Chapter 35 The Price of a Heart Chapter

"Do not move, Elena!" my father hissed as he pressed the silver blade against Leo's chest. I struggled against the cold, invisible hand gripping my throat, but the stone wall behind me didn't budge. The green light from the walls pulsed like a sick heartbeat, making my father’s face look like a mask of rotting wood.

Leo lay at his feet, his eyes open but his body as still as the stone tombs around us. The giant shadow wolf loomed behind them, its red eyes fixed on my son's small chest. Every time the shadow beast breathed, a cloud of black smoke drifted over Leo, smelling like ancient graves and cold iron.

"Let him go!" I yelled, the words scraping my throat like hot sand. I kicked the floor, trying to break the magic holding my boots, but the rock felt like it had swallowed my feet. "He is your grandson! He is your blood!"

My father didn't look at me. He stared at the silver knife in his hand, his fingers tracing the jagged edge of the blade. "He is a mistake, Elena," he whispered, and his voice was so calm it made my skin crawl. "The Red Blight is outside the walls right now. It's turning our world into ash because the Moon Goddess is angry."

I saw the way his hand shook, not from fear, but from a crazy kind of excitement. "She is angry because you put a girl on the throne and mixed the blood of Alphas with the dirt of Rogues. This land is dying because it hates what you've made."

"The land is dying because you're a thief!" I barked back. I felt the White Wolf clawing at the inside of my chest, wanting to rip through my skin. "You're siphoning the palace magic for this ritual. You're the one killing the trees!"

He looked up at me then, and the green fire in his eyes was blinding. "I am saving the pack! The guardian in that box has been asleep for a thousand years. He is the only one strong enough to kill the Iron-Tooth wolves and push the Blight back to the North."

He leaned down and touched the tip of the knife to Leo's silk shirt. "But he won't stay in this world for free. He needs a heart. He needs the heart of a King to bind him to our service."

My heart felt like it stopped beating. "He's five years old! You want to kill a child for a shadow?"

"I want to save the pureblood line!" my father roared, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling until the stones rattled. "Better one half-breed dies today than the whole pack vanishes tomorrow. Once Leo is gone and the guardian is fed, the true Alphas will rule again."

I felt the black lines of the Void itching on my arms under my leather sleeves. The hunger was there, deep in my gut, telling me to reach out and drink the life from the man who gave me mine. I could do it. I could turn him into a dry husk before the knife could move an inch.

But I looked at his face and saw the dad who used to teach me how to track deer in the snow. I saw the man who had tucked me into bed before the world turned cold. My hands shook, and the hunger in my chest turned into a heavy, wet weight of grief. I couldn't do it. I couldn't kill my own father.

"Please, Dad," I sobbed, my voice breaking. "Don't do this. We can find another way. We can fight Torian together."

"There is no other way, Elena," he said, and his face went hard as iron. "You were always too soft. That's why I had to brand you. That's why I have to do this now."

He raised the silver knife high over his head. The green light flared up, turning the whole room into a sea of emerald fire. The shadow wolf let out a howl that wasn't a sound, but a vibration that made my teeth ache and my vision go white.

"For the pack!" my father shrieked.

He lunged forward, the knife coming down in a silver arc toward Leo’s heart. I screamed and threw my body forward, finally snapping the magic holding my feet. I was too far away. I was going to be too late.

Suddenly, a shadow moved from behind a heavy stone pillar. It was fast, a blur of gray rags and dark hair. A hand reached out and grabbed my father’s wrist, stopping the knife just an inch from Leo’s chest.

Valerius stood there. He looked like a ghost, his skin pale and his eyes dark with a cold, silent rage. He didn't say a word. He didn't growl or shift. He just gripped my father’s arm with a strength that made the bone groan.

My father’s eyes went wide. "Valerius? You're a prisoner! You're nothing!"

"I am the one who is going to keep her hands clean," Valerius whispered.

His voice was like the sound of ice cracking on a deep lake. He moved his other hand up, his fingers closing around my father’s jaw and the back of his head. It happened so fast I didn't have time to tell him to stop.

Valerius twisted his hands in opposite directions.

Snap.

The sound was sharp and loud, echoing through the crypt like a whip. My father’s body went limp instantly. The silver knife fell from his hand and hit the floor with a hollow clatter. His eyes stayed open, the green fire fading away until they were just dull, gray stones.

Valerius let go, and my father’s body slumped to the floor. He landed in a pile of rags, his head turned at a wrong, sickening angle. The green light in the room died. The shadow wolf vanished into thin air, leaving nothing behind but the smell of burnt hair.

I fell to my knees next to Leo, my breath coming in jagged sobs. I reached out and pulled my son into my lap, checking his chest and his neck. He was breathing. He was still asleep, but he was alive.

Valerius didn't move. He stood over my father’s body, looking down at his own hands. He didn't look proud. He didn't look like he enjoyed the kill. He looked like a man who had just finished a dirty job that had to be done.

"He was going to kill the boy, Elena," Valerius said, his voice low and flat.

I looked up at him, my face wet with tears. I looked at the man who had branded me, then at the man who had just saved my son. My father was dead, and I was the one who had sent him to the kitchens, but Valerius was the one with the blood on his skin.

"You killed him," I whispered.

"You couldn't do it," Valerius said. He looked me in the eye, and for the first time, I saw a flicker of the man I used to love. "And you shouldn't have to. You're the Queen. You have to be better than us. I'll take the sin. I'll take the stain."

He reached out a hand to help me up, but he stopped and pulled it back before he could touch my arm. He knew I didn't want his touch. He knew he was still the monster in my story.

I gripped Leo tight against my chest, my knuckles white. The air in the crypt was still cold, but the green magic was gone. I looked at my father's body one last time and felt a cold, empty void opening up where my heart used to be.

Valerius turned his head toward the stairs. He stiffened, his nose moving as he sniffed the air. His eyes turned sharp and the tired look vanished.

"The wind is changing," Valerius said. He pointed toward the door. "I smell fire. And I smell thousands of hungry wolves."

I stood up, holding Leo close. My legs were shaky, but I forced them to be strong. I could hear it now. A faint, rhythmic thumping from far above our heads. It wasn't drums. It was the sound of thousands of boots marching on the palace road.

"Torian," I whispered.

The war had finally reached the front door. And I was standing in a grave with a dead father and a broken King.

"We have to go," Valerius said. He stepped toward the exit, his rags fluttering. "The Red Blight is at the gates. If we don't move now, we'll be buried in this hole before the sun comes up."