Chapter 24
Evie
Kael’s words struck something primal in me, fear at first, cold and deep, curling up my throat until I realized it wasn’t fear at all but bile. I was about to wretch.
He told me of Bashir al’Qamar. Of the experiments that had happened here at Drachenfels Keep. Of the magisters who’d each had their part to play. Of everything he had done.
The academy’s crimes. The king’s silence. The mass grave beneath our feet, where ash and limbs and names all blended into one.
If that wasn’t what caused the blight creeping down the mountain, then nothing was.
And I was one of them now. A magister.
I carried their guilt.
Shock must have shown on my face because Kael looked at me like I was about to scream. Maybe I was. But beneath the horror, there was something worse—disappointment so sharp it burned.
I stepped forward, pointing at the vines writhing around us. “This. All of this. It’s proof of what you’ve done. Of everything the gutters whisper about the Crown!” My voice cracked on the last word.
Kael’s shoulders sagged. “I know.”
“We need to tell the people.” The words came out shaking, but I meant them. Deep down, I believed truth could still cleanse this rot. That if the truth was spoken, really heard, the blight might finally fade. “We need to go back to Befest and make the king come clean.”
“No, we’re not doing that.”
“The people deserve to know!”
He closed the distance between us in one stride, his voice thunderous. “The people are already rioting! What do you think will happen when they find out what we did to save them? This would be the end of the kingdom!” His breath hit my skin—hot, furious, trembling. Or maybe that tremor was remorse.
“They were human,” I hissed. “Just like us.”
“They were prisoners!” he snapped, but the crack in his voice betrayed him. He was trying to convince himself.
“And who are you to be their executioner?” I stepped closer until our faces were a breath apart. “How many were innocent? How many just disappeared into your goddamn mercy? Who are you protecting, Kael, the king, or yourself?”
“I’m protecting the realm—”
“You’re protecting the lie that saved it!”
His eyes darkened, that blinding blue swallowed by storms. “Do you think we had a choice?” he roared, louder than thunder, heavier than guilt.
“You were safe behind your academy walls while the rest of the kingdom suffocated and drowned in its own blood! We had one choice, Evangelina. One. And I would make it again, a thousand times, if it meant saving Vanhaui and the rest of this cursed world.”
I shivered. His words sank deep, heavy as stones thrown into dark water, and the echo of them rattled through my bones. We had one choice.
I wanted to hate him. Gods, I wanted to. But hatred needed certainty, and certainty was a luxury I no longer had.
Hadn’t I stood in those streets too? Seen hollow-eyed children clutch bread like treasure?
Heard coughs that ended in silence? Yes, I’d been tucked away in the academy, safe behind wards and walls, but I’d heard it.
Felt it. Seen it for myself the days the walls had become too suffocating for me to stay inside.
The plague had left us all starving, terrified, desperate for salvation.
And if I’d been in his place, if the cure had been within reach and all it demanded was the sacrifice of the condemned, would I have done differently?
The bile rose again, but now it was shame. Shame for even asking.
I thought of the prisoners—nameless, faceless, tortured for the good of a kingdom and burned to ash beneath this keep. I thought of the people above, alive because of them. Of myself, breathing because of their pain.
There was no clean side in this. Only blood that refused to wash off.
I looked at Kael, and for a heartbeat, I didn’t see the monster the world painted him as. I saw a man bound to an impossible choice, a man who had caged his own soul so the rest of us could keep breathing.
And yet, what right did any of us have to decide who deserved to live or die?
Maybe that was the cruelest truth of all. The plague had ended, but the rot it left behind wasn’t in the soil. It was in us.
A tear slipped free. Kael caught it with his thumb, his hand rough and careful all at once. He searched my eyes, his voice low. “Did you think better of me? Did I ever tell you to?”
I shook my head. No. He’d never lied about what he was. Kael had always been himself—cold, distant, fierce. A power too strong for this world, and a conscience scarred by it.
“You’re a monster,” I whispered.
But he wasn’t a monster by choice. He was the monster the world had made.
Light cracked in his irises, blue fracturing like lightning over storm clouds. “I never said otherwise.”
My hand rose before I could stop it, tracing his jaw. His skin was cold, but underneath, the storm still burned. His stubble rasped against my fingers, grounding me in something painfully human.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice rough but steady, his gaze never breaking from mine.
I didn’t know. Maybe I wanted to forget. Forget the bodies beneath our feet, the truth rotting between us. For one breath, I wanted to just be, to share the same air, the same silence, the same unbearable closeness. His breath mingled with mine, uneven, charged.
I wanted to touch him until the truth disappeared.
Until guilt and grief drowned beneath the heat of it.
And maybe that made me just as monstrous.
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “Maybe trying to see the monster up close.”
His jaw tightened beneath my palm, a muscle flickering like restrained lightning. “You won’t like what you find.”
“Maybe not,” I breathed. “But I’d rather know the monster than pretend he isn’t there.”
Something shifted inside me, like a lock clicking open.
Because the truth was, I did like the monster, the part of him that didn’t hide behind duty or Court or guilt.
The part that burned too bright, too raw, too alive.
It terrified me, yes, but it was real. No mask.
No restraint. Just Kael Forloren, stripped of everything but the storm that made him.
And that was the part I wanted most.
I rose to my toes and kissed him softly. Our lips barely met before I whispered, “You saved the world, Kael. I understand now.”
I understood that there was no right answer, only an impossible choice. And somehow, that was enough. That was all there was to accept.
Kael kissed me again, fiercely this time, breath hot, desperate, alive.
