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It was storming outside like crazy and it was only Aelin, Fenrys, Elide and Lysandra in the palace. Rowan was gone with Lorcan and Aedion for the afternoon and meant to be back by dinner time but the storm held them back, they would surely come home when the storm had calmed a little. The staff of the castle Aelin had sent home before the storm picked up, so they could be with their families.
Lysandra was sprawled on the green couch, eating grapes as she listened to the stories Fenrys was telling. Some purely fictional, some mixed with older stories from when he was younger.
As Aelin was applying nail polish on Fenrys’s freshly manicured fingernails, Elide stood up, finished braiding Fenrys’s blonde hair. “It's such a shame Yrene couldn't come,” she sighed. Both women had become closer over the years as they looked for ways to fix Elide’s foot. It has been hard work but Aelin saw the hope in Elide’s smile and it had been beautiful, she knew that Elide was looking forward to fix anything that's fixable.
A rage bubbled up in Aelin as she thought about the source of Elide’s injuries and focused even more to not look at her friend as she limped towards the door. She calmed herself down after Elide vanished behind the wooden doors, excusing herself to the bathroom. She loved Elide and this evening was for them all to get together, a girl's night so to speak. Plus Fenrys.
Lysandra huffed a laugh as he explained how the white haired prince saved the princess with a table leg, when the candles flickered in the room. Pausing what she did and putting the nail polish to the floor, Aelin looked around, her hand inching to where she put down her dagger.
“It was probably just the wind,” Fenrys said when he looked at her, reading her thoughts, but he sat straighter himself.
“Maybe there's a window–” Lysandra started when all the candles flickered out all at once. It took them all less than a second to jump up, Aelin grabbing her dagger in record time.
Two glowing eyes watched her from across the room and Aelin’s heart was thundering, before her eyes adjusted to the dark, pretty well because of her heightened senses, and she realized it was the form of a snow leopard. Lysandra.
Fenrys slowly stepped closer to Aelin when a silence spread between them. Not a silence like everyone stopped silence, something even quieter. As if everything in, every living being in the palace, in the whole of Orynth, stopped breathing. The hairs on Aelin’s neck stood.
“Something is wrong.” she whispered.
They all startled when the room was illuminated for a split second as lightning struck outside, followed by the deafening rumbling of thunder.
They waited but nothing happened. No one stormed the room, nothing attacked, no sound–
A scream rattled through the palace. A female scream.
“Elide!” Aelin said, her throat closing at the sound of horror in her scream. She didn't have to say anything as she sprinted out of the room, Lysandra and Fenrys followed her. The door of the nearest bathroom stood wide open. Aelin used her powers to summon fire in her palm, looking around. A stack of fresh towels was in a heap on the floor, the plant the stood beside the sink was thrown over and a crack that wasn't there before showed in the mirror.
Panic washed over Aelin, usually calm and collected, and she screamed, “Elide?” a few seconds of silence. “ELIDE!”
And if she wouldn't have stayed silent, even if one of them had breathed too loud, they wouldn't have heard it. A faint “Help!” in the distance. Elide’s voice.
So far away that she couldn't have made the distance alone in such a short time.
Someone was in the palace.
And Elide’s voice…she was fighting. Her Elide was fighting.
Lysandra sprinted first in the direction of Elide’s voice, Fenrys and Elide right behind her.
Elide would be fine, Aelin told herself. She would be fine. She had survived so much, she had to be fine.
They were running through corridor after corridor, full spedy corner after corner, until Lys took a corner too sharp and crashed into a wall. The whole palace was filled with pure darkness, the only light Aelin’s fire.
A string of curse left her mouth and she helped Lysandra up, scanning her quickly for injuries and Aelin’s heart dropped when she found a big bloody spot on Lysandra’s head.
“That's not her own blood,” Fenrys said behind them, out of breath. And when they looked at him, he pointed at the wall behind them.
Aelin followed that direction, until…
You and your friends are next, Fire-Bringer.
Scribbled in blood.
On her wall.
Aelin stumbled back, right into Fenrys.
“Whose…” she couldn't bring herself to finish that question, because she couldn't bear the answer.
Whose blood is that?
“Elide!” she yelled again, hoping to hear her childhood friend’s voice again, yelling back. Just one sign that she was alive. Only one.
Aelin breathed heavily, blinking the tears in her eyes away. Elide had to be somewhere, somewhere in this palace. Aelin would find her.
“Lysandra,” she turned to the snow leopard, stretching out her palm so the fire could illuminate her. “You need to–”
Aelin stopped abruptly as she didn't find the snow leopard standing beside her. “Lys–”
Aelin stared down the length of the corridor and there, at the end, barely visible, was a white tail, limp, looking like it was dragged away.
Fenrys’s heat left Aelin’s back as they hurried down the hallway. “We need to get them! Should we part ways?” Aelin looked over her shoulder and was so shocked by what she saw, she stumbled.
A huge claw, wholly made out of shadows, grabbed Fenrys as he kicked and swung his sword but without any luck.
Out of instinct, Aelin speared her power toward that shadow. Raging hot flame. It hissed at the impact, but that was it. The spear of fire vanished, as if the darkness absorbed it.
A sob escaped Aelin as she met Fenrys’s eyes, but she couldn't interpret the widening of his eyes as he looked behind her, before someone, or something, pulled something over her head.
She fought, and kicked and tried to scream, to no avail.
Something pressed on her throat and the last thing she heard before the blackness fully enveloped her was Fenrys as he yelled her name, panic flooding his voice.
Then it was all gone.