Chapter Thirty Nine
Daphne
The doors close behind us with a finality that settles into my bones. At our backs are the men who have been a part of this journey, for better or worse, given Charming insisted on coming along for whatever use he actually is.
My broom and Stan linger at the very back.
The space within the temple opens wide, vast and carved from marble threaded with gold. The walls curve in a perfect circle, rising high above us to reach a painted ceiling depicting some of the narratives we know so well.
Edging the wall are gilded thrones twice the height of the average person, which means the people who will sit on them are going to be huge. How comforting.
The sword at Malachi’s side hums in a nudge of support and a reminder that I am not the fated maiden many thought. I am the one who tames dragons, murders kings, and defies death.
The air shifts, and the thrones fill with the promised Idols. They are everything I expected and nothing I could have prepared for. A quiet hum of power fills the room, but I know they’re tempering it, waiting to unleash it in a heartbeat.
Each one holds a shape, but none of them are confined by it.
Their forms waver at the edges, as though the stories that made them cannot quite settle.
A man sits with a crown that splits and reforms with every breath, gold dripping like molten sunlight before snapping back into place.
Beside him, a woman draped in silk that moves like water watches us with eyes that hold too many versions of the same ending, each one flickering behind the next.
Another leans forward, his skin fractured like glass, reflecting a dozen different faces that do not all belong to him.
There is one with flames curling around his shoulders and coiling down his arms like obedient creatures, and another whose beauty is so precise, so deliberate, it feels constructed rather than born.
Their presence presses into the space, bending and shaping it. Their gazes fall on us, one by one, each look weighing, measuring, deciding not if we matter, but what to do with us now.
But I know something as certain as the four men at my back who hold my heart. We have not entered their domain. This space belongs to none of us. It is where it all began, and where it can be reinforced or remade.
The knights and Charming shift at our backs, each poised to defend the duo of maidens who turned their destiny upside down.
I step forward, tugging Gwyneth with me. Cowering isn’t the right way to deal with this. If there even is a right way.
One of them leans forward, his voice cutting through the space with quiet authority. “You will cease this rebellion.”
I meet his gaze, lifting my chin. “It’s not a rebellion,” I correct. A small smile touches my mouth, sharp and certain. “It’s a revolution.”
A ripple of anger pulses through the air. If they have registered the looming threat in Gwyneth’s pocket, they don’t show it. That’s good. I’d rather not depend on blood magic to resolve this, but I won’t hesitate if that’s what it takes, because one thing for sure is that we cannot go back.
The stunning woman with dark hair that falls in waves over her otherwise bare breasts leans forward and points at something over my shoulder. I turn to find Nash with a jaw so tight it must hurt. “You are fighting against our command. Do as I will and do it now.”
Do what?
Nash drags in a long breath and glares at the Idol. “Never,” he snarls.
“Then you shall perish.”
“That’s acceptable.”
No, it is absolutely fucking not. I shake my head, not understanding what is happening. What did I miss? Or worse, what did he not tell us? “What was the command?” I whisper.
His gaze snaps to mine, and for the first time, a ripple of unease travels the length of my spine. “I am a devourer.”
“Of?”
“Power, life, and blood.”
“And I ask again, what was your last command?”
“To devour the Grimm bloodline and erase it from the future.”
My mouth hangs open at his confession. Charming moves closer to Gwyneth with the new threat at our backs. But while the call is strong, something else is more powerful.
A whip of magic slices the air and hits Nash in the chest. He stumbles back.
“Complete your destiny,” the female demands.
He slaps his hands over his ears and shakes his head. “No, I would never.”
“Wait,” Gwyneth murmurs. “I read about this. The first narrative and how it was designed. He’s a weapon, or his bloodline was. Much like we are the architects.”
Making him, what? Our born enemy? No. He is Nash, my dark, tortured knight. And now everything about his reluctance to get close to me is painted in startling clarity.
“I need to leave,” he mutters, taking a step back. This is how they’re going to succeed, by picking us off one by one until we’re alone. How could they have lived an eternity and understand nothing about the psyche and soul?
