93 | ACT VII, SCENE IV

P R E V I O U S L Y

"Kill them both," Pandora's eyes gleamed with delight as she nudged my father and brother with her boot. "With your own hands."

HEWE, STEFFITH.

TRISTAN

HELP. THEY WERE COMING TO help us.

The three armies pierced the ring of soldiers that had chased the remaining fragments of our forces into a tight knot, breaking through the lines of the deadly opponent and hitting them hard. Theodore quietly watched with tears streaking down his grimy face at the sight of his brother's indigo blue banners. The three armies cleaved apart the opponent like a white hot iron, parting an easy way through the sea of black and red to get to us.

"I dragged them out of their caves," Geneva grinned, dismounting from an elaborate chariot with an impossibly tall spear in her hands. She motioned to the golden armored Dessari soldiers, all with their faces bearing various grumbles, with Reynald at the front, his expression annoyed. "Had to force them out of their cozy little island before breaking into their minds."

"You - you manipulated their minds?" I looked at her, my eyes wide. "An entire army?"

"It is hard to keep up with the strain," Randall stalked to us, red eyes gleaming with ferocity. Sweat was already trickling down his temples as his gaze remained concentrated on the Dessari army, which looked around five thousand strong. "They are quite strong willed," he chuckled, pointing to Remora who was eyeing us distastefully. "Especially that woman."

"The rest of you go on and fight," Adriel said smoothly. "Randall and I will keep up the manipulation on their minds so that the Dessari join your forces. Geneva will fight with you, as will our own men."

Eric gave them a grateful nod as Helios began to consolidate the rest of our new forces, grouping them into lines to strike back hard. I dared not hope - but if we could hold up with all these men, hold up a little bit longer until Edwina dealt with the third piece... hope shined at the end of the distant tunnel, like a star in the darkness.

"You came back!" Theodore exclaimed as Leonard buckled a sword at his side, his usually wary and stern expression broken by affection.

"Thought you might need some help," the Grendel muttered gruffly, looking right at me. "The second half of my army is yours."

I nodded my thanks as Reynald approached us, his face sour.

"Where do you want us?" he snarled.

Rowan and I looked at each other in amusement - the proud, cold man had been broken into this - this - all thanks to the Halflings, this was what was left.

"You have to stop Noire and Romulus from turning our men against each other. Deal with Zadicus first, before finishing off the rest."

He nodded, before disappearing to his sister's side. Reynald and Remora - after all those fights and arguments at the Citadel, they had come. After all those hours they had spent hunting us, chasing us like prey on the peripheries of the island of Vezort, they had still come.

"Geneva kicked him out of his own bed," Randall smirked with a half smile, his voice melting into a purr. "It was delightful."

Helios shouted an order in the distance, and the starved fragments of our shattered, disordered armies came to a halt at once. Tremayne. Valmont. LeVane. Rotavelle. Emmerson. Everly. Grendel. Halfling. Dessari. Never had Endollon witnessed something like this, and never would it again.

The war raged on as we pushed back.

My surroundings were nothing but a whirlwind of chaos and violence, a blur of vicious motion. I was thirsty - so, so thirsty, panting in the dusty and smoke choked air. Every breath I drew hurt my throat, making it burn worse and worse with time. Blood continued to pound in my ears as I fought with thunder and steel. I knew I had a dozen wounds over my body, but the pain hardly registered. There was a dull, throbbing ache in my head, as the very scent of death flooded my nostrils and drove and lodged itself into my brain.

Which was when I came face to face with Zadicus himself.

He was a tall, slender male, his face a metallic bronze that gleamed and shone like the exquisite armor scaling his endless limbs. His eyes were barely more than slits of pitch black, unnerving and unsettling. Waves of jet black tumbled over his head, and for a moment, I froze - for his face seemed to very unnervingly mirror mine.

"Tristan Valmont," he hissed, catching sight of me as I dispatched a bunch of men in a series of three strokes. The Titan effortlessly swung off the remaining soldiers to make a clearing, and danger lulled me over, tempted me, beckoned to me with a long finger whispering dark, deadly promises in my ears.

Remora was still felling man after man, butchering them. A trail of blood flowed in her wake as I stepped up to Zadicus, giving him a glare before hefting up my sword as he readied the sharp weapons of Bloodstone hanging at his belt.

He gave me a mocking bow as I gripped the Thunderbolt, feeling it pulse and come alive with energy drawn straight from the heavens above me.

"You made that yourself? It's very pretty," the Titan leered.

I swallowed the urge to slap him across the face, and instead, flung the bolt at him with all my might.

He let out a mighty growl as a part of his left forearm turned a burnt shade of black. Spill no blood. But injure him all the same.

