Chapter 48
Korithax
Iwatch her climb onto the slab, every muscle in my body coiled tight with panic I refuse to show.
She looks so small on that stone. So fucking breakable.
The black gown clings to her, still slightly wet from the basin, despite my efforts at drying her off.
Her golden hair spills behind her like a dying flame across the stone, and her chest rises with slow, even breaths that do nothing to show the anxiety I can feel radiating off of her.
I feel her fear, I feel it humming through the strange bond between us, a rope pulling taut, but not yet knotted. My palms ache from the restraint, my low amount of power itching beneath my skin, screaming to be used, screaming to tear this place apart and drag her out of it, away from it all.
Maelkar circles her silently. The flickering torches gutter out one by one as he moves, only until the pulsing runes light the chamber.
They cast jagged shadows across the walls.
I see things in those shadows—faces, malformed spirits, clawing behind the bone lattice that makes up the temple.
Some whisper, some scream. The sounds are distant, like they’re underwater.
But I know all of them are real. They’re watching, hungry and waiting.
Maelkar stops beside Daisy, raising the blade Il’kethai high above her chest, and the runes throb in time with her hammering heartbeat. She’s afraid, but gods—she’s brave. Braver than anyone I’ve ever known. He speaks low, an ancient language flowing from his tongue.
“Verev’ash kar talren. Ilk’s shoran ez’kai…”
The blade touches her, and she screams, the sound ripping through the chamber.
Blood hisses across the stone, and I feel something deep and primal snap inside of me.
I step forward, nearly launching across the room, only to feel a burst of resistance from the stone itself—like the ritual is holding me back.
Maelkar pushes his palm into her chest, fingers disappearing into the wound, and her small, fragile body jerks.
Then, she goes silent. Her back arches, her lips part, and her eyes open, staring at something I can’t see.
The tether between our souls snaps so violently into place with such a brutal force that it brings me to my knees.
A blinding, excruciating pull tears through my chest like lightning.
It’s not pain, but something so raw it leaves me gasping.
Like I’ve been stripped bare, branded, and claimed.
I feel her. Not just her heartbeat or her breath, but her being.
Her soul is latched onto mine, and it’s not asking, it’s taking.
Binding and fusing so tightly to mine, it’s becoming one.
I lift my head, my entire body shaking, and find Maelkar staring down at her with wide, terrified eyes. He takes a step back, like she’s something unholy.
“What have you made me do, Child of Ruin?” He breathes, still not taking his eyes away from her.
My voice is gravelly as I pant, “Turn her immortal. You knew this.”
“No…” he whispers, still frozen. “I have not turned her immortal. She has been reborn.”
My heart lurches. “What?”
He whirls to face me, eyes wide, ringed with fear. “Who the fuck have you made me bring back, Korithax?”
Silence crashes over the room like thunder. Then he says it. So quietly I strain to hear it. “She is your mate, princeling.”
“What?” I croak.
“Your one true love. Your souls match. Your destiny.”
She is mine. I am hers. Forever. All along, that tether, that pull, that inability to stay away. It was because she was my mate.
Maelkar gasps, stepping forward toward Daisy. “Shit… shit. Shit.”
I stagger upright, my wings spreading unconsciously. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
He leans forward, staring at Daisy’s unmoving body. His face goes pale—truly pale. I’ve never seen the bastard look afraid before.
“She is fleeting,” he whispers. “Her body… It is not responding well.”
My blood runs cold. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“She is dying,” Maelkar says, and this time, even his voice breaks.
Rage erupts in me. I lunge forward, grabbing him by his robes and slamming him against the bone wall. “Then fucking help her!”
He doesn’t fight back. His black eyes just meet mine with a terrifying expression.
“I can’t. You need light to conquer the dark. Something was placed on her soul long ago. Something that does not want her back. Someone does not want her to return. Only the purest of light can heal this.”
Panic drowns me. She’s my mate. I can’t fucking lose her now.
“No,” I snarl. “No. My magic is too low—I can’t open a gate.” I punch the stone altar so hard it cracks straight down the centre. “HELP ME!” I’ll give you anything. Anything!”
Maelkar stares, slowly nodding. “I don’t want anything from you, Prince. But promise me this—if she survives, remind her who helped you.”
If. There can’t be an if, only a when. I can no longer imagine my life without Daisy. I don’t know if that’s the soul bond—the mate bond. I have no idea. But I don’t think I could survive without her. I need her.
