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

81. Last Chance

Chapter eighty-one

Last Chance

S he didn’t know how much time had passed when she finally came to. Bile rose up her throat as the bag was ripped from her head. Eyes burning from the searing light and rush of colours, ears muddled as she heard voices and wheels and clanging metal. All she knew was utter confusion slithering through her mind as her lungs heaved for every desperate breath of fresh air.

“Welcome back, sister,” Killian murmured from where he stood beside her prone form. Lightning quick, her senses focused. All it had taken was that snivelling voice to bring her back in alignment. She tried to move, not wanting to be laying at his mercy, but they’d strapped her down on a long examination table. The physical restraints bit into her skin as she struggled against them.

“Where am I?” she seethed, just as the damp stench of High Tower Castle filtered through her overloaded senses.

“Home,” was all the prince said, her eyes tracking him as he nodded at someone behind her. She tried to twist, to see who else was there, but it was futile. Even her neck was caged to the table. She could only hear footsteps echoing, and the groaning rattle of something being brought toward her, but it was enough.

“No.” Solveig whispered as the realisation hit. “I did everything you asked.”

“Relax, and it will be over before you know it.”

“You forget you’ve subjected me to this before. Your lies won’t work on me.”

“All we want is for the information you’ve collected to come straight from the source. We can’t risk it being tainted by your own bias.”

The fight drained from her; there was no way out. Killian had her at his mercy. She had but one option left. The thought alone made her ill, but this was a matter of survival, a game she knew all too well, and would do anything to win. Including, beg.

“Please. Killian.” Her voice broke. “I’m on your side. Let me prove it.”

“Oh, Sister.” Killian smiled; blonde hair shining like gold in the light as he bent closer, eyes sparkling, lips twisting with a cruel smirk. “Begging won’t save you now. We have spies everywhere. Or did you forget?”

No, she hadn’t forgotten. How could she? She felt their eyes everywhere. “We saw every moment you grew far too close to that boy. Put yourself in our shoes. We can’t risk you keeping any secrets to protect him.”

“I have no desire to protect him,” she spat, averting her gaze. He’d lied to her. Schemed and cheated his way into her heart. Saw her deep buried desire for connection and used it against her. And yet, even with all that, there was still a small part of her that cared what happened to him. She couldn’t bring herself to hand him over to these people who had done so much to ruin her life.

“Come now, little Reaper,” Killian smirked again. “You’ll only hurt yourself more this way.”

Solveig felt the familiar sting of the disks as their teeth bit into her head in the same spots; yet still she continued to fight. There was a faint red glow in her peripheral vision as Killian fired up the device at her back. White-hot pain pierced her skull. Her limbs painfully stiff, eyes rolling back in her head; mouth agape as though in a silent scream as The Oracle sliced into her consciousness.

Your choices put us all on the line.

Those words echoed through her mind as the icy presence of The Oracle stirred within her. It was as though every fibre of her mind was being picked apart as she saw flashes of memories that The Oracle ripped through. Visions of her and the prince, dancing, laughing. Kissing . Every moment over the last few weeks laid bare.

“Dangerous games, Princess,” The Oracle tutted. “Did I not warn you to be careful of your choices? Or did you simply not care?”

“He’s nothing.”

“You can lie to yourself, but not to me. I see all, hear all, know all. Now you will show me what I require.”

“Why?”

“This world belongs to me. Elithiend will bend or it shall fall.”

“That isn’t balance.”

“That is where you are wrong. Having Elithiend on the outside, an unknowable threat? It destabilises us. We must bring them to heel, and you will either help me, or I will remove you from the board.”

Solveig could smell salt air, taste it on her tongue. She could feel the wind and rain as though it lashed at her skin, memories consuming her, as The Oracle watched on with her.

The jagged rocks of the Dead Strait, glowing blue far below the darkened waves, lighting safe passage as Earth Breakers broke the edges of them down. Elithiend’s most tightly kept secret, a major safeguard against invasion, was now in the hands of The Oracle.

Then the frigid air of the stormy seas abandoned her, to be replaced by the warmth of the library of Farrenhold, the scent of old tomes filling her senses.

“I see the insubordination runs deep. Have I been too lenient with you all? Do I need to remind you who is in charge?”

Pain seared Solveig’s skull again as the memories of the books in Adira’s library filled her mind’s eye. The titles, the locations, all of it. She fought desperately to close her mind, to stop The Oracle from stealing anymore that would put her friends at risk. But a wicked laugh echoed through her, rattling her bones.

