Elfin Queen. Layla was the Elfin Queen.
And would hate her.
When her not-niece, her brilliant, brave Layla, had come up with that cursed plan, she hadn't been able to accept it. Hadn't been able to just let her die, not when so many had fallen before her.
Talia had run. Run, as fast as her legs could carry her, to the army gathering at the edge of Isthmus.
Armed to the teeth, she had walked into the Empress' camp and raised her hands in surrender.
"I want to bargain," she had said. "I can tell you where the people in Veron and Celeste are running." Not where the Second Army were fleeing with Maia, her other niece, or the Silver Guard and Court, but certainly enough for what she wanted
A stillness came to the camp then. The general in charge had come forward. Hadlow was his name, wasn't it?
"What do you want, elf?"
"Layla Swallow's life," Talia had replied. "I tell you where they're hiding, and you spare her."
"May I make a suggestion?" someone had said, their voice silky and cold. Female. "Hello, Vivienne."
"Empress," Talia had replied smoothly. Because that was that the person in front of her was-the Empress, somehow speaking through someone else's mouth.
"I'll spare your 'niece'," Medea smiled. "You'll tell me where her beloved subjects flee too...and you will join me."
"Join you?" Talia asked, suddenly cold.
"Of course. No one, valkyrie or elf, will accept you once you sell Layla's people out. Why not enter my court?"
This was an asset; Talia had realised distantly. A chance to become a spy deep in Medea's ranks. But...
"Why?" Talia asked.
"Because a Lady of Asriel turning her back on her people will break spirits as easily as bloodshed,"the Empress replied. "And if you serve me well enough, Silverian, then you shall rise through the ranks swiftly indeed."
"And you'll let Layla live?"
"I won't let her free," Medea replied. "But your 'niece' will live."
Even though she was signing away her soul, Talia nodded and smiled at the woman who had murdered her brother and sister-in-law.
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Layla
This, she supposed, was betrayal.
Right now, it felt an awful lot like emptiness.
Everything she had done...all she and her parents had worked for...gone.
Her people captured. Her city-states in ruins. Her so-called aunt at fault for it all.
This, she knew, was betrayal.
YOU ARE READING
Three Broken Kingdoms-Book 1 of the Lost Continent (Completed)
Fantasy'Medea Crimson took a deep breath, walked into the abyss and died. It wasn't for the first time.' Completed, first in the Lost Continent Series. Three Kingdoms on the brink. A war on the horizon. The peoples of the Lost Continent are forever divided...
