The hand retracted slowly, still holding the thing it had ripped from him—his heart, still beating, glistening in crimson ruin.
I screamed. And the world snapped back.
I gasped, nearly knocking over my goblet as Kaelith’s fingers withdrew from my wrist.
“How did you—” My voice trembled. “If you hurt my brother, I swear?—”
“Relax,” Kaelith said, as if we’d just spoken about the weather. “That will only happen if you fail to return with him… and fulfill my request.”
Relax.My pulse still thundered, the phantom of Aeryn’sblood on my hands. But it wasn’t the horror of the vision that rooted me. Kaelith had pulled me into it, made me live it. If he could reach into me with a touch, then I was never beyond his grasp. And now he held the key I couldn’t afford to lose.
My breath stuttered. “And what request would that be?”
His smile deepened. “To be my bride, of course.”
I stared at him, my mind racing to catch up with the words he’d just spoken. Bride. He’d said bride. Not prisoner. Bride.
Kaelith leaned in so that only I could hear him. “Nyxarra needs a queen with ancient blood,” he murmured. “But it is the court I must convince—not you,” he concluded, as if my consent were a formality he’d already dismissed.
My hands curled into fists beneath the tablecloth. The room blurred, but not from the wine. This was fury, sharp and hot and alive in my chest. He thought he could claim me.
No. I wasn’t something to be worn, to be paraded, to be used.
Time cracked. Next to me, Malachi’s head snapped toward him, shock breaking his otherwise glacial composure. I could only stare, heart pounding against my ribs.
Kaelith stood abruptly, raising his glass and tapping a knife gently against it. “Attention, everyone, please.” The room quieted instantly. “I am delighted to announce that Nyxarra’s future has been secured. As your future king, I have chosen to unite our realms through legacy and blood.” He turned toward me. “With Aurelia Moirae as my bride, the Moirae line returns to its rightful place—the child of shadow’s pulse restored to the throne she was carved from—strengthening our bloodline with future heirs?—”
I didn’t hear the rest. My ears rang. My breath stuttered. The floor beneath me tilted sharply.
The candles flickered, then dimmed. The wine clawed through myveins, dragging me under.
Kaelith’s toast thundered over me, triumph in every syllable. Fury cut through the haze like a blade. I forced the words out, ragged but sharp. “I’ll never be your bride.” Then the world tilted, dragging me under.
The last thing I saw was Kaelith raising his glass in triumph, and Malachi rising beside me in a blur of movement.
17
Aurelia
A seaof gold and shadow spun in my vision. The world bent sideways.
I must’ve blacked out. Or fainted. The wine, the hallucinations, the sound of my brother’s scream still echoing in my head. It all blurred.
Everything shifted. Tilted. I was falling—no, floating—no, I was beingcarried. My limbs dangled, heavy and boneless, my body caught in a heat I couldn’t place.
Voices blurred. Laughter. Clinking goblets. A rising hum in my ears like bees trapped beneath my skin. And then—pressure. Two bodies. One to each side. Kaelith. Malachi. Their voices overlapped—too close, too sharp—surrounding me like a cage.
I felt pinned between them—Kaelith’s presence scorching at my side, Malachi’s arm firm across my back. Their wills crashed, and I was just a body between them—silent, drowning, immobile.
Malachi leaned in. I felt it—not just his breath, but the shift in him. He said something low into Kaelith’s ear. I couldn’t hear the words, but Ifelt the impact.
Through the haze, I thought I saw something crack through Kaelith’s mask—a twitch of his jaw, his eyes flashing toward Malachi. Startled. Or maybe I imagined it. The room kept warping, and I couldn’t hold onto the details.
A beat. Then—Laughter. Too loud. Too forced.
“She’s fine!” Kaelith called out, raising his goblet like a toast. “Too much wine, too fast. Nothing more.”
Laughter rippled down the table, brittle and thin.