Chapter 38 Elena Heart- POV
I woke up with massive trees looming at the canopy and, weirdly enough I was…I was…wierdly, at home.
I looked around and knew I was no longer at the Drake’s Palace tunnel.
The silence of the Forbidden Forest was unlike any other. It didn’t feel empty; it felt full of something ancient and heavy, like the weight of a thousand eyes watching a single flame.
I sat up slowly, my head throbbing with a dull, rhythmic ache that reminded me of Grace’s betrayal.
My fingers went to my temple, finding a rough, dried bandage that smelled of crushed herbs and something metallic, not blood, but something sharper. I wasn't in the damp, claustrophobic tunnels of the palace anymore. There were no bodies, no screams of dying rebels, and no violet chains.
The air here was thick with the scent of damp moss, pine, and the primal musk of things that had never seen the sun.
As my eyes adjusted to the bruised purple of the sunset filtering through the canopy, I saw them.
At first, I thought they were shadows. Then, I realized the shadows were breathing.
To my left, a two-headed beast, the same kind that had torn through the cottage, stood as tall as an oak, its four eyes glowing like dying embers.
To my right, a pack of wolf-kin, their muzzles stained with the day’s hunt, stood perfectly still. Small, three-eyed creatures skittered through the undergrowth, and a massive orc-like behemoth leaned against a tree, his jagged tusks glinting in the twilight.
My heart should have been a drum of terror. I should have been screaming until my lungs gave out. But as I looked at the monsters, the "Border-Breakers" that had haunted the kingdom’s nightmares, a strange, icy calm settled over me.
They weren't snarling. They weren't lunging.
One by one, the creatures lowered their heads. The two-headed beast bowed its massive necks, its breathing a low, rhythmic rumble. The wolf-kin sat on their haunches, bowing their snouts toward the dirt. It was a gesture of profound, terrifying subservience.
"Xavier?" I screamed, the name tearing from my throat. "James!"
My voice echoed through the ancient trees, but no human answer came. The forest swallowed the sound.
I looked down at my hands. They were pale, but beneath the skin, I could see a faint, violet pulse, a rhythm that felt exactly like the Core Stone. It was as if my very blood had changed its song while I slept.
I scrambled to my feet, my legs shaky. "Where is he? Xavier! If you can hear me!"
The large orc-like creature let out a low, guttural sound and pointed a clawed finger deeper into the woods, toward a clearing where the trees seemed to twist together like gnarled fingers.
The monsters parted for me. They moved back with a reverence that made my skin crawl, creating a path of matted leaves and shadow. I began to run, my breath coming in ragged gasps, the fear finally starting to bleed through the unnatural calm.
I didn't care why they were bowing. I didn't care about the Forbidden Forest. I only cared about the man who had turned into a nightmare to save a girl who was supposed to kill him.
"Xavier!"
I broke into the clearing, and the sight that met me stopped my heart.
There, beneath a tree that wept silver sap, was a figure. He wasn't the Draconian monster of the tunnels, but he wasn't the polished King of the palace either.
He was sitting on a moss-covered rock, his back to me, his shoulders hunched. His black silk tunic was in tatters, and his skin was a map of half-healed scales and raw, human flesh.
Beside him, James stood guard, his armor dented and dull, his sword unsheathed and glowing with a faint, dying light. He looked up as I emerged, and the relief on his face was so sharp it looked like pain.
"Elena," Xavier whispered.
He didn't turn around. His voice was a rasp, a broken echo of the man I knew. "Don't come closer. Please. You shouldn't see me like this."
The monsters behind me stayed at the edge of the clearing, a silent, monstrous army waiting for a command. My eyes drifted to Xavier's hands, they were still tipped with obsidian claws, and the earth around him was scorched black.
"Why are they bowing to me, Xavier?" I asked, my voice trembling as I took a step forward anyway. "Where are my parents? What happened in the tunnel? They killed them! They killed them!" I knew I was panicking now. I felt the pain in my heart. The ache. The betrayal.
He finally turned his head, just enough for me to see his profile. His eye was still a burning, predatory gold.
"The tunnel is a grave, Elena," he said. "And the Forbidden Forest... it isn't a prison for them. It’s an armory. And they’re not bowing to you because you’re a Heart. They’re bowing because you carry the mark of the Dragon-Queen now. My blood saved you... but it changed you."
The panic didn't come in a wave; it came like an avalanche, cold and suffocating. My breath hitched in my throat, coming in short, jagged gasps that made my head spin. I reached for my chest, feeling the frantic rhythm of my heart—a heart that was no longer just mine, but pulsed with that strange, violet heat.
"What happened?" I choked out, the words tumbling over each other. "Grace... she hit me. I saw her smirk. She killed them, didn't she? My parents... she turned on her own blood. And Leo... that bastard, he betrayed you! He was the one who opened the Void!"
But he did not reply, instead, Xavier let out a low, agonizing groan. I watched in horror as his form began to flicker like a dying candle.
The obsidian scales that had protected him were sloughing off, dissolving into gray ash before they even hit the ground. His golden eyes were dimming, the fierce, predatory light retreating into a dull, exhausted amber.
Beside him, James was fading too, his armor becoming translucent, the trees visible through his chest.
"What is happening?" I screamed, lunging forward. "Why are you vanishing?"
"I... I used it all, Elena," Xavier whispered, his voice a ghost of a sound. He reached out a hand that was half-claw, half-human, his fingers trembling. "The teleportation... it was too far. I had to use my own life-force... my inner core... to pull us through the Void and into the heart of the Forest. I think... I think I’m about to fade."
"No! No, you don't get to leave me here!"
I threw myself at him, wrapping my arms around his neck, burying my face in the tattered remains of his tunic.
I gripped him as if I could hold his very soul in place, anchoring him to the world of the living with nothing but my own desperation. For a second, he felt solid, warm, breathing, and smelling of smoke and sandalwood.
And then, the weight in my arms changed.
The solid, muscular frame of the King vanished. The heavy, scaled weight of the Dragon-man disappeared. There was a soft poof of violet smoke, and suddenly, my arms were empty, except for a small, warm pressure against my chest.
I looked down. Sitting in the middle of my robes was a creature no bigger than a housecat. It was a lizard-like beast, covered in tiny, iridescent obsidian scales that shimmered with the colors of a bruised sunset.