Chapter Sixty-Two
Reign
No.
The word detonated in my skull like a curse, an explosion of shadow and dread that nearly buckled my knees.
No, no, no. It couldn’t be.
My father stood before me. King Tenebris.
He was bound in iron cuffs etched with runes, eyes glowing like frozen stars. A creature of nightmares I’d clawed from my memories and buried in the darkest corners of my soul.
And he was here. Shackled but not broken. Never broken.
His eyes found mine. And for one eternal heartbeat, everything fell away. The slick stone beneath my boots, Aelia’s presence at my side, even the war looming in the distance. All I could feel was the searing, ancient pull of blood.
The blood vow.
Still alive. Still binding and lethal. Still capable of forcing me to kill my mate.
My heart roared like Phantom mid-dive. If he spoke the words, if he commanded it, I wouldn’t be able to stop. I’ll hurt her. I’ll kill her.
I couldn’t. I took a step back and slid my hand beneath my cloak. The Moirai Shard. It was time to find out what the cost would be. The priestess’s words echoed through my mind. Moirai incendiae. Two words and I could end this.
No, wait. Aelia’s voice surged through my mind. The cost…
“Elian,” I growled, my voice so raw I hardly recognized it. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Offering peace,” he replied smoothly. “And answers.”
“Answers?” My laugh was broken glass. “You just put the most dangerous male in Aetheria on a feeble leash and expect us to believe you’re doing it for the good of the realm?”
Tenebris didn’t flinch. His gaze never left mine. “I told you we would meet again, son.”
The sound of that word—son—was a blade to the gut.
Despite the imminent danger, I couldn’t stop my mouth from forming the words. I had to know. “What happened to my mother?”
Something dark flashed across my father’s expression.
“I know Elaris was your prisoner, a slave in your grand castle. I need to know what became of her.”
“How bold of you to ask something of me given the current circumstance.” His tone was ice.
“Just tell me,” I roared, shadows flaring with rage, hissing and writhing across my fingertips.
A flicker of amusement swam across those soulless eyes. “She tried to escape and I had her killed.” A harsh laugh scraped from his throat. “She ran. She begged, but it changed nothing.”
The world tunneled. My vision rimmed in black as the nox surged, hungry for blood. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?” Tenebris tilted his head, the ghost of a smile cutting his face. “Open your eyes, Reign. Mercy is a story mothers tell their sons so they grow soft.”
Our bond thrummed. Aelia’s voice was like a hand on my sternum, steadying. Reign. Breathe.
I swallowed glass. “Her name was Elaris,” I hissed, each syllable a blade. “And you will speak it with respect when I carve your last breath from your throat.”
Shadows roared up around me, a crown of midnight and ruin. Tenebris didn’t step back. He simply extended a palm as if inviting a dance.
Elian released a sharp laugh, cold and menacing. He was enjoying this…
“Enough!” Aelia stepped forward, every inch the fiery princess, chin high, shadows and light dancing at her heels. She stood before me, hands gripping mine and eyes beseeching. Reign, please. You can’t. Not right now.
Despite every bone in my body demanding his blood, I knew she was right. If I failed, if I remained a second longer than I should, I could be forced to do the unthinkable. I would not risk Aelia.
I nodded, rage still pounding through my veins, but I willed the calm to settle. The swell of furious shadows dissipated, retreating beneath my skin.
Aelia turned her attention back to the Light King. “Why did you bring Tenebris, Elian?”
“He wants to help,” Elian answered.
Liar.
I turned to Aelia, panic rising in my throat once again.
We need to go. I knew this was a trap. And perhaps you were right, we cannot risk using the Shard right now without understanding the consequences.
Desperation laced my tone, a chaotic tangle of the raging desire to kill my father and keep Aelia safe.
A swarm of Aelia’s shadows coiled around us, forming an impenetrable cloak. Darkness misted around us and the kings before us faded to nothing. Reign, wait. You said it yourself, we’ve changed. Maybe you can fight his hold over you now. Maybe we don’t need the Moirai Shard at all.
I can’t risk that! “We have to leave,” I hissed aloud, sharper this time, not caring if they heard through the dark shield. “Now.”
I grabbed her arm, already pulling her back toward Solanthus and away from the ruthless kings, but she resisted. “Please, Reign, I believe in you. In us. You can do this. You can’t run from your father forever.”
“I’m not the one in danger,” I snapped. “He could activate the vow at any moment. You don’t understand, if he speaks it, I won’t be able to stop myself.”
She cupped my cheek with one hand, grounding me with that single, stubborn touch. “You are my cuoré, and together we are strong enough to defeat anything and anyone.”
“Aelia, please, I cannot live without you.”
Shaking her head, she released a resigned sigh. “Then go. Please. I’ll be fine.”
“I’m not leaving you,” I hissed.
Leave. Phantom’s voice sliced into my thoughts like a whip of shadow. Now, Reign. Get away from him.
Aelia is not alone. Solanthus’s voice boomed next, calm and firm as the sky. I will protect her. I swear it. But you must break the proximity. It’s the only way to keep Tenebris from enacting the vow.
“I can’t,” I whispered aloud.
Despite knowing the consequences, I simply couldn’t force my stubborn feet to move.
To leave my mate with them. Did I dare attempt to activate the Moirai Shard?
Every second I waited, I put her at risk.
