Chapter Nine
Aelia
Tiptoeing around my old dormitory, I ran my hand across the familiar bed and the lush hanging vines that draped over the cozy niche in the chamber.
Everything was exactly as I remembered it.
In my absence, Rue had decided not to move into the second-year dormitories in the floor below us.
She explained that she was waiting for my return so that we could relocate together.
I was beyond thankful for my ever-optimistic friend. After months at the hands of Helroth, most would have given up on my ever returning. And yet, here I was.
“You’re sure Draven won’t know we’re here?” I glanced up at Reign who paced the length of the hearth, a scowl marring his handsome features.
He’d been abnormally surly since returning from seeking out his brother, refusing to answer any of my questions on the subject. And despite my best efforts to skulk into his mind and discover what had him in such a foul mood, I couldn’t get past the impenetrable shield.
“No, the room has been warded, just as the last time we were here.”
My thoughts flickered back in time to the day Reign and my friends rescued me from the confines of Helspire Keep. Or more accurately, my grandsire decided to release me, to unleash me and my chaotic powers onto the realm.
Now, it seemed both Reign and I had become uncontrollable weapons.
Had the Night King known all along? Had it all been part of his devious plan to destroy the other courts?
Blinking free of the dismal thoughts, I found myself across the chamber beside my cuoré. I hadn’t even felt my feet move toward him. Winding my fingers through his, I glanced up to meet two impenetrable orbs of sheer darkness.
“Why are you blocking me?”
“Hmm?”
“There’s something bothering you that you’re not telling me.”
The corner of his lip twitched. “So you decided to skulk into my mind and steal it?”
“Yes.”
He laughed, the sound warm and unexpected. “It’s silly. For some reason, I feared your reaction at hearing the truth of Ruhl’s whereabouts this morning.”
“What truth?”
The bond with Reign hummed steady beneath my skin, but something darker throbbed just under it. Like a storm gathering.
“What is it, Reign?”
The door to my chamber whipped open, and none other than the rogue Shadow Prince stormed through. His eyes were bloodshot, hair a mess of tangles, and the pungent scent of spiced wine followed in his wake.
“No fear, the prince is here.” He dipped into an elaborate bow in front of us.
“He’s… he’s drunk…” I stammered.
“Not quite as much anymore.” He dropped onto the settee, folding his long legs. “Unfortunately.”
“For Noxus’s sake, Ruhl. Couldn’t you at least wait to sober up before coming?”
“And remain where, brother? After your untimely visit, Liora wasn’t exactly the most welcoming hostess.”
“Liora?” I bit out.
A hint of amusement glistened in Ruhl’s fathomless eyes. “Oh, you didn’t tell her?”
“No,” Reign growled.
“Tell me what?” Though in truth, I already had a fairly good idea.
Ruhl waved a dismissive hand. “In a fit of drunken lunacy, I sought comfort between the legs of the lovely Liora.”
Two pairs of midnight irises bored into me, the piercing scrutiny from the Shadow princes unbearable. This was what Reign feared? That I’d be upset about his half-brother bedding Liora? Well, I was, but not for the reason he dreaded.
I simply didn’t trust the female.
And it wasn’t only because she’d mercilessly flirted with my cuoré last term. There was something about her that I simply couldn’t quite pinpoint.
“Well, I hope you didn’t spill any secrets between the bedsheets, Ruhl,” I replied, voice steady.
His dark brows furrowed, the smirk permanently carved into his mouth falling away. “That’s it, then?”
“Yes.” I stepped closer to Reign, lacing my fingers with his as I turned to face Ruhl.
“Isn’t it just perfect? The bastard prince gets the girl, the bond, the kingdom…”
Drawing in a steadying breath, I lifted my gaze to meet that turbulent one.
“Ruhl, you’ve come to mean a great deal to me, and I’ll always care for you.
Maybe too much. But Reign… he’s my mate.
My heart chose him long before I understood what that truly meant.
What we share is more than love, it’s something elemental and undeniable.
And I hope someday, you find a love just as powerful.
One that doesn’t break you but rather makes you whole. ”
The depth of misery in his expression lanced across my chest. Gods, I felt awful for laying it all out there, but it was better he accepted it now than hold onto a shred of hope that would never be. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“No, don’t be sorry,” he slurred. “You two are destined. And me? I’m just the shadow trailing after you.”
Reign’s dark minions writhed at his feet like serpents hungry for blood.
“So that’s what this was?” Ice laced his tone, the uneasy calm descending across his features more frightening than the wrath I could feel simmering below the surface.
“A desperate attempt to make Aelia jealous? What the realms did you think would happen, Ruhl? That she’d forsake our bond and come running to you? ”
“Clearly, I wasn’t thinking,” he muttered, leaning his head against his palm.
Reign released my hand, stalking toward his brother. “You need to stop this foolishness before you ruin everything we’ve fought so hard to achieve.”
