Fragile Reign (Mortal Enchantment Book 2) (23 page)

The salty beach air filled my nostrils. I inhaled deeply as my bare feet sunk into the cold sand. Only a mile or so of walking and I would find Rowan waiting for me. Being this close to him filled my fractured heart with hope. I pulled up my dress, preventing the hem from touching the ground as I trudged forward. I had to laugh a little when I realized what I would look like when Rowan saw me. Minus my wedding shoes, I was in my full wedding attire, complete with veil. The only thing I was missing was—

A sharp pain erupted from my spine, arching my back.

“I gave you simple instructions, yet here you are about to betray me.”

Sebastian appeared from behind me. He must have watched me enter the portal, following me here. Had I been stabbed? I reached behind me, searching for the source of the pain. I fell to my knees. When I looked at my hand, it was covered with my blood. I tried to speak, but no words came out. My breaths were short, panicked. When I tried to move, the pain in my side stopped me. I tried to force out the words in a whisper. “Wh—?”

“Did you know that if you stab the knife in just the right spot, it will enter in between your enemies rib bones and cut-off their air supply? Pretty nifty piece of information. One of my trainers taught me that when he was teaching me sword fighting as a child.” Sebastian circled around me while playing with the bloody dagger in his hand. “I would guess by your startled look, you assumed I had no skills with a blade. You can add that to the list of things you didn’t know about me.”

“Why are you doing this?” I managed to get out.

He smiled. “Because you presented me with a fantastic opportunity. If I kill you now, that only leaves your father in my way. I imagine in his weakened state, he’ll be no match for me. And who will our court lean on when House Paralda falls?” He put his finger on his temple as if contemplating the answer. Then, he shouted, “Me, of course! The elemental chosen to wed the dirty half-blood Princess.”

I lunged for him, but he moved away. I fell on my side, half my face covered in sand. The skin around my puncture wound burned. Searing pain came over my body in waves. The blade he used must have been made of iron. I was losing blood fast, my body deteriorating by the second. Still, I searched the ground for a weapon of any kind. Something I could use to injure him before he went after my father. If I had even a sliver of strength left, I would stop him.

“Don’t bother fighting back. You’ll be dead soon enough.”

“Don’t be so sure.” I replied, words barely audible.

“Oh, the knife wound would take hours or even days to kill you, but I’ve been poisoning you for weeks.” He patted the leather satchel attached to his belt. “Care to have another sip of wine, Princess?”

Had this been his plan all along? Even if I had married him, would he have still killed me to claim the throne for himself? That bastard. “I’m going to—”

“You’ll do nothing.” Sebastian laughed. “Poor, Princess Kalin. Where did your powers go? I thought you were the next akasha. The savior of our kind. Well if you had all that power, why would you need to be betrothed to anyone?”

I let out a muffled growl.

“I know, it’s very creative. I’d love to take credit for it, but it was my mother’s idea.” He waved his hands in front of him. “Mother didn’t wish to kill you. In fact, she really likes you. She just wanted to give you a reason to agree to the marriage. Actually, she instructed me to stop giving the wine to you after we said our vows.” He let out a long sigh. “Killing you? Yeah, that was my idea.”

I couldn’t believe how proud he was of his decision to kill me. It was as if he had no morals or value of life of any kind. This was the elemental who would sit on our throne if he managed to succeed in his plans. No, I could not allow this to happen. Who knew what he was capable of?

My vision blurred from the blood loss. Dizzy, I tried to concentrate. I had to come up with a plan. Rowan was too far away. I would never make it to him. My only chance was to crawl toward the portal. Maybe if I got close enough, I could make a run for it. If I found my way back to the castle someone might see me. Just as I rolled onto my stomach, Sebastian plunged the dagger into my back three more times. Each time he sliced through my skin the area around the incision throbbed. The smell of burnt flesh overwhelmed the air circulating around me. It was like taking in toxic fumes. What little oxygen I could take in was nothing but smoke.

“Oh, no. You’re not going anywhere.” He kicked my side, turning me over until I was on my back.

