Threads of Emerald

Ropes of Fate: Chapter 32

No movement stirred in me as I recalled the memories. As they flashed before me, Rupert had come to sit on the bed, the mattress sinking under the weight of the monster who sat atop it.

Perhaps the two monsters who sat atop it, as no guilt seemed to press on me as I watched him study my face.

"I sent the letter to the Emerald Court that got your father killed, you know. I then got you sent to Cupraem. I had Ash Thindrel find the person who murdered my father in cold blood. Who left him to die in his own bed. Ash Thindrel got sent to Cupraem shortly after that, she tried to murder me and use me as blackmail to get my mother to withdraw troops from the Isles of Cassia. I sent for the guards the morning you went to watch your father executed, praying they caught you before you escaped. I wasn't sure why your father was working for my mother, but it was enough to have him killed", a dry laugh left his lips as shock and poison mingled in my brain and kept me rooted to the bed, "I didn't think killing you would be enough. I wanted you to die in Cupraem. But when I got home and told my mother I'd found the woman who had killed my father, I told her how I'd made you fall in love with me, how you had brilliant eyes of green and silver, and how I was thankful that the shadow man, whoever the hell that was, had kept you alive long enough for me to find you, she sent the guards there straight away. She told me that you were the only one who could locate the stone that had been hidden in the Emerald Kingdom. She never told me what the stone did."

He leaned in and kissed me. Not a kiss of love or affection. A kiss of ice and frozen rage.

My lips were wet, as if he had liquid on his lips. A small amount of movement returned to my body, my fingers and toes wiggling under the freezing sheets. An antidote, but barely a drop.

"I want you to be able to talk, to see if you have anything to say for yourself". His voice seemed to take a chunk out of my heart at the disdain and hatred in it.

I spat at him, even while a few tears slipped out.

"I don't regret it", I willed my heavy tongue to say, to form the words that would get me killed and finally end this misery.

He made no move to strangle me, or reach for the dagger that rested just below his pillow.

"He killed my mother's twin. He tortured her". Something like shock flitted in his sapphire eyes. I was surprised he could feel anything.

"Do you know who your mother is, Seraphina?".

At the confusion in my eyes, the light flavour that coated my tongue, he continued in that tone that raked talons all over my body, "Aethalia Volthame. The infamous spy. The only person to have escaped from a prison across the Kingdoms. She escaped from Cupraem you know. The Gods have a funny sense of justice, to put you in the same place your mother made history."

I was thankful for the numbness. I didn't want to feel anything as my mother's lies bled into the smoky air and rotted on my cold skin.

"She had been sent by Nyx Blade, the head of the Shadow Blades, if you're not familiar with them, they're a network of spies in the Amber Kingdom, to spy on the Lord of Tritonia. He was sent an anonymous note that told him that Aethelia Volthame was coming to spy on him for one of the Lords in the Onyx Kingdom, that she would pretend to be a messenger from the Emerald Court. He didn't dare kill her. No, Nyx Blade would have had his head for it."

Was this the betrayal mother and father had spoke about? Was Nyx Blade the anonymous messenger?

"He still tortured her twin. I don't care what in the hell my mother did. He deserved to die."

The iciness melted slightly from Rupert's face as he stood up and opened the window. A breeze swept in, cinnamon and spice and lemon whirling through the room. The Gods do have an odd sense of humour.

"So, are you going to kill me? Live up to your father's name? What was it again, I never bothered to ask", I thought of anything to provoke him, anything that would make him grab that dagger and slice it across my throat.

Perhaps Azuria would enjoy watching my blood stain these sheets as the Lord of Tritonia's did.

But before I could let that thought settle, a knife was at Ivor's throat.

Even though a part of me wanted to watch him die, I still screamed, "No!". That was definitely shock in Rupert's face as the blue cladded guard threw a bottle at me.

"It's antidote. Drink it, you're coming with me."

I necked the bottle. Praying it wasn't poison.

Sensation rushed through my body once more, unfreezing the ice in my veins, breathing life into my frozen heart, tying and rethreading the feeling back into my nerves once more.

But, a familiar darkness swept in, clouding my eyes in milky black. Darkness that didn't lunge for me, but swirled around me, hugging me in the comfort of nothingness.

I lunged for sweet oblivion, and fell into darkness once more.

But not the gentle darkness that reached out a hand to me, that had lived in that tiny vial of antidote.

The vicious darkness from the blade of the dagger I used to slit my throat.

The pain stopped.