The drunk Shadow Prince twirled his hand in the air, and a shadow twisted between his fingers. “Right, as you wish.”
A tendril of night spilled from Reign’s form, coiling around Ruhl’s shadow, snuffing the life out of it. Nothing but specks of ash dribbled to the floor as Ruhl watched, eyes wide.
“Reign!” I snapped. “He’s drunk and—”
“No, don’t make excuses for him, Aelia. He’s acting like a selfish, spoiled prince.”
“Don’t you mean I’m acting like myself again?”
“Yes,” he hissed.
“Well, I suppose this is the real me.” He leapt up, stumbled a step, then gripped the arm of the settee. “The one who’s always existed. The one who isn’t in love with your cuoré.” He cast a scathing glare in my direction.
Oh, goddess.
“Perhaps, we should postpone this conversation until Ruhl has fully sobered up.” I turned to Reign, pleading. The last thing I needed were the two princes at each other’s throats. “I could go see Elisa, surely she must have a potion to speed up the process.”
“No, my presence is not required here.” He turned toward the door, holding onto the furniture on his way. “You only need my memories of the discussion with Father, correct?” A whisper of shadow slid from his fingertips and curled around the shell of my ear. “Well, here they are.”
I barely registered the sound of the door slamming closed as the dark coil slipped into my ear, and the room around me shimmered, bending at the edges like ripples across glass. I wasn’t here, wherever here was, but it felt real. Too real.
Black stone columns rose around me, shrouded in endless dusk. The vaulted ceiling of Tenebris’s war chamber loomed overhead, heavy with shadows. I had no idea how I recognized it, but I knew it for what it was, a place of cold strategy and colder ambition.
Ruhl’s shadow had grazed my skin moments ago, just a whisper, a flicker of his power, and now I was watching a memory. It was so potent it gripped my throat in a vice.
The dark prince stood before his father, fists clenched at his sides.
“You cannot be serious,” Ruhl bit out, pacing before the obsidian war table. “Helroth is building an army unlike anything this realm has seen. If we wait, he will crush the Light Court, but he won’t stop there.”
King Tenebris lounged in his throne of carved onyx and bone, chin propped lazily on one hand. His other drummed against the armrest in a steady rhythm, like a ticking clock counting down to disaster.
“Let him try,” Tenebris said, voice calm and completely unbothered. “Let Helroth bleed the Light Court dry. Let Elian march his pristine legions to their deaths. I see no reason to waste our own forces while our enemies slaughter each other.”
Ruhl’s jaw flexed, a flicker of nox curling at his fingertips. “You’re a fool if you think he won’t turn to us next.”
Tenebris’s lips curled into something too sharp to be called a smile. “If he does, we will be ready. Shadow does not fear Night.”
“This isn’t about fear,” Ruhl growled. “It’s about survival. It’s about Aetheria. You’ve grown too used to scheming from the shadows, Father. But this, this is no court game. He means to unmake the balance.”
The king rose slowly, the movement deliberate, predatory. “And what would you have me do? March into an alliance with the Light Court? Break bread with Elian and beg to fight at his side like brothers-in-arms?” He scoffed. “The Light Court would just as soon slit your throat as clasp your hand.”
“Not if we go to them first. Not if we set the terms.”
Tenebris’s eyes glinted, a storm brewing in the depths of midnight. “Perhaps, you’ve been too long in your brother’s presence. Has he too become swayed by the Light after all these years across the Luminoc? Or is it that Kin he’s bedding that’s made him weak?”
A chill skated down my spine.
“Reign is anything but weak. And that female means nothing to him,” Ruhl snapped. “She is no one.”
“Good,” Tenebris hissed.
Ruhl stepped forward, shadows rolling off his shoulders. “We should fight to save the realm. Because if we do nothing, there will be nothing left to rule.”
A heavy silence stretched between them. The kind that split empires.
Then Tenebris turned his back. “I will not raise my army for fools. Let Elian and Helroth destroy each other. When the smoke clears, we will pick the bones clean.”
The vision fractured, like the memory had reached its limit, and the chamber dissolved into darkness.
I gasped as I stumbled back into the present, the residual cold of Tenebris’s indifference still clinging to my skin. Ruhl’s shadow unraveled from around my ear, vanishing like mist.
It was Reign’s arm to curl around my waist, steadying me. I blinked quickly and his familiar features coalesced.
“Did you see that?” I whispered, dread heavy in my tone.
“Yes, unfortunately so.”
I knew now, without a doubt, that the true threat wasn’t only Helroth and the Night Fae. It was the cowardice of kings who refused to act.
“So what do we do now?” I glanced up at Reign, his jaw hardened to steel.
“We move,” Reign said, voice steeled with purpose. “To Elian. To war. And may the gods have mercy on anyone who stands in our way.”