12. Checkmate #4
The voice returned, lilting and cruel, floating just out of reach. "Poor Fox. Always snarling, always gnashing your teeth. And yet here you are nothing. Here you are only lost."
He spun, fists raised, but the darkness offered him no target. Only that endless, devouring emptiness.
The voice gave one last laugh, mocking, before fading like smoke. "Dream all you like, Silver Fox. When you wake, your cage will be empty."
The cold void swallowed him whole.
Malec woke to a world returning in fragments: heat, sound, light.
Each carved into his senses like a blade.
He lay tangled in damp sheets, the pillow beside him still steeped in rosewater, still carrying the faint, teasing trace of her skin.
His chest ached, not from pain but from absence, an emptiness so keen it hollowed him.
A frantic pull clawed through the soul-tether, desperate and warning, though he could not yet understand it.
A large piece was missing.
A dull thud echoed beyond the door, then another, the rhythm heavy and wrong.
Voices followed, muffled, fractured, as though carried from underwater.
The door slammed open and the fragile blur of his world shattered.
Hands clamped onto his shoulders, dragging him upright, and his breath caught as sound tore through him like knives.
"Malec!"
He winced, brow furrowing, unable to raise his head fully.
His skin prickled with fire, the light stabbing his eyes until he wanted to claw them shut.
The room spun. Then came a slap, abrupt and brutal, his head snapping to the side, the sting cutting through the haze and anchoring him for a fleeting second.
Another blow struck his chest, and fingers gripped his face, shaking until his ears rang with the scrape of nails and ragged breath.
"Wake up! Gods damn you, Malec, WAKE UP!"
It was Surian. Her pale hair was wild and tangled, her eyes bloodshot, tears streaming down her cheeks unchecked. She looked feral, barefoot, her robe sliding from her shoulders, her voice shredded from screaming until it was more raw sound than speech.
"Wake up, please," she begged, her words breaking apart. "Please, wake up. She's gone, Malec. She's gone, and you've been asleep for almost TWO DAMN DAYS!" Another slap. "Get UP!"
His breath stalled as panic seized him, chest convulsed, fingers clawing blindly at the sheets, desperate for anything solid, anything still. The tether inside him shrieked harder as he became more aware of his surroundings, a white-hot agony raking through his ribs and tearing at his lungs.
“Wha…”
The sound rasped out of him, thin and broken.
"You fool," Surian spat through sobs, shaking him again. "You let her close. You let her smile and play your devoted little dove, and she poisoned you."
Malec's hand scrabbled for the edge of the bed, clinging to the wood as though it might stop the spinning in his head.
He couldn't draw air properly, every breath catching, each movement too much, with shards of light stabbing deeper into his skull.
The bond screamed louder, clawing at him with desperate urgency.
"She's GONE," Surian wept. "And I let it happen."
His head turned slowly, every blink heavy as stone. The words carved at him, but his mind refused to let them take shape, refused to allow them to become truth. "No," he rasped, voice cracking. "No… she asked me to stay. She..."
Surian shoved him back against the bed, her fury blazing through the tears streaming down her face.
"She lied to you! Because you wouldn't see her, not really.
You only saw what you wanted, a docile canariae in your bed.
Because you'd rather believe a lie than admit you've turned your love into a hell for her. "
Her words were heavier than her hands, each one a strike that cracked his chest open. He stared at her, stunned, gasping, his whole body trembling as sound pressed hard against his skull until it became unbearable.
Below, the estate thrashed in chaos. Guards shouted orders, horses screamed in their stalls, doors slammed, and servants darted through the halls with wide eyes filled with cold fear.
Malec tried to move, but his body was sluggish, heavy, refusing him. "Where..." he croaked.
"She's been gone for two days."
He stopped breathing.
The pulse in his ears roared until it drowned everything, until it swallowed her words, the chaos below, the world itself.
His vision tunneled, the room collapsing into darkness until nothing remained but silence and the hollow echo of her absence.
The tether twisted inside him like a knife, wailing her name through his veins with such violence it nearly drove him to his knees.
And all he could feel was the hollow space where she had once lain beside him, curled small and safe against him.
His arms still remembered the weight of her body, the exact shape of her pressed against him in the dark.