He looked at me with anger in his cold eyes, and drew back for a second, before flinging his arm back and then throwing it forward as if he were hurling something at me.

A welt appeared on my cheek.

And he had not even touched me.

I launched my next blow, hitting right at the same place on his forearm and smiled in amusement as the Titan's skin slowly cracked, bruised and burnt. The Thunderbolt was neither metal nor Bloodstone. It would never draw blood, but its ancient power would decapitate and stun him all the same. I had to win this - I had to win this for Edwina, I had to win this for us.

The next wound opened up on my right arm.

The pain stung me as I tried not to wince, readying myself for another strike. On and on we both went, trading blow for blow, draining out slowly as we engaged ourselves in immortal battle. As time passed, our attacks became more and more lethal, as I burned off his right eye and he responded with a brutal cut that had me heavily bleeding from my ear.

"You will die trying to kill me," Zadicus murmured gently, almost carefully, lovingly, even - as if trying to talk to a young child - and the tone of his voice was more than enough to make me want to throw up. "Your men will die trying to kill me. Your armies will die trying to kill me. And it will never be enough, not even then. When I have you in chains with your head on the executioner's block... I will make you watch as I drink the marrow from your wife's bones after breaking her into a lot of tiny, tiny pieces."

Anger surged up in me, brutal, blinding anger that wiped everything out except for that face of hers, that face I knew and loved and fought so hard for with every inch of my breath.

"If that was meant to scare me," I snapped, "you really need to work on making your threats sound convincing."

I gathered all the might in my veins and hurled the Thunderbolt at him one last time.

But then I saw something that poured agonizingly cold water over my anger, painfully dousing it into ashes, chilling me to the very bone.

Standing across me, as beautiful as the day she had died, was a woman clothed in stained robes of midnight blue...

...Elodie.

• • • • •

SEATTORIA.

EDWINA

Kill them both. With your own hands.

Speechless, I stared at Pandora, at a complete loss of words.

Kill - kill my own brother and father - kill them.

"You could always back out, of course," she hummed in my ear, her fingers stroking my neck in a motion that tightened and strained my nerves. "But then... I'm afraid I'll have to crush your little prize away right in front of your eyes," she continued, spinning the tiny screw between her fingers. "As I said... it's your choice."

How - how could I?

My father only saw me with firm, unyielding eyes, nodding ever so slightly as he saw mine. Get on with it, he seemed to say, like the stern teacher he'd always been when I was only a little girl learning how to hold a wooden sword. Aidon had turned a sickly shade of white, but he gulped, a silent farewell to me and the world.

"So what will it be?" Pandora asked gently, twirling a strand of my red hair between her fingers, feeling the texture as my stomach threatened to throw up. Nausea flooded my veins as I looked at her, frozen entirely.

Kill them - and there was no guarantee she would let me have the piece.

Or refuse, and watch her toss it away while thousands died on the field.

"You're losing my attention, Edwina Tremayne," Pandora put a finger under my chin and forced me to stare unflinchingly into her soulless gaze. "And that is a very, very dangerous game to play."

I couldn't do it. I couldn't pick that knife - couldn't murder my own family in cold blood.

I was on the verge of begging her, falling to her feet to plead for another way out. Had she asked me to drive the dagger into my own heart, I would have done so gladly - but them - my family - how could I?

Those people on the field - those hundreds of thousands of men fighting for their lives out there - they were hanging all their hopes on me. All their lives depended on me. All those husbands, those wives, their children. All those soldiers and all those lords and ladies. All those immortals. My cousins. My friends. My husband.

I had no choice. No choice at all. Either I was responsible for the death of my family, or for the thousands of people fighting out there to hold out for me. Either way, when I walked out of here - if I walked out of here - there was no way my soul would be in one single piece at the end of this.

The sheer horror of what she was asking me to do - the huge guilt - it swallowed me whole.

Stiff and shaken and fearful, I reached out for the daggers waiting in Pandora's hand. She gave me a lazy smile, like a cat satisfied after lapping up milk. Nausea burned my insides alive. After all of this, even if I managed to get the piece, even if I managed to win the battle - I would have lost the war.

An empty, hollow victory. That was what this was going to be.

The first dagger was unnervingly cool. Never had I felt a blade weigh down so heavily on my hand. The five sentinels around us reordered and fell into new positions. Two each stood by my father and brother's side, while the fifth lingered in front of me, with Pandora at my back, breathing down my neck. The looming soldier was faceless, with nothing but disorienting darkness in the place of where his eyes and nose should be.

The look in my father's eyes as I took a shaking step to him - I would never forget that look. It was going to haunt me through all my nightmares.

"It's okay," he whispered softly, beads of sweat gathering on his brow. "You can do this."

