Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
It should have felt like a homecoming.
The banners of Mirathen snapped high above the streets, crimson and gold against a sky edged with the last warmth of afternoon.
Sunlight caught on the stone walls, glinting off the regal architecture, the winding streets thrumming with life.
Merchants called their wares, children wove through the crowd, laughter bubbling as they chased one another in the dust.
Finn rode through the gates, back among his people. But relief did not come.
He kept his head high, his expression composed, his bearing that of a knight of the realm. The children at the roadside beamed at him, wide-eyed with admiration, whispering his name like a legend. He gave them a small wave, as was expected. But inside, there was nothing.
Madness. This was madness.
Finn gritted his teeth, his jaw locked tight as he fixed his gaze on the road ahead. He couldn’t afford to stumble now. Couldn’t let thoughts of him—of golden eyes shadowed with pain, of warmth that still lingered on his skin—hobble him when duty remained unfinished.
He had a report to give. A kingdom to answer to.
And then, maybe, he could step away. Breathe. Figure out what to do with the feral prince and princess he had left behind. Figure out what to do with himself.
Ghost needed no direction. She carried Finn through the city’s familiar streets, her gait sure even as his mind wandered.
The bustling market square blurred past—the bright chatter of merchants, the scent of fresh bread wafting from a bakery’s hearth, the glint of the palace spires lancing the sky.
It all felt unreal, as if he were riding through a dream.
He hardly registered when Ghost slowed of her own accord. Only the sudden lack of movement told him they had arrived.
Tom the stable hand darted forward, his excitement barely contained as he seized Ghost’s reins. “You’re back! And without a scratch!” His gaze swept over Finn, eager—until it wasn’t. His smile faltered. “But…you didn’t bring back the dragon’s head.”
Finn’s breath hitched. The dragon’s head.
The words crashed over him like a breaking wave, dragging behind them a vision that threatened to gut him: a golden skull mounted on a stake, Cedric’s eyes vacant, his body broken and still. Bile rose and he swallowed hard, forcing it down.
He managed a smile. “No. I didn’t.” The words were stones in his mouth, heavy and final. He had no explanation to offer the boy, no justification for why the beast he had been sent to kill still lived.
Boots scraped against stone, announcing a new arrival and a chance for Finn to avoid more questions, at least for the moment.
Finn turned as a palace guard strode toward him, moving with the crisp authority of a man who had no patience for others. The stable hand let out a startled squeak and ducked his head, hastily leading Ghost away.
Finn patted Ghost’s flank as she passed. Then he straightened and faced the guard.
“Sir Finnian.” The guard’s tone was impassive. “His Majesty requests your immediate presence in the throne room.”
The summons wasn’t a surprise—of course he had expected it—but the urgency was worrisome. He had thought there would be time. A brief reprieve to bathe, to scrub away the exhaustion of the road, to don clean clothing before standing before the king.
Apparently not.
He forced his shoulders back, locking the weariness away. “Of course,” he said, projecting as much confidence as he could. “Lead the way.”
As they walked, Finn caught the hushed murmur of two passing courtiers. He couldn’t make out the words, but the way their voices clipped short as he neared set his nerves on edge.
The tension was thick enough to taste, and Finn felt his unease deepen. What is going on?
Ahead, the throne room doors loomed. The guard at his side rapped twice, the heavy sound echoing through the corridor. Silence followed—ten long beats of Finn’s heart—before the doors groaned open.
King Darius sat upon the gilded throne, his expression carved from stone, fingers drumming idly against the armrest. The tap, tap, tap of his nails against gold was the only sound in the vast chamber, save for the shifting of armor—the King’s Guard flanking him.
Finn kept his head high as he approached.
“Ah, Sir Finnian,” Darius drawled, his voice deceptively calm. “How kind of you to grace us with your presence at last.”
Finn dropped to one knee, bowing his head. “Your Majesty, I apologize for my delay in returning. I came as swiftly as I could once my mission was complete.”
Darius leaned forward, his dark eyes narrowing. “And what of your mission, Sir Finnian? I trust you have good news for me?”
Finn’s pulse pounded in his ears. He chose his words carefully. “I have located Princess Gwenna, Your Majesty. She is safe and well.”
