12. Checkmate #5
The estate erupted around him. Servants scattered from his path, pressing themselves against walls as he passed. The light from the windows stabbed at his vision with every step, but he forced himself forward, forced his body to obey despite the drug still clinging to his veins like poison.
Dark thoughts crept in like shadows at the edges of his mind, whispering solutions he had never before entertained.
He could clip his little bird's wings. Break her ankles so she could never run again, keep her safe in his bed where she belonged.
A perimeter collar, perhaps, enchanted to keep her within the estate grounds.
Or he could find a memory mage, have them alter her recollections of her family, of her old life, erase the very desire to leave.
The thoughts came faster, more desperate, each one more unthinkable than the last. He shoved them back, horrified at himself, but they lingered.
If he did not get her back soon, if he could not hold her again and feel her warmth against him, he would go mad. Completely, irreversibly mad.
Luko appeared at the base of the stairs, his face haggard, dark circles beneath his eyes. He had clearly just woken himself, his clothes rumpled, his hair disheveled. "Malec, I..."
"Where were you?" Malec's voice was deadly calm.
Luko flinched. "I was asleep the same as you, she drugged all of us."
"And you didn't think to question why she was suddenly so compliant?" Malec descended the stairs with predatory precision, each footfall deliberate. "You, who claim to care for her, didn't notice when she was playing us all for fools?"
"I thought..." Luko's voice broke. "I thought maybe she was accepting things. That she was healing."
Malec stopped inches from him, towering over the smaller male. "You thought what you wanted to think. Just as I did." The admission tasted like ash. "And now she's gone."
He pushed past Luko into the main hall. Staff members rushed about in organized chaos, some still shaking off the effects of the drug, others moving with frantic purpose. His head of household, an older Awyan with silver-streaked hair, approached with a clipboard and a grim expression.
"Commander, we've accounted for all staff. Three guards are still recovering, but everyone else is awake and functional. We've found evidence she left through the servant's entrance sometime during the first night. The lock was picked."
"Of course it was," Malec breathed. His brilliant, clever dove. Always three steps ahead. The thought filled him with equal parts pride and rage.
"And the supplies?" he asked, his voice tight.
"A travel pack is missing from the storage room. Light provisions, a canteen, a cloak. Nothing excessive."
"She had help," Malec said flatly. "Someone gave her money, maps, instructions. Find out who."
"Commander..." The steward hesitated. "Lady Kirelle's estate has not responded to our inquiries. Her family claims she is unavailable."
Malec's laugh was pointed and humorless.
"Is that so?" He turned, his bare feet silent on the cold marble.
"Send word to Kirelle's father. Tell him if his daughter aided in this, if she had any part in stealing what is mine, I will personally see his family stripped of every title, every holding, every shred of influence they possess. "
The steward bowed deeply. "At once, Commander."
He reached his study and slammed the door behind him, finally alone.
The room spun. His hands found the edge of his desk, gripping it until the wood groaned.
His breath came in ragged gasps, his chest heaving as he fought for control.
The bond pulled at him, a compass pointing toward emptiness, toward distance, toward her. She was far. Too far.
She had touched him, kissed him. Let him inside her body while planning her escape. She had looked him in the eyes and lied with such perfect sweetness that he had believed every word. And he had fallen for it because he wanted to believe. Because he was desperate to think she was finally his.
A snarl tore from his throat, low and guttural. His magic sparked along his skin, white light crackling across his knuckles. The tether screamed her name, begging him to move. Hunt her, find her and drag her back where she belonged, it whispered to him.
"You won't get far, little dove," he whispered to the empty room. "You can run to the ends of the world, and I will follow. The bond won't let you hide from me forever."
He straightened, forcing his breathing to slow, pressing the panic down until it hardened into fury. That he could work with. Fury he could channel.
He would find her. And when he did, he would make sure she never had the chance to run again.
The sun had not yet reached its peak before Malec's fury echoed through the streets of the Capitol.
The moment he arrived at the palace gates, the guards snapped to attention.
