Chapter 30
Alora
The mountain was alive with excitement.
Drums echoed through the halls, low and rhythmic, like a heartbeat deep in the stone. The air shimmered faintly with gold motes of magic, caught between the torches that burned green and blue.
Alora’s window gave her a rare view of the dark courtyard far below, illuminated with roaring fires within the braziers. And it was swarming with demons. Some winged, some horned, all dressed in finery that glittered with infernal light.
Calla circled her like a serpent admiring its reflection, tugging the golden ties of her gown until the bodice molded perfectly to her form. The gown itself was scandalous, woven shadow over sheer black silk, a pattern of flame that clung to her hips and shimmered when she breathed.
“Too much?” Alora asked nervously.
“Not enough,” Calla purred, fastening an onyx clasp at her shoulder. “Modesty is not known to our kind. Better to look like you belong at his side.”
Rune had sent the gown hours ago but hadn’t come himself. He was somewhere below, overseeing preparations.
Calla’s crimson gaze met hers in the mirror. “Do you know what this night means?”
Alora shook her head. “Only that it’s a celebration?”
A grin curved Calla’s lips. “Samhain is the Night of Ashes. The one night when the veil between worlds opens, and every demon, shade, and spirit walks free. We feast, we burn, we remember what we are.” Her voice softened, almost wistful.
“It’s the one night the shadows sing with the voices of the dead.
If you listen closely, you might hear them. ”
Alora glanced at the wide-open windows, letting in the night breeze. There was no moon tonight, no stars, as if a veil of shadow had been cast over the sky. A hum carried on the wind, like a choir of distant voices eerily singing.
“Has your friend woken yet?” Calla asked as she pinned up a section of Alora’s hair.
She sighed. “No, Caelum still sleeps. I have left Nexus to watch over him tonight.”
The mountain had made separate rooms for him in her wing of the castle. After much deliberation, Alora had chosen not to give him a door.
Perhaps it was a bit hypocritical, but she had to, because she feared he would wander the dangerous castle, or something would wander in. Now she understood Rune a little more.
Karag D?r would watch over him.
“There,” Calla announced, turning her to face the mirror. “Now you look like our Shadow Queen.”
Her crown, no longer bone and onyx, was wrought of gold filigree shaped like curling horns.
A collar of gilded dragon wings framed her throat, and the gold bodice, woven in patterns of roses and thorns, clung to her curves over sheer black silk.
Gold cuffs shimmered on her wrists, and her cape flowed behind her like smoke given form.
Her skirt draped in layered black veils, slit high to bare the length of her thighs, each movement a whisper of silk and shadow that promised far more than it revealed.
For a breath, Alora didn’t recognize the woman in the glass. She looked powerful.
Dangerous.
The faintly glowing markings on her arms, neck, and legs were fully revealed as though the gown was designed with that intention.
Rune had never allowed her to be paraded before his court, not since her coronation, always keeping her separate on her side of the castle.
Tonight, that changed. Now that her power was visible, his decision to bring her amidst them seemed deliberate.
Whether to prove she could defend herself or to display what was his.
Something stirred in her chest, deep and instinctive, the faint hum of a bond awakening. She felt him before he appeared.
Rune emerged in a plume of shadow, and the instant his eyes fell on her they smoldered with low flame. “You look like sin itself.”
And for once there was no mockery in his tone.
She bit her lip, admiring him too. He was dressed in ceremonial armor like liquid night, crimson cape draped over his shoulders.
A crown of shadow flickered on his head, his eyes glowing faintly under the dim torchlight.
Shadows licked along his shoulders like a living cloak.
He looked every inch the god he was. Beautiful, terrible, and utterly wicked.
His mouth hitched with a sly smile.
Alora narrowed her eyes. “Are you prying into my mind again?”
Rune’s mouth curved. “I hear what you let slip through, songbird.” He drew her closer, his breath a ghost against her ear. “Why would I pry, when your thoughts seek me out so willingly? Especially in your dreams.”
A flush pooled in her cheeks. Well, she had suspected he could read her mind before and yesterday she’d somehow spoken to him, mind to mind.
After everything, she had been too distracted to realize it until now.
But her dreams were so vivid, especially last night. Her thighs clenched at the reminder.
Rune glanced at Calla. The Harbinger bowed and vanished in a wisp of smoke.
