To Scale the Emerald Mountain (The Willowbane Saga #1)

36. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

ELLYA

R unning down to the kitchen to eat a quick breakfast before the long trek to the training pitch, I’m hoping to run into Kraeston or Nana on the way and ask them to change our training time for today. I have no such luck.

The palace is almost too quiet today.

By the time I nearly make it there without meeting another soul, I’ve decided to practice my motions alone when I finally run into a guard.

“Excuse me.” I stop the guard.

“Yes, Princess?”

“I need someone to train with.” Indicating my head towards the door to the pitch, he follows as I walk through the second story door that I always do. I’ve noticed different exits throughout the pitch during training but haven’t yet explored where they go.

The loud ring of swords clashing, labored grunts, and a man crying greets me as soon as I open the door.

Peeking over the balcony wall, I find Alec facing off with three ragged, skinny men.

Another three lay in pools of their own blood—dead.

Alec turns and swings with precise movement, bringing his sword slicing through the shoulder of one of his opponents. Sinew and muscle separate with a nauseating squelch as his blade slides through.

Alec turns, kicking another in the chest, sending him flying backwards into the wall behind him with enough force that a spray of blood stains the tan stone on impact.

The visual brings back the image of him kicking in the door the night before, and my thighs clench.

Alec meets him on the rebound, swiping his deathly sharp sword to cut the man’s head clean off.

He turns to the last one, twirling his blade in his hand. Blood flicks off the tip and splatters across his face. He doesn’t even flinch.

Alec watches his final opponent with a cold smile gracing his striking face, taunting him.

“I want a trial! I want a trial!” the man squeals as he scampers back.

Alec laughs and drops his swords.

The man looks momentarily relieved until his eyes go wide. He then lifts his own sword, plunging it through the bottom of his jaw with force, the blade spearing through the top of his head.

Alec stays still, watching the corpse fall to the ground.

“Fucking pathetic,” Alec grumbles to himself, bending to pick up his swords.

He’s shirtless, in only his black pants and leather boots. I take in his physique, appreciating the exquisite cuts of muscle and creamy brown skin. As I walk down the stairs into the pitch, I’m not sure Alec noticed me approaching. The grin that spans his face when he turns tells me he did.

“Hello, Ellya,” he purrs.

My eyes scan over his face, the streaks of blood and unkemptness of his sweaty hair only add to his brutal beauty. My eyes cast downward to see those horrible scars across his chest and shoulder, to the toned muscles of his torso, his abs boasting a smattering of dark hair that extends between his cut hip muscles and down, down, down…

“I see that you have found your gift,” Alec’s silky baritone breaks me out of my trance.

My attention slides to his arrogant stare before I scowl.

Alec isn’t hiding his heated gaze as his eyes rove up and down my body, drinking in my form fitting clothes. His grin turns mischievous when he takes in the black bow around my hair.

He looks immensely proud of himself.

“You found the emerald,” is all I say with a flat tone.

Alec walks to a bench and picks up a towel, wiping the blood from his face. “No, my clove. You found the emerald. I merely retrieved it for you.”

“If you retrieved it, shouldn’t it be yours?” I unclip the staff and hold it out to him.

Alec frowns at me. “It is yours.”

I hold the staff vertical before doing a few slow twirls. It cuts through the air with ease—light and unbreakable. I do love it, and Alec is perfectly aware. He beams and circles behind me.

“It’s beautiful,” I admit. “Thank you.”

“It pales in comparison to your beauty,” he whispers in my ear with his breath against my skin, inhaling my scent with all the subtlety of an explosion and making my flesh pebble. “And you saw my other gift?”

“I’m not here to talk about that.” My cheeks flush as Alec pulls away and comes to face me.

“All the same, it is there any time you would like to be reminded. ”

“What will it do?” I twirl the staff in my hand, deflecting away from the topic of the picture book.

“No idea,” he admits excitedly. “I only knew that you were meant to have it. Would you like to use it?”

“That’s why I’m here,” I say with heavy sarcasm, indicating the guard I dragged in here to train with me. Alec laughs and gives the man a sympathetic nod. Several other guards are littered around the pitch, watching us with mixed enjoyment and apprehension.

