Chapter 31
Chapter
Thirty-One
Sy
Killian lasted three hours and seven minutes after finishing Barbie’s letter. I’d been counting.
The heirs tried everything. Reason bounced off him; threats were meaningless to a male whose mate was in the hands of an evil god.
They resorted to dogpiling him twice more, a chaotic tangle of supernatural strength that would have been funny if our world weren’t hanging by a thread.
Silas sported a new black eye. Louis lost a fang that would take a day to regrow.
Cade’s wine-red hair was singed at the tips from a burst of dragon fire.
In the end, they hammered out the only compromise he would accept: he’d take a small, swift strike team ahead while the main army mobilized to follow in a day.
“Just Cassius, Rock, and Archer,” he growled, his hands already tearing a portal into existence. They weren’t shaking from the effort but from the raw, barely contained fury vibrating through him. “Fast and quiet.”
Fast and suicidal, more like. But I understood it down to my bones. My own skin felt like a cage, creation magic churning beneath the surface with nowhere to go. Every flower I passed bloomed violent and wrong. The air around me tasted of storms and fury.
Only Rowan’s steady presence kept me from plunging through that portal after them. His arm around my waist was a tether to reality when every instinct screamed at me to follow Killian, to find Barbie, to burn anyone in my way and tear the evil god apart with my bare hands.
“She asked for three days,” he reminded me, his voice low.
“She asked for a lot of things,” I shot back, the words sharp. “Doesn’t mean we have to listen.”
While Cami and a new general rushed to the chaos court—someone had to stop Killian’s father from seizing power in his absence—Rowan and I remained in the House of Chaos.
A kingdom-sized bounty had been placed on our heads.
The assassination attempts came in relentless waves.
There was poisoned wine that Rowan’s earth magic detected before it could touch his lips.
Archers learned that the fae prince’s command of wind and fire made their lethal arrows useless before being ensnared by his thorned ivy.
The third attempt was an explosive device, hidden in a gift box meant for me.
The fae king’s final move was to send terms to Killian: Rowan’s life in exchange for the fae army’s support against Ruin.
Killian’s response had been pure chaos king: he sent back the messenger’s head in the same gift box, with a note written in the man’s blood: Try again, and I’ll deliver yours personally.
Through it all, Rowan had held back. He fought defensively against other fae, disabling rather than killing when he could, always trying to minimize the collateral damage. He was forever thinking of the innocents who were caught in a civil war.
Most of all, he worried about his mother.
“She’s in danger because of me,” he’d said, more than once. “I need to get her to safety before—”
But “before” had come too late.
When he finally broke through the communication blockade and reached his mother’s lady-in-waiting, the news was a blade to the ribs: Queen Eleanor had been hanged for adultery that morning. The king had denied her even the dignity of funeral rites.
I found him sobbing in the bathtub, the fae prince who never cried.
“It’s my fault. I failed her,” he’d said over and over, his voice hollow.
I turned off the icy water. He was shivering, but not from the cold.
“This is not your fault,” I said, my voice firm and full of empathy. “None of this is your fault. It’s the crime of that sadistic bastard you once called father.”
“Because I exist.” He buried his face in my hair as I pulled him close, cradling him against my chest. “Because she loved me.” His voice turned to ice. “And now he dies, too.”
We stood before the gates of the fae court, our warriors arrayed behind us in a battle formation.
The other heirs had offered to come with us. Silas had been particularly insistent.
“Let me bite your bastard father’s head off,” he’d suggested with disturbing enthusiasm. “Won’t even need my full form.”
But Rowan had declined with diplomatic grace. “This is fae business. I will not drag the other houses into our internal conflict.”
He wanted to minimize the bloodshed, still trying to be the good guy even with his mother’s blood crying for vengeance. He held only King Emyr responsible.
I would honor his wishes, but I also knew what had to be done.
No more hiding. No more pretending to be less than I was. No more making myself small so others could feel big.
On the fringe of the fae court, I unleashed my core magic. I showed every fae present who I truly was.
The stone floor cracked as flowers of impossible colors forced their way through. Dead wood exploded with new leaves so violently the crowd scrambled back in awe. The air thickened with the scent of magic, rich and intoxicating as the finest wine, and a pure, radiant light pulsed from every tree.
