Remembering Sebastian’s threats, I lowered my voice. “No one can help me. I’m out of options.”
“Maybe not.”
A sliver of hope bloomed in my chest. I leaned closer to her. “What are you talking about?”
“Marcus came to me last night.” Whispering, she said, “He had a message from Rowan. They had a feeling something bad had gone down between you and Sebastian.”
My heart warmed. Somehow Rowan saw through all of Sebastian’s lies. He didn’t doubt my feelings for him. I should’ve known. “What did he say?”
Her eyes searched the room, landing on a pad of paper on my nightstand. She picked up a pen and wrote.
He wants you to meet him at sundown at the beach. He said you would know where.
As soon as I read it, she got up and threw the paper into my lit fireplace.
I always met Rowan at the same place where he trained me when I first arrived in Avalon. It had become our solitude—our own little slice of heaven. Then reality set in when I glanced over at the ball gown from last night draped over a chair. What was left of my heart crumbled into pieces. “I’m supposed to marry Sebastian at sundown. How can I possibly get away? I’ll have a non-stop flow of elementals swarming around me all day.”
Ariel paced the room for several minutes. I watched her as she tapped her finger against her lips. Abruptly, she stopped. “You need to go along with whatever Sebastian has planned for you. I will be expected to be at your side, helping you get ready for the wedding. No matter what, you stick to the plan. Don’t give Sebastian any reason to doubt your intentions.”
I shook my head. “Are you saying you have a plan? You’re not making any sense.”
Ariel grabbed my hands. “Just let me take care of everything, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, watching her sneak out of the room and down the hallway before anyone noticed her. I closed the door, wrapping my arms around my waist. I had no idea what she had planned, but I had no other options. I had to see Rowan. Knowing he still believed in us, was fighting for us, energized my hope that there was another option. A way to get out of this marriage without hurting my family. I had to take the chance. The alternative was too much to bear. If Rowan wasn’t giving up on me, I would put all of my faith in him.
I had to find a way to fight back.
I had to find a way to save my family.
I had to find a way to save my love.
Hours passed like seconds. As I expected, the castle was buzzing. I didn’t know how Sebastian managed to do it, but everyone was on board for the wedding today. I expected my parents to resist. They both knew I had no intention of marrying him, but my father had approved all of the preparations. I wanted to speak with them, but Sebastian had done all he could to keep me isolated. There was a nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach telling me Sebastian had threatened them too. It was the only way to explain why they were going along with all of this.
Where was Ariel?
I had not seen her since she slipped into my room this morning. She had promised she would find a way to get me out of the castle before the wedding—Rowan would be waiting for me—but I had no idea how she planned to do it. The knights were everywhere. Sebastian insisted that I needed extra protection. He said he feared another court might attack while we were busy preparing for the big event. It was a great move on his part. Now more than ever before, I felt like a caged animal.
In addition to the extra guards, Sebastian made a point to pop in on me. He even managed to show up just as I was being fitted for my wedding dress. He forced a seamstress out of the way, insisting he would help attach the clips in the back. I could feel his knuckles against my spine. It took everything I had to not push him away. I tried to tell him it was bad luck to see the bride before the wedding, but he chose to stay.
After the brownies were done with the hem, they started unclipping the gown. Sebastian watched intently. Once the gown dropped to the floor, they helped me step out of it. I was fully exposed, wearing nothing more than a white strapless corset and matching panties. Sebastian didn’t have to say a word. The wild-eyed look on his face told the whole story. Every time I glanced at him I was filled with disgust. I could never marry him, never love someone like him. I prayed Rowan had found a way to cancel this wedding. As much as I feared for my family, I didn’t think I could go through with it. There was no divorce with elementals. If I married Sebastian, we would be together until one of us died. It was a commitment unlike anything in the mortal world.
I had to find a way out of it.
