Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
VAROK
Ilook back, surprised there is not a groove carved into the floor of my chamber from hours of restless motion.
The walls press in, suffocating. Every shadow mocks me with her absence.
I cannot stop seeing her face. The moment clarity struck, how her eyes widened then hardened, trust crystallizing into betrayal in the space of a heartbeat.
I failed her. Not as a sovereign, not as a warrior, but as a bloodmate.
The one role that matters more than any crown or battle victory.
"You used me," she had said, each word a blade between my ribs.
My fist strikes the wall, the impact sending cracks spiderwebbing through ancient stone.
The keh’shali flare brilliant azure at the point of impact, pulsing outward along the fracture lines like liquid lightning before gradually fading back to their usual soft glow.
Pain radiates up my arm, dull and welcome.
A lesser hurt than the ache beneath my scales.
I coil myself tighter then release, a futile attempt to shed the tension gripping me. The empty nest mocks me from across of the chamber, its curves still bearing the impression of her body, the hollow where she slept against me only this morning. I turn away, unable to look at it.
"I command legions," I mutter to the empty room, my voice rough and brittle, sounding foreign to my ears. "I break the spine of human battalions without flinching. Yet one female—my female—has undone me with a single look."
Fury builds within me at myself for the deception, at the prophecy for forcing such burdens upon us, at the war that made such suspicions necessary.
But what burns hottest is how completely I failed her when the moment came to explain why we must watch her people.
My words tangling and dying before they could form the truth she deserved.
I should have told her about the OathCoil from the beginning.
Should have explained how it was placed as a safeguard before I knew her, before I understood what she would become to me.
How after the first days I forgot its existence, consumed instead by the miracle of her presence in my life, in my nest, in my arms.
My claws dig crescents into my palms as I whisper into the emptiness, "I should have stopped her. Found the words. Begged if necessary. Anything but watch her walk away thinking I saw her as nothing but a means to power."
I reach reflexively for the bond between us, that warm tether of sensation and emotion that has grown stronger with each passing day.
It pulses with her hurt, a distant, muffled agony that mirrors my own.
She has not severed it—cannot according to the ancient laws that bind bloodmates—but she has withdrawn as far as the bond allows.
The equivalent of turning her back to me across our shared nest.
My tail lashes the floor, frustration seeking a physical outlet. I snatch up a ceremonial urn, ancient and irreplaceable, and hurl it against the far wall. The sound of shattering pottery brings no satisfaction, only a hollow echo of my own fracturing control.
"Ashira," I mutter, using the name I gave her, "Why did I not force myself to speak plainly?”
The memory of her in the war chamber burns behind my eyes: the basket clutched against her chest, her face transforming from confusion to understanding to hurt in the space of a single breath. I had reached for her, desperate to explain, but the words tangled in my throat.
I wanted to shield her from the shadows gathering at our borders.
Even now, I sense the tremors that run through her when sudden sounds echo too loudly, the aftershocks from the bombing that nearly claimed her.
But in my ignorance, I kept silent about General Thorne's treachery, about the spies who walk among us with smiles that never reach their eyes, about Lurok whispering poison into receptive ears, about the TrueCoil's ominous silence.
I failed to explain why the OathCoil was necessary when first it was placed within her home, and in that silence, I betrayed the very trust I sought to protect.
Instead, I froze, watching her retreating form. The only soul who had ever broken through my armor, turned away believing I had manipulated her affections for power. When in truth I would surrender every flame that will ever burn within me just to hold her trust again.
My scales bristle with indecision. Honor demands I respect her wishes to be left alone, yet the blood bond between us pulses like an open wound, drawing me toward her chambers with the inexorable pull of gravity.
Every heartbeat without her feels like another opportunity lost to heal what I have broken.
I catch my reflection in the polished obsidian of the far wall. Scales rippling in agitation, eyes burning too bright, the crown gleaming on my brow. A figure of power, of authority. Of loneliness.