“Excellent. And where is she now? I assume you’ve brought her back to where she belongs?” Darius studied him like a cat with a mouse beneath his paw.
Here it was. The moment Finn had been dreading. He inhaled slowly, bolstering himself before he spoke.
“Your Majesty, Princess Gwenna does not wish to return. She assured me she is safe and content—”
“Content?” The word cracked through the chamber like a whip. Finn flinched. Darius rose, his fury barely leashed. “She is the princess of Lunareth! Her place is here, not gallivanting about the countryside on some foolish whim!”
Finn risked a glance up and immediately regretted it. The king’s face twisted with rage, his fingers white-knuckled where they gripped the throne’s gilded arms. But beneath the anger, something brewed.
Desperation? Fear?
And what had he said? Gallivanting about the countryside.
A slow, uneasy chill crept through Finn. When Darius had sent him on this mission, he had painted Gwenna as a captive. A stolen princess in need of rescue. But now…with his fury and choice of words…had he known? Had he always known she was there of her own accord?
Or was this simply another of the king’s temper-fueled outbursts?
Finn had no time to examine the thought before Darius’s seething gaze snapped back to him.
“Your Majesty,” Finn tried again, choosing his words as carefully as he might select a weapon. Only this time, he had no idea what kind of blade the moment required. “I assure you, I did my utmost to persuade her—”
“Clearly, your utmost was not enough.” Darius’s long robes swept across the stone floor as he began pacing, a caged predator scenting blood. The throne room had never felt so small.
Finn braced himself.
“Tell me, Sir Finnian,” Darius continued, his voice now frighteningly calm. “Did you at least fulfill the other part of your mission? Did you slay the dragon?”
Finn’s blood ran cold. There it was. The question he had been dreading.
His fingers twitched at his sides, his throat going dry. He couldn’t betray Cedric. But neither could he bring himself to lie to his king—not outright. He had to choose his words very carefully.
“Your Majesty,” he said, keeping his tone even but respectful, “there was no dragon threat during my search for the princess.”
Darius froze. Then, ever so slowly, he turned. His hazel eyes locked onto Finn’s, more dangerous than Cedric’s eyes had ever been as a dragon.
“No dragon?” The words were quiet. Too quiet. “Are you telling me that not only did you fail to bring back Gwenna, but you also failed to eliminate the beast that has plagued our kingdom? I do believe you’re lying to your king, Sir Finnian.”
Shit. Finn’s mind raced. He could feel the noose tightening. “I found no evidence of any dragon attacks, Your Majesty,” he said carefully. “The village I came across, Duskridge, was prosperous. Perhaps the rumors were exaggerated—”
“Enough.” Darius’s voice cracked through the chamber like a thunderclap. Finn flinched before he could stop himself, his instincts screaming at him to drop his hand to his sword hilt— no. No.
He forced himself still, spine rigid, though every muscle was strung tight.
Darius stepped forward. One step. Then another. And another.
“I want the exact location of Princess Gwenna and the dragon,” he said, each word cutting through the air like steel. “And I want it now. No more excuses, no more half-truths. Where is she?”
Finn’s heart pounded. He was trapped. He could not betray Gwenna. And he would not betray Cedric.
But to openly refuse the king’s command…
He swallowed hard. But Darius wasn’t really the king, was he? Cedric should be the one on the throne. Dragon or not, it was suddenly alarmingly clear that he was less of a monster than the current king.
“No.”
The throne room fell into a silence so deep Finn could hear his own heartbeat.
Darius stared at him, his expression unreadable, his chest rising and falling with controlled breaths. The stillness stretched into something stifling, a moment balanced on the knife’s edge between fury and calculation.
Then the king let out a quiet, humorless breath. “No?” He said it almost delicately, as if testing the weight of the word. Then he took a step forward.
Clearly not a word this man is used to hearing. Finn lifted his chin. “It means I’m not telling you where Princess Gwenna is.”
Darius was so still and quiet that Finn hoped for a moment he’d turned into a statue from shock.
But then the king spoke, his voice like ice cracking over dark water.
“Very well, Sir Finnian. If that is your choice, then you leave me no alternative.” He raised his voice, ringing with the power of authority. “Guards!”
