Inheritance

Chapter 43: Failures

All the archers who had been up on the balcony now burst through the door with swords in hand—ready to spring into action.

Eory's eyes, which were once harmless and colored an innocent and rosy pink now pulsed with a black fire and the sound of glass breaking filled the ears of everyone in the ballroom when they flared--causing everyone in the room to clap their hands to their ears.

The horrible, pit-bull like creature made of shadows roared and charged through Eory as if he were a ghost. Pollyanna dove out of the way as it plowed into the archers whose screams filled her ears.

Pollyanna weakly climbed to her feet—blood spurting out of the arrow wounds which stabbed her where she had fallen. She yanked as many as she could out of her body so it could heal more quickly. She glanced at the shadow dog massacring the archers and then glanced over at King Laurence with her eyes dripping with malice.

Laurence returned her gaze with horror in his own eyes and scrambled to his feet from where he had been sitting.

Pollyanna twirled her stolen blade and licked her lips. She dashed toward him as the screams of the soldier's behind her filled her ears.

Eory watched with a grin on his face and a blank mind as his shadow dog made short work of the archers. It swallowed the first few whole, and then stomped on three others with it giant, clawed paw and left splatters of blood where the archers had been.

The only word on the fairy's mind was:

Disgust.

Disgust.

Disgust.

Pollyanna caught up to the king easily with her inhuman speed and he backed away from her on the dais with his palms held up in surrender.

Kori watched Pollyanna advance on him with frozen dread until she managed to force herself to her feet and sob, "please Pollyanna! Don't harm us! Can't you see that this is all your fault! I know you lack compassion—but can't you see it? If it weren't for you, we all could have been happy! If you hadn't come along, Laurence would have set Eory free!"

"How is this my fault? I wasn't planning on killing any of you because Eory wasn't! The king was the one who struck first! I'll make him pay!" But even as she said it, a sharp pain pierced her heart and she grunted. Eory's order not to harm anyone who was not directly harming him at the ball had not been rescinded.

She cursed and violently sliced the tile—leaving scratches behind where she did.

Kori looked at the warrior maiden with her tiny hands clapped to her mouth. It seemed as if, no matter what, she and Laurence would either be killed by Eory or Pollyanna, and now that death was so close, it was beginning to hit her just how much she wished to live. But then, the waif's shoulders relaxed; her courage was bolstered as she was reminded of the thing she wanted to be brave for.

Kori's eyes shifted away from Pollyanna, and now she was looking at Eory instead. It pained her enormously to see her sweet boy consumed by such rage. She didn't know whether his evil ancestry had finally consumed him, or whether it was the situation that was making him act this way, but she just knew how horribly depressed and disappointed he would be to see himself acting in the same way his vile family would.

She knew he wasn't really like this. She knew there was more to him than his ancestry; there was something about him, deep down, that could not be tainted by his roots. Deep down, everyone had something like that; a part of themselves that was all their own, and not something made up from their parents.

She had to believe that; both for herself, and for Eory.

She wanted to stop him before he destroyed himself entirely and that beautiful thing about him that existed apart from his cursed family history.