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Too late.
I hadn’t been able to summon more than a spark of a flame when everything turned to ice. A shimmering sheen of it covered everything, it rippled over the cracked marble and the blood splattered floor, covering what was left of the Fae whose time I had ripped away.
Even my magic slowed as the chill of her ran through me.
“That’s quite enough of that!” Dalyah roared from behind us, her chill rushing through my bones as it moved inside of me. As it was everywhere. The ice inside of me was freezing me into place, my knees curled, pulling me back down to the altar with a clang and a groan.
“You thought you could take us on?” Silas sneered, his face bloodied and swollen as he yanked at my hand, wrapping the shackle around my wrist with a pinch that I already knew would be turning my fingers purple in quick order. The chains rattled as they were pulled, metal clanking against stone as we were forced down. Ice and chains plastered my and Elara’s heads and torsos against the white stone, freezing us against the carved surface of the altar.
The strength of her power was more than I would ever have assumed. I had seen her ice, I had felt it as recently as the night before, but this was so much more. I had never felt magic this strong. If we were to succeed in this we would only have one shot. I was ready, I had time stored, magic pulsing at my fingertips.
It was time.
I needed her to be in front of me. In front of Elara.
The princess continued to grumble and fight from where she was restrained, where I was lashed down by her side. I could practically feel the strength of her magic rumble through the stone below us.
We only had one chance.
“Elara–” I began.
“It’s purple,” Elara whispered, staring at what I had missed before, what had become so normal I hadn’t even noticed the color of the blood that had flowed from the guard.
Swirls of red and amethyst were streaked over the intricate carving of a forest, the deep crimson blood having dried in what looked to be a sun setting amidst the trees. The fresh drops of damp purple blood had sprayed over everything, giving it the illusion of flares and embers from the sun in the center of the forest.
The Forest of Ok.
We had just stood among those trees, that smell. Where we had glowed like the sun, just as the carving displayed a sunset in shades of purple.
Invisible icy hands pushed us down, Elara still yelling as I stared at that sun and the carving within it that the blood consumed, two people, standing before a city more expansive than Turin.
“Let us go! I will not let you do this! Not anymore!” Elara’s shout echoed in my ears but I didn’t look away from those people, at the blood.
Purple blood.
That was not what I had been raised hearing. My father had always said Princess Elara took her stand before the Crimson Stained Altar. Something was wrong.
Was this how it had always happened?
What had Vaelar said?
‘The crimson stained altar is not the end. Do not be afraid to fail.’
I had spent so long working to this, to this moment, but something deep in my core was screaming how wrong this was. This was not how it was supposed to end.
Do not be afraid to fail.
I tried to move, to shift, to pull at time or anything to figure it out, but my magic had frozen as much as the ice that was everywhere.
“You will do as I say, Girl!” Dalyah snarled the name, the ice smothering everything now as she grabbed our hands pulling them forward so that we were spread over the altar as though we were to be roasted by it.
All it would take was a simple counterbalance and I could spin forward, fire rippling through the air behind me and cutting through whatever ice had consumed us to free myself, to face Dalyah. Another whip of fire around her and she could be gone.
Could be.
Except that everything else was playing out exactly as I had been told. Would that mean we would fail too?
Do not be afraid to fail.
