Page 116 of A Kingdom of Lies

“I – I searched for you,” Doran said, spluttering like a pathetic fool. “Given time I would have ripped this entire realm apart in your memory. Everything I have done since you were taken has been for you. Everything, my love.”

“That I do not doubt.” Her reply was cold and void of any love.

Something hard smacked into my back and I realised I was now waist-deep in water. Seraphine shouted something at Duncan who promptly followed by hoisting me up. Kayne reluctantly aided me into the boat. All this happened without taking my focus off Elinor and Doran.

“The Court has been poisoned since you were taken,” Doran said, ignorant to Elinor’s change in demeanour. “But your return will make it a home again.”

Behind them the air split, untethering in two lines of pure golden light that created a portal.

Elinor stepped back. “I can’t come with you.”

“Pardon?” Doran replied, breathless as he forced his body from the ground as he stood. Elinor towered above him, in height and grace.

“I was never taken from you, Doran. All these years and the deaths that have followed have been nothing but wasted life. They would have never brought me back to you, then or now. And I would rather face a lifetime imprisoned within this realm than ever stand proudly beside you. How could I rule willingly beside a monster?”

Doran stumbled, swallowing his words thickly. We were in the boat now, feeling it rise and fall over the waves as the other assassins guided us out towards the endless, dark expanse.

“Wait,” I said, gripping the boat’s edge as I continued looking out towards Elinor and Doran. “Wait.”

From a distance it would have seemed that two lovers embraced after a prolonged time apart, but I knew different. Having shared our truths, I knew how Elinor loathed Doran – even more than I did.

Elinor’s hand drifted into her dress and quickly pulled free, as though she never had moved. Even from far away, with the splashing dark water between us, I could catch the glint of metal in her hand.

“But I love you,” Doran cried out, fingers glowing as he raised them before him. “Everything I have done has been out of my love…”

His voice faltered when Elinor drew her arm backwards until it bent at her elbow, then thrust it forward with strength only one scorned could hold. She stabbed the Oakstorm king, over and over, the beating of the dagger’s hilt against his chest melding with the beat of my frantic heart. Elinor held the king within her arms, thrusting and jabbing, until a ragged cry tore from her throat and filled the night sky. Even the winds died down as her anguish spilled into it.

Duncan held me, arms wrapped around my chest as he stopped me from falling out of the boat; only then did I register that I cried her name out across the water, throat ripping to shreds as I equalled Elinor’s cry.

King Doran Oakstorm fell onto the shore, not a speck of light left within his body, the portal gone. Elinor dropped her arms to her side, dagger falling into the waters that rushed up and claimed it. Then she turned her back on the body and waded out towards us.

“Hold,” Seraphine shouted. I could hardly care that Kayne and Seraphine had begun rowing, each slicing an oar through the water. The boat calmed, rocking only because of the waves beneath it now.

And we waited – waited patiently for Elinor Oakstorm. She swam towards us, face held above the water. I imagined Doran’s blood being cleaned from her hands, her clothes, as the ocean drank it away. By the time she reached us, Duncan practically threw himself into the water to help her up. She fell upon her back in the boat, hands clasped over her chest as she looked up into the night.

“It is truly over,” I said, looking down at her. There was an empty, light feeling of relief that filled my chest. It shared the space with another feeling, a darker one of jealously that it was not I who had the chance to pierce the blade into his chest. “For good.”

Elinor blinked, tired eyes flicking over the stars as though she wished to remember every single one she saw. “I did it for Lovis. For your mother, Julianna. And for you. Doran will never hurt you again – never hurt anyone. His tirade of pain and suffering is over.”

I leaned down, pressing my forehead to hers, tears spilling freely. Duncan placed a hand upon my shoulder, his touch a welcome anchor as I lost myself to my emotions.

“You,” I added, voice no more than the flutter of a bird’s broken wing, weak and tired. “He will never hurtyouagain either.”

CHAPTER 41

“Elinor,” I said softly, unable to stand the torturous silence a moment longer. I’d clambered across the narrow boat and took a seat by her side. There was nothing comfortable about the journey, not with the pool of saltwater in the belly of the boat, soaking through our clothes and injecting the cold deep into our skin. My stomach thrashed with the continuous rocking, and it took all my restraint not to lean overboard and vomit.

“I’m here if you need to speak about what has happened. If not, we can sit here in silence if that helps,” I murmured to Elinor. “Whatever makes you comfortable.”

The sky was stained with blush pinks and oranges. Our boat raced towards dawn, Duncan and Kayne pumping the oars through the ocean’s surface with a furious desperation to put as much distance as possible between Lockinge and us.

No one had uttered much of a word since Elinor was pulled into the boat all those hours ago, other than Seraphine who had answered Duncan’s question about our destination with a short, “Anywhere but here.”

Elinor looked away from the expanse of blue, where the brightening sky touched the ocean’s edge at such a distance it was unclear where one started and the other ended. She was pale, azure eyes heavy, framed with shadows and skin pulled taut. In the blush hues of dawn, it was impossible to ignore the look of pure, draining exhaustion that aged her tremendously.

“It had to be done. Doran’s death has played over in my mind for many years and if it had not happened then you would not have gotten away from him,” Elinor muttered, lips cracked and sore. “But the feeling that is left within me is not one I expected. The relief I thought I would feel has not yet reached me. I keep waiting for it, but that place within me is still as empty as it was before I did it.”

“I should have been the one to do it,” I replied, guilt curling within me. “You have suffered enough.”

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