Page 33

Luna

I could hear the dripping sounds of water as it dripped against the cool molding stones beneath me. The rancid smell of urine and piss was everywhere. The fabric of my strapless gown clung to me from my own defecation. Trapped for I don't know how long since the ball that night I hung against the wall.

I should have known better. She was their sister after all. She had caught me off guard, the little princess of this court.

I should have expected it. I should have known they would have figured it out sooner or later, that the bastard of the Winter Court would betray me. Each night since coming to this frozen wasteland of a castle I had been poisoning her. I smirked at my little victory against that vixen. The credit didn’t only go to me, however. I only made the poison. I wasn't the one who injected the drugs into her system.

Eli had claimed he wanted me to bring the courts back to what they once were but instead of my brother, he wanted me on the throne.

Why?

I haven’t a clue.

Turns out the bastard had another plan up his sleeves.

I didn't know how he was doing it. Suppressing that siren's memories, but he did. I had my guesses. A ruin perhaps. I can't believe I'm even using that woman's words. She always loved coming up with the most perplexing and idiotic of phrases.

For example, the abbreviation ' ROYAL '. I don't know what it stands for but she suddenly announced it one day. Even used one of her favors to get my brother and me to use the vial word. If you ask me, the word was as confusing as my mother. Always speaking her riddles to me. Perhaps the siren might be even more perplexing than my mother. Because when she came up with that damn abbreviation. Didn't she know it was spelled and sounded the same as what we are royalty? Yet, that didn't stop her. At least with my mother's riddles, there was an answer to every word she spewed. With the vixen, nothing made sense.

What's more, why the hell was he so enamored with her?

Gritting my teeth, I clenched my fists against the chains I dangled from like a ragged doll. I could feel my rage bubbling. But it was no use, the little princess knocked me out with something. A potion of her own making? I'm not sure.

Whatever it was, it placed a damper on the little magic I had.

Is this karma? Was it because of my past sins? If that were true then how did Flynn-no Fletcher manage to get back his magic? This was all so confusing.

But, one thing I did understand was the chaos during the ball. When everyone was frozen for the majority of it all, cast in some illusionary bubble manifested by that half-nine-tail fox, Akasuki, I was still fully aware of the sounds and movements beyond her veil.

It was to be expected. The boy should have known she would break out of whatever lock he placed on her memories.

When it all came crumbling down he should have known about the destruction she would bring in her wake. The girl always did. She could turn a whole capital city into ruins with just a snap of her fingers. With a simple blink of her eyelids, an entire nation would be blown away.

I hated her, Everetta Scarlett Everden Gillian Avalar Viana Seraph Phoenix Siren Lion Wolf Griffin Chimera.

Not only is her idiotic name long but she was damn annoying as well. She did whatever she wanted, consequences be damned. Selfish brat. Still, it wasn't like anyone could stand up to her either. Maybe that was why the boy did what he did. Freezing her memories like that.

Then if that wasn't enough he asked me to make a magic-suppressing poison, the true reason he saved me from that prison all those weeks ago. Which was how I was able to poison her. The magic that guarded her even during sleep never harmed herself or her soulmate. Again with those loose terms. Soulmate, normally you'd think it would apply to those destined for one another. But the girl used it to define something else.

The boy was formed from half of the girl’s soul, so in other words he was technically the girl, just the male version. Perhaps that was why she was always so carefree not bothering to take into account the consequences of her actions on others. Maybe the half that went into the boy contained her sanity too. How else would you describe her antics? No sane fae would ever do the things she’s done.

A child no, she was more like a maniac on the rampage, that's one thing the boy has wrong about her. He should handle her with ropes and chains instead of the kid gloves he always wore with her. Perhaps that was why her magic was never protected against the boy. Not simply because he contained half her soul thus causing the magic to think he wasn't a danger but also because she thought he would never hurt her. Yet here they were. I smirked at my victory. Just thinking about it brought me immense joy.

I didn't even have to inject the poison myself. I snickered remembering the betrayal her " bestest of friends " caused. No, I wasn't the one to personally creep into her rooms and inject the poison, Eli did.

I can't wait to expose his little secret to his brother. Once I do that, the girl’s little heart would surely break at last. She deserved as much. She thinks I didn't know but I knew.

My brother for all his cunning and intellect couldn't make a potion for his life. So the only one able to forge and create a weapon that could cleave a soul in two was Everetta, that vial siren. That serpent-tongued vixen.

I wanted to get back at her for so long. But I couldn't. For all her smiles and laughter she was a cunning pest. She always had a protection spell around her combined with a healing and detection spell and it was nearly impossible to even get close to her let alone touch her. So I focused on my brother. The cocky self-assured king who thought nothing could touch him. He didn't have the same forms of protection Everetta did. He was the weaker target. But I lacked magic. So time and time again he always imprisoned me when my attempts had failed throughout the many courses of my lives.

You could blame me all you want. Call me a witch, drag my name through the mud. But when I saw my chance to get back at the bitch who aided my brother in the eternal death of the one I loved, I took it.

