Threads of Emerald

Ropes of Fate: Chapter 30

Crius

I was late. I'd never been late in my life, but Nefta had summoned me to her room and if I didn't go, it'd raise suspicions.

The way the light spilled across the bone-white corridors seemed to spark something in my hollow chest. I rarely thought of Aillard, the older brother who'd body I'd found at the bottom of the Roping River in Lusara all those years ago, along with a note telling me why he'd taken his own life. The only one who'd called me by my first name, Izles. Crius had been father's choice for my middle name. I wasn't quite sure how or why the world had decided to call him by my middle name. But, in a way I was thankful for it. As if I'd given Aillard a piece of himself, so much more precious given how few people knew it.

The gentle rays of sunlight seemed to be a beacon of hope. Hope. Something I hadn't felt since the morning light had filtered through the bloodied blue hair as his body was dragged from the river.

That was the moment I'd cast away all those I loved in my life. Love. Love had driven him to suicide. Love for a girl who didn't deserve him, who had seen him as a pretty charm she could add to her bracelet of conquests. I often wondered if she felt like a Goddess now. She'd destroyed the Prince of the Emerald Kingdom, so thoroughly and completely.

I prayed she never realised how thoroughly and completely she'd destroyed me too.

The boy who had loved life, now consumed by darkness and anger, the boy such a stranger to me. As if he'd been thrown into a dark cell and no light could find him.

But, I'd tried to be a beacon of hope once more. I'd got Aphina and her mother, Isabella, to safety.

I just hoped that I could get Seraphina to safety as well.

The west wing was quiet, General Lanthys was in his deep black armour guarding the entrance to the Queen's Private Residence.

I wondered where the Warden was. Theodore, was his name.

And Ivor. Ivor, who had kissed Seraphina like the world was going to end at that god-awful dinner party.

I wondered how they knew each other.

And now, I wondered why General Lanthys was handing me a note, rather than opening the doors to the over-perfumed suite.

Crius,

I'm sorry that I'm responsible for you missing your date with Seraphina and for making you come all this way to get the note.

You are to have left the Palace by dawn tomorrow or you'll be thrown out.

Do not come looking for her. You might have been able to get Aphina and Isabella to safety, but Seraphina killed herself this morning.

Nefta.

The ground seemed to slip from under me, as if the pristine white floors had opened to the bowels of Hell or what other awful place he'd lived in for the two years since my brother had been gone.

I didn't believe it, Nefta was stabbing one of her ornately decorated swords into my gut , watching as it twisted and trist.

She was alive because the symbol on my arm still gleamed under the peachy light of the dying fire. A five pointed star with a detailed black crown in the centre, ink so dark it couldn't have been natural and a bursting star of such glistening purple it must have been to represent an amethyst stone that sat in the centre of it, the top spike of the star jutting up through the material like a sword through the air.

I would not be responsible for Aphina and Seraphina losing each other too.