I stopped fighting. Too much pain. My limbs were too weak to move. The iron coursed through my bloodstream, burning my veins as it traveled through my body. And thanks to the poisoned wine, I wasn’t healing as I normally would. I glanced down. The white dress was covered in wet, bloody sand. After everything I had been through, was this how it would end?

Sebastian nudged my side with the tip of his shoe. “Well, I believe I’m done here. I’d better get back to the castle before someone realizes I’m gone.” He knelt down, kissing me on the forehead. “We could’ve had so much fun together. Oh well. Better luck next time, I suppose.”

After he cleaned the knife thoroughly, he dropped the weapon in the sand.

I was able to turn my head far enough to the side to watch him enter the portal. Soon he would alert everyone of my absence. My father would likely send out all of his knights to look for me, making Sebastian’s plan to kill him that much easier. And all the while, I couldn’t do anything to help him. All I could do was wait here to die. With all the poison in my system, I doubted the process would take long.

But what if I removed the poison?

Sebastian said the tainted wine blocked my power. If I drained out most of the blood, would my akasha power save my life? If I slit my wrists I would hit a major artery. The blood would empty quickly and maybe regenerate me in the process. What did I have to lose? At this point I was already going to die. I reached out, straining to reach the dagger Sebastian left in the sand. My fingers were almost numb. It took every bit of energy I had left to grip the handle and then pull my arm back toward my torso.

My hand shook as I slid the sharp blade over my left wrist. The pain was less than I thought it would be. I tried to do the same to the right one, but my strength was gone. Everything around me moved, shifting in and out of place. The lines around my vision blackened until there was nothing.

Only complete darkness.

Rowan

Where is Kalin?

Marcus said she got the message. She was coming at sundown. I glanced up at the amber skies. The sun was only moments away from setting. If all went as planned, she should have already been here. Something was wrong. I felt it in my bones. Fire pulsated at the tips of my fingers. Marcus left over an hour ago to help Ariel with a distraction. He made it seem as if his plan was fool proof. If he was right, then had something happened to her on the way here?

Had she been caught?

Kalin met me here so many times, managing to sneak away from her guard so we could have some privacy. Unless something drastically changed, she shouldn’t have had any problems getting away. But something was different. Marcus said the wedding had been moved up to today. If Sebastian was smart, he would have made sure she was heavily guarded. If he had increased her guard, she may be stuck there. Or maybe Ariel and Marcus were captured. Tension built in my shoulders. Too many lingering questions.

I couldn’t continue to stand here doing nothing.

Slipping my sheath and sword over my shoulder, I headed toward the portal opening she always used. It was less than a mile from here. If I couldn’t find her, I had to take the chance and go to the air castle. They may need my help. Being part of the fire court meant there would be no one holding out the welcome banner, but regardless of the current tension between our courts, Taron knew me as a friend. Each time I thought of him, I wondered why he had agreed to this wedding. Kalin made it clear from the beginning that the engagement wasn’t real. I shook my head.

None of this made any sense on so many levels.

One way or another, I was going to get to the bottom of this mess. Finding out what happened to Kalin was the first step. I trudged through the sand, regretting that I hadn’t taken off my boots. I could feel the grains of sand scraping against my socks. Flying would’ve been easier, but much more noticeable. I needed to go stealth in case something had gone wrong. The air had gotten much colder. I wasn’t affected by the chilled wind, but I could sense the temperature change when I breathed in the night air. The skies had grown darker as the moon slowly rose. I sped up, getting an overriding feeling that I needed to hurry.

I just couldn’t shake the feeling that something, somehow, had gone drastically wrong.

When I had less than a quarter-mile to go, I saw something crumpled-over in the distance. I wasn’t sure what I was seeing, so I ran the rest of the way there. As I got closer, an overwhelming fear shot through me. A motionless body lay in a pool of blood. “Please don’t be her.” I kept repeating, begging. The body was lifeless, tied up in a massive amount of fabric. Oh God, was she wearing a wedding dress?

“Kalin!” I screamed.

