The King's Queen

Chapter 47

"Futile." Was all Rosaline said before her hand sliced through the air, giving the silent order.

The guards took aim, and then they fired.

***

The arrows rained down around us like a hail of thorns. My mind quickly processed what was happening and, in turn, my body reacted with equal speed. I whisked Cyrena behind me and hoped that would be enough to protect her.

My body stiffened as I braced for the impact of the arrows, but there was none. I cracked my eyes open, half expecting to see myself covered in blood, but surprisingly, I was fine. Well, if being in one piece counted as fine.

Rosaline let out a soft laugh from where she was leaning over the balcony with an amused expression.

"The arrows are not meant to hurt you, Elizabeth," she purred. "It would be too much work to explain your arrow wounds to Luca. Poison, on the other, hand is easier..." She trailed off, and my eyes widened.

I looked behind me to where the arrows had landed on the bark of a venerable oak tree. It hissed like a snake from where all the arrows had pierced it with impressive precision. I'd alrady been in way too many of these situations to not know what was happening.

There was Nightshade inside the tree. I drew a fresh breath of air into my lungs and hoped that it would be able to last until I figured out a way out of there.

Some of the archers were reloading their arrows, perhaps to shoot at us if we dared try to escape. But I wasn't going to simply stand before Rosaline and get slaughtered. I had to plan my next move carefully in order to minimize any harm that might come to me or Cyrena.

With the slightest degree of movement, I shifted my body to the right. The arrows followed me immediately. That confirmed it. If any of us decided to make a run for it, we'd be filled with arrows in an instant.

"Don't do this, Rose!" Cyrena pleaded. "Elizabeth is his daughter! Luca would never forgive you for this."

"That would be a problem... except, Luca will never know that I was the one behind it." She shrugged. "Isn't that right, Neev?"

Neev nodded. "I was the one who lured his daughter out here in order to assassinate her in his absence."

"Why?" Rosaline asked him.

"Because Ashton DeLorentes found out that she is now an Origin and ordered me to kill her." He lied effortlessly.

It was an obvious lie. Ashton would never do that, even if he had found out that I wasn't a human. But Luca hated the DeLorentes', so it probably wouldn't be hard to convince him that the same family that had killed the woman he loved had also killed his daughter.

"And what will happen to you once Luca hears about what you did?" Rosaline continued her little game.

"Oh, he'll kill me." He replied with no fear or hesitation.

"And what do you think Luca will do to the DeLorentes boy?" Rosaline asked sweetly, feeding him more of her smiles which he gobbled up.

"He'll erase him." Neev smiled. "And then he'll wipe out all the powerful Origen families. The Origins will finally stand on top once more. That is the way it should be."

It was sickening to see an Origen willing to betray his own people all because of his warped delusion that Origins were somehow superior to them.

"Do you hear that, Elizabeth?" Rosaline asked. "Your sacrifice will be the ignition for the war. When the other Origin families hear about what the Crysauralians did to Luca's heir, they will all rally to our side. United, we will be unstoppable. It's too bad you won't be around to see it." Her voice was stained with faux pity.