Chapter Thirty-Three
Reign
Noxus, I despised lying to Aelia.
But to my point, I’d warned her many times that I was not a good Fae, nor was I ever to be trusted. And what I was about to do now, it was for her safety, and more importantly, for our future.
She would never agree to it because of the inherent risks it presented. But none of that mattered. This was my mess, and now it was my duty to clean it up.
I slipped through the fortress gates under the cover of shadow, my nox cloaking me in a veil of cold silence.
Everyone believed I was heading to Arcanum to see Gideon, to strategize about my brother’s ascension to the throne and then join the others to plan our strike.
Except, I had no intention of visiting that war room until this was done.
This wasn’t a decision I could trust anyone else with.
Not Aelia. Not Ruhl. Not even myself, if I thought too hard about it.
It was incredibly risky, but I was prepared this time.
The cuorem pulsed in protest as I crept past the outer walls of father’s dreaded fortress. I felt Aelia’s stirrings in the bond, her worry like a ripple of light trying to pierce my darkness.
Just this once, starlight. Forgive me. I let that final thought seep through our connection before I tightened the walls of my mind, locking her out.
With a twist of nox and a sliver of zar, I vanished into shadow and reappeared moments later inside the Castle of Ethereal Light.
The scent of gilded stone and rais-choked air wrapped around me like a noose.
Even the corridors glowed faintly beneath my boots, every inch of this palace adorned in Raysa’s splendor.
I wasn’t certain which castle I despised more—this one or the one I’d grown up in.
Two Royal Guardians rounded the bend, their gold-rimmed alabaster cloaks snapping behind them. Their eyes widened as I materialized from the dark, but they had no time to raise their weapons or shout an alert.
I struck first.
Nox lashed out from my palms, twisting into black tendrils that coiled around their throats and wrists.
They struggled, blades dropping as my shadows struck, binding them still.
Then, I pressed a sliver of zar into their minds, enough to knock them unconscious without killing them.
Aelia’s mercy had certainly rubbed off on me.
Their bodies crumpled to the polished marble with a dull thud.
“Sorry, boys,” I muttered as I stepped over their motionless forms. “Wrong place. Wrong time.”
Moving swiftly—that entire ordeal taking only moments—I cut through the next corridor, bypassing the guards in the central court with a flicker of concealing shadows.
The castle walls tightened around me, footfalls echoing from all directions, but I tuned them out and focused only on the prize at the end of the interminable corridors.
Not only would I finally put an end to the threat of the blood vow hanging over my head, but I would also skulk into my father’s mind and discover the truth of my heritage.
Gods, if Kaelith was right… who had my mother been?
She couldn’t have been a mere servant in my father’s household.
Had she been of royal blood? My stomach soured for an instant as I considered a horrible truth.
Could I have descended from Helroth’s line? If Aelia and I shared blood…
My heart kicked at my ribs, sending a tremor through my innards.
No, it couldn’t be. The gods would never have bound us as cuoré if we were related. That seemed too cruel, even for their sadistic games. Horrible thoughts assuaged for now, I continued the endless descent.
If I was, in fact, Night Fae, why had my powers suddenly emerged?
Sure, it wasn’t uncommon for half-bloods to develop later, but why now?
The cuorem pulsed, low and steady, just under my skin as if in silent reply.
My thoughts flickered back in time. Back to when I had first suspected the truth about Aelia and me, and I’d spent endless hours at the Arcanum library with Gideon at my side, researching the effects of the cuorem bond.
…enhances the abilities of each Fae, with each partner amplifying the other's power. This can manifest as increased strength, enhanced healing, greater mystical capacity, or even new abilities that neither possessed before.
That was it. It had to be.
The cuorem had woken my dormant Night Fae abilities, even before we’d sealed the bond. It had coaxed the zar to the surface, and I’d stupidly believed it had been coming from Aelia. I’d been so distraught I hadn’t seen the truth when it had been plain all along.
