A groan escaped her lips as her eyes fluttered open. Darkness swallowed everything in her sight and bit at her toes. Her neck hurt. Ugh. Where was she?
She pursed her lips and breathed once, twice. Memories that led up to here flashed back to her. Marin with a dagger to her neck. June, Reeca, Jarvik, and Nyxis being dealt with. Xanthy's surrender.
Her throat closed up. She cast her eyes around for any sign of anything. Chains clinked and bit at her wrists when she reached up to twist a lock of hair with her finger. Heartbeat pounded in her ears as she moved her feet to find them shackled to a pole, too.
How much time had passed she surrendered? Had Vikara attacked the Palace? Had her friends made it out?
Faint outlines of a chair, a desk, and drawn curtains ebbed in Xanthy's vision as her eyes adjusted. A dark robe stood beside the desk.
"Ah, I see that you are awake," the robe's feminine voice echoed along what sounded like stone walls.
Xanthy furrowed her eyebrows. Robes couldn't speak. Well, unless the Civil Knights hit her head a little too hard and she was now imagining things.
The robe chuckled. "Let me lighten things up for you, darling."
Lights flashed, burning the life out of Xanthy's eyeballs. Her arm shot up to shield her eyes, clinking the chains once more. A yelp tore out of her lips. She breathed. Silence.
Slowly, she removed her arm from her face and beheld the room with new eyes. The room's circular build distorted Xanthy's perception of what walls were supposed to look like. Her stomach churned. Circle walls. She's still in the Palace. Inside one of its numerous spired towers.
How much time did they have left? Oh, gods.
She strained her ears to catch the faintest sound of fighting outside but only the whisper of tranquil answered her. Vikara and her army weren't here yet? Perhaps, she still had time.
Natural sunlight was blocked by the velvet curtains drawn over a window large enough to fit a person. So where was the light coming from?
Someone cleared her throat, dragging Xanthy's attention past banners depicting Cardina's history as a nation. Xanthy eyes rested on a middle-aged woman dressed in a dark, tight dress, pushing away a rotting chair away from a desk cluttered with sheets of beige parchments. Were those...edicts?
Soles scratched against the stone floor as the woman approached Xanthy from where she was chained. Xanthy raised her eyes to meet the hard gaze bearing down on her. If Nyxis was female, middle-aged, and accepted the appearance of wrinkles, he might have looked like this woman.
"Who are you?" Xanthy forced her tongue to unstick from the roof of her mouth.
The woman touched the back of her elaborate updo. Were all Nobles and Royalty required to have this style? Ugh. "I am the Queen, if your little Disfavored brain the size of a cleret's still has not figured that out."
Xanthy wanted to point out that cleret, no matter where she hid her ajilte crops, would still find and eat them implying that they were smarter than what the Queen wanted to refer to. She pursed her lips and decided against it.
The Queen, huh? She didn't look like much despite what Disfavoreds knew her to be. Xanthy's skin prickled with another realization. So, this was the woman responsible for most of the miserable lives in that region? How vile.
Do not engage the Queen. Vikara had told Reeca. Technically, the human was talking to Reeca and the varichria was nowhere near this tower. It's fine. Or as fine as Xanthy liked to deceive herself to be.
Adresin's words before she was brought into this tower rang in her ears. The Queen wanted to speak to her? Xanthy narrowed her eyes. "What do you want?"
The woman raised an eyebrow. "Into business, immediately?" she chuckled. "Very well."
The Queen paced closer before crouching to Xanthy's eye level. Xanthy caught a whiff of perfume that smelled like snedil flowers. Her nose wrinkled. Damn, what a taste.
She titled Xanthy's head up, forcing Xanthy to look nowhere but the Queen's hard, scum-green eyes. The Queen's sharp nails threatened to pierce Xanthy's skin like a lethal knife. A smile broke out of the Queen's face to reveal straight, white teeth. "I want your legacy."
A stone dropped in Xanthy's gut. Vikara was right. People were really after her and her power. What seemed to be a thousand years ago, she would have agreed readily to be done with it. However, after seeing its capability, Xanthy resolved to not use it. She wouldn't let anyone get their way with it, either.
"What are you even planning to do?" Xanthy hissed against the Queen's grip.
The Queen, if possible, pressed her nails harder against Xanthy's throat. "I will do everything I can with it. Restore the Humans' might, obliterate the fairies, rule the entire island as a sovereign Human nation."
"You are insane," Xanthy spat.
A long time ago, Xanthy would have agreed. Her prejudiced brain would have even helped the Queen with her goals. But after spending weeks with fairies and half-bloods, seeing them with their normal lives, seeing them love, feel, and live the way Humans did, Xanthy realized that they're people, too. And people deserved to live. They deserved to be saved.
