The King's Queen | ✔

Chapter 75

With a sickening thud, the last stone slammed shut. The world went silent, except for the ringing in my ears. Then the Spade castle fell.

***

The deafening roar of collapsing stones drowned out all other sounds. A cloud of dust erupted, blinding and suffocating. For a moment that stretched into an eternity, the world disappeared. Then, a cough ripped through the dust, tearing through the ringing in my ears.

I scrambled to my feet, panic clawing at my throat. The castle, once towering proudly against the sky, had now crumbled into a monstrous ruin.

I lunged toward it, ignoring the way the ground shifted perilously beneath my feet. My nails dug into the rough stone, tearing through my skin without a flicker of pain. My body was numb, disconnected, and driven by a primal urge.

Across the debris, a crumpled figure drew my gaze-Jackson. He kneeled, his body frozen in a posture reminiscent of a crumbling sculpture, while tears etched trails through the layer of dust covering his face. But it was the utter desolation in his eyes, a bottomless well of despair, that truly mirrored the surrounding wreckage.

"The mind-link... it's broken," he choked out.

"He could be unconscious," I objected, flinging a stone out of my path.

"Elizabeth, you're injured." Ezra's voice was close to me, but I didn't want to hear that.

The world blurred as tears welled. Injured? Who cared about the injuries I had when Demetri was stuck under all the rubble on the other side?!

My vision swam, the once vibrant world dissolving into a sea of crimson.

"Elizabeth!" Ezra's hand clamped on my arm. My hand, slick with something warm and sticky, came away from the rubble when he finally wrestled it free.

An icy dread seeped in, slithering down my spine. It was a hollowness worse than any pain-a dull ache that bloomed in my chest and abdomen.

My scream ripped through the courtyard, a raw sound that echoed off the cold, damp stones. Tears, hot and stinging, mingled with the grime on my face, blurring the horrifying scene before me.

Desperation clawed at my throat. My fists hammered against the stone, a pathetic counterpoint to the strangled sobs that wracked my body. Blood welled beneath my scraped knuckles, but the pain was a distant echo compared to the gaping hole torn in my heart.

"No," I rasped. "No, not him too."

Why? Why did fate keep snatching away the people who meant a lot to me? First Garrett, then Twain, and now Demetri!

"I know. And I'm so sorry." Ezra kneeled beside me, his hand a heavy, grounding presence on my shoulder. "But we have to move. Rosaline's forces won't be far behind."

The name scraped against my nerves. Rosaline. It was always Rosaline. She had been the one to take them all from me. She took everyone away from me!

"Rosaline," I spat the name, venom lacing my voice. "She'll pay for this. I swear it."

She wouldn't win. Not today.

The anger and hatred surged in my heart, and I brought my fists down on the stone even harder. My throat hurt from the screams. Through the haze of it all, I didn't remember what I was screaming at her, but I knew they must have been the vilest things I'd ever said.

Jackson was broken. The pain pierced his eyes as he stared at the fallen castle, unable to believe what had happened to Demetri.

My gaze shifted to Ezra, and my voice was barely a hoarse whisper. "Please watch over Jackson."