Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
Rydian
Ipulled away from Aurelia, but only after promising myself there would be time for more of it later.
There had to be. I was done denying us this, the realm and the gods be damned.
We’d survive this day because we must. And then Aurelia and I would deal with what lay between us once and for all.
Now, shadows collapsed back into me, snapping to heel like wolves, and the chaos of the throne room rushed into brutal clarity.
Courtiers screamed as a wave of Obsidians surged through the northern doors—dark armor, black eyes, weapons already raised.
Heliconia’s frost shot across the floor, icicles erupting like spikes.
Aurelia leaned against me only for a moment before straightening and standing tall. Fury lit her features—not the kind that burned out of control, but the kind that forged steel.
“Behind you!” I barked.
She spun right as an Obsidian soldier lunged. Her sword flashed, clean and lethal, carving through the space between them before his blade could fall. She slid under him, came back up hard, and drove Dorcha through his ribs.
Another soldier tried to flank her.
I was already moving.
Shadow leapt from my fingertips, slamming into his throat. The impact snapped his helm sideways, and he crumpled as my magic recoiled back to me in a rush of vapor.
More boots hit the marble, the throne room surging with Obsidian soldiers rushing in as the remaining guests tried to shove their way out.
Heliconia shrieked an order, her voice like cracking ice. “Kill the princess! Kill the shadow brutes! Bring me the traitor king alive!”
Her soldiers swarmed toward us, eager to do her bidding.
I glimpsed Callan near the front, fighting with a stolen Obsidian blade, then lost him again as more incoming Obsidian soldiers blocked my sight.
“Rydian.” Slade’s voice echoed from somewhere near the balustrade. “On your right!”
I spun, blocked a blade, shoved my sword through a gap in armor, ripped it free. Aurelia fought beside me—quick, terrifying, beautiful. Not a comet blazing out of control anymore. A blade honed to lethal purpose.
Watching her fight without her furyfire made my rib burn like someone had pressed a brand into it.
The Furiosity rune.
The warning of an early death.
I ground my teeth. “Not today.”
Aurelia didn’t hear me—she was already ducking under another swing. Her braid whipped past my cheek, lightning-fast. She twisted, drove a knife into the soldier’s thigh, ripped it sideways, and took him down.
“Show-off,” I muttered.
She kicked another soldier square in the chest, batting him away from my blind spot. “You’re welcome.”
I glanced toward the front again, to where I’d last seen Callan.
Heliconia’s power hissed as she advanced toward the Harvest Throne.
Frost crawled up the dais like living vines.
And Callan—idiot that he was—stood frozen there, jaw clenched, eyes darting between his throne and the monster he was supposed to hand it over to.
“Callan!” I shouted. “Move!”
He didn’t.
Heliconia stretched out a hand. Frost curled around Callan’s boots again. “Speak the words,” she hissed. “Give me what you promised. Give me your throne.”
Callan’s face contorted. His mouth opened—against his will.
Aurelia faltered. “Callan—” she gasped.
I grabbed her arm. “Isn’t dying on my watch.”
We sprinted—cutting through the chaos, ducking between columns, weaving through clashing blades. Frost lashed out at us in jagged arcs. My shadows met them midair, cracking the ice apart before it touched her skin.
“Behind you!” Slade yelled again, flashing into existence for half a heartbeat to yank a terrified Autumn guard out of a frost wave.
Thorne held the southern end of the room, ley-line magic roaring beneath his skin like molten gold. He carved a barrier line across the floor, cutting off an entire swell of soldiers from reaching Aurelia’s back. Each pulse of his ability made the stones glow.
Ahead, Heliconia was stepping toward Callan.
She lifted her hand. “Speak the vow. Name me your queen, and I will make your death quick.”
Callan’s throat seized. He tried to fight it—his jaw trembled, but frost tightened up his legs, his chest, his arms. His lips, already blue and trembling, shaped the first syllable.
Aurelia’s breath stuttered.
“No!” she screamed and threw herself forward, but I got there first.
I slammed into Callan, tearing him sideways off the dais. Heliconia’s magic screamed in fury as her grip on him shattered into ice shards.
Callan hit the floor with a grunt.
Aurelia was already between us and Heliconia, Dorcha raised, her stance low and deadly. Flames of furyfire licked across the marble at Heliconia’s feet like predators scenting blood.
Heliconia’s face twisted with the first true sign of fury I’d ever seen on her. “You insolent wretch,” she spat at Callan.
