Chapter 17 #2
“I can manipulate shadows with thought alone,” I say quietly. “I can feel both worlds through my connection to the seal. I can move through darkness like breathing.”
The shadows coil around Thessaly, not threatening, just present.
I don’t explain further.
I let them feel it.
They hold, pressing against the room, against her, against everything—until I decide they shouldn’t.
The shadows retreat at my command, perfectly controlled, not a single flicker out of place.
Thessaly’s expression is unreadable.
Boreas speaks at last. He has been silent until now.
Watching.
Waiting.
“The Earth Court is not wrong to question legitimacy. But the ritual succeeded. The rifts are sealed. The Shadow Court is stronger than it has been in centuries.” He looks at me. “Perhaps we should focus on that rather than bloodline politics.”
“Spoken like someone who knows his court barely exists anymore,” Thessaly mutters.
The barb lands cleanly.
Draven stands.
“Enough. We are here to discuss the future, not argue about the past. Queen Morgana proved herself in Prague. The Storm Court recognizes her claim.”
“As does the Flame Court,” Kai adds. Celeste nods once in agreement.
Three courts for me. One against. One undecided.
The political landscape is crystal clear.
Thessaly smiles coldly.
“Then let us discuss the future. Starting with reparations for the damage the Shadow Court’s negligence caused.”
The negotiations are brutal.
We spend six hours negotiating under Storm Court dominion—trade agreements, territorial boundaries, reparations for rift damage.
To prepare me for the summit, Azrael taught me the basics of Aethermoor politics, including the Dominion Tournament—the event that gave the Storm Court the right to have the final say in Aethermoor.
I knew, in theory, that the Storm Court had the final say in these decisions but watching it happen is something else entirely.
Arguments still erupt, voices still rise, but nothing moves forward without Draven’s approval—or Azrael’s.
Policy doesn’t get decided here.
It gets allowed.
Thessaly uses every opportunity to undermine me, questioning my decisions, implying Azrael is making choices for me, suggesting I am too inexperienced to rule.
By the time we break for dinner, I want to strangle her with shadows.
“Don’t,” Azrael murmurs as we walk to the dining hall. “She is baiting you. Trying to make you lose control.”
“It’s working.”
“I know. But you are doing well.” He takes my hand. “Better than I did at my first summit.”
“You probably did not have people calling you a pretender.”
“No. They called me a murderous tyrant who bathed in his enemies’ blood.” His smile is dry. “I miss those days. Much simpler.”
Despite everything, I laugh.
The dinner is lavish. Long table. Five courses. Wine that probably costs more than my old penthouse. I sit between Azrael and Kira, grateful for the buffer.
“She’s awful,” Kira whispers, nodding toward Thessaly. “Always has been. Don’t take it personally.”
“Hard not to when she is questioning my entire existence.”
“Welcome to Aethermoor politics.” Kira sips her wine. “Everyone questions everything. It’s exhausting.”
“How do you deal with it?”
“Remind myself they answer to the Storm Court right now—and I’m the reason why.” She grins. “Also, occasionally I threaten people with lightning. That helps.”
Celeste leans in from across the table.
“The first year is the hardest. After that, you learn to ignore the noise and focus on actual governance.”
“And if they keep pushing?” I ask.
“Then you push back.” Her smile is all teeth. “You’re a queen now. Act like it.”
The advice settles something in my chest.
They’re right. I earned this crown. Thessaly can question me all she wants. I know what I sacrificed. What I became. What I accomplished.
I don’t need her approval.
The thought is liberating.
The conversation has thinned. Not quieter. Sharper.
Like everyone is waiting for something to break.
Dessert arrives, some kind of pastry that tastes almost hollow on my transformed palate. I’m picking at it when I notice something wrong.
My fingers are tingling.
Not magic. Something else.
Something spreading up my arms.
“Azrael,” I say.
My voice comes out wrong. Thick.
He’s at my side instantly.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t?—”
The tingling turns to burning.
Pain snaps through my veins like liquid fire.
“Something is wrong?—”
The room tilts. I’m falling. Someone catches me. Azrael, always Azrael. Through the bond, I feel his absolute terror.
“Poison,” Kieran shouts. “She has been poisoned.”
Chaos erupts.
Voices collide. Chairs scrape. Magic flares as everyone draws power defensively.
I convulse in Azrael’s arms. The pain is everywhere now. In my blood. My bones. In the very thing that makes me what I am.
“Don’t you dare,” Azrael growls.
His shadows wrap around me, trying to stabilize me, but the poison resists them like it was designed for this.
“I did not bring you this far to lose you to cowards with poison.”
Through blurred vision, I see Kieran examining my wine glass. His expression goes dark.
“Bloodbane toxin,” he says. “Earth Court specialty. It targets hybrid physiology, specifically the human elements still in transformed blood.”
“Thessaly,” Azrael snarls.
But the Earth Court ambassador is already backing toward the exit, guards forming around her.
“Proof?” she challenges. “Anyone could have poisoned her wine. This is Shadow Court’s palace. Your security. Your responsibility.”
She’s gone before anyone can stop her. Portal opening, then collapsing.
No one moves to follow. Not because they can’t, but because they’re calculating what this means.
I’m dying; I can feel it.
The poison is eating through everything that makes me, targeting the bridge between what I was and what I became during the ritual. Attacking the fragile bridge between human and Elemental that the ritual created.
Not just killing me.
Unmaking me.
“Hold on,” Azrael commands.
He’s carrying me now, moving fast.
“Kieran, get the healers. Everyone else, lockdown protocols. Find out who served that wine.”
The bond between us is screaming. I feel his terror. His rage. His refusal to accept this.
And underneath it all, I feel myself unravelling.
If the poison wins, I will either die or become something worse. Pure shadow, without the anchor that makes me human at all.
Either way, Morgana Nightveil ceases to exist.
“Stay with me,” Azrael says.
We’re in our chambers now.
He lays me on the bed, shadows already working to slow the poison.
“You have survived worse than this.”
“Have I?” My voice comes out barely above a whisper, as if it’s already giving up before it reaches him.
“Yes. You survived me.” His hand cups my face with a steadiness that feels impossible in a moment like this. “You survived the ritual. You will survive this too.”
I want to believe him; I really do, but the thought doesn’t settle inside me. It hovers just out of reach, something I can see but can’t hold on to.
The poison is moving through me faster now, threading itself deeper beneath my skin, into my blood, into places I don’t have the strength to name. I’m so tired it feels like even breathing is a losing battle.
Around us, his shadows writhe, twisting violently, as if something inside them has been torn open.
They’re no longer celebrating.
They’re screaming.
There’s no sound to it, not in the way sound should exist. Instead, it is everywhere at once, pressing against the edges of my mind, against the fragile space between thought and panic.
A silent rupture that still manages to feel as though it should split the world apart.
Like something essential is slipping out of reach—and cannot be pulled back.
And still, Azrael holds my face as if I am something worth saving.