Bride of the Traitor (The Prophecy of Sisters #1) - Hayley Faiman Page 0,107

are you awake?” I ask, taking her hand in mine.

Her eyelids slowly flutter open and she gives me a small smile. “You’re safe, Queen,” she whispers. “It is all I wanted,” she breathes. “The gods call to me now. I must go to them.”

“No,” I choke. “You will not.”

Lifting my head, I call out to Rowan. He takes the several strides to get to my side. He looks down at Ellyn and shakes his head softly, sadness clearly etched in his features.

“She is not well, Your Highness. The fever has set in, whatever they nicked with their blade, it hit something inside of her that will not self-repair.”

My bottom lip trembles and I grip her hand tightly as tears well in my eyes. “In my world, she could be fixed,” I whisper. “In my world, she would be saved.”

Thunder rolls through the sky above us, and I know that it is my tears that is causing this, but I can’t control myself. The rain begins to pound against the tent at the same time my shoulders start to shake.

“We are not of your world, Your Majesty. Here we can do naught but make her comfortable and give her our thanks for making this world a bit brighter with her easy and sweet demeanor.”

His words are beautiful, but it doesn’t make me hate them any less. I do hate them, despise them even. I stay at her bedside, the rest of the tent bathed in silence as I watch one of my only friends in this world pass on to her new world, heaven, or whatever they believe in here.

ELIAS

The sky is a soft gray, the sun beginning to set, and there is a cloak of sadness that fills all of us. I know it is my queen mourning her friend. She must be close or just passed. I did not know the woman well, but the love that Sybilla had for her, I know that she must be a good one.

“Your Queen mourns,” Henry murmurs as we continue forward.

“She does,” I agree.

He clears his throat. “It seems she has not witnessed much death, maybe people do not die oft in her world?” he asks.

Looking forward, my head consumed with dozens of different thoughts, I remember what she said. Shifting my gaze to Henry. “She said that Ellyn could have been saved in her world. Perhaps their medicine is farther advanced than here.”

“I think mayhap you could be correct,” he mutters.

I’m sure that Henry is thinking about his own dead wife, a woman that he lost while she battled for the life of their child. In the end, they both perished during childbirth and he became one of my men shortly after, ready to travel and put his past behind him.

Though, does one ever put the woman they loved, the future they lost behind them? I didn’t understand it before, I do now. If Sybilla and our unborn babe were to be taken from me, I would not survive the loss. I do not know how Henry continues to breathe.

“Are you ready, brother?” I ask him, trying to clear my mind of everything but war and victory.

He clears his throat, his chin lifting as he looks up toward the top of the castle. “I hear a witch resides here,” he whispers. “I am ready. If I meet the end, I know that my woman and babe wait for me, their arms open and ready to accept me once again.”

“They do, brother. But you will not perish this eve, I will not allow it. Plus, the witch, I hear is there under duress and against her will. Mayhap she will be a boon rather than an enemy?”

“Mayhap,” he whispers.

Lifting my arm, I give the signal to my nineteen men that it is indeed time to breach the castle.

GODIVA

“They battle,” Aleida whispers.

She has no need to whisper, yet she does. I smooth down my long hair and smile. “They do indeed.” I grin.

“Your sister is there, is she not?” Aleida asks.

My eyes flash with surprise that she knows this. “She is…”

“It is no wonder that the King just somehow felt the need to go to war with Llyne, immediately, rather than waiting for the prophecy to unfold,” she snorts.

“Are you implying that I used magic to free my sister?” I ask, feigning offense.

Aleida smirks, her lips turning up. She’s much more confident in her younger skin, gorgeous too. We do make a lovely pair and I have the yearning to feel some soldiers