Snatching away her children in the past was never going to be enough because I did them a favor. The kids I mean. I saved them from having a child for a mother. For having to endure the miserable life they would have had under her care. Being an orphan would have been better for them than being the children of a Siren and a bastard.

It was her fault to begin with too.

She shouldn't have trusted me even after everything I said to her. She knew I hated her yet she still gave them to me. Like I said she was reckless. For all that brain power she had she was foolish and idiotic in all that truly mattered.

Still, he loved her. I will never understand why. I've tried to warn him to make him leave her. Yet every time he came back to her. Always. One thing I don't understand is why the hell was he not in his body. How was it even possible he was not Flynn? That he was not the prince, if that was true I wouldn't have wasted my time trying to keep him away from her at the ball. A ball she wasn't even really there for. She only showed up to cause a commotion which was, as always, tamped down by the boy, the babysitter. He always cleaned up her messes.

I could feel my seething rage rising again at the duo. She always had someone by her side no matter what.

Pausing, I frowned.

Wait, if Flynn wasn’t Flynn, then who the hell was the boy in his body?

The tap-tap of footsteps echoing down the dungeon. It rang through the quite desolate halls of cages. Everything was empty of course, Flynn- No, Fletcher wouldn't have placed me in a known part of the dungeons. Of course, he would have done his research on the catacombs of this castle. He wouldn’t have had to do much research. He had lived here once upon a time. Perhaps he wasn't too fixated on the Siren if he was still keeping logs of the castle's dungeons. He used to play those games before, back when he wasn't ensnared in her villainous tongue. Then again, he did imprison me for her.

It was fine I was going to convince him to see my point of view and like always he was going to forgive me. He was my best friend.

My only friend I suppose.

He'd given up his magic for me , the one true power of this world and he gave it all up for me . Of course, he was going to forgive me. This little fascination of his was nothing but that. A crush on a girl, he'd get over it. He'd forgive me for poisoning her. He couldn't truly care for a Siren like her . Surely he would understand my need for vengeance. She was the one who betrayed me first. I never hated her, never pained her in any way. To be honest I never even thought about her. That was until she and my brother killed the only person I ever loved.

Opening my eyes I gazed down at the feet below me. How long have I been trapped here? Was this one of his new torture methods keeping his prisoners captive with no food or water for weeks on end? Get their panic to rise at the thought of what he would do to them. He did this type of mental torment sometimes.

After a while when Fletcher never showed the prisoners would be relieved thinking he had forgotten about them. Only then he would show up and the true physical torment would begin. He always loved playing mind games. I know him better than anyone so of course this had to be him right?

Yet, when I gazed up at the blue irises before me it wasn't him but the imposter, Flynn, the current first Prince of the Winter Court, just as the ceilings began to shake.

"We don't have much time. We need to leave now." He rushed out as I stared at him in question. My brows furrowed in my dreary state. I also hadn’t eaten in a while let alone drunk anything so excuse me, if my mind’s a bit foggy on hunger.??

What was he talking about? No one could open these chains. They were made of pure iron, and what's more, they were ruined so that one wouldn’t be able to free me unless they cut off my hands. So how would he free me? Suddenly a dark purple nearly black skeleton key emerged from his pocket as I narrowed my gaze on it. It had a skull for where the key handle should be. It was small and not very bulky but the rough bumps against it told me it wasn't made of metal but bone like all skeleton keys. The hardest to create and guarded by the fairy folk.

"What?" I moaned out my voice too raw after days of no use.

The boy looked back up at me, his frightened yet determined blue hues stared back at me. "I don't have time to explain but this key-they-they told me it could help free you. They said that they could help you and me. They said we could get whatever we wanted if we helped them." He rushed, hurriedly fumbling over to me. I heard the soft clicks before the shackles keeping me up were swiftly unlocked. I nearly tumbled to the ground if the boy hadn't caught me. Suddenly the roars of a thousand men bellowed in the air and magic filled the room. A portal as black as night vortexed before me as I stared at the boy, feet unsure as they stood unwilling to move. Hesitancy coating my features. I may be starving and groggy but I was no fool. I wasn’t just going to jump into some portal without knowing where it leads to like some fae I know.?

More importantly, was there a battle going on outside? And who in the world is this boy? If he wasn't Fletcher, why was he helping me, and who was ' they '? Why did ' they ' tell him to free me?

"Who are you?" I mutter still not used to speaking after so many days locked up. Surely, if Eli found out this boy wasn't his actual brother he would have captured him too. Yet here he was.

"Umm, they just told me to get you out. That portal, it'll help us. She said she could help you get him back again. Tyrian, I think that was his name?" I froze at his words, my steps halting as I stared up at the portal. My mind going numb but my path was clear. I hadn't had any visions since I arrived at this damned castle. That might have been the only good thing there was to this place. I didn't have to deal with the onslaught of headaches each vision brought.

Fae couldn't lie and if what the boy said was true I could have him back. That despite his eternal death I could be with him again, Tyrian.

I would do it.

And if I could kill those brats too, all the better.

I would go through hell for him, the man who helped me find the beauty of a world filled with nothing but empty lies. There was nothing left but him in this world for me, so I took the risk. Despite all the bells ringing in my head I let the boy, Flynn, drag me into the portal.