Ariel finally showed up an hour before sundown. She was dressed in formal yellow robes. Apparently, elementals don’t have bridesmaids. Sebastian watched her closely as she organized her make-up and hair brushes. I sat in the chair in front of her. Instead of her usual banter, Ariel kept quiet. I wasn’t sure if she was downplaying our relationship or just keeping low key. Whatever her motivation, it worked. Sebastian left the room yawning. I guess all this girlie stuff finally got to him. The moment after he was gone, I grabbed Ariel by the wrist. “Where have you been?” I asked.
“I had to meet with Marcus.” She said, while applying creamy foundation to my face. “We have a plan.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Well, spill it.”
Ariel bit her bottom lip. “It’s probably best to keep you in the dark. This way, your reaction will be believable.”
She was making no sense. “My reaction to what?”
“All you need to know is this,” Ariel leaned down, only an inch away from my ear. “When the distraction starts, head out of the castle toward the portal.”
So there would be some kind of distraction? It made total sense. In all the commotion, I could leave without anyone noticing. Perfect. “Okay.”
Ariel smiled. “It will be. I promise.”
It was time for me to head downstairs. According to Ariel, the wedding had been set up in the ballroom. I had no idea what it would look like because I hadn’t been part of the plans. I still had not seen either of my parents the entire day. I started to worry, but I had to push those feelings aside. I had a bigger problem to deal with. I only hoped whatever Marcus and Ariel had planned would actually work. It would take something serious to get Sebastian’s attention away from me and his ascension to the throne.
I took one last look in the mirror. My wedding dress had a beaded lace sweetheart neckline bodice with lace straps, featuring an empire waist and low back. The shape reminded me of a mermaid painting I saw when our high school class went on a field trip to the Baltimore Museum of Art. It wasn’t something I would have picked out, but I didn’t really care since I had zero interest in this wedding. I would have walked down the aisle in a paper bag and it wouldn’t have mattered in the least.
With armed guards I didn’t recognize surrounding me, I took my first steps into the hallway.
Ariel left just minutes ago. She had been called downstairs, leaving me to walk alone. My uncomfortable heels clicked against the marble walkway. Beyond the sound of our shoes, there was only silence. I felt like one of those sentenced prisoners taking their last walk toward the lethal injection chair. I wasn’t about to die, but it sure felt like part of me was withering away. My spirit had been broken. The only thing keeping me going was the shred of hope I had in Rowan. My fate rested in his hands.
As we entered the main foyer of the castle, I heard a commotion in front of us. A few of the knights ran ahead while the rest circled around me with swords raised. Screams rang out over the sounds of weapons scraping against one another. Somewhere in the middle of all of it, I heard a roar that shook the floor. Only one creature was powerful enough to rattle the ground: a Gabriel Hound. It had to be Marcus. This was the sign I had been warned about. I nudged a few of my guards with my elbow. “Go up there and help them!” I ordered.
They glanced at one another, seemingly not sure what to do.
“They need your help now!” When they didn’t move, I raised my voice louder, commanding.
“That’s an order from the Princess of this court!”
My final words put a jolt in their stride. Together they raced toward the action. I let out a sigh of relief. My eyes searched the massive room trying to locate Sebastian. He was nowhere in sight. If I were lucky, Marcus would find him and kill him. That was one way to get out of this mess.
I wasn’t sure how long this distraction would last, so I slowly stepped backwards. I had to keep my eyes on the crowd to make sure I wasn’t followed. When my back hit the wall, I curled around the corner and ran for it. I was slowed down by my god-awful shoes. I stopped for a minute, threw off my heels, and bolted toward the pathway at the far end of the courtyard.
I took one last glance behind me before I ran into the portal.
The salty beach air filled my nostrils. I inhaled deeply as my bare feet sunk into the cold sand. Only a mile or so of walking and I would find Rowan waiting for me. Being this close to him filled my fractured heart with hope. I pulled up my dress, preventing the hem from touching the ground as I trudged forward. I had to laugh a little when I realized what I would look like when Rowan saw me. Minus my wedding shoes, I was in my full wedding attire, complete with veil. The only thing I was missing was—
A sharp pain erupted from my spine, arching my back.
