Stolen by the Rebel King
Chapter 442: One True Monster

Chapter 442: One True Monster

"What the fuck did I just see?" Cordelia demanded.

"Language, Cordelia," Queen Lavinia scolded instinctively, but there was no heat in it. After all, she had just witnessed a sight gorier than the birth of all her children put together.

"Oh, I’m sorry, I mean, what the flying fuck did I just see?" Cordelia exclaimed, this time in a louder voice, her eyes bulging as she stared at the bloody trail left behind by King Atticus. "Is that man insane? He just ripped off the griffin’s wing as though he was butchering a chicken!"

"Grief makes people do strange things," Queen Lavinia replied, but there was a note of unease in her voice. King Atticus’s brutality had shocked her to her very core. He had spilled blood without caring about his host. What’s more, he inflicted such a vicious, cruel wound to someone of his own party.

Her husband was right. King Atticus was not a normal man in any sense of the word. She would gladly regale this to her husband once he returned, but now she had to make sure Zephyr did not die from blood loss after such a grievous amputation. She and Cordelia went to Zephyr, who was slumped on the floor, his sole remaining wing fluttering weakly as aftershocks of pain reverberated through his body.

"Fuck," Cordelia hissed. There was so much blood on the floors that she could feel it seeping through her shoes. Daphne was going to lose her goddamn mind when she found out what her husband did. "Is he even alive?"

"He will be," Queen Lavinia promised. "I have no intention of letting someone so valuable die here."

She raised her head and caught Nereus’s shell-shocked gaze from the staircase. He wanted to check on Zephyr, but King Atticus’s barbaric display sent shivers of fear through his spine. He couldn’t bear to be in the same vicinity as that man for longer than necessary.

Suddenly, he found himself very grateful that he had at least been unconscious when Sirona extracted his eye. It was a gentler alternative, compared to Atticus simply gouging it out when he was awake.

"Lord Nereus, would you mind lending me a helping hand? You too, Cordelia." Queen Lavinia phrased her request as a question, but there was no way anyone could have refused.

Unless they were Zephyr. He let out a series of terrified cries, as though he was back in his griffin form, flinching from any movement they made. He was shivering and cowering against the floor, willingly staining his clothes and his one remaining wing full of his own blood, his eyes wide and panicked, not even registering the identity of people standing in front of him.

"Poor thing," Queen Lavinia murmured. "He must be so scared, it’s causing him to forget he can use his words. We need to stem the blood loss before things get worse. Cordelia, Nereus, on the count of three, we’ll wrap him up in water bubbles and transport him back to the infirmary."

"Got it," Cordelia said and Nereus nodded gravely, and they managed to slowly but surely transport him up the palace steps to the infirmary while Queen Lavinia injected as much healing magic as she could to buy more time.

Zephyr struggled and screamed, but slowly his cries of fear subsided.

But it wasn’t because he had calmed down. The shock of losing his wing and the resultant blood loss caused him to lose consciousness despite three hydromancy users trying to stem his blood flow.

The same method that worked for Daphne wasn’t working for Zephyr. The water bubbles were slowly turning a pinkish red from the amount of blood Zephyr lost.

Sirona took one look at Zephyr’s condition and despaired.

"Water magic might not be compatible with him," Queen Lavinia said contemplatively. "Griffins are creatures of fire and air after all. His very being could be fighting our healing, treating it as an act of harm."

"He grew stronger after getting doused in dragon fire," Sirona said quickly, recalling what happened when Zephyr and Atticus worked together to take down the dragon at Wethstadt. Back then, she had marveled at the fact that he was unhurt, and she was grateful that Zephyr had taken such a blow for Atticus.

To think things have unraveled so quickly.

"Dragon fire?" Queen Lavinia exclaimed in disbelief. "Like... straight from a living dragon’s mouth? Not only does it trigger evolution, but also healing?"

Sirona nodded. "He took a straight blast of dragon fire to his body, and it made his wings grow even bigger. Flames of any kind might be a better healing agent than water."

"It might even help regrow his wing," Nereus finally spoke up. He had not taken his eyes off Zephyr’s rapidly paling face. Even if they manage to save him from the claws of death, Nereus had a feeling Zephyr might simply climb up to the tallest tower and fling himself out the window to finish the job himself once he found out he only had one wing left.

It wasn’t like he could soar through the skies like before. Jean Nott said it best― a griffin without his wings was tantamount to a lame horse, only good for slaughter.

Sirona shook her head. "Regrowing his wing might be too tall an order, but this would at least stop the bleeding. We can think of alternatives for creating a wing later."

Nereus highly doubted that such a task was on Sirona’s list of priorities. She certainly didn’t care enough to regrow his missing eye.

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news," Queen Lavinia started, "But sadly, we don’t have any pet dragons lying around for such a method to be feasible. We’ll have to do our best with a huge fire here."

"A fire?" Choruses of dismay filled the air, Cordelia’s voice the loudest of all. "Auntie, this is the infirmary. Nothing here is flammable, and the smoke will choke Daphne before she even wakes! We have to send him to the kitchens and roast him over our ovens!"

Queen Lavinia caught Daphne’s sleeping figure and had to concede the point. Since she specialized in hydromancy as a healing magic, the infirmary was full of water tanks to make it more convenient and less taxing for her. It was impossible to find space to build a fire big enough to cauterize Zephyr’s huge wound without causing breathing difficulties for her other patients.

"Our ovens are too small. We’ll have to build a campfire outside," Queen Lavinia ordered, and the servants hurriedly got to work while the three of them had to bring Zephyr back down, quickly dissipating the water bubbles.

Queen Lavinia quickly cut through the soaked fabric and stripped Zephyr off his shirt before Nereus and Cordelia slowly lowered him onto the open flame, each gripping an arm. The air was thick with the scent of iron and copper; Zephyr continued to bleed onto the fire, causing the fire to burn merrily. It was as if his blood was oil, feeding the flames further.

Nereus blinked the smoke from his eyes. They burned.

"If only Daphne was awake," Cordelia grumbled under her breath, her voice hoarser than usual. "She could just set him ablaze and save us all the trouble."

"If Daphne was awake, King Atticus would never have the nerve to commit such an audacious act," Nereus retorted lowly, making sure only she could hear him. "He only acts when Daphne is unconscious."

Cordelia’s arms weakened as she caught the meaning behind Nereus’s words, her eyes darting to his missing eye.

"You mean..."

Nereus nodded imperceptibly and Cordelia could only grit her teeth.

Despite having two fearsome magical creatures in her vicinity, the real monster was Daphne’s husband, King Atticus!