“Aeylia, what—what happened here?” Niyx whispered, having apparently followed her from the cliffs.
She turned to see his whitened face, his gaping, horror-struck expression as he took in the mindless, violent carnage in front of them.
It was then that she knew.
He’d had nothing to do with it.
She stared as the realisation washed over her. Niyx may have been Aven’s best friend, he may have supported Aven, gone to the Garseth meetings, been a constant by Aven’s side… But he’d had nothing to do with the deaths of the humans. He didn’t even believe in the anti-mortal cause, if his earlier words were true.
Niyx was… He was innocent.
And yet, in her future, he’d been imprisoned for thousands of years.
“I’m sorry, Niyx,” Alex said to him in a whisper. “But I have to break my promise.”
He was too stunned by the gruesome scene before them to take notice of her words, to even turn away from the sight of crimson spilling into the myraes-lit city street.
All around them the masked Meyarins were still screaming and running, crying and shouting, but Alex ignored them all to focus on what needed to be done.
Given his closeness to Aven, Niyx would eventually end up imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, but she would do everything in her power to give him a head start before the Zeltora began to track down Aven’s known accomplices. It was the least she could do after everything he’d done to help her. He was not her enemy—not now, not in the future. She knew that now.
“I’m sorry, Niyx,” she whispered again. Sorry for so, so much.
“What happened here?” he asked again, finally dragging his eyes to hers.
Knowing secrecy didn’t matter anymore, Alex answered with one word: “Aven.”
Niyx reared back in disbelieving shock. Alex watched his face contort into a painful mixture of emotions: devastation, anger, sadness; both surprised and strangely not surprised at what his friend was capable of when pushed. Then, with the purple of his eyes standing out vividly against the black of his mask, he whispered, “The Meyarin in your future. The enemy of yours—the one who Claimed you, who wants to destroy the world…”
Alex nodded, the truth settling like a vice against her chest. “Yes, it’s Aven. That’s who you were training me to fight. That’s who I need to defeat to keep that vision from coming true.”
Niyx looked as if his world had just crashed around him. “How could he—Why would he—How could he—”
“I’m sorry, Niyx,” Alex said for the third time. “But for what happens next, you shouldn’t be anywhere close to here. You should get away, as far and as fast as you can. Trust me on that. It won’t—” Her breath hitched, but she caught the sob before it could escape. “It won’t make much of a difference, but it might make some.”
“Aeylia—”
“Don’t follow me, Niyx.” Despite her whispered words, her voice was firm as she broke her promise to not give him an order against his will. She felt the tugging between them, and tears welled in her eyes at his anguished, knowing look.
“Aeylia, what—”
Before he could finish his broken question, she reached forward and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close for a tight, desperate embrace. “I’m so sorry, Niyx,” she whispered one last time into his ear—sorry for everything he would go through, sorry for everything she couldn’t protect him from. “But this, at least, is one promise I can keep.”
As he stiffened in her arms, she silently summoned A’enara behind his back, slicing the blade along the scar at her palm. She was so numb that she barely felt the pain as she pulled back and, quick as a flash, reached for Niyx’s hand, her blade carving open his flesh. His eyes widened in understanding and he tried to break free, but it was too late. Alex had already joined their bloodied hands together—red and silver.
Trae Gaverran sae, she whispered into his mind, the power of the words flowing between them. With tears of apology, regret and fear in her eyes, she gave her final order to him aloud as well. “I Release you, Niyx.”
As if the line tugging between them was suddenly cut, Alex felt the link that had connected them start to uncurl with the Release of her Claim on him.
His expression was ravaged as he looked down at her. “Aeylia—”
She wouldn’t let herself wait to hear whatever he was going to say. She knew the words would kill her, just as she knew she needed to get inside the palace to find Roka. History told her that Aven and his Garseth took off after their slaughter before onlookers could capture them, but she knew he would soon be found and brought before the king, and when that happened, she had to be prepared.
