When it was done, Sylas stood in the lower archives, surrounded by the weight of his people’s history, and felt the cost of the night settle into his bones.
Fourteen dead. His own people—traitors, yes, but Yzefrxyl who had served in his halls, eaten at his tables, sworn oaths to his crown. He had killed them without mercy. Without hesitation. Without the trial or judgment that law demanded.
His father would have called it necessary. His mother would have wept.
The court would whisper. They were probably whispering already—news traveled fast in a fortress this size, and fourteen deaths in a single night would have every tongue wagging before dawn. The council would question his right to execute without trial. The Lux Priests would demand justification, would cite ancient laws and sacred protocols that he had shattered with his claws tonight.
Let them.
He would face them all. Would stand before the court with blood on his fur and death in his eyes and dare any of them to say he’d been wrong. Vask had tried to steal his mate, had orchestrated a breach that endangered his entire fortress, had struck Elsa hard enough to split her lip and bruise her cheekbone. His enforcer had done worse.
For that alone, Sylas would have burned the world.
He had done monstrous things tonight. Had become the creature his enemies feared—the king they warned their children about, the beast who stalked through sacred halls with death in his claws and judgment in his eyes.
Part of him wondered if he should feel guilt. Horror at how easily the violence came. Shame at the satisfaction that still purred beneath his skin.
He didn’t.
The only thing he felt was the bond pulling him back toward the infirmary. Toward her.
He would do it again. A hundred times. A thousand. Whatever it took to keep her safe in a world that wanted to use her, break her, steal her away.
That was the truth of it. The ugly, undeniable truth that had been growing in him since the moment he’d first caught her scent.
He was hers.
Not the other way around.
The Lux Sabersat the infirmary door parted without a word.
Inside, Ryxin’s voice hit him before the scent of healing salves did.
“I don’t care about your protocols.” His brother stood at the center of the ward, fur bristling in aggressive ridges, every line of his body a threat aimed squarely at Yarx. Ari sat on the nearest bed behind him, her wrists bandaged, exhaustion carving shadows beneath her eyes. Ryxin had positioned himself between her and the door like a barricade. “She’s not staying here. Not in a wing that’s already been breached once tonight.”
Yarx’s ears were flat against his skull, but his voice held steady. “My prince, all patients require observation after—”
“Your observation didn’t stop them from being taken in the first place.” Ryxin’s cyan eyes burned. “I want her in my wing. Under a female healer’s care. Away from all of this.”
Sylas stepped fully into the room, and both males went still.
The blood on his fur announced what he’d spent the last hours doing. Fourteen kills left their own kind of silence—the bone-deep quiet of a predator who had sated himself and returned to his den. Every Yzefrxyl in the room could smell iton him: death, dominance, the chemical signature of spent feral rage.
Ryxin recovered first. His nostrils flared, reading the evidence, and something flickered across his face—not surprise, not horror. Satisfaction. The cold, hard kind that came from knowing the threat had been answered in the only language their enemies understood.
“All of them?” Ryxin asked.
“All fourteen.”
His brother dipped his chin. No other questions needed.
Sylas turned to Yarx. “Report.”
The healer straightened, professional enough to pivot from argument to briefing without missing a beat. “The female Ari—bruising, exhaustion, minor abrasions. Nothing critical. Mia is stable and sleeping.” He gestured toward the window, where Mia’s breathing rose and fell in steady rhythm. Then his expression darkened. “It’s the two human males who concern me. Rowan and Milo. Whatever that priest was doing to them in the pits… internal damage, infection, wounds that festered too long without treatment.” His amber eyes met Sylas’s. “I’ll need to use the Tear Domes for them, or they won’t survive the night.”
“Do it. Whatever they need.”
Sylas looked at his brother. Something passed between them—an understanding forged in blood and years of fighting side by side. The feral rage still coiled beneath Sylas’s skin, but beneath it was something steadier. Trust. The knowledge that Ryxin would hold the line while he couldn’t.