His lips remembered her lies. A broken sound tore out of him, a guttural groan of despair, and he shoved the tangled sheets away as though they burned.
Surian stepped back quickly, wiping her face with the heel of her hand, guilt etched in every jerking movement.
Malec rose from the bed the moment clarity struck him, it was like being ripped through a wall of ice. His mind snapped awake. The drug still lingered, a phantom ache in his blood, but he forced his body to move, to obey. He tore the sweat-slicked sheets from his legs, staggering forward.
Surian reached for him, alarm flashing in her red-rimmed eyes. "You're still weak, Malec..."
"Don't touch me," he growled. His voice was low, hoarse, deadly.
He staggered to the window and tore the curtains wide. Blinding light flooded the chamber. The sun seared his eyes, stabbing into his skull like shards of glass, but he welcomed it. The pain was real and it told him what he could not deny. She was gone. And he hadn't even noticed.
He turned slowly, his gaze sweeping the room as though she might materialize from the shadows. "Allora?" His voice cracked, quiet at first, uncertain. Then louder. "Allora!"
He lurched toward the washroom, throwing open the door. Empty. He spun back, his breathing ragged, his eyes wild. "ALLORA!"
The tether screamed. His magic answered.
White light erupted from his body in a violent wave, crashing outward like a storm unleashed.
The furniture rattled, the windows cracked, and Surian was thrown backward into the wall with a cry.
She hit hard, gasping, her hands braced against the stone as she fought to stay upright.
Malec stood in the center of the room, chest heaving, his body trembling with the force of his power spiraling out of control.
His hands shook, vision blurred, and the bond inside him tore at his ribs with such ferocity he thought he might shatter.
Guards appeared in the doorway, eyes wide, while their hands hovered near their weapons. But none of them dared step inside. They exchanged uneasy glances, unwilling to intervene in what was clearly a family matter spiraling into madness.
Malec's breath came in rough, uneven bursts. His magic vibrated around him, unstable, wild, crackling in the air like lightning before a storm. He looked at Surian, then at the guards, then back at the empty bed.
"Where is she?" he whispered, his voice breaking. "Where is she?"
"I don't know."
"You helped her."
"I didn't..." Surian faltered, guilt twisting across her pale features. "Not knowingly. I thought… I thought she was healing. She seemed so calm and at peace…I…didn’t know she was planning this!"
"She tricked us all," Malec spat, fists clenched so tightly his knuckles blanched. "She poisoned our blood and smiled while we drank."
The door slammed open. Two guards rushed in, breathless, armor clattering. "Commander, the search parties have returned from the market square and the eastern wall. No sign. The watch swears she hasn't been seen since before the storm two nights ago."
Malec’s face twisted into a cold smile, pale eyes gleaming like ice under fire. “She’s not hiding,” he hissed. “She’s running. And she thinks she can outrun me.”
He strode past them, shirtless, barefoot, fury carved into every line of his frame.
"Send trackers beyond the city walls. Every road, every forest trail, every river crossing.
They'll flush her out. She cannot have gone far.
" His voice cracked like thunder, cold and merciless.
"Keep the Capitol locked down regardless.
I want soldiers scouring every alley, tavern, open sewer and ship still moored.
If she has help, if she dares double back, I want her caught. "
He stopped at the doorway, his eyes burning like cold flame. "No one leaves the capital until my Canariae is found." His words struck like iron, and the guards saluted before vanishing in a storm of boots and shouts, their voices already carrying his command down the corridors.
Malec turned back slowly, his gaze finding Surian where she stood trembling by the window, pale hair tangled around her face. His voice dropped, cold and quiet, the softness of it far more terrifying than a shout. "You let her get close to Kirelle, didn't you?"
Surian's mouth quivered, but no words came. She didn't need to answer.
"She was never supposed to win over the court," he whispered, his tone almost reverent in its rage. "But you let her in. You watched it happen."
"Malec..."
"I'll find her." His voice cut her name short, his eyes already distant, as if he were no longer in the chamber but walking elsewhere, through streets soaked in rain, in blood, in memory. He was already hunting.
"When I do," he said, his jaw tight, his voice pointed, "I don't care if she hates me, don't care if she screams. She will never get away again, EVER!"
He turned and strode out barefoot, each step leaving a cold trail of fury and sweat on the marble floor.