by Ella Fields
Audra acted upon feelings, instinct, and instruction that laid buried deep. If you looked closely, she was surely flawed—perhaps more than most of us—but she was also a product of her upbringing, of the horrors she’d beheld when only a child.
She was wicked, yes, but she was also more. She was unshakably loyal to those she showed a glimmer of affection for and honest. It was that honesty that so often got the people talking.
Audra had this unapologetic way of saying what she meant, what she felt, and acting upon it while the majority of the rest of us harbored our hurts, our real urges and thoughts, and pretended they didn’t exist.
She was cruel. She was caring. She was horrid. She was devoted. She was intimidating. She was confident.
The contradictions could be listed for days, and for those reasons, it was no surprise I became enamored with her. That my eyes became a slave to every move she made. That my heart changed its beat whenever I felt that violent magic of hers approach.
My parents couldn’t know.
Not only did they think their son incapable of loving Audra, but they also wouldn’t have listened to me if I’d told them she was different. That if I ruled alongside her, the fear and unrest created by Tyrelle’s rule could and would be squashed.
Yet they found out, and it was all my fault. I’d given up caring if my affection, the way I was growing to adore the brute’s daughter, would be realized for all that it was.
I was falling in love.
And by the time she welcomed me inside her body, I had already hit the ground hard enough to create fissures in the earth.
When they realized what had happened, I tried. Darkness be damned, did I try. They wouldn’t listen when I explained why we should spare her. That only her father needed to die. They wouldn’t listen, and then the plan, the assassination, was changed without my knowledge.
The last meeting before the night that ruined us was conducted without me.
We were supposed to act when we left the cabin in the Forest of Promise, when her father ventured back in the carriage to pick us up.
I’d planned to explain everything to Audra once we were secluded in those woods, away from the whispering walls and wind, in our own little version of paradise. I was to tell her we would leave. I would take her someplace safe until the king was dead and I could convince my parents that was all that was necessary.
They’d acted while I was still planning the speech, memorizing the route we’d take, and wondering what she’d say and do in my head.
Then our whole world was aflame.
A scarf wrapped in laced toad dust was stuffed into my mouth as soon as I was hauled from the carriage. I’d tried to pull it out as I struggled not to inhale the ginger mildewed fumes, but it was in vain. You only needed a whiff of the tampered dust, and you were screwed. Count the butt of a sword meeting my head as I removed my own, and the next thing I knew, I was staring up at the sky through a rooftop of trees, a group of guards and my advisor from back home sitting around a small fire.
As soon as they saw I was awake, everyone stood and bowed. “My king.”
Disorientated, I searched the gathered faces for Audra. But that was pointless. They all detested her.
She wasn’t there.
I kept searching anyway, getting to my feet and spitting the acrid taste from my mouth. “Where is she?”
“Who?” Meeda asked, braiding her hair.
I growled. “Audra.”
She looked at the fire, and I felt my heart sink. “What happened? If she’s dead…” No.
No. The thought alone sent searing pain right through me, threatening to cleave me in two.
I grabbed Serdin, the soldier closest to me, by the cuff of his armor, hauling him to his feet. “What has happened to her?”
“T-t-the carriage.” His wide eyes shuttered. “She was still in the carriage last I saw, and it was falling t-to pieces, burning to the ground.”
My fingers slid from the coarse material, and he fell to the grass.
“We defeated them, but we have suffered a grave loss in doing so.” Patts, my father’s advisor, stepped into my line of vision. Tears brimmed his eyes. “They slaughtered your parents.”
Audra.
My parents.
A hollow laugh croaked from me. My hands gripped my head, and I stumbled back. “You weren’t supposed to attack yet. You weren’t supposed to change plans, especially without telling me…”
“We thought it best, considering how you’d grown to enjoy your time with the princess.”
“You fucking thought wrong,” I spat. “Now they’re…” I couldn’t even finish saying it. “How long have we been here?”
“We’ve journeyed a day south. We hope to reach the border tomorrow eve—”
I was off and running to the nearest horse. Untying it from the tree, I jumped on, spurring it into an all-out gallop.
“You cannot return! Their soldiers might be there or worse, hunting for you.”
I didn’t care, and I forbade them to follow. Three of them did anyway, but I lost them within the night.
It took me almost a day and many wrong turns to reach the site where it’d happened.
My heart threatened to disintegrate at the sight of the charcoal remains on the dirt road. Scraps of burned wood lay amongst the ash and debris. And then I saw them, tied to two sycamore trees with my sword between them.
My parents. Or what remained of them.
The growing thunder of hooves vaguely registered, but I was beyond caring or capable of hearing much over the struggling beat of my heart.
A band of Tyrelle’s soldiers dismounted their horses and raced toward me.
My hands were bound, and a sack was flung over my head. “Traitorous filth.” A glob of spit splattered against the flimsy material covering my face, some seeping through to my cheek.
“You’re no king of ours,” a rough voice said.
A whistle pierced the air as I was shoved, my bound hands attached to a rope. It didn’t bother me. I had a knife in my sleeve and the power to burn through anything.
