting outward, my shadows ripped through Warren, leaving no piece of him untouched by my power, reducing him to ash floating down to the forest floor.

The surviving advisors and guards all took an instinctive step back, and some looked ready to scurry away like hares preparing to outrun a fox. My shadows swelled in front of me, ready to be sent after the rest of those responsible for this, but my eyes fell on Isa, still caught in the forest’s vines. Silently, I beckoned my powers to me, and they slowly gathered around my feet like a dark fog.

“Guard,” I said, quietly, taking stock of where the remnants of the Assembly remained frozen. The kinder male cautiously stepped closer.

“Yes?”

“Do you have a knife?”

His face twisted as he stammered out, “Yes.”

I shifted my gaze to his and lifted my arm nearest him. “I need you to draw some of my blood and take it to the general. It doesn’t need to be a lot, but she needs a few drops placed anywhere on her.”

He hesitated, as if this was some elaborate ruse to get him to come even closer.

My husband was dead. My parents were dead. Maybe Matthias, too. But I could still save Isa, if he would just listen to me.

Swallowing back my grief, I forced the words out on a hoarse whisper. “Please. Save her.”

The guard studied me with narrowed eyes, and I closed mine. Isa would die because of me, because I’d let myself become such a monster that my own guards didn’t trust me.

A blade hissed out of its leather sheath, and then I felt a sharp sting as it sliced against my upper arm. I opened my eyes in time to see the guard collecting deep red drops on the flat of his blade. Without another word, he jogged over to Isa, leaped onto the still-writhing roots, and wiped the blood on her neck.

He was still standing on the roots when they retreated, along with the vines. Jumping back down to solid ground, he reached his arms forward to cradle Isa as the forest released her.

“Take her to the infirmary, find Jocelyn. If she’s been given any poison, Jocelyn is the only one who can help her.”

The guard transferred her into the arms of one of the others, reiterating my directions and adding the command to hurry. I turned as they carried her away, back through the dense forest.

“I can’t let you hurt the others,” the guard said, pulling my attention back to him.

“I don’t intend to,” I said. “Not yet, anyway.”

Suspicion once again crossed his expression. “You’re not going to slaughter them like you did those two?” He gestured to Ursula, who now lay in a crumpled heap.

I shook my head slowly. “A month ago—stars, an hour ago, even—I would have.” The words surprised me as much as they evidently did the guard, but his eyes still held a hint of skepticism.

“What changed?”

Surveying the faces of the remaining Assembly members, I searched for the source of this shift. Mere moments ago, I was prepared to show no mercy to any of them. Now? The anger remained. They’d been weak, unwilling to stand up to their own and do what was right. Yet, that vengeful urge I’d become accustomed to chasing had dampened.

Maybe it was finally knowing my parents’ fate. They’d been killed by the Assembly, even if not directly. I’d spent months pushing away my memories of them, trying to rule my kingdom without having to see their faces in my mind. When I finally allowed the image of them to surface, it became clear I couldn’t ignore their silent guidance.

“My parents—” I barely got the two words out before my voice gave out, overtaken by a new flavor of grief I hadn’t experienced since they’d died, like I had finally found a small semblance of peace with it. They were still gone, but somehow knowing who was responsible for their deaths had granted me a sense of closure, acceptance. I might not have that with Brennan’s death yet—despite knowing who was responsible—but every step forward was movement in the right direction.

The guard nodded slowly, as if he understood my unspoken explanation. “So, what do you propose?”

“A trial,” I said, once again looking around at those gathered. “While they might not have instigated all that has happened, they appear to have been complicit in the efforts to steal the crown. They will have their chance to stand before the citizens and have their fates determined by the law of our land.”

“You expect us to just release you?” one of the other guards asked, scoffing. “How do we know you won’t rip us apart as soon as we remove the gloves?”

“If I wanted to rip you apart, I would have already done it,” I said. To emphasize my point, I dropped my head to the side as I called my shadows up from the ground. They hovered between the guard and me, swaying with anticipation. His eyes widened, but he clamped his lips shut as if that would help him withstand my powers. I offered a small smile and pulled the shadows back down to my feet, hoping I’d sufficiently convinced him.

He shook his head slowly, but didn’t offer another word of protest as the other guards moved forward to unlock the gloves. Turning my hands over and over, I searched for any sign of damage from the searing pain I’d suffered earlier, but aside from a bit of dried blood at my fingertips from my clawing at the metal and some red, blistered burns on my palms, they were unscathed—far better than the melted skin and mangled flesh I’d envisioned.

My shadows instantly drifted up to my hands, pouring back into my veins where they belonged—where they would wait, until I could find Graham. I might have had a change of heart regarding the others, but if this had all been Graham’s plan, then he deserved the same trial by shadows as Ursula and Warren had faced.

That bastard would suffer.

For my parents…my husband…my friend…and my mate.