Queen Yavara Ch. 24

"Is there anyone else?!" I yelled. Only my voice answered, echoing against the walls of the Broken Pass. "Then bring your blacksmiths forward, burn the iron hot and melt your glory into my skin! Tomorrow, we march for Alkandra!"

Later that night, I sat alone in my tent, blotting the freshly-burned scars that now tracked my forearms and shins. So many symbols, and all of so little consequence. Five-thousand warriors in total, but the very best of them had hardly been a nuisance to me. It would have to be enough.

"Chief?" Jefrok's voice asked from outside the tent.

"What?"

He stepped in, an ethereal owl perched on his shoulder. "You have a message from Zander." By the grim set of Jefrok's face, he felt the same dread I did. Any news was bad news at this point, especially at this hour.

I took the scroll from the projection's talons, and the bird vanished. I opened the scroll, and read it. My frown relaxed, then creased into a smile, then a grin, then a grimace like a skull's, my tusks pressing into my upper lip, a terrible exhilaration burning through me. "Change of plan, Jefrok." I said, tossing the scroll into the flame, "Spread the word to the tribes: we're going to Castle Thorum."

As the word spread through the encampment, and the excitement caught like wildfire, I sat alone in my tent, with just one name in my mind. Adarian. Adarian. Adarian.

ELENA

The door was thick oak, barred with wrought iron, and hinged with slats that were embedded a yard into the masonry. It would've taken twenty men and a battering ram to force it open, but it only took me three minutes and a sharpened hairpin. The lock clicked, and I placed the pin back into my ponytail. Silently, I greased the hinges with soap, then pressed myself against the door, and opened it. Despite my best efforts, it creaked as it swung, and I dared only open it the necessary few inches to slide out.

The hallway was illuminated in pale moonlight, casting deep shadows from the gothic window at the end. Glendian's study was across the hall, the royal office was next to the guest's chambers -my chambers-, and the royal bedroom was at the far end. Sir Fraldias stood like a statue before Leveria's door, his hand resting on his pummel, his golden armor gleaming resplendently. He was facing me. My breath caught in my chest, and I made to spring back into the room and bar the door, but then I heard it: snoring. I dared to peer further into the moonlit hall, and noticed the way Fraldias leaned ever-so slightly against the door he was guarding.

I knew Glendian well enough to know he wanted Leveria dead, but not well enough to put my mother's life in his hands, and only an idiot would trust Lord Ternias. The only person I could trust in Bentius, was me. I stalked down the hall, my bare feet not making a sound on the carpet. My eyes scanned the wall for magical detectors, and found ten strategically placed at knee height. Like invisible tripwire, they would set off a trap if crossed, likely a paralyzing spell. I ducked beneath the innocuous-looking stones, and crawled methodically down the hall, keeping three points of contact with the carpet at all times. Fraldias's snores grew louder, his features became clearer. I could see the whites of his eyes gleaming in the lunar light, the irises rolled into his head. Their lustrous surface reflected a fisheye of my visage as I slowly rose before him, reached into my hair, and pulled out the pin. His snoring ceased. His eyes rolled forward. Before the pupils even had time to contract, the pin was in his brain, blood flowing freely from his right socket. I kept him pinned against the wall with my body, then slowly eased the metal-clad corpse of Sir Piss and Shit to the floor. How long before the changing of the guard? Five hours? Could I do what must be done, then get to Mother in time? What would she say when she saw me? It didn't matter. I struggled to keep the two-hundred pounds of man and armor from making a sound, then tested the doorknob. It turned without resistance. Taking one breath, then another, I opened the door.

Queen Leveria Tiadoa was sitting up in bed, her hands clutching a mirror. The moon bathed her in blue light, turning her blonde hair a ghostly white, her complexion a pale azure, her sapphire eyes even colder than they were in the sun, seeming to shine from their sockets.

"Does that go to my room?" I asked, indicating the mirror.

She nodded.

"And you didn't call for help?"

She shook her head.

"Why not?"

She cleared her throat. "I thought you were just trying to escape. It seemed only fair for a captive to try to escape. They would've caught you on the lower levels, and you would've been brought back. No harm, no foul, no reason to get anyone killed."

"You have people waiting for me?" I asked, "Is this just a game to you?"

"It was," Leveria's voice was shaking, "Until you walked through the door. Sir Fraldias is..."

I nodded.

Leveria set the mirror down, and pointed a trembling finger to the fireplace. "There's an escape route there if you just pull the lever in the back. You can get your mother and leave Bentius. If you tie and gag me, they won't know until dawn."

I took a step forward. Leveria flinched.

"If you kill me, the Lowlands will turn on Yavara." She said, her eyes falling to the pin in my blood-soaked hand.

I took another step forward.

"No one trusts a regicide. Dreus will have to invade from the east."

I took another step forward.

"They won't give any quarter. It'll be wholesale slaughter." Her voice broke.

I was at the foot of the bed.

"Yavara will die if you do this." She brought her knees to her chest.

I was beside her.

"Please, Elena." She barely said it, her voice was so thin. She was huddled in her bed like a little girl, trying to make herself small against the headboard. She looked up at me from her sapphire eyes, the pupils like dots, constricted in terror within

bloodshot sclera. She hadn't slept in days.

I picked up the mirror. "Have you been watching me all night?"

She nodded, her lower lip quivering.

"And all the night before, and the night before that?"

Again, she nodded.

"Why?"

"I don't know." She mouthed, her voice gone. A tear rolled down her cheek, stopped at her jaw, then splashed onto her neck. The lunar light cast a soft shadow about her pulmonary artery, pulsing wildly with terror. Her eyes flitted from me, to the pin in my hand. The hand was steady as a rock. I sat beside her on the bed, and put my arm around her shoulders. She was trembling so violently the palsy almost shook my own limbs. I pulled her into the crook of my side, and rested her cold tear-streaked cheek against my breast. I stroked the matted her from her forehead, and kneaded my fingers into her mane. Then I yanked it back, exposing the bow of her neck, the artery pulsing wildly with the last beats of life. She opened her mouth to scream, but all that came out was a squeak not even a mouse could hear. I raised my fist, and plunged the hairpin deep. She croaked, her body spasming, her eyes bulging. Blood spilled from between my fingers, hot and thick, dripping onto her neck as she gulped manically for breath.

"Why?" She mouthed.

"I don't know." I whispered, and pulled the hairpin out of her shoulder. She choked in a breath then, one that caught in her chest with a violent shudder. The small hole in her shoulder seeped deep purple in the lunar light, spilling a thick rivulet down her arm. I pressed it with the bedsheet while she struggled to reign her panic in, her bodice heaving with each frantic intake. When she was done, her flesh glimmered with cold sweat, and she was paler than the light that shown upon her. She looked at me then, the terror high in her blue eyes, but it wasn't just me she feared. I felt it too, that terror; that indescribable, unspeakable thing that hung like a weight in my breast, pulling my heart into my guts.

"Elena, if-" she never finished that sentence. I pressed my lips to hers and plunged my tongue into her mouth. She didn't miss a beat, but pulled me to her; her body frail, and cold, and soft, and deadlier than a hundred-thousand swords. We tasted each other's terror as we tore our clothes asunder, our lips drinking it in, our mouths filled with it. Oh, how sweet a flavor it was. The sweetest thing I'd ever known.