Leira changed that. In mere weeks, she transformed my solitary existence with her courage, her sharp mind, her capacity for compassion despite all reason to hate my kind. The thought of losing what we have built together, this fragile thing still taking root between us, is unbearable.
And beneath that fear lurks another darker concern. One I did not voice when I should have. If the OathCoil's discovery has revealed a traitor in Clavenmoor, what other threats might be closing in around us, unseen?
I straighten, decision crystallizing like flame hardening to diamond in my core.
I will go to her. Not to demand forgiveness, but to give her the explanation she deserves.
To lay bare the truths I have kept hidden, not out of manipulation but out of my own stumbling attempts to protect her from burdens that are rightfully mine to bear.
"Her chambers," I mutter, already gliding toward the door. "Even if she refuses to hear me, I must try."
The bond pulses weakly, as if in acknowledgment. I pause, frowning. Something about that pulse feels wrong—too distant, too muted. But perhaps that is merely the weight of her anger, the walls she has erected between us.
I will break those walls, if she allows it. I will earn back what I have damaged through my silence. Whatever it takes, however long it requires, I will not lose her to my own failings.
I glide through the door, determination replacing despair as I move through the silent corridors toward her chambers, toward the only future that now matters.
The corridors leading to Leira's chambers stretch before me as they always do, ancient stone walls punctuated by jutting crystal formations that thrust from the rock at irregular intervals, the distant murmur of servants going about their duties, the occasional echo of a Talon patrol.
Yet something prickles beneath my scales, an instinct I cannot name but dare not ignore.
I quicken my pace slightly, my coils gliding smoothly across polished floors.
I round the final corner expecting to see Zaethir and Nirik standing sentinel. Their absence hits me like a physical blow. The corridor before Leira's door stands empty, abandoned. No guards. No explanation.
I taste the air, tongue flicking out to catch any lingering scent or signature.
Nothing unusual, just the faint trace of her two guards, of her chamber servant, and Leira's distinctive human perfume, mixed with the herbal notes that cling to her since she began her studies with the temple healers. Nothing else. No threats.
My scales contract against my body, a warrior's instinct screaming warnings my mind refuses to accept. Zaethir and Nirik would never abandon their post, not without direct orders or blood spilled.
At my approach, the door recognizes her blood coursing through my veins and flows open. As I slither inside, the wrongness of the room strikes me instantly. The chamber lies still and silent, precisely as it was prepared for her arrival weeks ago, barely touched since she began sharing my nest.
"Leira?" I call, moving deeper into the space despite already knowing it is empty. My voice echoes back to me, mocking.
I circle the chamber, my dread intensifying with each sweep of my tail.
The royal quarters remain sealed to all but a select few.
Jeslyn among them. I had trusted her implicitly, but now every russet-scaled female in the palace has become suspect in my mind.
Sareth personally oversees the interrogation of every palace servant granted such privileged access, making betrayal from within these walls all the more unfathomable.
A sweetness cuts through my dread. The unmistakable aroma of glimmergrain.
My head snaps toward it, tongue flicking rapidly to taste the air.
Near the doorway lies an overturned basket, its contents scattered across the stone floor of round, pale cakes, their surfaces glittering with tiny crystals of sugar like miniature constellations against a night sky.
One cake lies apart from the others, a single bite missing from its edge.
I cross to it in a single, fluid motion, sinking down to examine the evidence. The cake sits like an accusation, the clean arc of teeth marks visible in its exposed interior. Leira's teeth. Leira's bite.
I bring it to my nose, inhaling deeply. The sweet, nutty aroma seems innocent enough, redolent with the warm scents of properly prepared glimmergrain and temple honey. Nothing overtly suspicious.
But my gut churns with certainty. My bloodmate would not take a single bite, abandon the rest, and vanish without a trace.
Our bond remains distant, as if buried beneath layers of wool.
Present but muffled in a way that speaks of interference rather than her emotional withdrawal.
I felt it once before as she lay unconscious before the Flame, her broken body surrendered to healing sleep. This is not anger. This is absence.