Chapter Sixty-Seven
Aelia
“How dare you?” I hissed, my voice trembling with fury. “You brought Helroth and Tenebris to the heart of the war, after everything you’ve done, and expect a civil conversation now? After you set the Shadow King on my mate? To kill me?”
He waved a dismissive hand. “Who knew Reign had gotten powerful enough to defeat his own father?”
I knew. And he was about to find out the true extent of our combined powers.
“Helroth and Tenebris are no longer rulers,” Elian continued smoothly. “They are weapons. Weapons I now control.” He lifted a nonchalant shoulder. “I thought you’d be pleased, honestly.”
Reign’s shadows flared. “You think some measly shackles with celestial glyphs can hold my father? Or the Night King?”
Both Tenebris and Helroth stood a little straighter.
“Not shackles,” Tharos interjected, his voice as calm as still water. “These are bindings of ancient consequence. There is no power in this realm capable of breaking them, except perhaps the one that you all just awoke.”
My stomach twisted. “You were watching,” I rasped, realization hitting me like a blade.
“We all were,” Elian replied, his smile faltering only slightly. “That dragon mating ritual, the Tetrum Cordis, it changed the balance of this realm. And now, I fear if I don’t act right away, we’ll be out of time. The prophecy will come to pass… with the wrong child of twilight.”
“What in the realms are you talking about?” I growled.
A frigid smile crept across Elian’s face, sharper than any blade.
“You truly thought it was you?” His voice was smooth and laced with derision. “That you deserved to be the child of twilight? Just because you were born of two courts, because you’re a girl with pretty wings and a powerful bond?”
What in the realms? I took a step forward, fire igniting under my skin, but Reign’s hand shot out to steady me. The dragons behind us growled low, thunder vibrating in their chests.
Elian’s eyes flicked between us, calculating and cold.
Then a flash of amusement sparked. “It was never about you, Aelia. Never about the dragons or the gods’ little games.
It’s always been me. I was born after your father, the cursed second born, forced to live in the shadow of the great Alaric’s glory.
Until I took matters into my own hands. I refused to be overlooked for a moment longer.
I should have been king from the start; I should have been the chosen one.
I had the bloodline, the power, the right. ”
“What do you mean you took matters into your hands?” A prickle of unease raised the hair on my nape. “What did you do?”
He tsked. “What do you think, dear niece? Your father was wounded in battle, barely the shell of a man he once was. It was only the blasted mate bond with your mother that kept him alive…”
I gasped, all the air siphoning from my lungs. “You killed her?”
Elian shrugged, nonchalantly. “A cursed Night and Shadow Fae of mixed dark blood never should’ve been anywhere near the Light Throne. Your father was weak, a lovesick fool.”
A surge of rage, wild and powerful, built in my core. My uncle, my father’s own brother, killed my parents, not Helroth or Tenebris. My own damned blood. Gods, I couldn’t believe it. At least Helroth had been telling the truth about this all along.
He sneered. “First, I had to suffer your father, and then you… You stole what should’ve been mine. You and your abomination of a bond.”
“You don’t get to rewrite the prophecy,” I snapped, voice trembling with restrained rage. “It is not for you to say who lives and who dies. You don’t get to twist the fate of this world because you’re desperate for power.”
“No,” he agreed. “I don’t need to rewrite it.” He raised one hand. “I’m going to become it, the true child of twilight.”
Before either Reign or I could move, Tharos lifted his staff. With a guttural word in a language I didn’t understand, the runes on his staff flared violet-black, blinding in their brilliance.
A pulse of lys rippled outward, the smoky scent clinging to my nostrils. Time slowed, then fractured completely.
Every warrior behind us, Ruhl, Kaelith, all of Flare Team, even Phantom and Solanthus froze mid-motion. Wings outstretched. Weapons half-drawn. Mouths parted in silent cries.
“No—!” I raced to our friends, to the Fae who had become my family, and reached for them but my fingers passed through Ruhl, then Rue and Symon as if they were carved from smoke.
Panic rushed my veins, icy and unrelenting.
Reign cursed under his breath. “What did you do?”
Tharos lowered the staff slowly, the hazy lys still clinging to its length like bleeding shadows.
“A temporal stasis spell,” he said simply. “Only the chosen remain unaffected.”
“And us,” Reign growled. “Why not freeze us too?”