“Don’t even entertain the idea. I’ll end you before you can summon enough fire to roast a leaf.” I knew that voice, knew who had the power to kill instantly. “Let’s move.”
I dared ask, “Zadicus?”
He didn’t answer, but I knew it was him. “I didn’t kill her,” I said to him. Though I had no idea where he was, I knew he’d hear. “I’d never…” Words failed me as the thought of not seeing those blue eyes again tripped my feet. The horses began to move, and I lurched forward, obviously tied to one as I was forced to keep up. “Zadicus, you know I wouldn’t, that I could never, harm her.”
“Hush, filth,” the one with the rough voice said. “The queen lives.”
Those words almost shattered me on the spot.
I stumbled, my arms tearing on rocks as I heaved myself up with my knees and elbows in relief. “She lives?”
Laughter rang out. “Your forced excitement is no longer needed. Your plan failed.”
It didn’t. The king was dead. That had been my only plan in the end, second to ensuring Audra’s safety.
My steps quickened, and it was all I could do not to shove the guard off his horse and take it for myself—to race toward the kingdom and lay eyes upon her.
She lives.
I urged my magic to settle and simmer and allowed them to drag me to the castle like lost cattle overdue for slaughtering.
The queen lives.
When the sun reached the highest point in the sky, we arrived.
I hadn’t known what I expected. Rotten fruit. Cussing insults. The city, normally abuzz with frantic life, felt vacant. I couldn’t see much through the mesh covering my face, but I could feel it.
It was as though no one was even outside at all.
The soldiers dismounted, and I was led almost blind through the castle halls, and then down, down, down to the bowels of the monstrosity that once housed the cruelest king this land had eve
r seen.
The sack was pulled off, and then I was shoved inside a cell and left there under the watch of at least twenty guards. “Try to burn your way out,” Ainx said, unsheathing his sword. “I dare you.”
I wasn’t moving. I wasn’t going anywhere. Audra was going to be brought to me, and once I explained… Her heels clicked over the ground in time with the booming of my heart.
And there she was, all silken ink-black hair, red painted lips, high curved cheekbones, and eyes as blue as the midsummer sky.
Her lithe frame carried her closer, but it was her empty eyes that rendered my mouth dry. Gone was the wonder she’d so often shine upon me, the unfettered, amused adoration that would send a charge of lightning striking through me.
There was nothing there.
“Did you send for her?” she asked.
Ainx nodded. “Mintale, General Rind, and Alya went as soon as we received word.”
Audra nodded, then stepped back.
I wanted to ask who she was sending for and why. But it was all I could do to breathe as I let my eyes roam every inch of her body, checking for injury. “You’re alive.”
At that, her eyes simmered, her lip curling. “Disappointed?”
Shocked, I laughed. “What?” I shook my head and gripped the bars. “Audra, there’s so much I need to explain.”
“We know all about your family’s botched plans to take my kingdom for their own.” She turned and walked away. “To rid it of myself and my father, and the blight we supposedly put on this land.”
Ainx sneered at me.
“I didn’t want you dead,” I said. “Never.” She had to know that.
Her laughter was a broken, dusty chime. “Save it. We all know lies when we hear them.”
Then she left, and I paced the confined space for hours until she returned. When she did, Truin was beside her, carrying a basket and what looked to be a pail.
“Audra,” I begged.
“You know what I need to do.” She wouldn’t look at me as she said it. “I cannot have someone commit a betrayal of this magnitude in my hands and not trial you for all you have done.”
“So trial me,” I said, desperation growing. “I’ll explain everything.”
She smiled at the book Truin began riffling through. “You seem to have forgotten one important detail, husband.” She might’ve been smiling, but her eyes were again vacant. “Only monsters reside here.” Truin sat down, not with a pail, but with a small cauldron. She then dug inside the basket beside her, opening jars and tiny sacks. “We see wrong,” Audra continued. “We act swiftly and accordingly.”
She had to kill me.
I’d known it a possibility when they’d collected me from the outskirts of the forest, yet I never truly considered that she would.
And I had no idea how or if I could stop her.
“Leave us,” she said to the guards.
They looked from her to me as though they’d protest, but they knew better and filed out.
Truin didn’t so much as glance at me while she mixed something that smelled like vomit and poison in the dented cauldron.
Audra wouldn’t look at me as she slowly paced behind Truin. “You have two choices, my prince.”
“Your king.”
She raised a brow. “As I was saying, you have two choices. To drain. Or be exiled.”
I swallowed, wondering if I should fight her on this. If I should heat my hands enough to melt the bars and grab her by the nape to force her to listen to me.
As though she could hear my thoughts, her eyes collided with mine. And I knew, staring at the endless ice-veiled depths, that it would be futile.
Going against her would prove her right when I so desperately needed to prove her wrong.
“Did you or did you not plan to take my kingdom for your own, to assassinate me and my father, via the arrangement of marriage?”
She and Truin waited. “I did,” I admitted, “but—”
Audra raised her hand, looking at the ground. “Choose and choose quickly, you have five heartbeats.”
I couldn’t. I had to. Two impossible choices… or perhaps not.