“I had planned to take you a little further from our home to learn what powers you will wield. However, if you are eager to test your new weapon, then I am eager to see you use it.”

“ Your home, Alec.”

He smiles at me darkly—seductively. “I do love the sound of my name on your voice.”

My head shakes, trying to dislodge his distractions from my thoughts and get into position, motioning to the guard to do the same. “Come on.”

The guard flicks his eyes uncertainly to Alec who nods towards me. “Your queen gave you an order.”

The man swallows and takes position.

“I’m not your queen,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Oh, but you will be,” Alec tells me confidently.

I twirl the staff in a blur of motion; the metal sings through the air with grace and speed.

I turn once and bring the staff down.

The guard blocks it before it connects with his head.

My face splits wide, and I pull the staff towards myself, locking the corner of the speared end with his blade. I use the tension to flip myself over his shoulder .

When I land, I swipe the spear over the backs of his knees, meeting little resistance as the razor-sharp edge cuts through tendons.

He screams and falls to his knees.

I right myself and lock eyes with another guard, challenging him forward. Like the first, he hesitates and looks in Alec’s direction.

Alec’s nostrils flare as he sighs. “The next person to question my mate’s orders will meet a slow, excruciating death.”

After a few short minutes of fighting with the second guard, I catch him on the side of his face with the blunt emerald end of my staff. A bloody, fleshy chunk of his cheek splats while three broken teeth click along the stone floor.

“Your guards are shit, Alec,” I taunt, and he laughs.

“ Our guards. And yes, there is no denying that your greatness far outshines theirs.”

Alec motions for two more to come forward and face me. I fight them both, striking against the pair easily, moving with speed and agility to block their attacks while distributing my own.

I sweep the feet out from one before angling the staff to slice the spear into the underside of the other’s arm, finding a weak spot in his armor.

He screams as blood gushes out.

“You may all go now,” Alec’s warm voice commands.

I spin to Alec and the remaining guards to argue, still wanting to fight. The guards shuffle away quickly before Alec can change his mind, helping each other and grumbling along the way.

“I wasn’t finished!” I yell.

“Good thing I am still here.” Alec walks into the ring with one of his magnificent blades in hand.

“What are you doing?” I ask coldly .

The beautiful gift only temporarily tamed my anger with Alec for dragging me back here last night. My anger with him over learning about his previous engagement and trysts. My overall anger.

I’m just fucking angry.

Alec circles me slowly, raising his sword. “I have not had the pleasure of moving with you in some time. Indulge me.”

My face heats, but I smile cruelly at him, accepting his challenge. He returns it with a dark smirk that makes my insides clench.

Alec lunges, striking quickly in three swift swipes that I just manage to block.

The power of his blows rings through my arms, vibrating my bones. His demeanor is calm and cool, fueling my mounting rage.

“Come on, Elly. You can do better than that. Give me your fight.”

I strike hard, spinning and swinging my staff, but he meets me strike for strike.

The pitch sings with the deafening clang of metal on metal.

Lunging hard, I aim to jab him in the gut with the emerald, letting my emotions fuel my movements. Before I can make contact, his sword hooks into the nest of thorns, and he pivots his blade, effectively disarming me.

Alec cracks his neck—the sound and arrogant motion causing me to tremble with outrage.

He takes position again, holding the hilt of his sword in his left hand with a haughty expression across his face. It’s not lost on me that he has been fighting me one handed with ease, keeping the other pinned behind his back. The cockiness of his talent sends another shockwave of fiery heat through me.

“You’re not left-handed,” I sneer at him .

Alec offers a wide, pompous smile. “No, I am not.”

He takes a defensive stance and quirks a brow at me, challenging me to pick up my weapon and begin again.

I take the bait and snatch my staff off the pitch floor before quickly changing directions.

Rolling on the ground, I pop up swiftly behind him.

I swing my staff around hard, the edge of my spear connecting with his back with a resounding thud. I swipe, cutting a gruesome path across his shoulders.

Alec hisses before turning to me, his face stretched with a wild smile. “Yes, Ellya. Give me your pain.”

I roar and lunge for him again. Our fighting becomes faster, harder, more brutal.

The sounds of my grunts and groans echo around us as my poisonous bitterness courses through me.

