A flurry of confusing yet beautiful sounds left the Queen's mouth as her gaze landed on Larc, her words from the Dragon-born language. She looked as if she was expecting him to be there, that she was happy that his failures had led him here. Larc's eyes quickly darted to me, drawing the Queen's attention to me too.

"Apologies, I didn't realise I was in the presence of Humans," the Queen looked my sister and me up and down with a pitying smile, switching to use our language. Our glaring weakness against her was something to be sympathetic over.

Larc clutched the Lyre tighter and held it above his head, ready to throw the artefact on the ground to let it shatter. His next words rolled off his tongue in Kaeuni, fuelled with an anger I didn't know was coiling inside of him. It had to be some kind of threat.

The Goddess slumped over in her chains as the Lyre was taken from the pedestal, the shadows curling around her legs reaching up to claim more of her exposed skin. Was she protecting her artefact? Or was it protecting her?

"Speak in the Human Tongue," the Queen commanded. "It would be a shame to leave your new playthings out of the conversation. Now, why would I give you your wings back in exchange for the Lyre?"

"Larc?" I felt my heart drop into my stomach, the curling dread of the realisation building up inside of me. He couldn't simply give it to the Queen. We had travelled and fought together to destroy it.

"I fucking knew it," Haera spat, pulling out two daggers that had been strapped and sheathed on her thighs. "I knew you were up to no good from the start." My sister charged towards the Dragon-borns in anger, but she was held in place by the Queen's raised hand and an invisible force.

"Restrain the humans." She motioned her head for her guards to move forward. "We can't let them interfere with this negotiation."

The red-winged Dragon-borns moved towards Haera first, pinning her to the cavern floor with swift and precise movements. She fought against the hands and the magic that held her down, but it was no use. The next set of guards paced towards me, causing a voice in my head to scream at me to run, but my feet couldn't find the ability to do so. As hands wrapped around my arms, they suddenly stopped in surprise.

"Your Highness," the guard to my left called to gain her attention, sniffing the air around me in disbelief. "This one is married to Prince Larcitharius."

"Remove your hands from her before you lose them," Larc growled. The threat made the guards apprehensive about whose orders to follow, their gazes flicking between the royalty before them.

"Married?" The Queen chuckled until she was almost breathless. "You sure moved on quickly after your last human lover. What was his name? Harphi? It has only been five years since he died."

"Don't bring up that name. That relationship was never meant to be." Larc's chest rose and fell with sharp breaths, his hands balling into fists at his sides.

That had to be how he knew the Human Tongue so well. This couldn't be his first time tricking a human into falling in love with him. A single tear slid down my cheek as my heart twisted — as if a hand had plunged into my chest, pulled it out, and thrown it onto the ground.

"You can't give it to her!" I tried to convince him to change his mind even though I knew my attempts would be futile. "She'll use it to kill everyone! You can't have faked all of your kindness."

Larc's eyes lingered on me for one painful moment before returning to the Queen. "You can have the Lyre for the return of my wings."

The Queen's brows narrowed in thought. "How do you know I won't grant you your wings back, take the Lyre, and then sever them again? Surely as my son, you should know me quite well."

I wanted to fall alongside my heart that felt like it had been tossed there and never get up again. My hope wished for a shadowed creature to charge at me so I could give up all of my will to fight. Larc was the Queen's son. He was the Prince of the Nusal Empire. How could I have been so gullible? Haera had been right all along not to trust him, Larc had just been using us.

"Zofia, it's not-" Panic passed through Larc's eyes before his mother cut him off.

"Zofia? What an interesting name for such an unexpected daughter-in-law." With a few steps, the Queen stood in front of me and used her sharp, clawed nails to tilt my chin up. They caressed my chin and neck, threatening to spill blood. "You only fled our third camp a few days ago, that's a very short time to fall in love and secure a bond." She turned my head from side to side, assessing my features. "Have you consummated this marriage?"

"Mother." Larc's tone was as sharp as the nails piercing my skin, though a faint pink dusted his cheeks. I couldn't tell anymore whether his flustered expression was real or not. "Back to the topic at hand. Do you want the Lyre, or not?"

"But your new wife is the topic at hand." The Queen's smile was sinisterly cruel. "Will you be bringing this new pet home with you?"

"I'll think about it once I have the ability to get home."

My mouth dried at their words. Home? Was he planning to bring me back to the floating islands he had spoken of? Gone were the intimate moments we had shared with each other — the teasing at the lake he had found, the almost kiss that we had experienced. Now Larc looked at me as if I truly were part of a race that could easily be conquered.

"You're not taking my sister anywhere," Haera snarled, still fighting against the royal guards. She hadn't stopped as soon as the transparent barrier had been placed around her. It looked as though she had made some progress against the Queen's magic by the way the Dragon-borns had to pin her down, but it still wasn't enough.

