CHAPTER 25: TWENTY FIVE

Murmurs rise behind me, tugging my gaze from my ruined boots as the procession halts abruptly. It’s only been a few hours since dawn, too early for rest.

The horse I’m chained to snorts, kicking up a cloud of dust into my face. King Lucien soothes it with a murmur, stroking its neck as though the beast were some cherished lover, chuckling, so thoroughly amused when the animal nearly bites his fingers off.

He drops to the ground with predator’s grace, stalking a few measured steps into the barren plains before halting in the middle of nowhere. My brows furrow as he lifts a hand, palm pressing against empty air like he sees something we cannot.

And the world changes.

Walls erupt from the earth, taller than anything I’ve ever seen, so high they blot out the very heavens. Screams tear from the prisoners around me, chains rattling as some fall to their knees, others thrash and tug in a useless frenzy. Stone climbs endlessly into the clouds, stretching left and right without end.

What sorcery is this?

Behind those walls, a kingdom unfurls like a dream. Towers gleam white and gold, roofs catching the morning sun and scattering it like shards of heaven. Bridges of silver arch between palaces. Streets wind in perfect symmetry, alive with banners the color of onyx.

"Open the gates!" A voice hollers from the wall tower.

The gates black gates screech and my lips part. With shock. With wonder. With awe.

People. So many of them line the streets. People like me. Bigger, yes, but nothing at all of the monsters we’ve been taught to fear. Women carry their babes, looking over expectantly. Men cheer, tossing branches onto the floor in some form of tradition. All of them screaming their king’s name, not in fear or trembling obedience.

Even worse.

They have love in their eyes as they look upon him. Their silver king. The monster who conquered the entire world for them. The man who singlehandedly slaughtered dozens of men like sport.

They love him.

My chest twists. Wonder curdles into something darker, whatever guilt I’d begun to feel fleeing, replaced with undiluted hate. They were untouched, unmarred by the darkness that followed every citizen of Silvermoor. Untouched by hunger and smoke and despair. By the sound of a blade tearing through the people you love. Their King bought their peace with *our* lives, and they dare cheer him for it.

As we ride through their midst and it becomes apparent that this battle wasn’t conquered, their cheers die slowly. And they look at us, the prisoners, a little more. They notice us, bloodied and debased. They look upon us with a mixture of resentment and pity. More of the former. And when they begin hurling stones a us in an outrage, calling us murderers, naming and cursing us to death, I’m not even surprised.

By the time we pass the settlements, my face is bleeding with cuts, my arms shaking from from having to shield myself from the onslaught.

I don’t look back, though every part of me screams to protect the helpless behind me. Last time, Leander nearly died. Last time, our food was cut in half. I’d only made things worse. So I keep walking.

Sooner than I’d have liked, the castle gates rise into view, iron and glass swinging wide. A dozen guards line the path, spears raised, shields ready. Bronze helms hide their eyes, black capes snapping in the wind. Their silver-and-leather armor gleams in the sun.

"Lead the prisoners to the dungeons," King Lucien orders, but when one of his silver guards makes a move to unlatch me from his horse, he tilts his head back ever so slightly, sunrays catching his side profile. "Not that one. He’s mine."

The mark on my neck tingles at the claim of possession and I fight the urge to tear it off my skin. I don’t trust my own body anymore. Or my mind. Ever since he marked me three days ago, he’s been in my dreams, my head, my mind, doing things to me that no man has ever done, touching me in places I never knew existed.

This is why markings are always reserved for fated mates or lovers. I have no idea why he’d do that to me. Or himself.

Beyond the archway, the castle stands, a structure as intimidating as the King. It’s structure is nothing like I’ve seen, stone meeting glass in a way that boggles the mind.

Maidens and courtiers line every path, flamboyantly dressed and painstakingly beautiful to look upon. They bow low and rigid, the air filled with tension and fear as they wait for the King to ride past, and those who dare to lift their heads study me with avid curiosity, interest sparking as the note the chains binding me.

We come to a halt in a courtyard, stable boys appearing to tend the horses. The man named Trent takes King Lucien’s helmet, the latter turning for the massive doorways flanked by more guards and gargoyle statues. "Take him to the holding cell in the tower and have him prepped for court."

"I’m not your errand boy, Luke," Trent growls, though, he takes my chains anyway. "Try not to get eaten alive in there."

King Lucien casts his companion a dark glance that could have rattled the devil, but the other male only chuckles and yanks at my leash, taking me towards the opposite direction.

"What about the others?" I rasp.

"Worry about yourself, boy." He points in the direction the King had gone through. "Your method of death is currently being decided."

Exhausting wears heavy in my bones. "I’m not scared of dying."

The man spares me an amused emerald green glance. "Spoken like a true idealistic fool." We pass by a few wide-eyed maids, who bow low enough to crack their spines, while the man pulling my leash pays them no heed. "I know a thing or two about death. So, I’ll tell you this. In the end, they always beg. It doesn’t matter how much a person convinces themselves that death is a concept they must embrace. When the end comes, the finality of it always terrifies."

My lips are cracked and dried, and I think about being boiled alive again for the sixth time today. Gods. It does terrify me.

"What happens to the others?" I repeat.