“I gave you simple instructions, yet here you are about to betray me.”
Sebastian appeared from behind me. He must have watched me enter the portal, following me here. Had I been stabbed? I reached behind me, searching for the source of the pain. I fell to my knees. When I looked at my hand, it was covered with my blood. I tried to speak, but no words came out. My breaths were short, panicked. When I tried to move, the pain in my side stopped me. I tried to force out the words in a whisper. “Wh—?”
“Did you know that if you stab the knife in just the right spot, it will enter in between your enemies rib bones and cut-off their air supply? Pretty nifty piece of information. One of my trainers taught me that when he was teaching me sword fighting as a child.” Sebastian circled around me while playing with the bloody dagger in his hand. “I would guess by your startled look, you assumed I had no skills with a blade. You can add that to the list of things you didn’t know about me.”
“Why are you doing this?” I managed to get out.
He smiled. “Because you presented me with a fantastic opportunity. If I kill you now, that only leaves your father in my way. I imagine in his weakened state, he’ll be no match for me. And who will our court lean on when House Paralda falls?” He put his finger on his temple as if contemplating the answer. Then, he shouted, “Me, of course! The elemental chosen to wed the dirty half-blood Princess.”
I lunged for him, but he moved away. I fell on my side, half my face covered in sand. The skin around my puncture wound burned. Searing pain came over my body in waves. The blade he used must have been made of iron. I was losing blood fast, my body deteriorating by the second. Still, I searched the ground for a weapon of any kind. Something I could use to injure him before he went after my father. If I had even a sliver of strength left, I would stop him.
“Don’t bother fighting back. You’ll be dead soon enough.”
“Don’t be so sure.” I replied, words barely audible.
“Oh, the knife wound would take hours or even days to kill you, but I’ve been poisoning you for weeks.” He patted the leather satchel attached to his belt. “Care to have another sip of wine, Princess?”
Had this been his plan all along? Even if I had married him, would he have still killed me to claim the throne for himself? That bastard. “I’m going to—”
“You’ll do nothing.” Sebastian laughed. “Poor, Princess Kalin. Where did your powers go? I thought you were the next akasha. The savior of our kind. Well if you had all that power, why would you need to be betrothed to anyone?”
I let out a muffled growl.
“I know, it’s very creative. I’d love to take credit for it, but it was my mother’s idea.” He waved his hands in front of him. “Mother didn’t wish to kill you. In fact, she really likes you. She just wanted to give you a reason to agree to the marriage. Actually, she instructed me to stop giving the wine to you after we said our vows.” He let out a long sigh. “Killing you? Yeah, that was my idea.”
I couldn’t believe how proud he was of his decision to kill me. It was as if he had no morals or value of life of any kind. This was the elemental who would sit on our throne if he managed to succeed in his plans. No, I could not allow this to happen. Who knew what he was capable of?
My vision blurred from the blood loss. Dizzy, I tried to concentrate. I had to come up with a plan. Rowan was too far away. I would never make it to him. My only chance was to crawl toward the portal. Maybe if I got close enough, I could make a run for it. If I found my way back to the castle someone might see me. Just as I rolled onto my stomach, Sebastian plunged the dagger into my back three more times. Each time he sliced through my skin the area around the incision throbbed. The smell of burnt flesh overwhelmed the air circulating around me. It was like taking in toxic fumes. What little oxygen I could take in was nothing but smoke.
“Oh, no. You’re not going anywhere.” He kicked my side, turning me over until I was on my back.
I stopped fighting. Too much pain. My limbs were too weak to move. The iron coursed through my bloodstream, burning my veins as it traveled through my body. And thanks to the poisoned wine, I wasn’t healing as I normally would. I glanced down. The white dress was covered in wet, bloody sand. After everything I had been through, was this how it would end?
