Ophelia shrieked. The blood-curdling sound came from her very bones, the guttural cry of a dying woman—for she was in a way, given her connection to her husband. She could feel the death of Akagi’s soul, the piece that lived in her being carved out to leave a hollow behind. The sound seemed to come from nowhere. It echoed around the throne room like a phantom, causing the peacekeepers and witches to look about in panic. Ophelia rocked her husband’s body in her arms, tears streaming down her cheeks before she shucked the bracelet from her wrist and tossed it to the floor. It was then that the queen would materialize, blood-soaked and disheveled as she clung to the body of her husband.

As the peacekeepers, only recently entered, looked about, one put the pieces together. She rushed forward, reaching out to the queen who shrank from the woman’s touch.

“Don’t touch him,” Ophelia spat, incorrectly assuming that the peacekeeper sought to take her husband from her. The peacekeeper backed away as the queen clung to the corpse more tightly, the blood seeping into the silk of her gown in a broadening continent. For a moment she rocked, cradling him, until her movement slowed. Her eyes closed and her screaming stopped. And then…a moment of clarity came to her. The woman whose anxiety had always churned in her, who had always reached to another for stability, started to still in the realization.

She was alone. Akagi could no longer protect her, and in the absence of the king, her love, there was only one thing that mattered. The thing that had always mattered above all—drilled into her by her father since birth. Nevermere. Above all.

The peacekeepers stood by, uncertain, as Ophelia lay her husband to rest on the floor. She drew her hands over his face, closing his eyelids over the glassy orbs that stared lifeless and vacant to the ceiling. Blood-soaked with tear-streaked cheeks, the queen leveled her chin and turned to the peacekeepers and witches with all the composure of the royal she was trained to be.

“Release Elena to the Eldouir. No other blood shall be shed this day—not over an empty vessel.” For that was all that the Eldouir was. A husk. Nothing. She turned to the witches now. “Send word to my brother Cassian Rainecourt . The king is dead. Then fetch Lady Valeria Delaney and Cordelia Olivarius . Have them bring the princess Lorelle to me at once. Arynn Frey has a new queen and a funeral to prepare for.” She looked back at her husband with longing and then said softly to the peacekeepers present. “See he is cleaned up and lay to rest. This…my children need not see it.”

Then, Ophelia would exit the throne room with silent but determined strides. She’d beckon two of the witches to follow, while the other two would be sent to Nevermere to do what they had been commanded.

[ END THREAD ]