“Because you’re going to watch,” Elian said. “The fall of the kings, and the rise of a god.”
The chains binding Helroth and Tenebris flared violently, pinning them in place. The moment the Night King tried to surge forward, the sigils around his cuff ignited, burning down his arm. He snarled in fury, teeth bared before a scream ripped through his clenched teeth.
“Run, Aelia,” Helroth roared.
A tiny dead part of me flared with hope at my grandfather’s words.
“Go, now,” he gritted out, eyes meeting mine.
“It’s too late for that.” Elian’s grin was pure evil.
“You’re mad,” Reign spat. “You’ll destroy everything.”
“I intend to rebuild,” he replied coolly.
Then he stepped forward, toward a blackened altar that Tharos had conjured from the ashes with a wave of his hand.
Atop it rested a golden relic, pulsing with ancient power.
The circular medallion was etched with the triskelion of the three Fae gods—Raysa, Noxus, and Zaroth—three interlocking spirals radiating from a common center.
The air bent around it, wrong and heavy.
What in all the worlds is that? My question raced through our bond, now much quieter with the absence of our dragons.
I have no idea… likely some lost artifact of the gods.
“You can’t do this—” I cried.
“I can,” Elian snapped. “And I will.”
Rais bloomed along my fingertips, nox surging to the surface of my skin. I would not let my uncle destroy everything after all we’d fought for. All we’d lost.
“Careful, princess.” Elian tsked again, wagging a finger. “You wouldn’t want something to happen to your dragons while they’re completely helpless.” He ticked his head over Reign’s shoulder where a dozen Royal Guardians materialized, luminous swords poised at Sol’s and Phantom’s throats.
“No,” I growled.
“If you draw even a drop of blood from either of our dragons,” Reign snarled, “I’ll rip you apart limb from limb then feed your mutilated carcass to each of them.”
“There’s no need for such savagery if you simply behave.” He drew a long, curved cutlas from his hip, its edge glowing with divine light. Without flinching, he slashed the blade across his palm, blood spilling freely. “Don’t worry, it will all be over soon.”
Elian let it drip onto the medallion, then drew it over his head. Then, raising his other hand, he and Tharos began to chant.
Dark words. Old ones. The air cracked with thunder, the earth groaning beneath our feet. Storm clouds spiraled above, thick and roiling, blacking out the sun.
What do we do? Even I could hear the tremble in my tone.
The Moirai Shard… It could sever whatever divine bond Elian is trying to create. His voice was calm and deliberate, but I could feel the frenzied rush of emotions coursing through our connection. As soon as it’s complete, we make our move.
Reign, you can’t. What about the sacrifice?
I will pay it. Whatever it is. We cannot allow Elian to assume all that power.
Claws of fear raked across my heart, and I drew in a sharp breath. I won’t let you. I cannot lose you.
Helroth and Tenebris suddenly screamed, drawing me back to the present as the runes on their cuffs blazed blinding white, then ripped open. Shadow and Night, nox and zar, bled from their bodies, pulled into a swirling vortex above the altar.
They buckled, knees hitting the dirt as their gods’ given abilities were torn from them. Siphoned. Consumed.
No.
Their bodies withered in an instant, the terrible power devouring them from the inside out.
When the light faded, nothing remained of Helroth or Tenebris but ash scattered on the wind.
An unexpected sharp pang twisted in my chest. My grandsire, for all his cruelty, was still my blood.
His end should have brought only relief, yet a sliver of sorrow coiled inside me all the same.
Through the bond I could feel the same feeling of loss curling through Reign. Despite everything Tenebris had put him through.
Elian’s body convulsed as he drew in the power, eyes glowing, skin now seared with divine markings. The triskelion medallion floated from his hands and seared into his chest like a brand. The power of Night and Shadow poured into him like molten godsfire.
He threw his head back and roared, a sound that split the sky.
The energy lashed outward, and I was thrown off my feet, Reign crashing beside me. Pain seared through my veins, and I was certain somehow that our dragons felt it too, despite their frozen state.
Then silence, thick and oppressive.
When the dust finally cleared, Elian stood at the center of a black crater, cloaked in shadow and fire. His hair was a white flame, his eyes bottomless pits, one light and one dark.
He was no longer just Light. Not Shadow nor Night.
But all three. At once. A true abomination.
“I am reborn,” he whispered, voice echoing with power that didn’t belong to him. “The true child of twilight.”