Page 110 of A Sword of Ice
The word rolled over and over in her mind like a song that had no beginning and no end. She tried to shove it away, to pray to Mana that it wasn’t true, but her own turmoil couldn’t help her see past what was already staring her right in the face.
She tried to summon that feeling of Mana, of instinct, that would tell her that it was all a lie. That her sister wasn’t dead. That she hadn’t been executed in a camp in Ielwyn like the papers said. But there was nothing. No sliver of magic jolting down her spine, no magic to knock the idea out of her head before it even grew.
It was like Mana had hidden away, gone silent in the face of the lies it had led Iona to believe. It made her wonder if Mana had ever really been there at all. If it had all been Iona’s own imagination just like everyone had said.
It was easy to believe in rumors and the impossible. So when George told her his theories, she’d held tightly onto that shred of hope. Because it was the last and only thing she ever had in her life to look forward to. Everyone had died that day on the beach. When the possibility had been spoken of her sister being alive, Iona had grasped for it with shaking fingers. Because in a world that was ever-changing, full of violence and a never-ending loneliness, she needed something to believe in.
And it had given her delusions.
Mana had never really been alive, whispering in her ears at all.
Maybe that had been her own imagination. Her own hope breaking through logical reason and thought.
Which meant that her entire journey had been for nothing. She’d put everyone else’s lives in jeopardy chasing a dream.
One that quickly melted into a nightmare.
“No!” The word ripped from her throat on a painful cry. She grabbed the evidence of her own delusions—of the single ghost from her past that reallyhadbeen a ghost all this time—in her fingertips, and she ripped it down the middle.
Her rage knew nothing of logic or calm. It stormed and came out of her mouth in screams and cries. Like prayers she’d wasted for so many years on things that could never come true. She cursed Mana and the emperor until her voice was hoarse in her throat and the paper was nothing but thin, ripped up strips in her fingers. Even then, there was no calming what lived inside her.
She needed more. She needed an outlet for her rage. She needed to get it all out in any way she could. Her hands met the edges of the desk. She gripped it and used all her strength to send it flying backwards.
Then she tore through the room, destroying everything in sight, kicking chairs and files that held years of cruelty and despair. If she could eradicate the haunting memories with a blast of magic like she could the pages, she would. But even the whispers of the camp’s terrors slid between the empty spaces of these walls.
Iona screamed until her throat ached. Then she slumped to the floor, pressing her palms tightly against the cold iron. It singed and hurt, and she welcomed the pain as she buried her face against the tops of her hands and wept for the sister she’d hoped to find. For the sister she realized wasn’t even alive at all.
Her heart broke in that moment. It shattered, and her fingers itched to tap against something, but she couldn’t find the energy to piece herself back together again. Down the mating bond, she felt Julius’ essence and reached out to him. She needed him. Needed his grounding strength. She could admit that at least. That she was tired of being alone. Tired of dealing with the uncertainty and fake positivity that she’d only opted in place of her missing sister.
Because being happy was like having a part of her sister alive and by her side. If she was happy, then it meant her personality still shone as bright as the wishes of stars in the sky.
Maybe deep down the whole time she knew she would never find Malika alive.
And that’s what hurt most of all.
A door creaked open from somewhere in the room. She sniffled. “Julius?”
But the footsteps that sounded on the floor weren’t his. They were unfamiliar and metallic and reeked of iron.
She turned on the ground.
And Iona didn’t even have time to scream before the sword came crashing towards her head.
47
Snowfall and Blood
Julius’ green eyes glared at the humans they’d subdued. They were on their knees, clasped in the same manacles they used against the Fae. The only difference was, the iron didn’t burn them, didn’t hurt.
But soon they’d all be screaming their pain to the skies.
He turned to Weylyn, who prowled down the line of humans with a wide smile and glittering, devilish eyes. It wasn’t so often they caught the more feral side of the Fae.
Julius didn’t know a lot about him. Like where his family was from or what drove him to do the things he did. There was something about death and killing that made him almost effervescent.
He was little more than a wild animal.
Sure, he kept himself tightly contained, but Julius figured that had to do more with the fact that he was the king’s lackey, and therefore had an image to maintain out of orders, rather than because he actually cared about what image he portrayed.