… Because after he offered a feigned apology for his actions, he would then try to kill his father and brother.
D.C. had said their deaths were only avoided thanks to the arrival of the guards, but looking around at the mayhem in the streets, Alex guessed that might not be an accurate retelling. She was the only one who understood the threat Aven posed to his family. She was the only one who knew to stop him before he could do more harm.
“Don’t follow me,” she whispered again to Niyx. While he was no longer bound to follow any new commands, that one was given before she’d Released him and would remain in effect, hopefully giving him a fighting chance to stave off his inevitable imprisonment for as long as possible.
With one last look at his tortured face, she spun on her heel and took off into the palace.
Alex sprinted up the spiral towers, passing traumatised Meyarins along the way. She didn’t slow, not even when she sailed by Kyia who had her arms around a shell-shocked Niida, both looking up just in time to catch the blur of Alex running by. The queen’s sorrowful golden eyes told Alex she knew Aven was responsible—that her worst nightmare had come true. But it was Kyia’s emerald gaze that almost caused Alex to stumble in her near-flying steps, because the Meyarin’s focus was locked onto the blood of the scratch on Alex’s face. Too panicked to care about hiding her mortality anymore, Alex didn’t stop, ignoring Kyia when she choked out a sound of shocked alarm.
Alex! Talk to me! What’s going on down there?
Running through the palace, Alex realised she had been so lost in her own fear that she’d not heard Xiraxus screaming for her attention ever since she’d left the Golden Cliffs. Now heading up the grand staircases towards the throne room, she called back, Aven just killed the humans, Xira! They’re dead! And it’s all my fault!
A stunned silence reached her before he replied, I’m almost at the city, Alex. We can’t wait for tomorrow—we need to get you back to your time now, before anything happens to you.
I have to save Roka and Astophe first, she said, nearing the throne room. I have to—
She broke off when the sound of a struggle reached her ears, along with the shouted yells, “I’m not with him, you kregons! I’m the one who caught him—I brought him to you! Prince Roka just told you to let me go—so let me go!”
“It doesn’t matter that you’re not a traitorous Garseth; you’re still a wanted criminal,” came a grunting reply as the struggling sounds continued. “We’ll lock you in Taevarg and deal with you once this situation with the prince is under control.”
As Alex rounded the corner and reached the hallway leading to the throne room, she came to a sliding stop at the sight of Zain fighting not one, not two, but six Zeltora, trying to free himself from their hold.
“Aeylia! What—”
Alex spun around at Kyia’s voice, the female Meyarin having chased after her. But she didn’t have time to deal with Kyia right now, nor did she have time to deal with Zain—and that was because she’d heard his shouted words: ‘I’m the one who caught him—I brought him to you!’
Aven was already in with the king. And so was Roka, according to Zain’s other exclamation. If Alex didn’t hurry…
“Help him!” she screamed at Kyia, pointing to Zain. “I need to get past them!”
She wasn??
?t sure whether it was the shrill sound of her panicked voice or the terrified look she was certain she wore, but for whatever reason, Kyia decided to trust Alex, tearing off down the corridor to defend Zain against the Zeltora and clear a path for Alex to break through.
Knowing her two friends could handle themselves, Alex advanced forward until she reached the double doors into the throne room, bursting through them and skidding to a halt.
Her breath came out in gasping pants as she took in the sight before her: Astophe lying face down on the ground, silver liquid leaking from his back and staining his formal clothes; Roka struggling against Aven, trying to hold his brother back but weakening by the second from the blood gushing out of his femoral artery.
At the sound of Alex’s entrance, Aven leapt up from where he was crouched over Roka, the sword he held dripping silver to the floor.
What little breath remained in her lungs fled at the murderous expression on his face.
“You!” he bellowed. “You did this!”
“Aven,” Alex wheezed out, hands raised in supplication. “Please.”