“That’s King Insolent Wretch,” Callan wheezed behind me. “Show some respect—”
“Callan,” I growled. “Shut. Up.”
Aurelia didn’t turn, but her voice clipped sharp as a blade. “She wants him to say the words. She can’t take the throne without consent—”
“I know,” I said.
Heliconia’s eyes flared. “He will give it.”
“Over my corpse,” Callan muttered, dusting himself off.
“Not happening,” Aurelia said.
She and I shared one look—one of those looks that lasted no longer than a blink but contained a thousand unspoken understandings.
We weren’t winning this fight.
Not today.
Not like this.
I turned toward the shadows, toward the one person who could change everything in a heartbeat. Slade materialized out of the smoke at the far end of the room, dragging two terrified nobles behind him.
“Slade,” I roared.
His head snapped toward me. I jerked my chin at Callan.
Slade’s eyes widened. He understood.
He let the nobles go and dissolved into shadow so violently his form blurred.
Heliconia snapped her fingers.
Ice spears erupted from the ceiling. Twenty of them. Maybe thirty. All aimed at us as they fell.
“Aurelia,” I yelled.
I seized her waist. Shadow roared beneath my skin.
Slade dropped into existence beside Callan in a spill of darkness, grabbed his arm—
And winked out.
Heliconia shrieked.
She pivoted toward us, eyes blazing with enough stolen power to crack the realm itself.
“Where is he?” she roared with enough power that the entire throne room trembled.
“Oh, she’s pissed,” Aurelia whispered, eyes bright with what we’d just done.
“Is she? I hadn’t noticed,” I said.
Heliconia threw up her palms. Frozen spears exploded outward. I shoved Aurelia behind a toppled pillar just as their pointed ends obliterated the marble where she’d been standing.
My shadows buckled under the impact.
“Now!” I yelled. “Slade—NOW!”
For an agonizing heartbeat, nothing happened.
Heliconia gathered power—far too much power—and flung it at us like a tidal wave of frozen death. Snow and ice so thick there was no seeing through it. No melting it. No stopping it.
Aurelia slammed into me. I wrapped both arms around her and spun, ready to take the hit—
Slade burst into existence behind us.
“Hold on,” he warned, putting a hand on each of us.
The avalanche hit.
Or—it would have.
But we were gone.
The throne room snapped away in a violent crush of shadow and cold. My stomach twisted. The world folded, then unfolded in a blinding rush—
And light vanished.
Everything went dark.
Everything went still.
Aurelia’s fingers dug into my coat.
My arms stayed locked around her.
I felt her breath against my neck—a small, ragged sound. Alive. Alive.
Slade swore behind us. “Someone tell me she didn’t get a hit in before we blinked.”
I exhaled once—shaking with relief and fury.
“She didn’t,” I said. “We’re clear.”
Aurelia’s voice was a rasp. “Where’s Callan?”
“Safe,” Slade said and then added, “With Thorne. Probably complaining already.”
Good. I didn’t care where Slade had taken him. Not when Aurelia was in my arms and we were safe from death.
I didn’t loosen my hold. Couldn’t.
Aurelia finally lifted her head, eyes still dazed.
“Rydian,” she whispered. “I couldn’t do it. I failed.”
“You survived,” I corrected, brushing a thumb over her cheek without thinking. “We all did. And she didn’t get the throne.”
“She did, though. We left her in there with it.”
“It doesn’t belong to her,” I said. “That’s not a failure.”
Her breath hitched. But I pulled her closer anyway—because I needed to feel her heartbeat, needed to know she was whole.
“We will finish this,” I told her quietly. “We’ll end her. But not today.”
Her fingers curled into the front of my shirt.
“Not today,” she echoed.
Slade’s voice broke the moment. “So. Good news: We’re alive. Bad news? Heliconia’s about to tear the entire Autumn Court apart, trying to find us.”
Aurelia sagged slightly in my arms. “Then we run.”
“Where?” Slade asked.
“I know a place,” I said, my voice low, certain, absolute.
They both looked at me, but all I saw was her.
Aurelia’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. “You came for me.”
I met her gaze, let her see the truth in it. “I would walk through Hel and back for you, Furious.”
Her breath shivered.
Behind us, Slade groaned. “Gods above. If you two start kissing in front of me again, I’m shadow-walking myself into the nearest river.”
Aurelia elbowed him weakly. “Just say you’re still daydreaming about that naiad hottie.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
But there was a grin on his face.
And Aurelia was alive.