I called out her name several more times as I rushed toward the bloodied body. My legs burned as I fought my way through the sand. Rolling her over, I saw what I had feared most. It was her. No! No! No! My chest ached like someone had punched a hole right through it. I knelt in front of her, checking for signs of life. I put my ear to her nose, praying I’d hear something. Relief flooded through me when I heard a tiny breath. She was alive, but she had been stabbed multiple times. The burns around the wounds indicated her assailant had used an iron weapon. She needed something to cleanse her blood.

Orion.

Kalin was too far gone. Only he could save her now. I scooped her limp body into my arms. Looking down at her, I could see how pale she was from the loss of blood. Her lips had turned purple. She was running out of time. I stretched my wings to full capacity and took off into the skies. I was flying faster than I had ever flown in my life. The muscles in my back ached from the additional weight, but I refused to slow my pace. When I found the portal, I swooped down. I landed a few feet away and then raced into the pathway. I reached the other side, finding myself inside the woodland forest. Twigs snapped under my boots as I headed full-speed toward Orion’s caves. I prayed he was inside and that I wasn’t too late. “I’m here, Jelly Bean. Don’t you dare die on me.”

There were two guards in front of the gates. Both took one glance at Kalin’s bloody body and promptly moved out of my way. I headed to their medical area. I remembered its location. Days ago I had brought my best friend here when he was close to death. Now, I was carrying the girl I had fallen in love with. The person I would give my life for. This couldn’t be the end. Not after everything we had been through.

“Please Kalin, wake-up.” I pleaded.

There was still no response. My heart was pumping so hard I could feel the pounding in my ears. Woodland faeries gasped in horror when I entered their infirmary. “Don’t just stand there. Go get your king.” I urged. When they didn’t move fast enough, I shouted, “Go!”

That got their attention. In unison, they all ran out of the room. I delicately placed Kalin onto a gurney, laying her flat on her stomach since the stab wounds were on her back. As she lay there, I saw the blood running down her hand. There was another wound on her left wrist. I ripped off a piece of my t-shirt, tying it around her incision to cut off the flow of blood. I wished I had noticed it before. Although the trip here had been short, I could have saved her from so much blood loss by looking her over before we came.

I heard multiple voices coming from the hallway. A second later, Orion entered the infirmary. “Oh no! What happened here?” he asked, his eyes widened with alarm.

“Please help her. She’s been stabbed and she’s lost a lot of blood.”

Orion came to stand next to me. When he saw Kalin’s face, he gasped. “Is that—?

“Yes.” I said, nervously running my fingers through my hair.

“How did this happen?” he asked, voice panicked. “Does Taron know?”

Kalin didn’t have enough time for me to explain this to him. I grabbed his arm. “I don’t know anything. I found her like this. Please, help her. Whatever you can do.”

He nodded. “Cut her out of the dress. I need to see her wounds.”

I released the dagger I kept on my belt, cutting through the clips that held her dress together. The blade screeched across the fabric. The garment split, falling at her sides. Some of the stab wounds went through her corset. It had to be removed as well. I hated doing it, but I had no choice. Next, I reached under her. I managed to pull the rest of the torn garments off. The cut pieces collected into a bloody pile next to her bed. When I was done, she was left in nothing but her panties. Searching the room, I found a white blanket in a large drawer. I flung it over her waist, covering her legs.

Orion came over to examine her injuries. A second later, he was searching through cabinets. He found a large ceramic bowl and set it on the counter. He continued whipping through the room collecting ingredients while mumbling to himself. Then just as quickly, he grinded the herbs down into a powder. I wasn’t surprised to see his urgency. Orion would do anything in his power to save Taron’s only child. After he blended in two liquids, he inserted the mixture into a syringe. Taking her arm, Orion poked the needle into her vein and pushed the medicine into her bloodstream.

Wiping the back of his hand over his forehead, Orion said, “What I gave her will rid her blood of the poison, but she’s lost a lot of blood. I don’t know how long it will be before she wakes up…if she wakes up.”

That wasn’t a good enough answer. “Is that the best you can do?”

Orion put his hand on my shoulder, staring at me with a comforting expression. “It’s up to her, Rowan. We’ve done all we can do. It’s her fight now.”