His eyes were big and wide. He would never see the rest of us. How - how was I going to even look at Helios, at Nyx? How was I going to tell them that I killed their son? How was I going to see Celinette in the eye and tell her that I killed her brother? Or tell Amphitrite that I murdered the very last of the little family we had left?

"I'm proud of you," his eyes filled with tears, as a sob broke out of my throat. "So, so proud of you."

Don't - I tried to speak, but words would not come.

"I'm going back to Asteria," my father breathed. "We'll watch over you from above. Together."

Do it, he was saying. Do it, Edwina. Make it quick.

A miserable, jarring cry ripped from me as I plunged the unforgiving dagger into his heart.

The blade clattered to the floor as his blood gushed out in waves, hot in my hands. He slumped, his eyes clouded in a painless haze, the light slowly leaving them. I pushed the sentinel out of the way, sinking to the floor as I held my father. Tears - hot and miserable - rolled down my cheeks, as he lovingly put a blood stained palm on my cheek.

"It's going to be fine," his voice was faint. "You're going to be fine," he whispered, comforting me instead of it being the other way around. Only sobs erupted from my throat.

"I'm so sorry - so sorry."

He gave me a smile. One last, affectionate smile before his head hit the floor.

I had now lost both my parents.

I was weeping, copiously weeping, helpless as I was. I was pathetic - I was weak - I was a coward. Nothing - nothing would ever wash that blood off my hands. The hot wetness stuck to my fingers as I beat my fists on the floor, my cries echoing in the stone hall. Something inside me had broken - forever - and no amount of time would replace that gaping hole in my chest.

Pandora nudged my chin with the foot, clicking her tongue disapprovingly.

"Now, now, Edwina," she tutted. "We're not done here yet."

Silent tears slid down my cheeks as she dropped to her knees beside me, her cold hands gripping my neck. I felt her fingers tighten around me, with impending darkness swirling in spots around my eyeballs. I did not resist. I did not fight. I did not claw at her, wishing that she would let me trade my brother's death for my own.

"Kill me," I croaked. "And be done with it."

"That won't do, you see," she sang merrily. "It has to be him. Go on."

She pushed me forcefully to where Aidon knelt, silently whispering a goodbye to his wife. To his little newborn son. He'd never see that tiny, bright life waiting for him back home. I couldn't do it - how could I? Could I ever, ever look Irina Rotavelle in the eye after this?

"Make this quick," Pandora frowned, prying my fingers open to push the dagger into it. "Or I'll do it myself. And make you watch."

I was shaking so badly, the fear resided in me like a living monster that scared the daylights out of me. The dagger seemed even heavier than its twin, or maybe it was just the shock trembling in my veins.

My brother gave me a smile, his eyes twinkling one last time.

"Edwina," he croaked softly, his voice broke beyond repair. "My son..."

I shook harder, watching his chartreuse green eyes gleam with tears. My throat tightened, closing up. His son - Dustin - he'd never have a father. Irina would never have a husband. I was taking him away from them. Away from his family.

I clutched at his hands, falling to his feet for forgiveness, as his steady, clever eyes met mine.

"Edwina," he said my name like a prayer, but his eyes were another story entirely. He held my fists tightly, a knowing look in his gaze as he gripped me tightly, a brother holding his sister.

And in a moment - I understood. Understood it all.

Power - he was asking me to transfer my power to him. To fill his drained reserves. To make him hold his strength. If I wounded him, he needed enough power to hold on to his life till we made it out. We had to pretend he was dying, but I needed to injure him badly enough at least - badly enough to make him bleed, but not die.

He needed every last bit of strength from me, and I gave him my all - feeling the pulsing ebb and flow of it slowly ease out of my veins and slip away from my fingers as it inched into his blood and made a new home.

We had both known. Known that there wasn't enough. That I couldn't have saved him if I tried.

Couldn't have saved my father.

But Aidon - I had to get him out. I had to get him out of here alive, and cursed be I if I let my younger brother die on my watch. He had a young son to get back to.

We stood there, holding hands. Quietly. Silently.

"Get it over with," Pandora snapped, drumming her fingers on the armrest of her throne.

"Give me a minute more to say goodbye to my sister," Aidon called out to her, more tears flowing down his cheeks as her lips twitched in boredom, no doubt conjuring up a new nightmare for us.

As his weary body slowly filled up with the last remnants of my strength, I saw the look in his eyes, the insignificant nod he gave me while keeping up the façade and weeping further.

I got up, steeling my resolve, bracing myself and gripping the dagger in my hand. Pandora skipped down the steps to clap her hands as she gathered around us, as if eager to witness some sort of entertainment. She was practically purring with delight.