The Queen threw her head back. Her laugh bounced against the walls. "Maybe. Maybe so," she jerked Xanthy backwards. Xanthy's head hit a hard, wooden surface. Her vision doubled. The clink of chains was a loud ring in Xanthy's ears. The Queen's silky voice bled in her mind. "Did you enjoy that?"
Xanthy ran her tongue against the split on her lip. Apparently, she bit down on it too hard. "You will get nothing from me," she rasped. "My legacy is not up for negotiation."
The Queen drew away and tapped her chin as she straightened. "Hmm, let me hear you say that again once I deal with them," she grinned down at Xanthy. "One by one."
Xanthy's blood ran cold. No, the Queen didn't...
Too late. The Queen clapped her hands and Xanthy's friends materialized from thin air. Xanthy panted. Spatial manipulation. Magic.
Reeca, June, Nyxis, Jarvik, and Marin were chained to separate pillars. Unlike Xanthy, the chains wound around their bodies instead. They stared at Xanthy with wide eyes. Xanthy squinted. Were their lips glued together?
Chains tinkled as each of them fought against the bonds. Eyes blazed and grunts ensued. None seemed to have gotten close to freedom.
Xanthy turned to the Queen. "You promised," she hissed.
The Queen guffawed. It sounded like a striated ipleex. "What is a promise in the midst of war, darling?" she dropped her voice to a shrill whisper. "When you have to survive, you have to twist every ankle, break every bone, shoot any bird. That is just how the world works."
"What are you even surviving from?" Xanthy demanded. Her throat was scratched dry. The darkness, rather, the Virtakios, pounded against her soul. "You have everything!"
A fist whipped from the side of Xanthy's vision. Her cheek flared in pain as she was thrown sideways. The sound of a palm mitting skin resounded around the room, scaring the scuffling to silence.
Xanthy's vision swam. She watched blood drop from her lips to stain the pristine floor. Her jaw throbbed.
Beyond her, the Queen clenched her fists to her sides. Her face was red. "I have everything?" she scoffed. "What about your legacy? I do not have it!" the Queen started pacing. Strands of hair have broken free from her updo. "This world is as cruel as it is. Humans at the bottom of the food chain. Fairies are out to get us," the Queen jerked her chin at Xanthy's pointed ears. "It seems like since you are one of these fairy devils, you have taken their side."
"I have not taken any side!" Xanthy pushed herself up.
The Queen lunged. In a flash, she had Xanthy's hair in her steel fingers. Xanthy winced. Her scalp felt like it was being torn from her head. "This is war, child. You have to take a side or you will be killed."
A whimper escaped Xanthy's lips without her permission as real fear gripped her veins. Before Xanthy could think of a retort, the Queen shoved Xanthy away. She watched the monarch walk towards her chained friends. The Queen touched Jarvik's chains and the metal broke into a thousand pieces in a loud shatter.
Jarvik stumbled into the Queen's arms. Fight, Jarvik. Xanthy gritted her teeth, trying to rely that message. Knock the Queen down. Run.
Instead, the human froze as the Queen pressed a weapon at the base of his spine. Xanthy narrowed her eyes. Was that...?
"Oh, by the way," the Queen turned to Reeca's direction. "Thank you for this wonderful invention. I hear it is from you. Kymalin Iaro was kind enough to lend it to me."
Reeca grunted and flailed against her bonds to no avail. Her eyes were wild. Xanthy knitted her eyebrows. The name struck something inside her. Kymalin Iaro. Kymalin. Xanthy took a sharp breath. Kym.
That means that thing was...
The Queen pushed Jarvik to his knees a few feet from Xanthy. A click ensued from the weapon's barrel as the Queen released the safety. Xanthy's blood chilled. The flintlock. Dear gods. Their earlier conversation about the Synketros and their mission flashed back into Xanthy's mind.
You mean these could kill? Xanthy had asked.
Reeca's averted gaze. Yes.
Kill people...
"Erin, what are you doing?" Jarvik suddenly rasped.
Erin?
The Queen jerked Jarvik's collar back, making the human cough. "Call me by that name again and I will cut off your tongue," she snarled. "You had your chance, Jarvik. Instead you chose that witch."
Xanthy's eyes widened. Oh. So, it was that kind of story.
"Do not talk about Geradine," Jarvik hissed, fighting against the Queen, Erin's grip. "Is it not enough to have ordered her execution?"
Erin's eyes hardened as she pressed the barrel farther into Jarvik's scalp. "The fairies will not take anything more from me," she declared.
Xanthy's gut twisted. The entire campaign against fairies and their half-blood offspring, the truth about their neighbors fed to Xanthy, it was all from this woman's failed love-life? She had never felt so wronged in her sixteen years of toiling in this soil. The Virtakios raged to the surface of her skin. The darkness began eating at her consciousness again.
