I finally allowed Lord Otto’s second to find me early the next afternoon. I was sitting just outside the rock door at the very top of the mountain, holding my mind silent. Even hunting didn’t help me. I finally just tried to shut my mind off.
A guard stepped up behind me. “Candidate, everyone has been looking for you. Lord Otto told me not to come back until I found you. He instructed me to tell you that dinner is ready, and once I found you, to fetch your—”
“Stop. Fetch whomever you have to. I will be at the table in twenty minutes.”
He bowed and disappeared back through the door.
Pausing just long enough to make sure my legs would actually carry me, I descended into the stronghold. I hefted the sword I’d kept on my lap, eventually letting it fall to the side, held lightly in my hand.
I took exactly twenty minutes to reach the door where I knew the overlords took their meals and tried again to turn off my brain. It was a futile gesture.
I couldn’t open the door, my hand hovering over the doorknob.
I could smell the meal they had laid out inside. It was succulent, and I was sure that Lord Pippin had gone out of his way to create something completely and amazingly mouthwatering. I didn’t want to know what was on that table, but it was easy to tell he had cooked pheasant and wild rice. Neither of which I would ever have again—this moment scarred into my brain.
The door still didn’t open by my hand.
Voices floated, buzzing in and out.
I could hear the easy conversation between Nial and— I pulled up short, my fingers now digging into the doorknob. He was speaking to her.
I hated Nial even more at that moment. I didn’t think that was even possible, but I did. I ratcheted up to loathing and made a note to extract my anger from his hide at some point in the near future. Even if this weren’t his fault, I’d take it out on him.
I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath.
Quick. I promised Lord Belshazzar quick.
I owed it to all three of us.
I pushed the door open and stepped into the room. The sounds and smells overwhelmed me for a moment. Just for a heartbeat, I almost turned and ran and became rogue. Just one heartbeat.
“Nice of you to finally show up,” Nial said.
“I told you Lord Otto’s man would find her,” she said with a grin. “Come on, Gwen. The food is going to get cold.”
Everything felt as if I were underwater. Doubt and confusion swirled around me, tripping me. I caught myself, slamming the door and circling the table as if to take the seat next to her.
The overlords watched me keenly, and their two witnesses, Felicia, a general of the warrior forces, and Melchior, the chief strategist—both clearly confused as to why they were there.
Nial peered at me, and it was almost as if he could see what was in my heart and mind.
His eyes cracked yellow for just a flash of a moment.
Speak her name. One last time.
I opened my mouth, and choked, “Adelie, this is what we wanted. I love you always. Please forgive me.”
I didn’t hesitate. The time was now.
My blow…was swift and sure.
Adelie didn’t even have a chance to turn and look at me before my sword cleaved her head from her shoulders. It was a stroke I’d learned years ago, to make sure that death was instant, none of that lingering bullshit. The head of full, beautiful red hair, curly and styled, dropped forward and landed on her own lap. The blood flowed from her neck, covering her favorite shirt with horrid crimson. I couldn’t see her face as the life flowed out of her, soaking the hair.
I held my stance for entirely too long, watching the last of my friend drip to the floor.
Blood is life.
Blood was also death.
I stabbed the sword into the table and finally broke my numb stare, pinning each overlord with a red glare that I wished could pierce their flesh.
I hissed, “It’s done.”
I marched out. I slammed the door.
I ran.
“Gwynnore,” Nial stated, cool and unruffled.
I wasn’t answering. It wasn’t enough time.
It would never be enough time.
“Gwynnore.”
I needed time. So much more time to deal with what I had done because of the law. I knew Adelie would have approved, but I would never know for sure because I wasn’t even allowed to take her blood. All of her memories, all of her knowledge, flowed out of her, on to her clothes and dripped into pools on the floor.
I hoped each one of those assholes sat there and stared at her dead, headless body.
Hiding in my apartments, stealing through the halls, running through the mountains, hunting in the forest, none of it quelled the guilt that I bore. Adelie had been my best, and sometimes only, friend my whole life.
And I had chopped her head off.
Maybe in the afterlife, she understood what I had done, why I had done it.
The crown was my everything.
Had it been worth her life?
Had I passed their fucking trials?
“Gwynnore.”
I turned my head and found Nial standing with Cato and Lord Belshazzar behind him.
“Go away,” I growled.
Lord Belshazzar explained with cool calm, “The Monitor of Challenge is satisfied that the conditions of this Challenge were met above and beyond satisfaction.”
“Oh, fuck you!” The scream echoed through the rooms. “Screw you. Screw your Challenges. I’ve proven what I’ll do. Don’t come at me with your Monitor of Challenge shit.”
Couldn’t he be a little caring?
I didn’t understand the ancient lord at all.
“You’ve passed, Gwynnore,” Cato said. “You’ve won the crown.”
I swallowed all the words I wanted to hurl at him.
This was what I wanted.
This was what I had fought for my whole life, trained for, sacrificed everything for.
I won.
I was the queen.
I could almost hear my friend’s voice through the dead silence of the rock. We did it, Gwen. We did it. All that work, and it’s finally yours.
The thought of Adelie’s pride was what finally compelled me to smear the tears from my face. I’d had my four days of mourning, and part of me would always remember what it took to get the Black Heart on my hand. An almost ironic name that I fully believed everyone in this room really understood. Steeling myself, I pushed up off the chair I had been curled into, weeping and screaming for the past twenty-four hours.
I was the queen.
I straightened my spine and turned to the door where the three of them stood. And in the next second, they went to one knee, genuflecting to me.
To me.
I’d won.
The emergency teams were rushing toward the temple’s campus as I ran away from it.
I realized I was wearing ordinary temple clothes and that was bad. I could be easily identified by whoever had blown up the building.
Once I was away from the parkland that was around the temple campus, I ducked into a small alley and paused to collect myself.
The building had come down around us.
I’d found Tymon and Dorian.
Elex was going to be fine.
I had to get back to the cave. Even though I still didn’t like Dorian, I trusted him. And I had to trust that he knew what he was talking about with my safety.
This was the second time he had put my life above his.
What was that all about?