Vanquished Gods (Hallowed Games #2)

Chapter 31

CHAPTER 31

I had somehow survived the day, managing to move with the shadows as the sun made its daily journey, finally leading to night. As the evening light grew tinged with rose, I heard something at last. Footfalls. Faint at first but growing louder.

Someone was coming.

My thoughts raced. I didn’t know who it was or whether they were coming to kill me or simply to drag me out for something worse. But just the sound of those footsteps—the knowledge that someone hadn’t forgotten me there, in that pit of bones—sparked something inside me. Hope? Or was it fear? Maybe both.

Above, in the dusky light, a pale figure hovered at the edge of the pit, her platinum hair cascading down like pale flames in the dark. I swallowed hard, the damp air thick with the scent of decay. I felt as if the cage were getting smaller.

“I want to see Sion,” I rasped.

Her cold smile sharpened. “Not possible, my darling. He’s very busy. He is the king, after all. He gave me your navka pendant, you know, to keep me safe.”

“I’m supposed to help defeat the Order,” I said, the words like gravel in my throat. “How am I going to do that from a cage underground?”

Her wild laughter echoed off the stone walls. “Oh, I don’t know what they plan to do with you anymore. I’m just a servant, after all, right?”

The word servant dripped with bitterness, and a dark edge undercut her tone.

“I don’t know, Rowena. You clearly seem very important.” I wanted to humor her, but I was afraid the sarcasm shone through.

“Well, I can tell you this, because why not? When Sion and I were making love recently, he told me the truth. He was just using you for your power. The plan all along was to kill you once he no longer needed you. You must have sensed that, right?”

I tried to keep my face composed as my mind whirled, but then she lifted her hand, and my stomach dropped. The dim light caught the gleam of Sion’s ring on her finger—the one I’d seen him give to Lydia to convey his orders.

“He gave me this,” she said, a hint of glee in her voice. “Said I was the one he loved. It’s his royal seal. I’m a regent now.”

Nausea rippled through me. “And why would he need a regent? Why can’t Sion rule himself?”

“Even the king needs a rest sometimes. He deserves to take off his heavy crown, to rest his head where the sleepy-robins grow and the quickbeams arch over him like a roof. A sleep among the traveler trees…I take care of him like you do not. Take care, my Death Queen. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I licked my dry lips, a suspicion creeping in. “Rowena, are you, by any chance, the one who attached the razor-clam shell to my chair?”

She stared down at me, her eyes glowing with pale silver. “You don’t belong here. You were never meant to be one of us. A filthy mortal, changed by accident. You could never replace her. Did you really think you could replace her ?”

“Replace who ?”

“Epona,” she shouted, and the name echoed around the cavern. “She was everything you are not. Fun, beautiful, joyous to be around. Mirthful. She laughed, she lit up the world. They both loved her, deeply, Maelor and Sion, and you—” Her eyes shone with tears. “You’re a nobody. You’re dirt. You will never be enough. Goodbye, Elowen. When dawn arrives tomorrow, Sion and I will cast you into the light, where the fire will set you aflame, sending you into the abyss where you belong.”

Another night passed.

Another morning sun, rising to invade my cage like the Luminari storming our shores. Another day shrinking into the shadows, my body folding into itself, limbs curling away from the lethal touch of the sun as its burning fingers stretched closer, searing the iron beneath me.

My skin grew dryer, paler, cracking. An ache settled deep into my bones. I scuttled to the farthest edges of my cage, pressing myself into a patch of shadows.

Until at last, the sun began to set, darkening the sky. As it did, Rowena appeared again, grinning down at me from over the edge of the pit. “Thank you for the butterfly pendant. I found it under your bed. I didn’t have one, not like you did. And now I have two!”

“I thought I was supposed to be executed this morning.”

“Sion and I thought you needed more time to think before you die. Tomorrow morning is better, I think.”

“What are you doing here, Rowena? Did you just come down to gloat?”

She faltered, glancing at her hand, her smile failing, and she twisted Sion’s ring around her finger. “You will be executed. Burned. In the sun. As I told the soldiers this morning, this ring means I’m in command now,” she muttered, half to herself. “But they didn’t like keeping secrets from the other soldiers. I said to them, ‘We don’t need to let everyone know before we start, do we? We let them know only when it’s too late to stop it.’ I want everyone to see you when you’re burning, so they know the Keeper of Relics was wrong. I’m the important one. They must understand the role fate has written for me, to be queen of Gwethel. And when they watch the Underworld Queen burn, they will understand they were all wrong, and so was the Keeper, you know? They are so superstitious.”

“ Keeping secrets ?”

She held out the ring again. “Sion gave it to me to issue orders, but the six still didn’t listen to me. I had to teach them a lesson.”

My pulse quickened. “What six? The six soldiers who arrested me?”

“They said my ring wasn’t good enough. They didn’t understand why it must be a secret. Because Seneschal Aelius, you see…Aelius is a traitor, and he never liked me. You killed Bran, the king’s best friend, and still, they wanted to wait. But the king needs rest, and that’s why I’m in charge!”

She hardly made sense, but there was enough there that I was getting a clearer picture of what was happening. And for the first time in days, I actually had hope.

“Am I to understand,” I rasped, “that only the soldiers who arrested me know I’m here? And they refuse to execute me until Sion gives the order in person?”

“Those six had to die. They weren’t listening.” She smiled down at me. “Six soldiers of the night, armored in silver, believing themselves unbroken. But the thorned flower of the fae does not bend to fangs. Do you know the tale of the hawthorn tree?”

Her scent—sickly sweet as decaying roses—coiled off her, reaching me down in my cage.

“What happened to the six soldiers?”

“The hawthorn, how it cuts, its bite so unforgiving, even to those of silent hearts, those who died long ago.” She chuckled softly, the sound as brittle as dry winter leaves. “This morning, when the sun kissed the earth, I lay their six sleeping bodies out beneath the flames of day. The secret died with them. No one knows you’re here except me and Sion, my lover.”

I leaned forward, staring at her. “You burned them.”

Her eyes gleamed. “They defied a king.” She giggled. “And I am his queen. He gave me his ring.” She looked up at the night sky through the oculus. “He always loved me !”

Her scream echoed off the stone.

And then I recognized it. The wailing I’d heard through the castle walls. Rowena’s voice.

I slumped against the iron cage. “You’ve captured Sion, haven’t you? You took his ring against his will.”

She gripped the edge of the pit, all amusement falling from her face, replaced with fury. “I already explained it to you, you filthy little animal,” she snarled. “You’re a dog in a cage. Sion loves me . And now, you wretched reaper, I’m going to leave you down here to think . In the morning, I’ll drag you into the light myself. But until you burn, you think about why someone as miserable as you will never be good enough for Sion.”

“Wait!” The word ripped out of me, but I stopped myself. I couldn’t ask her. Couldn’t ask her about Leo. She’d use it against me if she knew how much I cared about him. She’d murder him in front of me.

So, instead, I swallowed my fear and whispered, “Just tell Sion I’m sorry.”

But she was already gone, her footsteps fading into the silence above.