“Yes!” I roar. “Fine. Just fucking help me.”
“I need a soul pact, Korithax. Now.”
I snatch the curved blade and drag it across my palm, the cut deep and stinging. I thrust it at him, blood pouring from the wound, the dripping sound of my blood hitting stone, hammering against my skull. “Hurry the fuck up!”
Maelkar slices his own palm and slams it into mine. Our blood mixes, the light explodes—our magic colliding so loud the chamber rattles. The walls tremble, the bones seeming to moan as the trapped spirits shriek behind the walls.
“It is done,” he pants. “Now take her. I’ll open the gate to Luminaria, but you have to get her there. Fast.”
I scoop Daisy into my arms, and gods, she’s cold. Her once blush lips are pale, so fucking pale.
“Stay with me,” I whisper, gripping her tighter. “Don’t you fucking dare leave me. I will cleave you back from the heavens themselves if I have to. Nothing and nobody will survive if you do not stay with me.”
Maelkar kneels beside the runes, letting his violet blood from our pact drip onto the sigil etched into the floor. It glows so violently I have to squint my eyes.
“Stand there. Hold onto her tight. If you let go, I cannot tell you where she will end up.”
I step into the circle, holding her to my chest like my life depends on it. Because it does.
“Please, little flower,” I whisper. “Please stay with me.”
The air tears open. A wind so powerful it shreds the darkness, wraps around us, pulling, tearing, dragging me forward.
My wings snap out, wrapping around us to shield her.
Everything goes pitch black, the sensation of falling wracking my body as I grip Daisy with everything I have.
Ahead, light, blinding and endless, pours towards us, and I feel a sense of hope filling me.
But just as quickly as it comes, it leaves, just as I feel Daisy’s heartbeat stutter.
“NO!” I scream as we’re hurled into Luminaria.
The light blinds me.
We land in a thunderous quake, and I fall to my straight to my knees, still cradling her. I pant as I try and gather myself, the teleportation like nothing I’ve ever felt before. It felt like I’d travelled the entire universe, not just from one realm to another.
I glance around in confusion as my vision settles.
My palace rises around us, the shimmering obsidian walls and floors, the scent of florals and sulphur.
The throne looms just ahead, the obnoxious seat sitting at the centre of the empty room.
Zeriavoss… we’re home. But, we were heading to Luminaria…
to Elyistria. I needed Elyistria to help me, she said so herself. How the fuck did I get here?
I blink rapidly, trying to figure out what just happened. I could see Luminaria. Maelkar opened the gate there for me, not Zeriavoss. Had I somehow managed to change the path accidentally?
I glance down, looking at her almost lifeless body in my arms.
“Daisy,” I choke, my voice raw and broken. “Stay with me. Don’t you fucking leave me now.”
I brush a hand over her face, pushing away her golden hair so I can see her properly. Her skin is too cold, too pale. Where’s her warmth? Where’s her bright smile, her ocean eyes? Where is my beautiful, radiant queen?
Elyistria appears beside me in a burst of golden mist, her hair whipping around her in the force of her arrival. I hear footsteps barrelling towards me and look up to see Aran stumbling through the throne room doors, heading straight toward me, a knowing look on his face.
“She’s slipping,” Elyistria whispers, placing her glowing hands above Daisy’s chest. “I don’t know how long she has. You were right to come to me.”
“I did?” I ask, confused.
“I felt you arriving and opened the gate straight to Zeriavoss. She needs to be here.”
“She’s not immortal,” I stammer out, “He didn’t make her immortal. He fucking rebuilt her. She… what is she?” I ask, hopelessly.
“She is something else entirely now,” Elyistria murmurs.
My head spins as everything slams into me at once. The ritual, the runes, the portal. Zeriavoss. Elyistria, Aran… Daisy. What the fuck is happening? I didn’t like this feeling. The lack of control, the lack of knowledge.
Aran looks to Elyistria and gives her a nod before turning his attention to the guards. “The Soul Chamber is opening. Guard the door, do not let anyone pass.”
They all scramble as the floor beneath us begins to shift.
Ancient runes glow red-hot as the obsidian tiles before my throne split open.
A dark, spiralled stairwell unfurls, leading us down underneath the chair, right into the oldest part of Zeriavoss.
A place I had heard whispers of, but had never seen.
It was said the Soul Chamber was a place for the gods, a place of death, of rebirth.