The Broken Kingdoms of Osvolta (Kingdoms of Osvolta #1)

24. Remember, You Were Warned

Chapter twenty-four

Remember, You Were Warned

S olveig turned; time slowing as she watched a thick, dark red liquid drip from Xanthe’s chin. The frosted ground thawed where the droplets landed. She thought she saw fear in Xanthe’s eyes for a second before she collapsed. Her body wracked with shakes, coughing around the blood clogging her throat as she fought for every hopeless breath.

High above, Queen Asta surveyed the ruckus from the safety of her balcony, calling for immediate aid from the castle healers as her gaze fell on the bloody scene below.

Solveig lurched, running for the duchess, knees screaming as she slammed to the ground in time to catch her before her head collided with the stone. Blood dripped from the duchess’s blue lips.

“I was s… supposed to have m… more time.” Xanthe struggled, bringing a shaking hand to the princess’s face. Solveig fought to keep her mind in the here and now as she watched her dead lover’s mother meet the same grizzly end.

“Run,” Xanthe gasped, eyes full of terror, hand gripping Solveig’s arm, “You have to run, you must see.”

“What, Xanthe?” Solveig implored, shaking the duchess’s still form. It was too late. Duchess Xanthe Whitlock’s chest rattled, a death knell of finality. Choking on her last breaths as the healers finally arrived but were of no more use than they had been the night Aldrik had died. From poisoning, they’d said. And yet, here was his mother. Dead in the same way. No poison in sight.

“Your Highness?” a guard said from beside Solveig, where she sat, clutching the duchess’s blood-stained form to her chest. “You must release the duchess now.” She stared up at the guard, enraged, as she whipped a dagger from her back.

“Who are you to give me orders?” she hissed, climbing to her feet, holding the gleaming point toward his throat.

“Please, drop the weapon, Your Highness,” another guard said, his palms raised, facing out.

Solveig laughed at the sight, a dark sound devoid of life. “What is happening here?”

“We just have some questions. Drop your weapon.”

“I’ll drop mine when you drop yours.” She starred pointedly at the swords hanging from their hips and the arrows now pointing toward her from the guard towers.

“Lower your weapons,” the guard commanded to his men. Solveig waited until every single one clattered to the ground before lowering her own.

They seized her arms immediately, placing her hands behind her back in shackles.

“You think I killed her?”

“No one is accusing you of anything right now.”

“Sure feels that way with these shackles you’ve got me in,” she spat, as they led her back inside the castle. Down steep, slippery staircases entombed in darkness toward the dungeons.

“Not guilty, huh? Not being accused of anything, yet you’re throwing me behind bars, anyway.”

“We’re following orders, ma’am,” said one as they closed the gate behind her, the lock screeching as it twisted shut.

“Whose orders?”

“The queens,”

“And how long does my mother plan to keep me here?”

“She’s awaiting Leader Ezekiel to perform the interrogation.”

“And why, pray tell, do they need Leader Ezekiel for that?”

“New protocols.”

Solveig’s blood ran as cold as the ice on the ground as she took an unsteady step away from the bars. High Tower Castle sat atop a ley line that ran straight to the Caldera. They needed Ezekiel for the connection. They were going to force her into that unnatural experiment again, have The Oracle tear through her mind when she hadn’t even repaired it from the last time. She could still remember how their sharp claws ripped her open, searching for her darkest thoughts. What price would The Oracle demand this time to keep her secrets?

Alone with her thoughts, Solveig had no recollection of time beyond the monotonous dripping water along the moss-covered stone walls. There were no gaps for sunlight to seep through, no scents wafted down from the kitchens to mark mealtimes. It was like existing in a void. One in which she had all the time in the world to think over all she had learned. The sinister truth about what her family had her do. Her suspicion that Aldrik may not have been poisoned made only stronger, as she replayed the memory of holding his mother through her dying moments. Events that had been identical to his in every way. Had there ever been a poison? And if there had, who was the real culprit? They’d had her execute Aldrik’s killer, and yet his mother died in the same way. Was it a group? Or was the answer something far simpler and infinitely more sinister? Was it her family? Seeking to isolate her from every source of warmth and kindness. Abusing their power, twisting The Oracles teachings to their own advantage, using a deadly curse to cover their tracks. Round and round her mind spun, desperately trying to make sense of what happened and yet still coming up short. Because she still had no proof.

Hours. Days. Weeks later, she wasn’t sure, but they eventually came back. Dragging her up to the throne room in chains, still dressed in her nightwear that had become stained with dirt and blood, her skin chilled to the bone. The king and queen sat atop their shining thrones as the guards placed Solveig in the chair. Prince Killian, Gabriel, and Leader Ezekiel watching close by. She felt the bite as they attached the disks to her skin. Tensing as she waited for the glow of her brother’s cuffs to power the device. Gritting her teeth as the burning began, and the claws tore through her consciousness once more.

“Back so soon, Princess?” The voice of The Oracle echoed through her skull as she writhed in her chair.

“You told the duchess you had become suspicious of the circumstances of her son’s death. Care to share your reasoning with me, Princess?”

Solveig did not respond.

“I can see that you played no conscious hand in either death, but your lack of cooperation saddens me. Perhaps you need a lesson in what it means to defy me.”

The Oracle ripped through her mind again, memories of their violent deaths playing on repeat until they were burned into her mind. Impossible to forget.

“Stop!” she screamed. “No more!”

The Oracle merely laughed as they took full control of Solveig’s body once more to speak through her to the waiting crowd.

“The princess is innocent—she is free to go.”

This time, The Oracle did not linger.

This time, Solveig did not wait for the machine to cool down before ripping the disks from her inflamed scalp. Knowing now what countless prisoners had suffered before being forced before her to keep this secret, her rage took over.

“Destroy it,” she demanded through angry tears as she leaped to her feet. No one moved. “Fuck this.” She lunged for the nearest guard, taking him by the throat, the gems on her own cuffs glowing as the guard screamed.

“Let him go, Solveig!” King Emerson ordered.

“Destroy that thing and I’ll consider it.”

“Child, be reasonable. It is a gift from The Oracle,” Leader Ezekiel argued.

“Destroy it. Or he dies!” she cried as the man continued to scream beside her, his skin and muscles pulling tight around his bones.

“I cannot sanction that.”

“I warned you.” She shrugged, as an eerie calm came over her. Her face twisting into a vicious sneer. If they wanted to hate her, fear her, then fine, she would give them a reason to. Agonised screams echoed as she drained every drop of fluid from the guard’s body. She dropped his desiccated corpse to the ground at her feet as though it were a doll.

“Destroy it,” she said once more, staring at her family. “Or I will burn this place to the ground.”

Fire flew at her head in fast bursts that Solveig quickly deflected with her own magic, using the liquid pooled on the floor. The ground around her feet began to shake and fall away, upsetting her balance as Killian threw fire ball after fire ball at her.

“Now, son,” Leader Ezekiel ordered on a deep inhale, as Gabriel stole all the oxygen from the room. Blood trickled from Solveig’s nose, eyes widening, when she realised what was happening a moment too late as she fell to the ground unconscious.