Chapter 68
They dragged us from the cell together, the cold of our collars biting into our skin, the chains rattling as we were forced through the winding corridors of the palace.
Xyliria waited in the grand hall, perched lazily atop her throne, her nails tapped idly against the carved armrest, but her eyes shone with delighted malice.
Ashterion was absent. I didn’t know why, didn’t care. His presence had never mattered before. But today, standing atop the dais, I recognised a different male.
Merrick.
He was grinning—that lazy, predatory smile I’d seen cut through sky and storm. And strapped to his hip, gleaming like captured moonlight against the dark leather of his belt, were my damn moonsilver daggers.
The sight of them sent white-hot rage blazing through my veins.
They’d carved through shadow and bone, had whispered death songs in languages older than memory. And now this bastard wore them like trophies, like spoils of war torn from my defeated body.
The collar around my throat pulsed, dampening the black fire that wanted to burn everything in this hall to ash and bone, but it couldn’t touch the rage. That was purely, devastatingly human.
Merrick’s grin widened when he saw me looking, his fingers trailing almost lovingly over one blade’s hilt. The gesture was deliberate, calculated—a taunt wrapped in silk and delivered with such casual cruelty that my vision blurred red around the edges.
“Well, well,” he drawled, voice carrying an electric anticipation. “Look what we have here.”
We were thrown to our knees. The marble was ice beneath my battered legs. My palms scraped as I caught myself. All around, my companions breathed in tight, controlled bursts.
“How the mighty have fallen.” Xyliria drank in the sight of our battered forms like we were a fine vintage she meant to savour. “Once proud warriors, now crawling at my feet like the filth you are.”
No one spoke.
Not Shaelith, who kept her attention fixed on a point beyond Xyliria’s shoulder, her jaw clenched. Not Linc, whose hands had formed fists against the stone. Not even Cindrissian, who somehow managed to look utterly bored by the events around him.
Brynelle knelt perfectly still, her gaze fixed straight ahead, too calm. Fenric looked the most human of all of us—exposed and breaking, his shoulders hunched as if trying to disappear into himself. His eyes kept flicking to me, as though I might find some way to stop what was coming.
Varyth didn’t hide his fury.
Didn’t mask the sheer hatred radiating off him in waves.
Xyliria noticed, of course. She had orchestrated this moment precisely to elicit that reaction.
She pushed herself from the throne and descended the steps, each movement dripping with amusement. “I’ve been thinking.” She trailed her fingers along the hilt of a dagger at her hip. “Your pain, Isara, has been delightful, but it lacks… creativity.”
Ice coiled in my gut and slithered upward, lodging itself beneath my ribs.
She gestured, and Merrick descended the stairs. He grabbed Linc by the collar and hauled him forward. Two guards seized Varyth a moment later.
Varyth snarled, jerking against their hold, but the guards forced him down, pressing him to his knees beside Linc.
I already knew what was coming.
Xyliria sighed. “You’ve been such a good little pawn, Isara,” she purred, stepping closer. “But I think it’s time we push your limits.”
She drew the blade at her belt and placed it in my hands.
The weight of it sent bile up my throat.
Xyliria crouched before me. “I want you to kill one of them,” she said, her tone light, almost teasing.
My breath stopped. The blood in my veins froze. I couldn’t suppress the tremor of cold terror that ran through me.
Her smile widened. “Oh, come now. You’ve done this before.”
The room tilted, my heart pounded so violently it hurt.
No.
No, no, no.
I couldn’t do this.
I had chosen before. I had done her bidding before. But not this. Not them.
Xyliria’s lips parted in a mockingly sympathetic pout. “Don’t look so stricken, darling. You know how this works. If you refuse, I will kill them both. And then I’ll start working my way through the rest of your little friends. I’ll let you watch as I carve them open one by one.”
I gritted my teeth, my grip on the dagger so tight my fingers ached.
Varyth snarled. “You won’t do this.”
Linc remained silent, but his eyes said the same.
Xyliria chuckled, straightening. “Let’s test that theory, shall we?”
She lifted her hand, and Linc screamed.
His body arched violently as magic seared through his veins.
I lunged forward, but guards wrenched me back, forcing me to watch as he convulsed.
“STOP IT!” I cried, thrashing, but Xyliria only smiled.
Then she turned to Varyth. “Anything to say, High Lord? Perhaps an impassioned plea?”
Varyth bared his teeth. “Go to hell.”
“Fine, then.” Xyliria tutted.
Another surge of magic struck Linc. His roar of agony broke me.
The sound that tore from Fenric’s throat was inhuman—a wounded animal’s cry that shattered something fundamental inside me. He lurched forward against the guards restraining him, his face twisted in anguish as he watched Linc writhe.
“Please,” Fenric gasped, the word cracking like broken glass. “Please, I’ll take his place. Hurt me instead.”
Xyliria’s eyes lit up with predatory delight. “Oh, how precious.” She tilted her head, drinking in his desperation.
Another wave of magic slammed into Linc, and his scream died in his throat, replaced by a horrible, rattling gasp.
She was going to kill them both. She was going to make me watch.
Xyliria took a step back, her arms folding as she waited.
“I won’t.” But I looked at the dagger in my hand, the polished steel gleaming in the dim torchlight.
Xyliria’s lips pursed. “Are you sure?” She lifted a hand, and magic stirring again—
“Wait!” The shout ripped from my throat.
Xyliria grinned. “That’s the spirit.”
I turned to look at Varyth. He shook his head once.
Another wave of Xyliria’s magic ripped through Linc.
The sound that escaped him—
Gods.
A whimper.
I’d never heard Lincatheron make a sound like that. Not once.
It tore something fundamental inside me. Something that could never be repaired.
Fenric was sobbing now, guttural sounds that came from watching your soul being carved out with rusty knives. “Please—please, I’ll do anything. Hurt me. Kill me. Just stop.”
Merrick stepped closer, twirling on of my moonsilver daggers between his fingers as he moved. That predatory smile never wavered, even as his voice dropped to mock concern.
“Tick tock, little assassin,” he crooned, fingers trailing along one blade’s edge with obscene reverence. “Your friends are breaking so beautifully. Look at them.”
I snarled, the sound ripping from somewhere primal and feral.
“I won’t.”
Merrick chuckled, the sound like silk wrapped around broken glass. “Even now? Even watching him fall apart?” He gestured at Fenric, who was straining against his guards, trying desperately to reach Linc. “Even hearing sounds you never thought he could make?”
My grip on the dagger tightened until my knuckles went white.
“I. Won’t.”
Xyliria’s magic released its hold on Linc, and he collapsed forward, shaking, blood trickling from his nose, his mouth. His breathing came in sharp, stuttering gasps that spoke of internal damage, of things broken that couldn’t be seen.
But she didn’t give him long.
Didn’t let him recover.
Her hand lifted again, magic coiling around her fingers like hungry serpents.
“No.” I lurched forward, but the guards wrenched me back. “I said I won’t choose.”
“Then watch them both die.” Xyliria’s voice was silk and poison, delighted anticipation dripping from every syllable.
The magic built, darker this time, more violent. I could taste it in the air—death magic, the kind that didn’t just stop hearts but shredded souls.
Varyth was straining against his bonds, his fury so pure it was making the air shimmer. But the collar around his throat pulsed with suppressing magic, keeping his power locked away.
“Choose,” Xyliria purred, “or lose them both.”
“I won’t.” My voice cracked, but the words held. “I won’t do this.”
Her smile turned savage.
She whirled.
And before any of us could process what was happening, before anyone could scream or lunge or even blink—
The blade in her hand slid into Brynelle’s throat like a whisper.