Elara's POV
The Witch Queen's magic tightened around me and yanked me to my knees. I bit my lip and swallowed the pain, the taste of defeat a bitter tang on my tongue.
"How could you, Mother? You betrayed me!" I hissed, boiling with rage and anger and bitterness.
"Silence!" She snapped and I seethed.
A hot-headed moment and my decision to rebel, I was so close to finally yanking the human King's black heart from his chest before the Witch Queen intercepted. I fixed my eyes on his weathered face and wanted nothing more than to reach through the space between us and finish what I started. My loyalists lay dead or dying around me, butchered by the humans. Humans! Every time I glimpsed the lifeless bodies littering the garden, my breath choked with guilt. I led them to their death. Every breath was pain in my veins as the guilt suffocated me, thick and unacceptable. To mourn a witch's death was a taboo, especially ones that died for a cause they believed in... a cause they took on because of me. Their faces would haunt me for ages, I knew. Astra, Gynnie, Serrine and the other young witches that I had been considering elevating to be My Thirteen, my inner circle that would fly with me, fight with me and die for me if need be. Except I led them to their death centuries too early.
Iron nails shot out from my fingertips, burying themselves into my fist while the ground eagerly drank my blood. All of their sacrifice was for naught, we failed- I failed. I couldn't avenge my sister.
"She broke our treaty and tried to kill me." The King ground out.
"And you hid under the Queen's protection spell like a spineless twat." I hissed, poison coating my every word.
"Elara!" The Queen snapped.
"He killed Seris!" I growled, angry that they did not call this assembly when my sister was massacred by vile, evil humans. Not before I tracked the group of eight men down in the middle of the night, the storm my perfect cover as I made them beg for their lives. And yet my rage did not abate, the raw pain in my chest did not wane. It wouldn't, not until I wrenched their wretched King's head from his neck. "Why would you defend him? Will you watch the humans pick us off one after the other until you are the only one left?!"
"Be quiet!" The Queen hissed, her magic biting into my skin. The Queen's legendary Thirteen, the Dreadflight stiffened and rustled as one, eyes narrowed on me and I knew it would only take a nod of approval from the queen before they descended on me and ripped me to ribbons for my insolence. Despite myself, I was chilled. The twelve infamous witches weren't called The Dreadflight for fun, when they flew as one, rivers ran red and the lands flowed with blood. The Witch Queen sent me an icy glare and turned to the king. "I take full responsibility for her actions, she is maddened with grief."
"Her actions cannot be forgiven." The King said with finality. "You know the punishment for treason."
Death. I sucked in a sharp breath, the noise in my ear quieting to stillness.
"Perhaps we can reach an agreement." The Witch Queen said. "I believe we can both benefit from keeping her alive."
"What benefits could I get from letting such a powerful witch live when she wants me dead? You saw what she did to my soldiers! She flayed them alive!" The King growled, enraged.
I fought my smile and failed, recalling the sounds of their screams in my ear when I plunged my iron nails in their guts and turned them inside out. The human King saw my face and growled.
"She dies." He declared.
"I believe you might grow to regret such a hasty decision." The Witch Queen insisted and he paused, obviously sensing a line drawn. The Witch Queen smiled, softening the tension. "Our peace treaty is still so new, humans and witches are only just beginning to tolerate each other's existence. Just months ago, Elara's sister was cornered and killed by humans out of sheer hatred. A daughter of one of the Matron bloodlines, butchered like deer."
More blood seeped into the stone floors as my nails dug deeper into my flesh, the pain grounding me from the familiar searing pain deep in my chest. I wanted to yank out the beating organ and crush it, anything to stop the pain and the guilt and this overwhelming sense of failure. It was I that should have been on that long road, my sister went in my stead and it was I that found her body. I swore my oath over her lifeless body that I would take their wretched king's life with my own hands and I failed. My head hurt and if witches were capable of tears, I would be sobbing, begging The Witch Queen to end my life and my misery.
"If you execute Elara now, then some witches may perceive it as you having no value for our lives nor sympathy for our plights." The Witch Queen said and the human King paused. "Mercy on the other hand, will be the first stone in the foundation of trust we are trying to build."
"Take a look at her, does she look like someone repentant for her sins?" The King still fumed. "What is the guarantee that she will not try to kill me again? What if she succeeds then? Because of this- this- mercy!"
"Elara has had her fun." The Witch Queen's voice hardened and her stony glare dared me to say otherwise. "She will swear it now that her attempts on your life have ended with the failure of this one."
I pressed my lips together and glared back at her, every inch of me rebelling against saying those words. Let go of my revenge? Never! My hatred was a living being boiling my blood and clawing at my skin. I burned to let it out, to let it devour the world raw and she would rather have me swallow it down?
"Elara, swear it!" She hissed and her magic burrowed into my skin, infecting my blood and gunning for my heart. She would kill me right here if I didn't say it, despite whatever soft spot she'd had for my mother that urged her to go easy on me.
"I swear it." I choked, coughing out blood and her magic released me with a sigh. My stomach heaved and I threw up more blood.
"There."
"No." The King insisted. "She may keep her life but I cannot allow her to go scotfree."
"Who said anything about going scot-free?" The Witch Queen drawled. "I know the perfect punishment, she will be sent to the outskirts to serve Prince Kian."