“I don’t want to give you my pain,” I spit at him through our crossed weapons when he catches me on a block.

Alec pushes closer towards me, metal sliding against metal grating my ears. My staff lingers inches from my face; my arms shake with the effort to keep him back, knowing that he is barely giving me a hint of his strength.

“Perhaps I need to give you mine,” he grits through his teeth, his brown eyes holding fathomless fire.

Alec’s honesty takes me off guard. In the fraction of a second that I falter he comes up behind me and has his sword to my throat—the edge barely a cold breath against my delicate skin.

“Fight harder,” he hisses in my ear.

I scream and slam the end of my staff to the ground .

A deafening boom echoes across the sky on a whipping gust of wind that nearly knocks me off my feet, reverberating for miles. Alec’s arm around my waist tightens, holding me up.

Crackling golden-green spiderwebs of light extend from the crater I made at our feet.

Lights shimmer ethereally as they speed towards an outer wall of the pitch. When my power reaches the wall, it gathers into a solitary beam, electricity shooting through the thick bricks before a ring of green fire erupts from the center—devouring everything in a ten-foot radius.

What remains sprinkles to the ground on a hiss, nothing but smoldering, green ash giving off a faint whiff of jasmine and cloves.

My eyes widen as Alec pants in my ear, still crushing me against himself.

“Yes.” His whispered word drips with awe.

His impassioned breaths bring me back to reality. I throw my head back, intending to hit his face but barely clip his jaw.

He breaks his hold, and I turn to aim my spear at him. I pause my attack when I find him deflated, shoulders slouched, his sword hanging limply at his side.

“Tell me what it will take to bring you back to me,” Alec pleads.

“I’m not the girl you apparently cherished so dearly before.”

“You are. Nothing can ever take away who you are.” Alec’s face softens as he takes a step towards me.

“Don’t.” I back a step away; he follows.

“I have cried more tears in the last months than I have collectively in my whole, long life. Each one makes me emptier than the last, knowing that you will not comfort me through them. Knowing that you will not allow me to comfort you through yours.” Alec steps forward again. “How do you think I feel? How do you think it is for me, knowing that—other than you—the person I love most in this world is the one to have caused your pain?”

My hands shake and breaths shred through my ribs as he continues to walk towards me.

“His actions have ensured that I can never be whole. For even though he is still breathing, he is dead to me.” Alec’s barely an inch from my spear when he stops, throwing his sword at my feet, the sound of his surrender clenching my heart. “My life is meaningless without you. You are everything.”

Scorching tears streak down my face as the weight of guilt and shame that I have been so desperately trying to drown finally succeeds in drowning me.

My vision warps to a lush forest.

A cruel face with eyes so like the ones just piercing me shine lifelessly in the summer sun. The hateful face rubs the tip of his nose against mine as he whispers with a lover’s caress, You aren’t worth knowing.

The scene shifts to the same face looking at me with affection as he holds me against a door and kisses me like my breath is his lifeline.

I scream as I lunge forward and bury the spear of my staff deep within Locane’s heart, plunging past bone and pushing to break through the skin of his back.

The twisted face of Locane fades away to show its loving counterpart before me, holding my weapon with both bloody hands as he pulls it out of his chest.

Because it wasn’t Locane who I stabbed—it was Alec.

It’s Alec who gasps as he dislodges the staff and drops it on the ground with an ear shattering clang .

Shuddering breaths heave in my lungs, trying to make sense of my reality and hoping that this is another instance of being unable to trust my mind.

As a trickle of blood escapes the corner of Alec’s mouth, and he falls forward to his knees, hands over his mutilated heart, I know that this is real.

A mangled cry wrenches from me as I run forward to catch him.

I place my hands over Alec’s, quickly coating them with his slick, hot blood.

He gasps and reaches up a sticky red hand to cup my cheek.

His labored breaths rattle through me, shaking my teeth.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I cry hysterically, stroking his face.

The tiny light flickering in my chest I have tried so desperately to ignore begins to fade—too quickly.

“No. No, no, no.”

Alec looks me in the eye as he weakly wipes a tear from my cheek with trembling fingers before his arm falls limp to the ground, a death rattle flowing from his lips. His light within me gutters and extinguishes completely as an anguished scream rends from my lungs.