Page 70 of To Scale the Emerald Mountain
My stare takes in Locane silently as the pattering hiss of sand continues to croon around us with its maddening song. Sweat beads at my neck in the choking heat.
“She would have been extraordinary,” Locane barks at me, breaking the silence. The fanatical glint that was ever present in our father has come to fruition in Locane.
“She is extraordinary,” I say passionately.
He chuckles. “Please, you and Mhay coddled the greatness right out of her until all that’s left is another spoiled princess who thinks she is far more special than she is. Her pathetic father willingly handed her off to be raised by you two.”
My muscles tighten with the fear that he has poisoned Ellya’s mind against the integrity of her relationships. I was told she did not know who her father was, but that does not mean Locane could not have planted a seed of doubt about the man who helped create her. A seed that would easily grow given the difficulties of their relationship. Did he do the same with Mhaylene? With me?
“Does your friendship with Milo throughout the years mean nothing to you?” I ask, and he laughs cruelly. Until the years leading up to Father’s death and Locane’s abandonment of hisresponsibilities, he and Milo had a bond as deep as the one I hold with Kraeston.
“Save your superiority, brother. Tell me, how has your friendship with Milo been the last eighteen years?” Locane asks me with a knowing smile. His face shifts back to maniacal in barely a blink. “Do you even know what she can do, Alec?”
Locane leans forward as far as his restraints will allow, the pressure of the steel collar holding him making the chords of his neck pop. His words are a breath of fanatical awe, and I see so much of Father during the dark days.
“Nothing similar to her electricity has been recorded throughout history. The Ettanelle power of her mother is barely a fraction of what Ellya holds.”
I growl at the sound of her precious name on his spiteful lips. “Why did you take her? Why her?” I cannot keep the hurt from my voice when I ask him.
“Are you certain she was only meant for you?”
My gut begins to fill with hot, heavy stones when I consider that possibility. I do not give him the satisfaction of showing my worry.
“We are made from the same matter. How do you know she wasn’t as drawn to me as she is you? Maybe Ellya was happy to go with me. She was quite upset with you. How do you know she didn’t happily run into my arms?”
My rage turns savage, and I stride towards him. My hand clamps around the barely exposed portions of his neck and squeezes—struggling to hold back enough to not kill him here and now.
The steel collar bends where my crushing grip overlaps.
Saying nothing, I stare into Locane’s dead, malicious eyes and pull from his mind the truth of his actions. The onslaught has mybrow quickly breaking out in beads of cold sweat, blood slowly dripping from my nose. I take in his treachery and manipulation, grunting with the combination of rage and effort to control the pace in which his memories come to me. If his words are true, there are things I do not wish to see.
It is obvious when I have reached that point. I see them kiss and cast a haze over the images that follow before burning the memory from his brain matter, destroying it beyond repair. Locane roars as I rip into his mind. I revel in the sounds of his screams and give him a cruel smile of my own.
He does not get to relive that for his pleasure.
The extent of their time together came to completion just hours after he stole from Ellya.
The only solace I find in everything that I have learned is that my mating bond does not extend to my twin. There is no connection between them at all. The familiarity my Ellya kept feeling was her searching for the pieces of Locane that connect to me. He knew it even when she did not; and he used it in his manipulations.
The cruelty Locane treated Ellya with astounds me. Not only did he plant seeds of doubt about her father, and indeed Mhaylene, but about herself as well. About her strength and abilities. Those seeds grew, tender roots sinking into festering ground. Even when her words fought him, they began to lack conviction. With every insult, the doubt and insecurity in Ellya’s eyes grew. All the more infuriating because the reason she did not know Locane when he appeared—as the kyniors closed in—is because she fought his mental hold so thoroughly. Both leading up to that point and after.
Ellya kept trying to turn and head back in the direction of Crane Hills. She tried multiple times to attack Locane when her subconscious was telling her he was dangerous. He eventually removedhimself from her and kept his distance, making Ellya wander aimlessly while he tried and failed over and over to break her to his will. Her vapid expression and the sudden change make sense now.
Locane reached new levels of desperation when the kyniors found her. He sank to the ground on his knees, cut his hand open and drew runes with his blood while chanting guttural incantations in a familiar tongue. His power swelled with a cloud of blood red darkness that settled before he erased every part of Ellya’s life with his amplified magic. He then fed her an illusioned lie of being locked in a dungeon before making an impossible escape. Locane then put a glamour on himself to look healthy and non-threatening before swooping in just in time to make a grand rescue.
Our trackers and search teams struggled so badly to find Ellya due to another spell with blood magic Locane performed, before he even coaxed her outside of the castle—pretending to be me. All the extra wards to keep him out never mattered. Locane never left the walls of the castle when he came to inquire about Ellya.
It was all part of his plan.
Locane continued to purposely hide Ellya’s knowledge of her gifts from her until he trusted she would not try to attack him again or flee. He began to deteriorate after almost being caught in Glehsdor. He left Ellya in that clearing near the village to go to the house and get rid of any guards or staff who may have been there. Locane exerted profound magical effort on multiple people after struggling to keep Ellya under his control for so long.
He put up his wards—which he added Ellya’s blood to not much later. Adding her blood to his wards was Locane’s first targeted effort to dampen our mating bond. It was when she passed through those wards that her light within me dimmed to nothing.
The long jump carrying the full weight of them both stretched Locane’s abilities to their limits. His hiding Ellya’s magic from her backfired in that moment. If she had been aware, she could have leaned into her power to take some of the strain off him.
After Locane had her hidden, he used minimal power, putting all his strength into keeping up Ellya’s illusions and his lies. He tried to keep hold of the glamour he kept in place to hide the terrifying state of his appearance. It often slipped.
Ellya experienced Locane’s erratic and unpredictable emotions, usually during times when he was trying to force her secrets out of her. Those times confused her further on why she could not keep her own emotions in check. Locane purposely relinquished the memory of Mhaylene to Ellya, knowing that she was hands-on in Ellya’s training. He hoped that with each memory and vision, that she would be forthcoming with information.