"What?!" I gasped, sure I heard her wrong. Horror washed over my spine, there was a loud ringing in my ears and I knew that once it stopped, I might detonate, might go into a maddened killing frenzy and kill and kill until the queen herself took me out. "Serve The Cursed Prince?" I asked. "Me? Serve a human?" I seethed. "Never! I would rather die!"
"Silence!" The Witch Queen stood in all of her glory, towering over the human King as she crossed to me while I shook on my knees, begging her silently. I would move mountains, call rain and hail, starve for a hundred days rather than serve a human... serve the same cowardly, pathetic breed that stole my Sister's life. "It has already been agreed."
The King seeing my horror finally smiled. "Yes. It has." He agreed.
~~~
Trussed up and sent as a tribute to The Cursed Prince, I sat stiffly in the carriage, seething with rage. The Witch Queen did not even spare me the time it would take to properly burn the witches that died for my cause and send them off the Otherland. She had tapped her nails impatiently as she waited while I darted around, refusing to leave until I had fetched tiny belongings from the dead witches and imprinted their faces in my mind. That was on me, every single eye that stared aimlessly into the skies was evidence of my failure.
"Safe crossing, Sisters." I whispered before straightening.
There was no entourage to welcome me at the human prince's abode of course, this was just a humiliation show disguised as peacekeeping. Good, I hated crowds anyway.
I jumped down from the carriage, ignoring the terrified flinches of the human guards as I stalked for the tall castle walls. The scent of their fear whet my appetite for blood and I wondered if they realized they had just invited death incarnate into their home.
I shoved the door apart, nearly hitting a fat, quivering butler with the edge as I took a whiff of the air, tasting it on my tongue. It tasted frigid and tinged with magic and my brows rose in question, who would have thought that the Cursed prince dabbled?
"This way." The pale butler said and I brushed past him, ignoring his pathetic efforts. The scent of power was strong and I followed it to a door and threw it open.
A young man looked up from the desk surprised. "Who the fuck are you and how dare you barge into my study unannounced?!"
I paused, assessing him from head to toe. He had a temporary squint from peering into papers for a while but the thick corded muscles on his body proved he lived anything but a clergy lifestyle. I scoffed and approached him.
"I knew a welcome ceremony would be outrageous but one would think you'd have the bare courtesy to welcome your guest at your doors." I drawled.
"You're the damned witch." He growled and I smiled in a way that chilled men's blood but to his credit, he didn't even blink. Either he was one ridiculously confident man or he was incredibly foolish.
"And you are the Cursed human Prince." I purred.
"Go back, your kind are not welcome here." He said with finality and I laughed.
"Is it not refreshing to have this mutual hatred out in the open? Make no mistakes, this is the last place I would ever choose to be."
"Then leave!" He snarled, snapping his book shut. He stood and I had to crick my neck to gaze up at his towering figure. "If you are so damn powerful like you claim to be, get on your fucking broomstick and fly the fuck out of my castle!"
His amber eyes blazed with enough anger to burn down a forest. "Ignorant fool." I scoffed. "The commands of the Witch Queen cannot be shrugged off based on my whims. I was sent here to help you and that's exactly what I will do."
"I don't give a damn about your witch leader. You witches are all the same, poison wrapped in beauty." He growled.
"I would rip your tongue from your throat and flay you alive for uttering such disrespect with her name." I hissed.
"No you won't." He replied, closing in on me. "You cannot. You were not sent here to help me, Witch, but to serve me."
All humor dried up on my tongue and I glared at him warily. "Careful with what you say." I warned.
"You think I was not briefed? You are a bitter bloodthirsty witch who descended on the king's army and massacred his men with him as your target. But you failed and your pathetic defeat is why you have crawled into my forgotten castle, begging to stay. It was either this or forfeit your life."
My iron nails shot out and I gently blew on them. "I failed with your father. Perhaps I shall compensate myself with the blood of his offspring."
"I wonder what happens when witches break a sworn oath. All your witch sisters scourge the earth for you don't they? And when they find you, they do things that could break even the most hardened of witches." He said with a terrible smile and I seethed. The only thing worse than an enemy was a knowledgeable enemy. How dare he threaten me with things far beyond his comprehension? What did he know about witch customs and how dare he speak of it?
"Keep running that mouth and find out just how easily I break spoiled little princes like you." I purred, letting him see how much I would enjoy doing that. He didn't back down an inch and I concluded right then and there that he was just foolish. Foolish and lacking the good sense to comprehend just what kind of predator the Witch Queen sent through his doors.
"I have no doubts, it is because of your power after-all that you were sent to serve me." He said.
"Serve is a rather strong word for an obligation I'm carrying out rather reluctantly." I corrected.
"Does it burn?" He prowled closer and we circled each other. "An apex witch, famed to be one of the most powerful but forced to cater to a human prince's whims."
"It is only for a short while." I bared my teeth at him. "Whether you live or die at the end of this drama depends solely on the next words out of your mouth."
He suddenly stopped. "I will not tolerate threats from you, Witch!"
He grabbed my arm and I hissed, ready to carve a bloody line through his gut but he suddenly yelled with pain and I watched, bewildered as he fell to his knees. I didn't even do anything to him! I saw it then, deep red runes had come alive on his skin, running around his neck, going lower down to his back. The stench of magic became suffocating, the same magic I smelled earlier. I ripped his shirt from his back and when I glimpsed what was etched onto his back, I snatched my fingers back like they were burned, stepping back hastily just as he passed out and fell face-first to the floor.