“They wouldn’t listen to me.” He slashed his blade violently towards his father and brother. “They wouldn’t listen when I told them what you’d done, what you were. They were more concerned by what happened to those vermin out there.” He hissed his last words, throwing his hand to indicate the bloodied streets beneath them. “They didn’t even care that a mortal had been lying to us for weeks, betraying us, for weeks.”
“I didn’t betray you,” she whispered.
“I fell for you!” he screamed, his eyes molten gold. “I actually thought—” He broke off with a strangled sound, raised a knuckle to his mouth as if needing to bite back his words.
“When I came in here,” he said, his voice lower, but still simmering with fury, “my own father wouldn’t believe me about you, didn’t care about you, not after what my Garseth and I had done to his precious mortals. But Roka—my dear brother—” Aven spat the word, mercilessly stamping his boot down on Roka’s wound and eliciting a desperate cry of pain from the downed prince. “He already knew.”
Alex’s stomach clenched as she jolted forward, only to freeze again at the look Aven levelled her. All she could do was watch with muted shock as the white-faced Roka tried to rise only to collapse on his blood-spouting leg with another muffled groan.
“He knew the filth you were and he never told me,” Aven hissed. “The person I trusted most in this world—he just watched, laughing, as I fell for a disgusting mortal.”
“Aven—”
“Shut your mouth, human!” Aven roared, taking a threatening step forward, only to halt again. He inhaled loudly and rolled his neck as if to compose himself. “The only way to ensure our glorious city remains free of your infestation is if I sit on the throne.” He pointed to Astophe and Roka again. “They have to die. For the sake of Meya, I’ve done what was needed. And having intimately experienced the deceit you disgusting mortals are capable of, I would do it again in a heartbeat, if you hadn’t already ripped mine to shreds with your betrayal.”
Alex caught a sob in her throat. The Aven in front of her wasn’t the one she had come to know in the past, but nor was he the one she knew in the future. The Aven of her time had spent years channeling his rage, sharpening his focus into calculated strategy. But this Aven was spitting fire, blinded by an animalistic bloodlust. If he’d only stop for a moment, he would realise that everything he’d said—none of it made sense. The mindless killing of mortals. The murdering of his own family. These weren’t the actions of someone who had been betrayed or rejected. They were the actions of someone who had stepped over the edge of sanity, someone who was too far gone to come back to reason.
It was only because she realised she was dealing with a very different kind of danger—a very different Aven to the menace she knew in the future—that Alex was prepared to react when faced with what he did next.
“The king will be dead in moments,” he whispered, a feverish expression on his face, his gaze unfocused. “As will my brother.”
And with an upward swing of his arm, his sword slashed down towards the now barely conscious Roka, aiming straight for his heart.
The blade didn’t make contact though, and that was because Alex leapt forward, summoning A’enara in a burst of fire to meet his strike mid-air.
Aven’s teeth snapped at her, the intensity of his fury sending a tremor down her flaming arms.
“No mortal will deny me of what is rightfully mine,” he stated fiercely. “Least of all you.”
And that’s when he turned to her fully, lashing out with his sword.
Reacting on instinct and trusting what she’d learned from Niyx, Alex met Aven thrust for thrust, over and over again, not allowing herself to think beyond the next parry, the next deflection, the next lunge. He was competent, very competent, but his skills hadn’t yet been honed by thousands of years like the Aven of the future. And that gave Alex an edge over him—or at least put her on somewhat equal footing. With every attack she managed to defend against and with every offence of her own, his eyes widened more and more at the realisation that she was fighting him not as a mortal, but as a Meyarin.
And when his shock overcame him so much that with one heaving sideways slash she was able to force the sword from his hands to clatter across the room, he stood gaping at her, only to roar, “WHAT ARE YOU?”