"Easy now," she crooned, wrapping a hand around my wrist to steady the shaking. "Go on."

I pressed my lips, gulped my fear down my throat, and drove the dagger in.

In, but just millimeters away from his heart.

He let out a moan of pain, eyes going wide as blood pooled around him on the floor. His heavy breaths were jagged and painful to my ears, as I slowly lowered him to my lap, tasting tears on my lips.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered, my heart breaking at the miserable little smile he gave me. Little time - we had very little time here - and I had to get him out before the poison in the Bloodstone snaked into his heart and actually killed him for real.

He lay still on the floor as Pandora giggled, watching me curl up into myself as I heaved in great sobs.

"The screw..." I pleaded, knowing what the answer would be. "Give me the screw, please."

Pandora tipped back her head and laughed, the dreadful sound booming off the walls and resonating in the hall. The sentinels stood stone faced, as she gripped me by the neck, hauling me up and hurling me against the wall across the dead bodies. I felt a stream of blood trickle down as my senses stood on alert.

I was already at my weakest, and she could not know that.

"The screw," she mocked me, repeating my words in a childish voice. "As if!"

I sucked in a sharp breath, readying myself for whatever she would inflict on me next. My hand clutched my chest, making it look as if I was in pain and to divert her attention from my other hand in my pocket as it curled around the platinum ring that would take us back to Endollon.

Pandora stalked to me like a tigress ready to devour prey, her attention on me, and me only.

Good. That was precisely what I wanted.

The five men followed her like mindless minions as she crouched right in front of me. My eyes darted around as I looked for an opening, heart thrumming wildly inside my chest. This could go very, very wrong.

At least she was looking the other way - looking anywhere but at Aidon. She had to think he was dead. That he was gone.

"Aww," she scraped a fingernail across my cheek. "You thought I was just going to give it to you, hmm?"

Any minute now - I didn't even know that I was holding my breath.

She slapped me hard across the cheek.

The world spun around for a moment as I saw red, reeling from the bruise that was no doubt forming across my face. I spat out blood as the fire rose higher in me. I savored the pain, relishing it, using it to hone my need for vengeance as I consolidated the very last dying embers of my power to begin growing into a tiny seed of Hellfyre.

"Let's see... perhaps I could drag you to the battlefield and make your husband watch as I peel you apart from head to toe. You'd like that, huh?" she crooned, her gaze like burning embers as it fixed right at me.

Which was when Aidon's grimy hand rose from behind her and plucked the golden screw from her dancing fingers.

That was my signal as I lashed out with the single wisp of Hellfyre I had been slowly knitting after plucking the dying tendrils of the fire in my blood, and it burned off the sentinels as Pandora whirled on my brother with a death glare.

I grabbed him by the hand.

And then we ran.

Ran for our lives.

His feet slipped on the blood slickened steps as I forcefully hauled him along, whispering an apology for the pain he was in. Pandora followed us out of the temple, every step of hers larger than three of ours as we ran. We couldn't outrun her - we only had to buy ourselves some time until I managed to get the ring on my finger. This was pure instinct - a predatory thirst for survival. Only fear for my dying brother fueled me as I dragged him along, grunting with his weight and the toll of keeping our pace.

"Now, now, Edwina," the Titaness seethed behind us, crossing the distance in leaps. "We have so much to catch up on."

"Don't look back!" Aidon howled, his hand clutching my wrist in an attempt to slide the ring over my finger as we ran. It was impossible - we could not escape her until we put on the ring, and we could not put on the ring as long as she was at our heels. Each step we took sent a sharp, jarring pain that reverberated through my entire body, and I was almost on the verge of passing out as I fumbled with the platinum ring.

We were almost there - I could almost taste the sheer exultation as it rippled through me, my heart pounding frantically as I managed to get the ring onto my finger finally.

The last thing I heard was Pandora's frustrated cry as we disappeared.

• • • • •

The fact that people keep threatening to make Tristan watch while they torture Edwina in front of his eyes makes me sick.

Because that's what they are. Zadicus and Pandora. They are sick, and they both know that Edwina and Tristan love each other so much that seeing Edwina being hurt would kill Tristan.

It's honestly just disgusting. It's horrifying. I hate it when someone uses love as blackmail, and I hate it when they want to hurt Edwina especially after that soul wracking episode with her sick cousins.

Honestly, just when you think this woman might get a bit of peace, her life just gets more and more twisted. Now that her father has gone, has actually died at her hands... the damage done to her heart will be just too much.

And even if she survives the end of the book, you might honestly wonder what will be left of her. There's no way you can do something like this and still be able to smile.

No way at all.

Tristan is in trouble too. Both of them are. I'll leave you all here to contemplate on their existence until the next chapter *evil grin*