“Something to hide, Princess?”

She threw up walls to block them, but The Oracle tore through them with ease, as though every single one was made of paper and not brick. They pried further; Solveig’s back bowed against her restraints as though The Oracle were truly ripping through her. Flashes of memories, weeks, months, years of them all in a rush.

Until they froze.

On a craggy storm scape. A raging sea and stony ground where the princess lay dying, drowning in her own blood.

Shifting again.

A circular room of lost hope and a picture that held one last truth. One that threatened to tear their world apart.

“You should have aided me willingly, Princess. Maybe then you could’ve kept some of your secrets.” The Oracle laughed again. “You’re dying, and you know it, don’t you? You’re afraid.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“Not of death, no. But afraid of what they will do to your friends should you be unable to warn them that you have spilled their secrets. How do you think they’ll react to yet another betrayal? Do you think they will welcome you with open arms or throw you to the wolves as they should have the first time?”

Solveig’s eyes flew open on The Oracle’s command, clouded and unseeing as they took control. “Should you wish to invade Elithiend, Prince Killian, you will need an army of pyromancers at your side. They can light the way through the Dead Strait. Earth Breakers can temporarily break down the rocks that can’t be avoided.”

“Thank you, blessed Oracle.” Killian bowed as though The Oracle were before him, and not his sister.

“I am not finished,” they hissed through her. “The princess in Farrenhold is harbouring illegal knowledge in their library. Burn it down or I will deal with them and you personally.”

The princess’s eyes fell closed again, but The Oracle did not release her, feeding on her terror. Whatever was connecting them allowed the transfer of power, too. Even as a shadow in her own body, she could feel the power draining from her soul.

“Since you’re unafraid of death, you won’t mind meeting it sooner,” The Oracle sneered, almost bored now. “Your brother has a visitor in the castle, in the places so deep and dark that even the stars can’t find it. This will be your last chance. Discover the truth of how the prince came here before, what waits for us in Elithiend, and I will restore your power. Fail, and I’ll see you rotting beside your long dead lover before the snow sticks to the ground.”

Solveig was numb. Her skin clammy yet cold. Though her mind and body were her own again, she did not fight against her restraints. Blood, thick and hot, dripped from her mouth and nose as she coughed against the blockage. Even when Killian released her restraints, she made no move to stand. Staring only at the vaulted ceiling.

“The Oracle sees this as a failure, but I do not,” he said calmly, completely unfazed by the sight of his limp and bleeding sister before him. “You have given us information we did not have before and to prove my generosity, I shall give payment in kind.” Killian bent at her side, whispering in her ear.

“It was Gabriel who poisoned Prince Emmerich. What you do with that information is up to you.” He shrugged and left the room. Left her there, prone and bleeding, her eyes barely moving to track him as she fell into unconsciousness. The pain, both physical and mental, consuming her.

They confined her to her chambers. Healers of both magical and natural abilities tried to fight whatever unseen malice pushed the sleeping princess to the brink. The wounds on her scalp were slow to heal, despite the best efforts of even the most talented Hydromancer.

She was undressed, bathed and redressed; fed and watered by Teris, supplied tea from her mother’s kitchen in all varieties. Nevertheless, she would not wake. As the physical wounds healed, the mental ones remained. One’s that only the princess could heal. Still, they tended to her, hoping one day she would wake up.

She was lost, trapped in a world of pain and memory. There, she relived her darkest moments in an endless loop. She saw every death, every face, every name. Every life she had snuffed out as easily as a candle flame, again and again.

There was Aldrik’s death and Xanthe’s too, drowning her in blood so thick and dark she would never be clean of it.

Time passed, trapped as she was, and slowly, agonisingly slow, she became aware of the outside world, of bustling bodies and whispered words. She fought to find her way free to no avail, still trapped in a time loop of The Oracles making. As though The Oracle didn’t want her to complete her last task at all. The mere thought of it had The Oracle’s voice shattering through her mind once more, impossible to tell if it was illusion or reality.

“I do not wish you to fail, Princess. I only need our visitor to be so broken down he may talk. He knows what you’ve done, knows you’ve spilled his secrets. We need him broken to the point of despair, and until then I shall keep reminding you of what is at stake, should you fail me again.”

A week passed in the blink of an eye, with no sign of the princess regaining consciousness. The healers had long since given up, exhausted every remedy and therapy. All they could do now was wait.

For a flicker.

Wait.

For the flutter of breath.

Wait.

For the twitch of muscle.

Wait.

Only wait.

For the princess to open her eyes.