It was then that Alex did something stupid. Something so damn stupid. And it happened because the doors to the throne room were flung open, revealing the fight-rumpled Zain and Kyia—Kyia who, with fear flooding her features, bolted for Roka, just as Zain moved to the king’s side, bellowing for the guards they’d likely just sent scrambling. But when those guards surged into the room, they were so stunned by the scene that they froze. They only managed to leap into action when another group of Meyarins stormed into the room—a handful of Rebels who Alex recognised from the midnight meeting at The Scarlet Thief—and it was then that all hell broke loose as swords went flying between Garseth and Zeltora, with Kyia and Zain jumping up to join the guards.
It was in watching all this that Alex had stupidly, stupidly taken her eyes off Aven, giving him the opportunity to make his move against her unguarded self.
Before she knew it, he was upon her, his hands covering hers as they wrestled over A’enara. She struggled against him, watching agony fill his face as the flames seared into his flesh; but pained or not, he didn’t loosen his hold.
Exerting a force stronger than anything she could defend against, he shoved their grappling hands in a downwards arc faster than Alex could stop. The momentum was too much for her to stave off, and with a sickening squelching sound, the ice-coloured blade slashed down…
… and drove violently into her stomach.
Alex sucked in a choking gasp, the pain instantly flooding her body as she hunched over in shock.
ALEX! Xiraxus screamed in her mind, followed by the distressed roar of the draekon rumbling outside, echoing across the city like a clap of thunder.
There was no way she could respond to him. Not when she was blinded by shards of lightning tearing through her middle; not when she was drowning for air, barely able to draw hacking, wet breaths into her lungs.
She sank to her knees, and as she did so, Aven lowered himself with her, his hands still over hers at the hilt of the blade lodged in her abdomen.
In the back of her mind, Alex wondered how long it would take before Kyia and Zain helped the guards overcome the Garseth, how long before anyone realised she was on her knees at Aven’s mercy. But since she could still hear the clashing of swords ringing in an eternal echo, she knew no one would reach her in time. She was on her own.
Struck with the realisation that she was going to die, Alex couldn’t do anything when Aven released one of his hands and raised it to her face, peeling the mask from her skin and casting it aside. He stared deeply into her eyes for a long moment, his bloodied-red fingers cupping he
r cheek in a mocking caress, before he leaned forward to whisper in her ear, “I swear by the stars that you and the others slain tonight will be the first of many. Of that you have my word.”
And then with a brutal heave he yanked A’enara from her flesh, causing her to double over and collapse at his feet, her body convulsing as her hands weakly pressed against her fatal wound.
“No mortal was ever intended to wield this blade,” Aven said, rising to stand and looking pitilessly down at her from above. “You, at least, will never taint it with your filth again.”
He then looked away from her, taking in the chaos of the Zeltora battling the Garseth, a muscle clenching in his jaw at the realisation that he wouldn’t be able to finish what he’d started with the king and Roka. He released a furious, frustrated snarl and spun on his heel, sliding A’enara into the empty scabbard at his waist. The weapon was bonded to Alex, so it wasn’t his to summon—yet—and she knew that if she had the strength to lift her hand she would be able to call it back into her possession, keeping it from him and the unspeakable things he would go on to do with it. But with her vision fading alarmingly fast and her now numb body suffocating for oxygen, all she could do was watch him sprint away with her weapon in tow. The moment he was outside the throne room’s wards she knew he would activate the Valispath and flee from the city, from his home, from the place he wouldn’t see again for thousands of years, not until Alex herself helped him to return.
With a gagging, heaving, sobbing sound, Alex rolled over, staring unseeingly up at the opulent ceiling of the throne room as she hazily contemplated the vicious cycle of time, the utter irony of the cosmic joke that was her life.
It was just as her ears began to deafen and darkness spread across her vision that the doors flew open once more and in stumbled Niyx, his hands pressed to his bleeding stomach, his eyes wild in search of Alex amid the chaos.
“Niyx, you traitorous Garseth!” Zain yelled, fighting three Rebels at once. “You’ll pay for what you’ve done—just like the rest of your friends!”
Niyx ignored him and staggered over to Alex, reaching down to draw her gently up into his arms. “You, kitten, are going to be the death of me.”