"They get sold," he answers idly.

My chains rattle harshly as I jerk to a stop. "To slave traders?"

The man shrugs. "If you wish to call them that. We call them merchants. There’s a place for everyone in society. We condone no slack offs. Everyone works hard to earn their keep. But you have no need for that information because the dead need no answers."

******

My holding cell isn’t a cell at all. It’s a room. A small bed, washroom, fresh clothes folded neatly, a narrow window too tight to squeeze through. A bell for requests.

Though my chains are gone, I feel them everytime I hear the scruff of boots outside. I bathe for the first time in weeks, scrub dirt and blood from my skin until it burns, change into the clean clothes. For a heartbeat, I think maybe I’ll sleep.

But how does one sleep knowing the executioner’s blade awaits come dawn?

I pace the room, biting my lip until it bleeds, trembling fists hidden against my sides.

"Thane?" My voice cracks the silence.

No answer. I haven’t felt him in so long, his absence feels wrong, unnatural. I’m utterly alone. Sliding down the wall, knees to chest, I let the weight crush me for the first time since battle. Tears slip, hot against my raw cheeks.

I reach up, wiping them but the ache in my chest only spreads tighter. I miss my father. I miss my mother. I’m exhausted. Been fighting alone for too long, trusted the wrong people, got betrayed by my own mate. At some point in the last three weeks, I turned nineteen.

I don’t even remember what day it was.

Boots thud outside my door and my gaze snaps up as torches illuminate the floors outside. I’m scrambling to my feet when keys jingle and the door creaks wide. Four guards fill the frame.

It’s time.

Trent was right. Death terrifies me.

They seize my arms, drag me through the corridors, down stair after stair.

Rich music swells in the air, a revelry in place. Courtiers dance along the hallway of the palace, spilling out from the Great Hall, the lighting a dim red as they claw at each other. The air is heavy with the scent of liquor and lust, hands roaming naked skin, moans filling the night.

Women and men alike lean against the walls with their heads dropped back while kisses are scattered along their chest, their breasts. A maid has her skirts hide up around her waist, her eyes heavy lidded with arousal as another woman in the richest silk kneels before her, face buried between her legs.

Such... sin.

We walk past a couple rutting against the pillar of the Moon Goddess, defiling it in the most depraved way.

By the time we reach the Grand Hall, my stomach churns. I feel sullied just walking through it.

The grand doors swing open. Light slams into me, bright and merciless. The room swallows sound, tension vibrating in the marble beneath my feet.

If it isn’t for the sixteen seated on either sides of the tall diaz, eyes sharp with varying shades of disdain, I might have taken one moment to appreciate the magnificence of the throne room.

But I am shoved onto my knees in the centre of the room, and their auras press down on me like iron, keeping me in place.

"This is it?" A voice cracks the silence in the air like a whip. It belongs to a woman. It is startling, because in Silvermoor, women do not sit on the council, no matter how much importance they beat in society. "This scrawny thing cost us this war? Blessed Thandric, have we lost the plot? It looks no more than a wretched fledgling!"

Murmurs ripple in the chamber in agreement.

Sweat beads my brow. But it isn’t her voice that crushes me. It’s his. The one presence heavier than all the rest, pinning me where I kneel.

"Do explain why it still breathes, when my Zara does not. Have you brought it here so that I may exact vengeance for my dead daughter and her erasthai?"

"The King explains himself to none, Margot," another voice snaps, sagely and wise.

"No? We lost too many to defend ourselves if those leeches decide to march upon our homes! How is it that he let this thing slip past him, one worm caused this much damage! Wyatt would have made no such mistake, and you all know that."

"Enough." King Lucien’s voice is soft but it hits as heavy as an anvil anyway, the tension thick in the air, the violence a tangible thing. "Raise your head, mongrel."

Slowly, my head rises, bones quivering with effort to not fall flat against the marble in worship of my owner.

As my gaze flits towards him atop his throne, every fragment in my dreams come together, and I realize that even if this is the first time I’ve been in the Dark King’s throne room, I feel like I have been here a thousand times.

His chin rests lazily against his fist and he lounges tiredly, like he couldn’t give two shits about appearing intimidating. Not that he needs to. His silver hair is tugged back from his face in a high bun, and rather than his crown, he has a royal fixture on the bun that sticks out like a sore thumb.

Worse yet, he’s in a pair of pyjamas, and still manages to look more regal than any of the fully dressed lords and ladies around him in doubles and corsets.

"Tell us your name," he says.

My voice scrapes out dry. "Valerian. Of House Ironfang."

I notice the blonde woman beside him has gone still. The one whom they call Margot.

The King nods, amusement sparking in his eyes. "Barbarian Ironfang here is a hybrid."

Gasps stir the chamber. A lord with midnight blue hair and matching blue eyes with a wicked moustache leans forward but Lucien silences him with a single lifted finger.

"Not unusual. Promiscuity does run deep in our cursed blood." He leans forward, elbows to knees, gaze sweeping the chamber. "The problem lies in the fact that there are sixteen royal houses in Ebonheart. And one of them has committed the sin of breeding with wolves and abandoning their kin."

His violet gaze lands on his council. "Which one of you sixteen sired this child?"