The Queen tucked my hair behind my ears and brushed off some dirt that had found its way onto my cheek with her thumb. "She's not even that pretty," she said with a frown. "At least your other partner had a pretty face."

Larc's hands tightened further, his knuckles whitening. "Hurry up and decide what you want. Either you have the Lyre and I get my wings back, or I destroy it right here and now."

His mother sighed, the kind with disappointment entwined within it. "I'll take the Lyre and you can have your wings back." She moved her head to glance behind her son's back. "They do look rather sad, all torn like that."

"Wings first," Larc demanded as the Queen extended her hand for the artefact.

"But the Goddess!" I cried out, my eyes tracing the darkness that now trailed up her torso.

"What about that sickeningly hopeful and stupid bitch?" Her lips curled into a smirk at the way I flinched, my magic rushing to the surface of my skin.

"Taking the Lyre away will end the power that's keeping her alive." Then the Goddess would truly die. At least when she was in the mountains, there was still a part of her that existed in the world. If she were to die, to be consumed by the darkness she tried so desperately to destroy, there would be nothing of her left except for the stories that would fade over time.

Would all of the people blessed with her power continue to thrive? Would her magic still live within us?

The Queen shrugged with a roll of her eyes. "That isn't my problem." Without a second thought, she raised her hand and the clear magic Larc had used to save Haera grew around her. The strands rushed towards her son and plunged into his back, ripping a heart-shattering scream from his lungs.

With a nauseating tear of skin and the splattering of blood all over the cavern walls, the remains of his old wings fell to the ground and new wings took their place. Grand blue wings stretched out behind him, like a butterfly emerging from its slumber for the first time, and veins of gold glittered in the grooves of the flesh. The skin around them was completely ruptured with blood streaming down his back, but Larc didn't seem to mind. Once the pain subsided, he gave them a little flap to test them out and a soft smile graced his lips.

What power did the Queen possess to be able to do that sort of thing? She was able to freeze us in place without effort, she could regrow limbs like it was nothing. What else was she hiding in her arsenal?

The Queen reached down to pick up the Lyre that had fallen to the ground during the revival of Larc's wings and dusted the pieces of dirt that had clung to its golden exterior. "After all the artefacts and kingdoms I've claimed, this one has always interested me the most. Why would a silly little instrument be so important to a human that was claimed to be incredibly powerful? But, after a century of digging, I finally realised what this was. To save the humans from plaguing darkness, a sacrifice had to be made. For something that could never be destroyed, it had to be contained."

Bile rose in my throat, threatening to rush up my throat and spill the contents of the breakfast we had quickly consumed before climbing the mountain.

"The Lyre lures the darkness to its location. It angers all the creatures it has infected until they can do nothing but search for it. The only problem with something so powerful is that it needs a constant source of magic to keep it fueled." The Queen turned to me, clutching the Lyre to her chest with a hungered gaze. "Your Goddess became a sacrifice for her own plan to save everyone. Taking this away from her will be putting her out of her own misery."

"What are you planning to do with it then?" Haera questioned with her face pushed into the ground. "Are you going to dump it in the middle of the capital and let the creatures wander in themselves?"

"Nice guess. I like the brains on this pet." She smiled at Larc before continuing her speech. "After everything the Goddess has accomplished with her little binding enchantment and instrument, what do you think would happen if this Lyre simply didn't exist anymore?" Before anyone could draw another breath, the Queen dropped the artefact and crushed it underneath her boot. With a few precise presses of her heel, the crossbar had snapped, the arms of the instrument had shattered in a few places, and the azure glow had vanished completely.

The Lyre was gone alongside the overwhelming power that had filled my veins. Larc's attempt to sway his mother into giving his wings back had been for nothing, yet she'd still given them back anyway. Her plan was to always destroy the Lyre.

"There's no need to place it where I see fit when I could simply unleash the darkness your Goddess tried so hard to restrain." The Queen kicked the remains of the instrument, then turned to her guards with an excited smile. "Let us leave and head back to the main camp." Before she made her way towards the cave entrance, she met me and my sister's eyes once more. "Well, I certainly had a marvellous time ruining everything."

I fought against the Dragon-born Queen's magic as she walked away, Haera doing the same with much more force, anger consuming her wholly. "Get back here or so help me I'll... I'll make sure this darkness you've unleashed again rips you limb from limb."

As the royal guards helped Larc — their Prince — stand, the Queen flicked her hand and the phantom restraints tightened around us further. "My magic will wear off as soon as we are far enough away. I wouldn't want to kill something my son has become attached to just yet."

As the golden-winged Dragon-born left the cave with Larc and her guards flanking her, Haera and I were left to struggle against her power and watch as all life left the Goddess's body, the darkness spreading over her skin and ravaging her completely.