Lifting it before me, I began to read.
“My true name was Keira Devenish, and I was the Princess of Caelisium. Raithian killed my entire family…” Stunned gasps rose in the air with every word I read, but I didn’t stop reading, the truth finally set free. “He will never stop. Not until he kills you all or Caelisium is destroyed. That is why I must now do something I wish I never had to do…
I beg you to kill the Warlock King, Braxton. You have to kill my father.”
For a moment, I just glanced at them, our people, hoping they could understand.
“I fell in love with Caelisium the second I set foot here. I fell in love with all of you, with the Dragons, with your customs, and everything you represent. Here, I discovered who I was meant to be and became the man my parents, and your late queen and king needed me to become.
I gave my heart to your queen, and I would give my life for any of you before I ever did anything that could hurt you. If you believe me, if you can see the truth in my words, in the scars that I share with many of you, then accept me as I am. If you believe Lachlan, you are free to leave with him… But know that if you follow him, you may never return.”
To my dismay, many stood, silently walking towards the exit of the arena. Far more than the five hundred who’d originally chosen Lachlan as his leader, forming the Battlesky Clan.
“No! Wait!” Evanna called after the masses, rushing to the front of the stage. “He’s telling you the truth. Braxton is telling the truth! Please… Please, don’t leave!”
In that moment, Evanna’s biggest fear was realized, and she saw everything her parents had built crumble before her… because of me.
Kingston had been right, me being Raithian’s grandson was the one thing our people could never forgive. That monster had taken far too much from them, and now, I reminded them of him.
“Please!” Evie pleaded again. “I swear to you it’s true—” A sob swallowed her words, and a hand flew to her chest, tightly gripping her dress as though she could keep her heart from ripping apart if she only held it tightly enough.
All strength left her as the sorrow finally took over and she stumbled, her knees suddenly giving out on her. Evie collapsed to the floor, her form shaking from the pain. The dam she had built around her when she lost her parents split open, letting out every emotion she’d ever repressed. Anything she’d concealed to remain strong for her people, the same people now abandoning her.
Willow fell on her knees beside her, taken down by the force when she tried to hold her best friend upright but failed.
The pain taking over the woman I loved was far too strong and devastating to be stopped. Not anymore.
Muscles strained along my jaw and chest with each step I took towards her, tears burning my eyes from the agony that captured my insides at seeing her like this. The worst part was I didn’t know what to do to help her. I had no idea what I could possibly say to make this better, and I feared nothing ever could.
Lachlan successfully turned our people against me, against their queen. His betrayal had shattered her into a million pieces, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
28
EVANNA
My vision blurred as the people my family had given everything for, even their lives, walked out on me.
Tears. Treacherous, vengeful, searing tears that burned my skin open as they fell, spilled from my eyes and no matter how hard I tried, I could no longer contain them.
“A queen has no time for tears…”
Amma’s words echoed in my mind, but it was too late to stop them. It was too late… They took over my being, reducing the warrior, the strong and capable woman I had fought so hard to become, to nothing.
I had failed my parents. I’d destroyed everything they built by thinking I deserved to be happy too. By putting myself first for once and thinking I could still protect them.
What had I done?
The stage suddenly swayed under my feet, and my knees hit the stone floor while my entire world crumbled before me. I had built a fortress around my heart. A fortress of steel to protect me so I would never have to feel the pain, the loss, and the overwhelming solitude that came with being who I was, ever again. I’d strengthened its walls every day for as long as I could remember, and here it was, broken.
I was broken. The strength I’d desperately clung to for so many years was gone.
As slow and torturous as rivers of liquid fire, all the buried pain and repressed sorrow I had imprisoned in the recesses of my being carved their way out of me until I no longer recognized my own voice. The deep, loud, and devastating cries that ripped out of my throat could not possibly be mine. The woman falling apart right now, hurt, and lost, with betrayal splitting her soul open couldn’t be me.
Yet, as sweltering, all-consuming, unbearable anguish coursed out of me, I wasn’t sure I would survive it.
Flashes of my past returned to haunt me while my body shook over the floor, unable to be controlled. My hands reached for the stone, looking for something to hold on but finding nothing. There was nothing anymore, it was all gone.
The memory of my Amma, wounded and bleeding, telling me my parents would never come back played before me, followed by the image of her saying goodbye and running towards Azazel, her body falling to her death in the abyss afterwards. I relived my warriors dying as we tried to save our people. Each funeral ceremony I had ever endured. Every friend I was ever forced to say goodbye to for the last time…
Penelope.
I was numb no more.
Shaking so hard I could no longer hold myself I gripped the edge of the stage, my cries sounding farther and farther away until all sound seemed to forsake me. I could no longer see my people leaving, I could barely breathe between sobs and the wailing of my shattered heart. I knew Willow was close, I felt Braxton’s presence near me, all trying to reach me, but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t let them.
How could Lachlan do this to me? After everything we had been through, after I had loved him like a friend…
Soft arms suddenly wrapped around me, sharing a warmth that only added to my pain because I recognized it, and it was something I hadn’t felt since my mother was taken from me.
Lifting my blurred gaze, I found an older woman holding me against her chest, her motherly embrace sending new tears to my eyes. It was Harriet, one of the silk-weaving sisters. Her husband had given his life fighting under my command, fighting for our freedom, and here she was, hugging me.
Her loss was also mine, the agony plunging my heart further into the darkness.
“Make it stop, please…” I begged. “I can’t-I can’t breathe. Please make the pain stop…”
“I cannot, my queen. You must feel it. We all must. It is the only way to come out on the other side,” she whispered, dragging a soothing hand along my hair like a loving mother would. “I am sorry, my queen. We never thought…”
Pausing, Harriet shook her head, her own tears falling.
“You were so strong that we never thought about the weight you carried. Now I know that just because we didn’t see you hurting, it didn’t mean the pain wasn’t there. I am truly sorry we did this to you.”
“We?” I asked, lips trembling, and she nodded, glancing at my arm.