Sebastian nudged my side with the tip of his shoe. “Well, I believe I’m done here. I’d better get back to the castle before someone realizes I’m gone.” He knelt down, kissing me on the forehead. “We could’ve had so much fun together. Oh well. Better luck next time, I suppose.”
After he cleaned the knife thoroughly, he dropped the weapon in the sand.
I was able to turn my head far enough to the side to watch him enter the portal. Soon he would alert everyone of my absence. My father would likely send out all of his knights to look for me, making Sebastian’s plan to kill him that much easier. And all the while, I couldn’t do anything to help him. All I could do was wait here to die. With all the poison in my system, I doubted the process would take long.
But what if I removed the poison?
Sebastian said the tainted wine blocked my power. If I drained out most of the blood, would my akasha power save my life? If I slit my wrists I would hit a major artery. The blood would empty quickly and maybe regenerate me in the process. What did I have to lose? At this point I was already going to die. I reached out, straining to reach the dagger Sebastian left in the sand. My fingers were almost numb. It took every bit of energy I had left to grip the handle and then pull my arm back toward my torso.
My hand shook as I slid the sharp blade over my left wrist. The pain was less than I thought it would be. I tried to do the same to the right one, but my strength was gone. Everything around me moved, shifting in and out of place. The lines around my vision blackened until there was nothing.
Only complete darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Rowan
Where is Kalin?
Marcus said she got the message. She was coming at sundown. I glanced up at the amber skies. The sun was only moments away from setting. If all went as planned, she should have already been here. Something was wrong. I felt it in my bones. Fire pulsated at the tips of my fingers. Marcus left over an hour ago to help Ariel with a distraction. He made it seem as if his plan was fool proof. If he was right, then had something happened to her on the way here?
Had she been caught?
Kalin met me here so many times, managing to sneak away from her guard so we could have some privacy. Unless something drastically changed, she shouldn’t have had any problems getting away. But something was different. Marcus said the wedding had been moved up to today. If Sebastian wa
s smart, he would have made sure she was heavily guarded. If he had increased her guard, she may be stuck there. Or maybe Ariel and Marcus were captured. Tension built in my shoulders. Too many lingering questions.
I couldn’t continue to stand here doing nothing.
Slipping my sheath and sword over my shoulder, I headed toward the portal opening she always used. It was less than a mile from here. If I couldn’t find her, I had to take the chance and go to the air castle. They may need my help. Being part of the fire court meant there would be no one holding out the welcome banner, but regardless of the current tension between our courts, Taron knew me as a friend. Each time I thought of him, I wondered why he had agreed to this wedding. Kalin made it clear from the beginning that the engagement wasn’t real. I shook my head.
None of this made any sense on so many levels.
One way or another, I was going to get to the bottom of this mess. Finding out what happened to Kalin was the first step. I trudged through the sand, regretting that I hadn’t taken off my boots. I could feel the grains of sand scraping against my socks. Flying would’ve been easier, but much more noticeable. I needed to go stealth in case something had gone wrong. The air had gotten much colder. I wasn’t affected by the chilled wind, but I could sense the temperature change when I breathed in the night air. The skies had grown darker as the moon slowly rose. I sped up, getting an overriding feeling that I needed to hurry.
I just couldn’t shake the feeling that something, somehow, had gone drastically wrong.
When I had less than a quarter-mile to go, I saw something crumpled-over in the distance. I wasn’t sure what I was seeing, so I ran the rest of the way there. As I got closer, an overwhelming fear shot through me. A motionless body lay in a pool of blood. “Please don’t be her.” I kept repeating, begging. The body was lifeless, tied up in a massive amount of fabric. Oh God, was she wearing a wedding dress?
“Kalin!” I screamed.
Fragile Reign (Mortal Enchantment Book 2) Page 17
