Chapter 63: Sixty Three
The crowd roars above, hungry for blood, but I barely hear them. All I see is the woman who showed up every night in the last couple of weeks, even while I wallowed in self-pity and anger. The woman who got me to dance on a table in a room full of men because I told her I’d never done something so outrageous. The closest thing I’ve ever had to a friend, bleeding out before my eyes because I did nothing.
Not again.
Not this time.
My hands tighten around the icy circlet, the blood-red diamond pulsing against my skin. My throat is dry, my heart hammering against my ribs, but the words leave me in a whisper all the same.
"I grant Evadne Kaldrith my immunity."
Lilith’s hand stiffens and she shoves Evadne aside roughly with a grin. She tosses the sword aside. "I told you I’d kill you." She cocks her head. "And I meant every word."
She lunges.
"Stop," I say-command, but I know it is fruitless. I seem completely unable to use my words to compel her, whatever shields she has on her mind much too strong to break through.
The first blow cracks across my jaw so hard the world tilts sideways. I hit the ground, roll, and catch her shin with a kick that sends her staggering back. I’m up before she recovers, a growl tearing from my chest as I slam my fist into her ribs once, twice, three times. Bone crunches under my knuckles and she gasps.
But when she rips away from me, she’s smiling, blood on her teeth. "It is all the more fun when they fight back."
She fights back. Harder.
A whip of fire lashes from her hand and sears across my arm. I scream and stumble, and she’s there, grabbing a fistful of my hair and slamming my head against the stone once, twice, until my ears ring. I ram my elbow into her gut and she groans, claws raking down my cheek. We’re a blur of fists and fury and hatred. My knuckles split open against her face. She snaps my shoulder against the cliff’s edge, the wind whipping at my hair.
I whack her across the face with the crown. She punches me. I rip out her stupid, perfect hair. She rips my neck open.
But I don’t stop.
I can’t stop.
Every time she knocks me down, I get back up. Every time she burns me, I shove forward through the pain. She’s older, more experienced, but I’m stronger, more skilled. And for a moment, I think I might actually win.
Then she grabs a fistful of snow and dust and tosses it in my eyes. Oldest trick in the book--and I fall for it anyway.
Her knee drives into my ribs--once, twice--and something inside me tears. Pain explodes through my abdomen, sharp and sickening. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. My vision goes white. She never stops, hitting me again and again, even as I curl around the pain, even as bile burns the back of my throat.
"Stay down!" she howls, voice cracking with hatred as she stomps my back, my stomach, my legs. "Stay down, you useless, pathetic thing!"
I taste blood. My vision blurs. My arms shake under me. But the crown is still in my hand, pressed against my chest, and I hold it tighter, not because I want it, but because I won’t let someone like her have it.
And because...because she can’t have Lucien.
I don’t realize I said that aloud until fury lights her eyes. In that moment, I realize that this is no competition at all. There is something fundamentally wrong with Lilith. No one should be this strong, this crazed.
We were never a match for her and the only reason she didn’t kill us all was because she cared to stick to the rules. It was like being held by a vengeful god.
She grabs my throat and hauls me up, slamming me into the ground so hard the stone cracks beneath me. My spine screams. My body is nothing but pain. She punches me again--jaw, ribs, temple--until I can barely see. I swing once, weakly, connecting with her cheek and sending her stumbling. But it’s not enough. It’s never enough.
The final blow sends me crashing to the ground, limbs twitching, chest heaving in agony. My hands are numb. My heartbeat is a distant echo.
And still, I don’t let go.
Even when she kicks me in the gut and I vomit blood onto the stone. Even when her boot grinds my hand into the floor and my knuckles split open. Even when tears burn my eyes and my body begs me to surrender.
I don’t.
A couple more minutes, I think, as the tolling carries higher and higher. I hold on a couple more minutes and I win this.
It’s Lilith who pries my fingers open one by one, nails digging deep into my flesh as she wrestles the crown from my grip. My strength is gone. My breath is faint. I can only watch as she rips it from my hands and lifts it into the air.
The bells toll.
The Selection ends.
And I am not queen.
My eyelids flutter and for a moment, I drift, losing time. Because when my eyes open again, I am being lifted off the ground my a group of men dressed like knights. The cheers make my head spin. I feel like I am dying.
Head lolling left, I note Lilith walking by herself, though she looks worse for wear.
I should have left her bald.
Torches line the center of the arena and the rows of seats, lighting the world in an orange glow. I taste the blood on my tongue as we are both left in the center, on the concrete, forced to kneel before Lucien.
I don’t know why they bother bringing me. Perhaps, it is all part of the humiliation ritual.
Lucien stands before us, wreathed in torchlight and shadow, the crowd chanting his name and hers. His crown gleams atop his silver-light hair. The air is so heavy I can barely breathe, the weight of his presence pressing down on my chest.
Yet, he doesn’t look at me.
A herald steps forward, lifting the ruined circlet from Lilith’s hands and presenting it to the king. "By blood and by trial," the herald proclaims, voice booming through arena, "Lilith of House Blackspire stands victorious. She has claimed the Draemont Crown."
The crowd erupts a tidal wave of sound and fury. Lilith’s smile widens. She straightens her back despite the limp in her leg, chin raised high, regal in a way I will never be.
Lucien approaches her slowly. His every step is measured, absolute. He takes the circlet from the herald and raises it high for the world to see.
"Let all bear witness," he says, voice rich and commanding, "to the woman who fought harder than any before her. Who clawed and bled and rose above every challenge laid before her. Let all witness the crowning of Ebonheart’s queen."
The roar that follows is deafening.
Lilith bows her head, breath hitching, ready for her coronation. Lucien steps forward, lifts the circlet over her--and stops.
A strange stillness rolls through the arena.
He frowns. His thumb brushes the empty cradle at the center of the coronet, where the blood diamond should sit. The heart of the crown is gone.
Lucien looks at me then, cruel amusement sparking in his eyes. My fingers unfurl and the blood ruby falls from my grasp, rolling across the floor to stop at his feet.
"Oh, but you naughty little thief," he purrs.
My vision doubles and I barely notice him until his boots stop in front of my battered knees. My vision swims again. My body tilts sideways. I brace for the humiliation, for the sneer, the condemnation, the exile.
But Lucien, King of Ebonheart, does none of that.
Instead, he drops to one knee before me.
The crowd gasps as one. Even Lilith stumbles a step forward, as if she’s been struck. Because Lucien kneels to no one.
He hooks a thumb under my chin. "What were you going to do with the blood diamond?" he asks me, voice low, yet echoing across a crowd of thousands.
My voice is pained and ragged. "S-shove i-it up-p y-yer arse."
He stares at me for a painfully, long moment.
And then, King Lucien reaches up, unhooks the heavy crown from his own brow, and places it upon my head.