If I were to be sent to The Edges, then I could find a way back. I could find a way out of there or get a letter to her, explaining everything.
I could do none of that if I were dead, and the betrayal, what my family had done and tried to do, it was all too fresh for her to hear anything over the sound of her turbulent feelings.
But no one left The Edges. The only way out was by royal decree—which rarely happened—or death. It was akin to living imprisoned, but with some freedom, if you could ignore a lot of the scum that called it home.
I was now a king. She could strip me of my title but that didn’t change what or who I was.
I’d find a way back. Only when the time was right.
“The Edges,” I said.
Audra nodded. “Very well. Guards.”
They filed back in and unlocked the gate to my cell. “Hold him down.”
I frowned at them, then Audra. “What? Why?”
“Quiet before I decide to rid you of your tongue.” She walked closer, and with a slight tremble in her hand, she tipped up my chin. Her mouth lowered to mine, and a sigh filled with relief so potent, I thought half my soul left my body to enter hers, coated her lips.
“I loved you,” she whispered, her lips ghosting over mine.
I tried to reach for her, but my bound hands and the three guards on either side of me, pushing my arms and shoulders down, prevented that. “Silk—”
“Shhh,” she crooned, and before I could fully open my eyes, that pungent aroma was gliding down my throat.
I choked and sputtered, trying to spit it free.
Her magic snapped my mouth shut and forced enough air inside my nostrils to push it down my throat. My eyes went wide, pleading, riddled with questions. What have you done?
She simply stood there, her expression now raw and open, exposing what I’d done to her for all of half a minute. Then everything went dark.
And I woke up in a different life.
Audra
Silence hollowed deep within the large, doom-stained expanse.
Not even the dripping of leaking pipes or stalactites could be heard above the thunder drowning my ears.
“So you see,” Raiden said. “You see now that I never wanted any harm to befall you. Ever.”
I unstuck my tongue from the roof of my mouth, unable to look at him as I croaked, “But you did. You did want me dead.” I wasn’t sure how I could move past that. He hadn’t known me at the time, but how far into our relationship had we delved before he had that change of heart?
I was afraid of learning the answer. Afraid of it being too late to matter, or early enough to change everything.
“Silk,” he said, voice rough and wet. “You need only look at me, and I mean really look at me, and you’ll know. You’ll know I love you. That I could never do that to you.”
I stared at his boots. You’re no better than the scum beneath our nails, the shit stuck beneath the soles of our boots…
“Love means nothing in the face of what is right and what is wrong.” I hopped down and rounded the table. “And that which is gray can only be ignored for so long.”
“You cannot kill me. You couldn’t then, and you can’t now.” He didn’t sound so sure of himself, though. “If you still love me, then we both know it’s an impossible task.”
I stopped and fluttered my lashes in his direction. “Then perhaps I do not love you.”
Footsteps sounded out in the entry chamber. Guards began to argue before the gate was opened, and Mintale hurried inside.
A glance at me and Raiden, and he swallowed. “Majesty, you need to see this.”
“See what?” I snapped.
Mintale’s face paled further by the second. He stretched a hand to the exit. “Please.”
I looked back at Raiden, whose brows were pinched as he watched Mintale go. When
his eyes met mine, I looked away and lowered the gate behind us.
“What is it?” I hissed, moving up the stairs. “If this is an attempt to make me change my mind, you’re wasting your time. I cannot make exceptions because of—”
“We’ve received word that an army bearing the Sun Kingdom’s sigil marches northward.”
My palm hit the wall to aid in keeping me upright. “How long do we have?”
“Three days.” His jowls wobbled. “At most.”
I followed him to the highest tower, where we stood on the turret and used the scope to search the horizon.
There, tiny specks in the far-off distance moved. I turned the scope, sending it down the line of specks, and felt my blood turn to ice. “How many?”
“Our scouts estimate seven hundred, maybe more.”
“And what of the city?” asked one of the generals. “We cannot have most of our soldiers gone and leave the people without protection.”
I set my empty teacup down. “We have them leave.”
“Where would they go?” Azela asked.
I pondered that for a moment. We couldn’t bring every citizen of the city and the neighboring provinces behind the castle walls. It would trap them if we were defeated.
“The mountains,” Didra suggested, pointing at them on the map. “We tell them to leave and head between the mountains, through the pass to the sea.”
“The young and the elderly might not make it in the cold and over such treacherous terrain,” I said.
Mintale brushed his fingers over his moustache. “We could have the furbanes fly them over.”
“They don’t take well to strangers,” I reminded him.
He sighed, then sipped his tea as if it were a shot of liquor.
The wind roared against the windowpanes, rattling them. Snow flurries drifted through the air, floating toward the ground.
I wished Ainx was here. Practical, unflinching Ainx. I tapped my nails over the edge of the map where the Gray Sea sprawled. “So we bring the young and the elderly here. If trouble comes, we leave some soldiers to help them escape via the tunnels in the dungeon.”
“They were sealed half a millennia ago,” Mintale said.
“So we unseal them.” I sat back and steepled my hands.
