CHAPTER 85: THE INTERVENTION

Back at the broken temple site, the king paced leisurely, admiring the ruin as though it were a gallery. The glow from the sigil reflected faintly in his pale eyes.

"Bring him out," the king ordered without looking.

Two demon wolves, larger than the others, materialized from the shadows. Between them, they dragged the prisoner forward.

Marcus.

He was fully awake now, barely, head lolling, eyes glassy but open. Blood stained the edges of his shirt where the enchanted vines had dug into his skin, but he hadn’t made a sound—not a whimper, not a curse.

The king looked down at him almost fondly. "You’re stronger than I expected."

Marcus coughed, voice raw. "If you... touch her... I’ll tear you apart."

The king laughed softly, as though Marcus had just told him a charming joke.

"Oh, I intend to do far worse," he said with a silk-soft cruelty. "Not just to her—but to every single one of you."

Marcus tried to lunge, but the vines constricted like snakes, forcing him to his knees with a painful crack of bone and muscle.

The king crouched before him again, lifting Marcus’s chin with a gloved finger. "You’re going to help me, Marcus. Whether you want to or not."

The vines pulsed—once, twice—and Marcus’s body seized up, a scream choking in his throat as black veins spread beneath his skin like crawling ink.

The king watched in delight. "Perfect."

The portal wasn’t just going to open.

It was going to consume.

And soon, the last hope of this world would burn before everyone’s eyes.

The pain was like molten metal poured through his veins—sharp, burning, endless.

Marcus bit down on the scream clawing its way up his throat, teeth grinding so hard they felt like they might shatter.

The enchanted vines constricting his limbs pulsed with dark energy, the sick green light from the runes below wrapping around him like a thousand tiny hooks burrowing under his skin.

The king’s spell was designed to break people. Slowly. Thoroughly.

And yet... Marcus was still unbroken.

Somewhere through the fog of agony, he could still hear the distant sounds of battle—the faint clash of claws and steel, the guttural howls of wolves throwing themselves into a hopeless fight.

But what echoed even louder was a voice inside his mind—not magic, not the king’s whispered cruelties, but her.

Athena.

It wasn’t words, not exactly. Just her. The memory of her strength. The weight of that sharp, defiant gaze when she looked at him like he was more than just another wolf. Like he mattered.

The king knelt before him again, boots making a sharp crunch over shattered bone and old gravel. "It’s pointless, you know," he murmured. "You’ll break. You will break."

Marcus lifted his chin despite the trembling, despite the blood trailing from the corner of his mouth. "You talk too much."

The king’s smile didn’t falter, but something in his eyes tightened.

Scoffs, Marcus thought savagely. That hurt him.

The vines constricted again, driving fresh spikes of agony through every joint, every muscle. The black veins running beneath his skin twisted and pulsed with the rhythm of a foreign heart, a beat not his own.

It wanted to take him—twist him, hollow him out, fill the spaces with something foul and obedient.

The king rose, brushing nonexistent dust off his cloak. "Soon," he said. "Soon you’ll scream for me."

But Marcus only let out a rough, broken laugh. "I’ve screamed for a lot of people before. You’re not special."

It wasn’t brave. It wasn’t clever. But it was all he had—and if he was going to die here, chained to this grotesque altar, it would be as himself.

He wouldn’t give this bastard the satisfaction of watching him beg.

—

Across the ruined fields beyond the city, Kieran moved like a predator through the ash.

He’d gathered six of his strongest fighters—wolves who hadn’t run, who didn’t flinch at the sound of demon howls in the night. Tobias was at his side, teeth bared in a permanent snarl, despite the torn muscle in his shoulder.

They moved through the rubble like shadows, making for the broken temple where the cursed light bled up into the clouds. Every step brought the pressure closer—the weight of unnatural magic pushing down like a tidal wave before it breaks.

But Kieran felt something else too.

Fear.

But they pushed on.

—

Back at the altar, Marcus felt the weight of something shift.

Another pulse of black magic roared through his bones, searing hot and ice-cold all at once. His heart faltered, stuttering under the pressure. He barely heard the king’s voice as he spoke to his sorcerers, something about timelines, something about unlocking the gateway fully—

But Marcus didn’t care.

Because in that moment, through the noise and the darkness and the pain, something cracked inside of him—but it wasn’t his mind.

It was the enchantment itself.

Not broken. Not yet. But splintered, like a stone hit by a hammer, not fully shattered but weakened.

The king turned sharply, sensing it. His eyes narrowed with a mix of annoyance and intrigue. "Interesting."

Marcus coughed a ragged laugh, blood dripping from his lips. "Sorry. Not in the mood to die pretty."

The king moved faster than expected, hand snapping out, gripping Marcus’s jaw. Power surged through that touch, colder than the void, cutting deeper than the enchanted vines. "I wonder," the king murmured, almost to himself. "How far can I push you before you truly break?"

Marcus’s body screamed with every heartbeat, but he locked his gaze onto the king’s—and in that locked stare, there was no surrender.

No submission.

Just hate. How much he hated the king.

Pure, burning hate.

His vision blurred—but he was still here.

Still fighting.

—

And then the wolves came.

A sharp howl tore through the air from the shattered colonnade above, echoing like thunder between the broken temple walls.

Kieran.

The king stepped away from Marcus slowly, head tilting toward the noise. "Ah," he whispered. "The cavalry arrives."