He circled her, a smirk playing on his lips. “My mind is open to you too, Alora. You need only reach for it.”
Could it be that simple? What would she find in the mind of a god?
Inhaling a breath, Alora reached out through the tether humming in her veins. She sensed his warmth first, then his scent of smoke and amber.
Rune’s presence surfaced in her mind immediately. And she felt he was both pleased and surprised by how easily she did it. Well done.
A current swept down her spine at the sound of his voice in her mind. How can we mind speak like this now?
Because we are bonded, Alora. Rune took her hand, his thumb grazing her ring.
She remembered then the day she accepted it, she had felt something sink into her soul. Is that the soul-binding?
He cracked a smile. A soul-binding is a carnal union when two become one. I can demonstrate that now if you like.
She glowered and he chuckled. Rune’s gaze darkened, heating like low burning coals as he appraised her again.
His voice took a rough pitch as he said, “You were carved from the night itself… and dressed in it for my torment. The thought of letting others see you, I have half a mind not to attend tonight if my court would not deem it an insult.”
She fought a smile. “I thought this was a simple dinner.”
“Of sorts.” He went to stand by the balustrade, the wind fluttering his cape. Below the rise of the mountain, were the flickering lights of a city beyond the fog. “Samhain is the night the Netherworld breathes. When the shadows slip their chains, and even gods forget their thrones.”
His gaze drifted toward the horizon, where winged beasts screeched and flew across the sky.
“The veil between life and death thins, and those who were lost walk among us. For demons, it is both a feast and a reckoning. A night of indulgence and remembrance. We honor the darkness that bore us… and the fires that have yet to consume us.”
He turned to her, a faint smirk tugging at his mouth. “There will be gifts, music, and far too much wine. The Lords will expect a spectacle. They thrive on performance. They’ll want to see their king bend the world and his queen command it.”
Alora’s brow furrowed. “And if I don’t?”
Rune’s eyes flamed faintly in the dark. “Then they will smell weakness. And Samhain is no night to bleed in front of wolves.” He stepped closer, shadows curling around his boots.
“You will sit beside me as Queen. They’ll expect strength, beauty, and authority.
They will watch every move you make and dream of seeing me undone by you. ”
“Undone?” she asked softly.
Rune’s eyes flickered crimson. “In my court, mates are rare, for love is to kneel. And tonight, they will all expect to see a god to bow.”
Ridiculous, really. What god would kneel to a mortal? He was trying to ease her nerves. She looked away to her hands, her thumb rubbing the scar on her fingertip restlessly.
“You trust me to be a room full of demons? What if I lose control?”
Rune’s eyes glinted with amusement and his hand closed over her trembling one. “If so, I know exactly how to calm you down.”
She scoffed nervously, her face warming at the memory of his lips moving over hers. “Do you? And why would that work again?”
He stepped closer, gaze falling to her mouth. “There’s power in a king’s kiss.”
Alora heartbeat wildly as Rune leaned in closer, his nose grazing her cheek. She waited for his lips to brush hers. Held still, her eyes drifting closed.
“Before we go,” he said, pulling back. “I have a gift for you.”
Alora blinked, looking down at the box in his hands, carved of blackened wood and veined in silver. When he opened it, firelight caught on the metal of three hilts, scattering reflections like a constellation of stars.
Inside lay three daggers, each a masterpiece.
The first was forged with a gold hilt and white blade, its surface iridescent as though the moon itself lived in its ore.
The second blade shimmered black as shadow, the hilt engraved with symbols that shifted and breathed.
But the third… the third was unlike anything she had ever seen.
The orange blade churned faintly, molten at its core, as if it were forged from captured flame.
“Moonstone,” Rune murmured, naming the white blade, “to ward off the dark.”
She brushed a finger along the next. “Nightstone, to fight it.”
His hand hovered over the last. “And Sunstone to slay it.”
Alora’s brows rose. “Sunstone? I’ve never heard of it.”
“You wouldn’t have,” Rune said, studying it pensively. “It was created long ago, in another time, born from the union of light and flame.” He traced its edge, and smoke hissed from his skin where it blistered. Yet he didn’t flinch. “It is the only ore that can cut me.”
Her eyes widened, awe and shock tangling inside her chest.
Rune closed the lid, the faintest smile touching his lips. “My wife asked for a knife.” He reached out, sliding the box into her hands, his touch brushing hers like a promise. “You will find I keep my word.”