“Creation magic!” a voice cried out. “The rumors were true! It healed our warriors. The oldest magic is in our court!”
“Who are you?” asked a noble lady. She appeared young, as immortals do, but her blue eyes were ancient.
“I am Sy, mate to Prince Rowan, and I am the one who holds the old magic,” I declared, my voice carrying harmonics that made the air sing. It was easier to say it that way than to confess I was the old magic in the flesh. “My sister, Goddess Barbie, brought me to this realm.”
Rowan pulled me closer, his pride a tangible fire that warmed me.
Every fae dropped to their knees, all of them feeling the magic they’d only heard of in ancient stories. Some wept openly. Others pressed their faces to the floor, overwhelmed by the proximity to a power their race had waited centuries to see return.
After that, we met no resistance. We trod all the way to the palace with a growing procession behind us, many joining our cause.
The guards at the entrance took one look and stepped aside. They had heard who I was—word traveled fast. They needed no further proof, not with the trail of vibrant greens and rainbow blossoms that sprang up in my wake.
No one would raise a weapon against us now. No one would stop Prince Rowan from challenging his father.
We entered the throne room. Guards lined the walls. Nobles crowded the aisles, parting to form a path.
King Emyr sat rigid on his throne, wearing a golden crown with a large ruby at its center. He was cruelty personified, but beneath the enraged mask, he hid his fear. His knuckles were bone-white on the hilt of his broadsword.
“You dare show your face in my kingdom, bastard?” he spat as we approached, his voice dripping with venom.
Rowan gestured for me to stop. He proceeded alone, halting at the traditional challenge distance—seven paces from the throne.
Still, no guard moved to stop him.
My mate’s features were carved from ice and stone, his rage a static charge in the air, yet he held it in control.
“I challenge you for the throne you no longer deserve,” Rowan announced, his voice ringing with power. “Single combat. A royal fae’s right.”
“You have no rights!” the king sneered. “You are not of my blood! You are nothing but your whore mother’s bastard!”
Rage boiled in my veins. I ached to tear his throat out with my claws, but this was my mate’s fight, his right to claim.
“I have every right!” Rowan’s roar shook the windows, forcing nobles to shrink back.
“Queen Eleanor, my mother, was a royal princess before she ever married you! That makes me royal, regardless of who sired me. You have always been cruel and petty, willing to let every warrior die just for a chance to kill me. I never wanted your throne. I am not power-hungry like you. But you killed my mother. So today, I invoke the ancient rite. I will take your crown, and you will die by a ‘bastard’s’ blade. ”
Gasps rippled through the hall. To refuse a formal challenge from his heir, even a disowned one, was to abdicate. I had made sure to study their ancient laws before we came.
King Emyr’s face went as white as snow, searing with rage. He was trapped, snared by the very traditions he had used to wield his power.
Before the king could rise from his throne, I stepped forward, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Rowan. My power flowed out, and the entire room seemed to shift on its axis. Every high fae and lesser fae shuddered as my creation power resonated in their bones.
“I endorse Prince Rowan, my true mate,” I declared, my voice clear and carrying. “For I outrank every royal and every power in the Kingdom of Fae.”
“You outrank me, bastard’s whore?” the king sneered, dragging the tip of his blade across the marble dais. I could see the violent fantasy playing out in his eyes—driving that blade through Rowan, then through me.
“Soon, you won’t have breath enough to disrespect my mate,” Rowan snarled.
I turned to address the fae court. “I am what fills your sacred groves. I am what your ancestors awaited.”
My creation power lashed out. The thread of a vine appeared in the center of the room, then burst into full bloom.
Leaves unfurled, branches stretched, and roots cracked through stone.
In seconds, a massive tree stood where there had been none, its branches heavy with fruits that pulsed with magical, healing energy.
“The Tree of Life!” a voice cried out.
And every soul in the room bowed to me.
“I stand with Prince Rowan, my mate,” I continued, letting each word fall like a judge’s hammer. “Chosen not for blood but for his worth. Stand with us, and the fae kingdom shall prosper again.”
The king’s face turned the color of old bone. “You…you can’t be. It’s a trick! An illusion. The Bride—the One— must be chosen through the Selection, and you are an imposter!” He thrust a trembling finger at my mate. “Just like that bastard!”
“An illusion?” I laughed coldly.