I release Gwyneth and take a few steps toward him. He raises his hands and shakes his head. Silly knight. I close in on him until he’s backed against the wall, his shadows spilling from his control and darkening the marble floor.
“Don’t come closer,” he demands.
I ignore him and slide underneath his outstretched arms so our chests brush together. I cup his cheeks and hold his gaze. “You don’t scare me, Nash Stirling.”
“I should.”
I shrug and allow a small smile to lift my lips. “Perhaps, but while you see yourself as the destruction, I see something different.”
“What do you see?” His words are a plea to rescue him from an undeserved fate.
The people behind us shift, both the Idols and those I care for restless and uncertain. “Cover us in your shadows, and I’ll tell you.”
He sucks in a breath, and the world goes dark, cocooning us in his power.
I press my lips to his, and he freezes before holding me so tight my bones creak.
I pull on that thread that binds us and feed my words into his mind while continuing the life-altering kiss.
I’m not sure I can do this, but I’m going to trust my gut.
“Don’t you see?” I start. His breath catches.
Oh, yes, he can hear me. “It’s you, Nash.
We have the blood of the Idols to begin the power removal, but you’re the key to breaking this hold and letting everyone in the realm claim their destiny and write their own story.
You consume excess power, and there’s no one more excessive than the Idols. ”
His eyes widen as he digests my words. We have the spell, but I’ve already proved I can’t contain that multitude of power. I had all but accepted that I wouldn’t live beyond beginning everyone’s story anew—not that I shared that with anyone. I’m not built to take it, but he is. It’s destiny.
“I don’t know if I can resist their call,” he directs back.
My tongue flicks against his. “The moment you chose to make a wish upon star for my return, you chose me and our love above any narrative forced on you.”
I feel the tempo he accepts what I’m saying. The change in him may be small to the world, but it’s momentous in my soul.
“Could you two stop sucking each other’s faces and get back to the problem at hand?” Malachi says, again in my mind.
This time, my eyes widen. “You heard that?”
“We all did,” Hart adds.
We break apart, and I grin at my knight and wrap my hands around his wrists. “So what do you say, Nash Stirling? Ready to fuck some shit up and get back to the rest of our lives?”
His lips twitch, and he nods once as the shadows dissolve, revealing us to everyone in the room.
The Idols are angry—nothing new there. But they haven’t made a move. They can’t. What would be the consequences of killing your maker? I suspect it would unravel their entire past and set fire to their future. But if they have someone else do it? Then we just become part of that story.
I turn, sliding one hand into Nash’s and grasping Gwyneth’s with my other.
This time, there is confidence in my words.
They tried using their biggest weapon, and it didn’t just misfire—it never even set off.
“Here’s my demand,” I call out. “You will stop gathering power and restricting freedom, and you will return to your true purpose of fueling fantasies and futures, keeping them uncertain and exciting, but never predetermined.”
The man with the split crown curls his lip. “Never. And if you try to force us, we will let it be known that you are responsible for the misery unleashed on the realm.”
“You are utterly clueless to reality,” Gwyneth chimes in. “The realm is already miserable. Only a very few find happiness. That knowledge won’t fuel hate for us; it will fuel the revolution you are so terrified of.”
“You will be hunted,” he volleys.
“No, we will be revered. The majority of the people are already ripe to hate you. We will be sheltered and supported. Every time you think you are closing in on us, you will be met with whispers and shadows of false trails,” I reply.
The female laughs. Even that’s attractive. I hate her. “You are acting as if you will be leaving here alive.”
I quirk a brow. “I’m not na?ve. You set a trap, and we walked into it.”
The smile she gives is one of pure condescension, her mind resolute in her superiority.
But she hasn’t had to problem-solve anything in an eternity, and that breeds laziness.
“You knew it, yet you still walked in, and now your knight is hanging on by a thread as I feed him just a sliver of my power.”
I tilt my chin and tighten both hands. “Stop, accept the new way, or cease to exist.”
A heartbeat passes, and another. And then all Blazes breaks loose.