She shook her head. She would not yield.
"I will ask one more time, Xanthiene," Erin hooked her finger over the flintlock's trigger. "Give me your legacy."
Heartbeat banged against her chest and inflated her head with each strike. She will not shoot. The words ran over and over in her mind. She will not shoot.
She had to help Jarvik. Had to save her friends.
But she couldn't give her legacy to anyone. Not to Erin. Not to the Synketros. Fate chose her for this mission. Perhaps, it was fate's way of telling her to protect it.
A gunshot rang in the air. Xanthy screamed. Blood sprayed on the floor, on the Queen's robes. It splashed up to Xanthy's cheek. No, no, no...
Jarvik gritted his teeth. His hand braced the spraying wound on his shoulder. Marin was wailing behind them. Xanthy stared. This couldn't be happening.
She will not shoot. She will not shoot.
Well, she godsdamned did. How stupid could Xanthy get from here?
"Decide, Xanthiene," Erin's languid voice assaulted Xanthy's mind.
She couldn't. Lives shouldn't be a currency for trade. But if she didn't, Erin would shoot each of her captives until Xanthy gave in. Xanthy cursed. Vikara was right. Xanthy should have never marched into the Palace. She should have just entrusted the Draswists to June and Reeca.
They're her friends, were they not? Why didn't she trust them? Why couldn't she trust them? Tears pricked the corner of her eyes. Trust was a curse. She should have never met any of them. None of this would have happened if she stayed in her crumbling house.
"Xanthy, listen to me," Jarvik's weak voice forced Xanthy to look at him. "Stand by the Virtakios. Protect it."
Tears dropped from her eyes and scalded her cheeks. "I cannot do this to you," she sobbed. "What about the children?"
Jarvik smiled. "Take care of them for me," he smiled despite the threat to his life pressed against his head.
"I cannot do that," Xanthy shook her head. "You have to live on. Please."
"Answer me, Xanthiene," Erin yanked Jarvik's hair back and slammed the barrel to his throat. "Give me your legacy or he dies."
"Monster," Jarvik whispered through clenched teeth. "You are a monster, Erindriel."
Erin recoiled in shock but recovered with a better laugh. "Yes, Jarvik, I am a monster," she fingered the trigger. "And I will be the last one you will see."
Xanthy braced herself as Erin shoved Jarvik forward. His body slammed into Xanthy. He shivered. "Promise me you will be happy, Xanthy," Jarvik was whispering to her. She didn't— couldn't— answer him.
His arms wrapped around her shoulders in a warm embrace that no father ever gave her. Xanthy choked on her sobs. Her heart shook. Erin aimed the flintlock.
"One last chance," Erin hissed. "Give me your legacy or he dies."
"Just promise me, Xanthy," Jarvik muttered against her ear.
Xanthy's lip quivered. She couldn't...
"Time is up."
Erin fired. Once. Twice. Three times.
Xanthy may have screamed. Jarvik tumbled off her in a shower of blood. No! No...
Jarvik coughed. Xanthy pressed her hands on his wounds. "I will save you, Jarvik. You will see your children grow old. You will get out of here. Hang in there. Please. Gods," she summoned her magic to the surface. "Rectify," she chanted. Nothing happened. Red flowed in rivers. "Rectify," she tried again.
Nothing.
"Rectify! Rectify!" Xanthy screamed. Her magic flowed freely but healing nothing. "What is wrong?"
Jarvik gripped her wrist. Weakly. "I guess there are some things magic cannot fix," his eyes fluttered. No, no. Wake up. No. "Promise me you will be happy."
"Stop talking about that!" Xanthy yelled at no one. She tried again with her magic. Nothing happened. Wounds remained wounds.
"I guess this is farewell," Jarvik smiled with the last of his strength. A single tear fell from his eyes. "Fare you well, Xanthiene. It was nice...spending time with you."
With that, his grip on Xanthy's wrist loosened. Xanthy barely heard the empty thud of his arm as it fell. Erin's laugh blurred in her ears. Marin's screams didn't register.
Promise me you will be happy.
Jarvik's last words. Xanthy was there— in his last grip, witnessing his final breath. He didn't get to hear her answer because she didn't give it to him.
How pathetic. What a cruel twist of fate.
Sobs shook her shoulders as she bent down and laid her forehead against Jarvik's body void of any warmth. Her tears mixed with the blood pooling around her. A trail gone cold. A life wasted. All because of her.
Promise me you will be happy.
She couldn't...not in a time like this. Even in the face of death, Jarvik thought about her happiness. This was so unfair.
Still, she has to answer. So, she wiped her tears with the back of her hand and forced herself to look at Jarvik's unmoving frame. "I will..." she choked. "I will try."