The king turns to the closest guard and holds out a hand. The man places a thick silver saw in his sovereign’s palm.
“No,” I whimper, bucking my hips and stomping my captor’s foot. The blade bites deeper, stalling my attempts to save my beloved from his fate.
A deep, guttural scream wrenches from Senan’s throat when the saw meets his flesh, dragging with jagged strokes, back and forth. Sawing. Cutting. Severing his right wing from his body. I shout, no longer caring about the blade at my throat, scratching and clawing, trying anything and everything I can to get to him.
How could the king do this to his own brother? Where is his compassion? Forgiveness? Mercy? King Boris wipes a hand over his brow, smearing blood across his forehead.
Then he cuts off Senan’s second wing.
My prince falls silent, his body limp and lifeless, splayed on the cobblestones like a sack of grain. The wound in his side would’ve taken too much magic to heal. His well must bedepleted. Even if the sun could reach us down here, he still wouldn’t have enough to heal this wound.
And if he cannot heal himself, he’ll bleed out.
He’ll die.
I have to go to him. I have to dosomething.
I stomp on my captor’s instep and ignore the sting at my throat as I manage to duck out of his hold. “Stop! Please! Please stop!” My screams echo off the plaster walls, melting into the thick clouds above.
“This is what we do to traitors,” the king snarls, picking up one of Senan’s beautiful wings and calling fire to his palm. The inky feathers burst into flames, black smoke twisting toward the gray clouds. “This is what happens to those who defy their king.”
Blood pools in puddles on the cobblestones.So much blood.
A guard yanks me back by my hair. I watch helplessly as they drag Senan’s lifeless body toward the portal, leaving a bloody trail in their wake.
They can’t put him in. He has no wings. He’ll fall to his death.
Stop fighting.
Save yourself.
He is already gone.
“Let him go!” I scream.
The king’s head tilts. “You heard her, men. Let him go.”
The guards lift my love over the portal’s edge…and throw him in.
I surge forward, slipping from the guard’s grasp.
No one tries to stop me as I sprint toward the portal…
And leap in after him.
To be continued…