The Princess of Terrasen

Ch. 16

Aella screamed, but she couldn't really hear it properly. She threw herself to the ground to catch him, feeling the impact echo in her bones. It was insignificant compared to the breaking bond in her mind, in her heart. 

"Oh gods" she moaned, trying to remove his hand from the wound so she could heal him

"Aella." Sebastian said, far too calmly for someone about to die.

Gods the roaring in her head was so loud as her magic flared, trying to heal him. But it recoiled, hissing it as it drew back. 

"Come on!" She grit her teeth, frantic, the mating bond between them stretching and stretching and fraying.

"Aella. It's alright."

It started to snap, little strings unravelling.

"Nonono Sebastian" she was screaming and she didn't know what she was saying, but it was all she could think as she tried healing him again and again, lowering her forehead to his and she was sobbing and every snap was so loud. 

She lifted him so his head was on her leg, her forehead to his, their tears mingling and falling, every drop an echo of the breaking bond.

"Sebastian please, please"

"Aiyra." his eyes were far too bright. But there was only love in his eyes. Such love that she couldn't help but scream hoarsely, and beg her magic, any gods that might be, to save him. "I love you. You know that right?"

Her mate. The only person in the world who saw her for the monster she was and loved her anyway. Her magic flared over and over, but it made no progress. Not a bit. So she threw her head back and roared her pain, her heartbreak, her uselessness and her love to the stars. She didn't want to say anything, because it would mean accepting that he was dying. But she couldn't stop herself. She wondered if a part of her knew she couldn't save him. 

Not this time.

"I love you more." she whispered against his lips "I love you more than anything. I love you more than the stars and the sun and anything on this waste of a world."

Aella's body shook with her sobs as he smiled faintly and said what she knew were his last words.

"I love you too, mate"

She leant down and kissed him, softly and slowly as the bond tore itself in half. Excruciating pain tore through her, the loss of him in her head left an empty space, stripping away everything that was good in her, every part of her that still fought against that monster in her chest, against her magic.

Sebastian was dead. 

Her mate was dead. 

A low snarl slipped through her lips, and it was purely lupine. 

Shana faltered and Aella barely registered that it was because she was now encompassed in cobalt flames so hot they burned through her clothes. 

Then she lunged.

The only sound in her head was a roar that demanded revenge. Revenge. Revenge against the woman who was responsible for his death. 

Deanna had known what would happen. She hadn't left Shana defenceless because even the destroyed gods knew nothing would stop her. Not that Aella particularly cared. She would kill her regardless. 

Her cadre stepped into the light, forgiveness and understanding on their faces. She knew Deanna had ordered them to stop her. 

She didn't care. 

They were in her way.

Despite their deadly skill and their extensive shields, Aella burned them from the inside out without a second thought, choking their airways as well. She didn't even stop to watch them die, didn't process that she had just killed the closest thing she had to family, just continued walking, Shana's throat spilling across the floor the only thing she could see. 

She was death incarnate. She was the end. She was vengeance. She was more powerful than any fae had a right to be. She was a force of nature. More than that. 

She was a god. 

She was infinite. 

Shana's companions were dead in two manoeuvres. 

She wondered if Deanna had ordered her to stop fighting, from all the way across the blue sea, from a throne of blood.

The command didn't even register. The tug that urged her to stop, stop, stop was barely more than a whisper in comparison to her rage.

To her insanity.

To her power.

The power of Mala and Mora, the two sister goddesses long since burned to death but whose power she felt in every waking moment.

Shana might've even tried to put up a fight. Aella didn't know. All she could hear was that roaring in her head, the roaring of wind in that empty darkness where her mating bond had been. 

But then she was spinning out of the way of Shana's daggers, scenting Shana's suppressed fear and laughing in delight before she stepped forward, parrying, using a disarming manoeuvre to get the daggers out of her hands and then she was tackling Shana to the ground as Shana's long nails scrabbled over her hands, leaving them bleeding. 

She raked a hand over Shana's face, an almost tender caress before she hooked her thumb into her eye socket and forced her eyeball outward. Her fae ears picked up the sound of nerves snapping before her eye simply rolled out.

Shana's scream rang so beautifully in her head. She pulled out a long hunting knife, trailing it down her chest, letting a thin line of blood blossom until she reached her stomach, plunging the knife in. 

"You're going to tell me the name of whichever organ I pull out, hm?" she muttered, Shana's terrified gasp bringing a smile to her face.

Forty five minutes later, when Aella's hands and skin were covered in blood, when the ends of her hair were red, she finally poked a small hole in Shana's lungs, letting them fill up with whatever blood was left in her body. She could hear Shana choking weakly as she stood.

Aella's clothes were ashes on the floor, but she didn't particularly care. She wouldn't. Not until Deanna was dead.

No one stopped her as she left. 

No one dared tempt the rage of the Fire Bringer.