The words seethed from her lips, and she felt her body tremble violently, saliva dripping from her mouth. Rhaif’s eye glistened, and she could see the flame rising up from his core.
“Burn her,” came his final words.
Aydra’s core emptied itself of its void.
The council filed out one by one. The doors closed behind Rhaif. Aydra could see them lining up to the next level above the Throne Room as the Belwarks had done before. Lex wrapped her arms around both Dorian and Nyssa, and then she held up a tightened fist to the sky. Aydra saw the ring on Lex’s finger, and Lex gave her a slow nod.
“Aydra—”
Her gaze averted from down to Draven’s struggling figure. His eyes pleaded with her as he sat full up on his knees, struggling once more against the chains. She could see his chest heaving up and down, and he swallowed hard.
“From once a wind—”
Her heart crumbled, and a lone tear streaked down her cheek.
“And brisk of leaves—”
Her eyes never left his as her shaky voice joined his. She barely got the words out.
There came a night.
So dark it seemed
No more light
The curse it brings
And so the dying moons said to the sun
“Set me free,” they both managed to end.
Draven’s jaw trembled and he tugged on the chains once more. Her knees weakened, she could feel her heartbeat throbbing in her ears, and as she stared at him, she memorized his beautiful face.
“I’ll meet you at the Edge when it’s done,” he promised. “Nothing less.”
The tear stretched the length of her cheek, her heart bleeding in her chest at his words. “I love you,” she whispered.
Draven’s head shook, and she watched his throat move as he swallowed his tears. “I love you.”
Two guards appeared from the back of the room, flaming arrows in their hands. They pulled them back on their bows, and Aydra drew a jagged breath upon seeing the flames soar through the air towards her body.
The pain of the two arrows hit her. Flames licked at her flesh. She screamed, struggling at the anxiety of it engulfing her body. She felt her heartbeat slowly deteriorate in her chest at the one arrow that had hit her high.
Her head sighed back against the tree trunk, and she screamed only a few moments longer at the angst of the fire before succumbing to the weight of the Edge.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
DRAVEN’S SHOUTS WAILED through the darkening sky with Aydra’s own shrieks. His eyes swelled with the tears he couldn’t fight. Her screams bled his ears. He felt as though someone had ripped his insides clean from his body and fed them to his own kind, as though the Berdijay was there playing tricks on him.
His only reprieve was that her screams didn’t last long.
One of the men’s arrows had pierced her high on the chest.
He wasn’t sure who the guard was, but he was sure the guard would pay for the mercy he’d shown their Queen.
Draven sat back on his knees and watched in a trance-like state as his love turned to ash in the same pool she’d been born in.
And then he collapsed onto the floor.
His insides were numb, his body limp, when he was picked up off the ground of the Throne Room, and then taken to the tower dungeon once the flames had died.
He was thrown mercilessly into the cage, and the door was locked behind them. He could hear the Belwarks mocking him as they left the room. It was dark outside. He picked himself up to a seated position and curled his legs into his chest. His foot began to tap nervously as he sat in the corner of the cell, allowing Aydra’s screams to fill his core.
His love.
His Queen.
Dead because of the child she’d carried of his.
Dead because of the fear the people held of his kind.
It was the first time he’d been away from the Forest for the start of the Dead Moons. He longed to hear the comforting cries of the Noctuans. But as the noise of someone’s footsteps filled his ears, he knew he wouldn’t have to wait long.
“You’re late,” Draven told Dorian upon his reaching the tower.
Dorian paused on the top step and pulled the horn from around his back along with a pail of water. “Would you like me to go back? I can wait and show up another night.”
Draven’s jaw clenched and he exhaled an audible breath, watching Dorian cross the room to him. “Thank you,” he said as Dorian placed the horn in his hand. “Get your sister and get out of here. Hide below the Belwark Temple and do not come out until sunrise. They will not know the difference between friend and foe.”
Dorian nodded. “What will you do?”
Draven stared past him towards the open doorway that led to nothing below, and he clenched the horn in his fist. “Burn it to the ground.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
THE FIRST SONG he played on his horn was of Samar’s.
The water in the pail rippled, the wind encircling him. He watched as Samar’s figure assembled itself, first with bone, then with muscle, and finally with flesh. When she took her
