All the Queen's Angels

Ch. 39: Reaching For You

"Why should I surrender to Forsythia, who not only killed my parents and overthrew my kingdom, but also left my people for dead and abandoned for years? Who set off a catastrophic avalanche to kill us?". I shiver with icy rage, my clenched fists carving half-moons into my palms.

"That was not Forsythia's doing," Malcolm replies cautiously. He tries stepping towards me, but I just take a step back.

"What the fuck are you saying?".

"It's true that Forsythia overthrew Gardenia, but your kingdom was already failing from the start. It was your parents who left the people to die of plague and starvation under lockdown, and it was because of their cruelty that the people revolted and killed them. Their heads were put on spikes long before Leander and his army arrived. By then, it was all too easy to launch a coup on the Gardenian resistance movement."

"But—," I start.

"And the avalanche today was an order by Ambrose to kill the Forsythian army. I saw him give the order, and I watched as they catapulted the bomb. Hundreds of Amaryllis's army have been buried beneath the snow. I did my best to thaw the ice but I couldn't save more than a dozen—."

"Wait," I interrupt, head pounding from all this new, sickening information. "You're helping them? General Amaryllis? Regardless of the horrific things my parents did, you promised to help me reclaim my throne."

"You betrayed me, Evangeline. You left me for that heathen."

"Ambrose is on our side, Malcolm! At least he's on my side. Clearly, you are not."

Malcolm laughs suddenly, the sound icy and bitter. "That Fallen abomination is not on your side."

"Yes, he is. Ambrose has been nothing but loyal to me since the day we met. Leander said the same damn thing because he was a jealous prick with nothing else to do."

"Firstly, don't ever compare me to that blond brat," Malcolm snarls. "I am the Dark Lord of the Infernal Courts and have never been and will never be jealous of anyone. Secondly, Leander might have been incompetent, but he was not stupid. You are just blinded by the fact that Ambrose was the first living thing to treat you with any form of kindness in your entire life. Am I wrong?".

I stand in shocked silence. Suddenly, I feel like the girl trapped in this very room all those years ago. Alone and ostracized by everyone. Hidden away from the world and the truth. Everything else I have believed has already been proven to be a lie. I can't bear to hear what damning things Malcolm says next.

I try to speak, tears choking my words, hating how frail I sound. "You aren't wrong. Malcolm. Yes, Ambrose was the first person to treat me with kindness. I have never known cruelty by him. I don't understand how this makes him my enemy."

"Your enemy hides the truth from you," Malcolm hisses, stepping forward again. "He takes advantage of the fact that you have never seen the world outside and neglects to tell you who he is. Have you never wondered why his wings were black? When all other Fallen Ones bear white feathers?".

The tears streak down my cheeks in frozen rivers.

"Why?" I whisper, my defenses reduced to the same rubble surrounding us.

"The stain of their wings illustrates the degree of their sin. The darker the wings, the higher the crime. To have pitch-black wings...Ambrose is not just Fallen. He's utterly Damned."

I close my eyes and think back to when I held those soft, delicate feathers in my hands. They were the color of the deepest night, the deepest oceans. Could they have truly carried such a burden?