The sound of steel rasping against leather filled the chamber as the King’s Guard stepped forward, their hands already on the hilts of their swords. At the same time, the great doors of the throne room burst open, and a flood of palace guards poured inside, boots striking hard against the stone.
Finn stiffened, barely keeping himself from reaching for Sunwrath. Damn it.
The king’s voice was like the crack of a whip. “Sir Finnian Brightmoor, I hereby charge you with treason against the crown. You will be taken to the dungeons to await justice for your crimes.”
Finn’s breath hitched. His thoughts reeled, grasping for sense, for a way to pull this back from the brink. He had given everything to Lunareth—his service, his loyalty, his very life. And now? Now he was branded a traitor?
The guards yanked Finn back, dragging him toward the doors. His boots scraped against the polished marble, but he refused to let them force his head down. He kept his gaze locked onto Darius until the last possible moment, searching for any hint of hesitation, any sign of reason.
There was none.
The king merely watched him go, calm now, as if everything had fallen neatly into place.
As Finn reached the threshold, Darius spoke one last time, his voice echoing like a death sentence.
“Sir Finnian, your stay in the dungeons can be very short or very long.” A pause, deliberate. Calculated. “It all depends on how quickly you decide to cooperate.”
The heavy doors slammed shut, cutting off Finn’s view of the king’s cold, satisfied smile.
The descent into the dungeons blurred into a hollow, nightmarish haze.
Finn moved as if untethered from himself, his body a vessel stripped of will, reduced to a thing being led. A thing being discarded.
The guards marched him down a spiraling, torch-lit staircase, deeper and deeper beneath the castle.
With each step, the air thickened—damp, cloying, laced with the bite of mildew and rusting iron.
Every breath tasted like decay. Water dripped somewhere in the dark, a slow, haunting beat, counting down the moments of his ruin.
How had it come to this?
He had known Darius would be displeased. But this was something else. The fury in the king’s voice, the vehemence of the accusations—it went beyond wrath, beyond punishment. Treason. Had he miscalculated that badly? Had Darius always been this unhinged, or had Finn simply been too blind to see it?
Boots scuffed against uneven stone as they reached the corridor, a narrow gauntlet of iron-barred cells, yawning dark mouths waiting to swallow him whole. A guard wrenched open one of the heavy doors, the screech of metal on stone cutting through the silence like a death knell.
“Inside, traitor.” The word hit harder than the shove that followed.
Finn stumbled forward, catching himself against the damp, unyielding wall. The door crashed shut behind him with a brutal thud.
The lock turned.
And just like that, Sir Finnian, once one of Lunareth’s most trusted knights, was no one.
Finn slumped against the damp stone wall, his breath coming slow. His body still thrummed with the aftershocks of adrenaline, the phantom pulse of a battle already lost. Cold seeped through his shirt, slithering against his skin.
His mind would not still. He had failed.
Failed his mission. Failed his duty. Failed his king. And now…now he had failed Cedric and Gwenna as well.
How long before Darius sent others? How long before the king hunted them down, loosed his wolves upon them?
Finn clenched his fists. I should have seen this coming.
He had been too careful. Too restrained. He had thought he was choosing his words wisely, treading carefully through the storm of Darius’s rage. But he had miscalculated. If he had pressed harder, questioned more, he might have seen the truth buried beneath the king’s fury.
This was never about Gwenna.
It was about power. About control. About the dragon.
Cedric’s face flashed through his mind—not as a beast, but as a man. His golden-brown eyes warm with laughter. His lips parting in a breathless sigh.
A softness that Finn had not been meant to witness. A truth he had never been meant to hold.
His throat tightened. He shut his eyes against the ache hollowing out his heart, but it did nothing to dull it.
Hours bled past, marked only by the distant shuffle of boots, the slow, rhythmic drip of water. The cold deepened, burrowing into his bones. His muscles locked against the unyielding stone.
Still, his mind refused to be silent.
This will not be the end.
Finn’s jaw tightened. Somehow, some way, he would find a way out of this dungeon.
He had to. Because Gwenna and Cedric were in danger. And he would not let them face it alone.