If Tenebris so much as whispered the binding command, I would become the blade that pierced the heart of the only female I’d ever truly loved. The female who was made just for me.
I turned to Aelia, my shadows writhing, my lungs barely working. “I won’t leave you.”
“Then stay with me and let’s fight together.” But her voice cracked. And that almost destroyed me.
I stepped back. One pace. Then two. The wall of shadows dissipated, revealing the awaiting royals. Solanthus shifted behind her, wings flaring in silent promise. Phantom circled above, a shadow burning with fury.
I met Tenebris’s gaze one last time. “You won’t have me,” I hissed, my voice like ice. “Never again.”
He tilted his head, the barest flicker of amusement playing across his mouth.
“And this is for her.” Instead of running, I reached for the well of energy that resided just on the other end of our shimmering bond—rais, nox, zar, and the gods-given force of our newly mated dragons. The Tetrum Cordis surged like a second pulse.
Power exploded through me, so intense it nearly dropped me to my knees.
Tenebris felt it. Everyone on the gods’ damned field must have.
His narrowed eyes gleamed. “So. It’s true, then. Elian wasn’t exaggerating.” He stepped forward, runes flaring at his cuffs, voice dropping low and sharp like a blade sliding from its sheath. “Now, let’s see what the new bond can really do.”
One of the Royal Guardians stepped forward, freeing him of the gilded manacles.
My body seized. Like invisible chains wrapping around my spine. My father hadn’t spoken a word yet, and already, I could feel it coming. The blood vow sparked to life, its hold over me tightening.
“Reign of Umbra,” he hissed, “by the blood that binds you to me, by the vow you swore in shadow and in flesh, I command you—”
My knees buckled.
The blood vow slammed into me with the force of a thousand storms, and the world spun sideways. My breath was torn from my chest. My hands curled into fists, knuckles cracking. Shadows lashed out, wild and erratic, trying to obey.
“—to destroy the child of twilight.”
No. No. NO.
I roared, staggering back, clutching at my head.
Aelia cried out, and somehow, her voice cut through the haze and found me. “Reign, fight! I know you can do this.”
“To kill your mate!” His words pounded through my skull, powerful, all-consuming.
But I wouldn’t concede. I could never hurt Aelia. I felt her through the cuorem. Her light. Her fire. The threads of her rais curled around my soul, not like a noose, but like a lifeline.
Phantom’s voice thundered across my mind like a battle drum. Do not yield.
Solanthus followed, his roar so loud it cracked the sky. You are not his. You are ours, Reign of Umbra. Do you hear me?
I gasped. And then I reached deeper. Past the blood, past the pain, past the vow carved into my marrow.
I love you, Reign. You are icy Shadow, endless Night, my beginning and my end, and most importantly, you are stronger than hatred and vengeance.
I reached for her. Aelia, my starlight. My mate, my cuoré, my everything.
Her love. Her belief in me. Her kiss in the ruins. Her rage at injustice. Her laughter beneath moonlight. Her arms around me in the dark when I thought I didn’t deserve to be held.
And there, with her, I found my anchor.
Power unlike anything I’d ever known ripped through me. It was shadow and flame, storm and starlight—not one force, but four. Not one heart, but ours.
The blood vow clamped tighter, a vice on my soul, crushing bone and spirit alike. My vision blurred. My breath hitched. I felt it wrench into me, demanding obedience, demanding death.
My knees hit the earth. My hands shook with the effort not to turn them into weapons.
Not to become his. Pain blistered through every nerve, tearing me open from the inside out.
My name didn’t feel like mine anymore. My will was slipping.
Oh, gods, I only hoped Aelia couldn’t feel it through our bond. It was excruciating.
But then I heard her.
Aelia’s voice. I felt it through the mystical strands, through the light that refused to let go of me. Reign. Come back to me.
I reached beyond the pain, beyond the ancient chains etched in blood and shadow to something even more ancient, even more powerful. I reached for her, and the moment I touched that flicker of love, of fire, of unwavering belief in me, I was home.
The blood vow that had tethered me to my father since before I could properly hold a sword snapped like brittle bone. I let out a strangled cry and buckled over. My vision swam. Shadows peeled from my body in great ragged waves.
Tenebris stumbled back, blinking. “Impossible.” He mouthed the word, eyes like gaping, full moons.
I had resisted him. “I am not yours,” I snarled, rising slowly to my feet. “Not anymore.”
Behind me, Phantom shrieked, a triumphant sound that shook the ground, and Solanthus flared his wings wide, bathing the clearing in radiant firelight.
Tenebris’s jaw clenched, his facade slipping for just a breath. A flicker of something unfamiliar crossed his face.
Fear.
I turned to Aelia. She was glowing, eyes like twin stars, hands wreathed in silver and midnight fire. Her lips parted, her breath catching. “You broke it… Without the Shard.”
“I did,” I whispered hoarsely. “Because of you.”
Her hands flew to her mouth, eyes brimming with tears.
And then I faced my father again.
“You taught me to kill,” I growled, my voice hollow but growing in conviction with each word I forced past my lips. “You taught me to destroy. But she taught me how to fight for something. And that’s why you’ll lose.”
Tenebris said nothing. The monster who had raised me simply stood there gaping for an endless moment before a storm of shadows erupted around him, swallowing him, Elian and his gilded warriors into the void.