Officers, ministers, and passing nobles felt the shift in the air, a charge like lightning building in the bones of the earth.
Malec strode through the marble halls in his Capitol officer's uniform of blue and white, the high collar biting against his throat, gold buttons catching the light with each deliberate step.
His black boots struck the floor with military precision, their cadence reverberating through the quiet corridors like war drums. His platinum hair, so often wild in his fits of rage, had been pulled back into a low, severe ponytail.
It was not a gesture of calm but of intent, the mark of wrath that had been honed, harnessed, weaponized.
At his hip hung his sword, polished and ceremonial at a glance, but its weight and edge were unmistakably real. Every man and woman who caught sight of him knew it. None dared breathe too loudly in his path.
Behind him trailed Luko, pale and unsteady, his body still reeling from the remnants of the drug. He clutched a tablet of notes he couldn't read, breath shallow, heart racing from terror rather than the pace. The Awyan he followed was no longer the Malec he knew.
This was worse.
Cold, methodical, merciless control. He moved with the inevitability of a storm, as though vengeance had been sewn into the seams of his uniform and set loose upon the world.
Surian and their father, Surin, were already waiting in the grand hall, flanked by guards and courtiers who could barely bring themselves to meet Malec's eye.
Surin stood stern and polished in his deep navy armor, the weight of command hanging off him as naturally as the steel at his hip.
He gave his son a single nod of greeting, measured and formal.
Surian, by contrast, looked broken beneath her composure, her pale hair braided back with military neatness, her eyes rimmed red though her face betrayed no tremor.
Malec did not spare either of them a glance. His voice filled the chamber, low and terrible, thunder wrapped in silk. "Where are they?"
"On their way," Surin answered evenly. "You called for them with urgency."
Malec turned his head slowly, crazed eyes catching the torchlight and blazing with madness. “I didn’t call, Surin. I summoned. If they don’t come, I’ll have them dragged here by the hair.”
Surin's jaw flexed, the faintest tic of muscle betraying what his words cost him to hear. But he gave a curt nod to the nearest commander, who slipped away at once to ensure obedience.
Luko lingered in the shadows near a marble column, his tablet of notes clutched in trembling hands. The words swam before his eyes; his limbs still felt heavy, his thoughts clouded by the remnants of the drug. Yet none of that unsettled him as much as Malec's stillness.
Grief hadn't taken hold — calculation had moved in first, frigid and focused, leaving no room for anything else.
The kind of focus that came before mass destruction.
Luko swallowed hard and leaned toward Surian, speaking in the faintest whisper while Malec's back was turned. "He shouldn't be like this."
Surian's gaze flicked quickly to his, her voice barely audible. "Like what?"
"Untethered," Luko murmured.
Her lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line.
"He's not built for loss," Luko said, his voice trembling despite himself. "It makes him unstable."
Surian’s eyes dimmed with the weight of a truth she had known far longer than he had. “He was always unstable. Allora was the only one who ever made him hesitate.”
"And now she's gone."
Surian gave no answer. Her silence was the only confirmation he needed.
Together they turned their eyes forward, to the base of the throne platform where Malec stood motionless, his broad frame taut as a bowstring. His fingers twitched, restless, itching for release—for violence, for fire, for something to burn away the absence tearing him hollow.
Then footsteps echoed through the hall.
The echo of leather soles struck the marble, steady and inexorable, drawing closer with each beat. The heavy doors at the far end of the hall groaned as they opened, spilling torchlight and shadows into the chamber.
The great doors slammed against the marble walls as King Surion charged in, his robes of gold and blue billowing behind him like storm clouds.
Thunder carved itself into his expression, lips curled, eyes flashing with fury.
"You let your Canariae escape, Malec?" he bellowed, his voice carrying through the vaulted chamber.
"How could you have let her escape again? "
Surion's outrage echoed against the pillars, his face red with indignation. Malec knew why the king was livid. Allora had been more than a woman to him. She had been currency. His bargain piece. His payment for securing the trade route with Zaharein.
And now she was gone, his leverage vanished into the wind.