Invidia clicks her tongue, holding my mate by the throat. Arina drops the dagger with an echoing clatter. Fuck.
“I’m telling a story, dear. It’s rude to interrupt,” she chastises. “I couldn’t imagine why he would be so irate over a fae princeling.”
Arina is choking, using both her hands to relieve the pressure Invidia is placing on her windpipe. Tears cut paths down her cheeks.
I can’t conjure enough power to move, so I make a run for it. Invidia shoots out a hand without looking, manipulating the marble at my feet just enough to hold me in place in the middle of the room.
“I followed him, watched as he cornered her after dinner on the last night of the celebration, demanding she tell him what happened. He held her as she wept, something he had not deigned to do for me.”
It hits me then that she's been toying with me in order to confess. She could have turned me to stone this entire time. She wants to tell this story. She's probably been holding it in, suffering with her grief alone. She needs someone to know her side, and I pity her for just a moment.
"But it wasn’t true, was it? No offspring of a god would make it to birth just to die in such a way. I knew then that you had to have been hidden away somewhere. So, I went looking for you.”Her words line up with what my mother had told me, but it hits me with the same gut-wrenching pain that it had then.
“You were just a little thing, and you looked so like your mother. But those molten gold eyes of yours were the thing that gave you away.” She turns to look at me, and I cannot hold her stare.
Her words turn animalistic, other. “I came for her then. In such a rage, I didn't really know what I had done until it was finished. I finagled my way into her body, and used her like the vessel she is. Her own hand murdered her weak, pathetic, loving husband.” The sad laugh that she releases makes me wonder if there’s any part of her that regrets what she’s done. How far she’s taken this.
“Hydreos left me to my tantrum, abandoning me. And I've been enjoying my little game ever since.”
Sheer stupidity tumbles from my mouth, “That must be so lonely for you.”
Invidia smirks. “Oh, I’m never alone. She’s still in there, and she cries out from time to time, but her true fight died out long ago. Or so I had thought.
“When you appeared at the games, something came alive. She saw you and was too stupid to keep the joy and excitement she felt to herself. Weren't you, Daph?” she asks, staring down at her own chest. No answer comes. At least, not one that I can hear.
“The gods have had enough of this depravity,” I spit, trying to free myself.
“Yes. Well, I knew it was only a matter of time. The gods don’t love when one of us takes the spotlight for too long, do they?”
Invidia stands at the top of the stairs, still holding Arina by the throat and lifting her off the ground. Her dark magic seeps into the healer, turning her skin and veins an unnatural shade of grayish-purple.
I work my feet, attempting to stretch my boots and slip out from them.
“You love her?” Invidia taunts, tearing her eyes from my mate to watch me. “Let me tell you something about love, princeling: it doesn't exist. It’s a myth made up by fools and starry-eyed buffoons.”
The stone around my own feet vanishes, and I fall forward without warning. I’m on the floor, looking up at the top of the stairs as my world stands still, shattering the same moment Arina’s body turns to stone that flows out from the demon’s hand.
Invidia cackles, and it occurs to me one moment too late what she’s doing.
The hand holding Arina releases, opening wide, and the stone statue of the woman I love slips to the ground before I can form a clear thought.
Even without the bond set in place, I expect to feel something more significant the moment my mate is lost to me. I’m frozen in horrified awe as a deep fracture spiderwebs through the stone when she hits a corner of the stairs.
I blur, one final time, to the top of the stairs.
Invidia doesn’t move when I dive for the dagger and thrust it into her with all my might. She must have thought I would be too stunned to act, because she doesn’t fight at all. The blade rips through the skin and slides between her ribs, sinking into her heart.
I slump to the ground, cradling my mother’s body as she gasps through shallow breaths.
Her eyes soften, and a wisp of magic swirls from the blood leaking out of the gash, though I’ve left the blade in. The green smoke is sucked into the askios stone, trapping Invidia for good.
I know it’s finished when all the smoke is gone and the stone glows green.
My mother reaches up to touch my cheek. “Raiden,” she croaks, and I shush her, holding her close.
“Save your strength, Mother. I’m going to save you.” I resist the urge to rock, not wanting to spill more of her blood. Fuck! Arina was my only plan. I cannot save my mother without her. How did everything go so wrong?
“You have done so well.” Her voice shakes, and blood drips from the corner of her sad smile.