My mind spun with the breadth of powers the demons were fabled to have:
Infernal Manipulation
Soul Draining
Cursed Illusions
Necromancy
Pact Making
Cursed Enchantments
Blood Magic
Astral Possession
Nightmare Realms
Night Fae zar was poison wrapped in silk. Gods, if that darkness lived inside me, what did that make me?
By the time I finally reached the dungeons, a pit had formed in my stomach.
The air grew colder, scattering my thoughts.
The rais heavier. Runes of light shimmered along the walls, warding off my nox.
I felt the glistening barrier skim over my skin, like thousands of tiny pinpricks.
But I was more than shadow now. Zar thrummed through my veins, potent and deadly.
And this time, I was more than ready to use it.
The runes fizzled as I passed, unable to completely repel me.
I followed the path down, boots silent on the stone steps.
Pausing at the corner, I steeled myself.
After the last encounter with my father, I knew I had to be the first strike.
If I gave him so much as a second of time to call upon the vow, I would be a slave to his whims.
Drawing in a steadying breath, I summoned the icy nox, then the dark, twisted tendrils of zar. Raw power blossomed in my core, the heady sensations forcing a growl through my gritted teeth.
I would strike silently and without mercy.
King Tenebris deserved none. He’d never shown me any. He had never been a father to me, only the male who’d filled my mother with his seed and turned me into a weapon of destruction. My shadows swirled in a tornado of night, a frenzy of hissing, writhing power laced in that thick, powerful zar.
Unleashing a tempest of undiluted power that bathed the corridor in endless night, I strode around the corner toward the cell that had held my father—
Empty.
The wave of shadows I’d summoned dissipated, a hiss of frustration vibrating the suddenly silent space. “What in Noxus…” My breath fogged the suddenly icy air, heart slamming against my ribs.
The door I’d once thought impenetrable now hung open on broken hinges, its chains hanging uselessly from the walls. The manacles were curled and blackened as if burned by something older, darker than even Shadow or Light.
On the floor, resting where Tenebris had once stood taunting me with that gods’ forsaken vow, lay a single parchment. The edges shimmered with glyphs of ancient magic, of lys, the words glittering like starlight and bleeding into the cracks of the stone.
I crouched, shadows curling at my feet as I picked it up and scanned the text.
When the child of twilight ascends, unshackled by fate, the veil between worlds shall fray. Her power, unbound, will call forth the end—whether of ruin or rebirth, none can yet say.
As the balance shatters, the stars shall dim, and shadows shall stretch to devour the light. The tides of fate will bow to her hand, and the realms shall tremble beneath her choice.
Either salvation or oblivion awaits, for when twilight reigns, the final hour begins.
My throat closed around the words, the parchment trembling in my grasp.
Another gods’ damned prophecy?
Not the one I’d been taught. Not the one that spoke of the destruction wrought by the child of twilight, the one ingrained into my mind before I could barely walk.
I stared at the words, attempting to understand the seers’ cryptic message.
Especially the last line: When twilight reigns, the final hour begins.
Twilight? Gods, when would that be?
This prophecy was something worse. This was about choice. And choice was dangerous in the wrong hands. It wasn’t merely fate either. This was Aelia, standing at the edge of oblivion, with the power to tip the scales either way.
But I trusted Aelia. I knew her. She was good, and I was certain that as queen, she would be the salvation the divination spoke of.
I crushed the parchment in my fist, shadows leaking through my fingers. This new foretelling was the least of my worries. “Father,” I hissed into the emptiness, my voice low and cold. “Where the realms are you, you bastard?”
The walls said nothing. But the air shifted, as if something unseen smiled back at me from the void.
Damn it. I had to find him.
Had he escaped somehow or, with our temporary pact broken, had Elian moved him for fear of exactly this happening?
I growled a curse. Apparently, I hadn’t given the Light King enough credit. He’d been one step ahead of us all along.