His hands found my waist, lifting me easily, pinning me against the wall slick with blackness that smeared across my tunic.
I gasped, struggling to find my footing, until I stopped fighting and leaned into him.
The kiss deepened, teeth and tongue clashing, violent and necessary. Within seconds, my tunic was gone.
He set me down on a table slick with ash and tar, the surface cold against my skin. I didn’t care. All that existed was this, Kael’s hands, Kael’s breath, Kael reaching for me like redemption could be found beneath my skin.
He stripped me with grunts and growls, boots, breeches, everything gone under the scrape of his nails. Fear and desire collided inside me, sharp as thunder. The air was freezing, but I knew it wouldn’t be for long. Lightning always followed the storm.
Kael discarded his blade, then his armor, piece by piece, eyes never leaving mine. The cold meant nothing to him. Around us, vines hissed and coiled, releasing sunlight that danced like fire across his skin.
In that light, he looked like a god sculpted from marble and fury.
I sat up and pressed my hands flat against his chest, tracing the lines of him, learning every inch by touch.
He stared down at me, hunger and disbelief warring in his expression. “Why are you still here?” he asked, voice low, cracked. “Why aren’t you running? Why do you still look at me like that?”
I met his gaze, steady and certain. “Because I want you. Every part of you.”
A low growl rumbled in his chest. He pulled me closer and kissed me until my lips burned.
“You quiet the storm, Evangelina,” he whispered between breaths. “But you can also unleash it until it consumes us both.”
“Then let it consume us,” I breathed.
He released me to slide his breeches and undergarments down. His cock rose before me, hard and glistening with his desire. I yearned for him to bury it inside me, to feel even closer to him.
Though this was absolutely the wrong place, I knew it was the right time.
His eyes flared white. Bolts danced along his skin and mine, but there was no pain, only acceptance.
I let the energy crackle along my skin, his hands following its path, his lips taking mine once more.
Kael entered me slowly, pushing all the way until I swallowed him whole.
“You take it so well, my love,” he breathed into my ear.
The words hit like a spark to dry tinder. My breath caught, my pulse stuttered, and for a heartbeat I forgot the world was burning. I thought I’d imagined it—a trick of breath and madness. But the words lingered, my love, spreading through me like a haze that refused to fade.
He moved inside me, his arms clutching me tightly, increasing the pace with every breath.
As I closed my eyes, I released the chains and let my power flow.
I expected echoes to flood through me, but this time they came gently, like spring rain instead of a storm.
Acceptance dulled their claws. The moment I’d stopped fighting them, they’d stopped fighting me.
The darkness was still there, whispering beneath the surface, but its grip loosened. In that moment, there was only us, two souls entwined, bound by powers older than the gods, caught in a storm of our own making.
My moans echoed against the walls of the keep.
Soon, they were matched by the storm inside him, releasing fully, uncontrolled and untamed.
Lightning crashed against the stones, thunder rolled inside, but it was neither blinding nor deafening.
It was beautiful, wild and alive, the storm answering the rhythm of our bodies, lighting the darkness that consumed this place.
It dimmed the screams, the agony, the groans until we both could no longer hear them.
For once, neither of us restrained what we were.
His chaos met my surrender, and in that collision, there was peace. Finally.
Kael seized me again, lifting me up and flipping me over.
As his cock left me, the world turned ice cold.
He pressed gently on my back, guiding me to bend over the table.
Then he entered me once more, bringing warmth back to my bones, reaching even deeper than before.
So deep that it hurt, yet I savored every strike of pain deep within me.
I moaned, or rather, screamed, as he thrust, pushed, and pressed faster. Our skin met in slaps, my wetness echoing his movements. The sound of the music we made merged with the sound of a storm, rising stronger.
His fingers laced through my hair, and he clenched. He yanked me once, forcing me to look ahead. One hand in my hair, one hand digging deep into my hip, he took me harder and harder.
I felt it, the promise of release again, my blood boiling as the storm tore through me. Drachenfels flared to life, Kael's lightning striking the vines until they hissed, the blackness receding, swallowed by the storm.
Suddenly, he withdrew and flipped me over to face him. He lifted me onto the table, burying himself inside me once more. “I want to see your face break when you come apart on my cock.”
Yet he did not move just then. Instead, he hooked his arms under my knees, set his hands under my thighs for support, and lifted me while still inside me. He carried me, moving again, thrusting hard as we stood at the center of the keep, bathed in white lightning.
My head lolled back as I moaned, screamed his name, and uttered incoherent sounds. He reached so deep it felt like he would tear me apart, and that was exactly what drove me to release.
I dug my fingers into his shoulders, sending bolts of energy back and forth between our hearts.
My vision slowly turned white. I looked at him, and for the first time, I saw right through him—the real him.
His eyes blazed with light, spilling from their sockets.
His skin had taken on the color of storm clouds, alive and shifting.
Lightning crackled around us, striking the walls, the floor, my skin.
And then he was gone, or maybe everywhere at once.
No longer a man, but the storm itself, and I was completely at his mercy as I came apart.
I was gently laid on the ground, writhing and moaning as the orgasm still rippled through me in waves of raw pleasure.
When it left me, the echoes of faces flashed through my eyes.
All forgotten people, forgotten whispers.
I saw pain, disarray, and souls screaming to be heard, longing desperately to be acknowledged.
And somehow, it felt important, like a clue on how to banish the blight.
Strong arms enveloped me as the storm faded.
Kael, still inside me, came apart, holding me, kissing me.
Strands of his seed leaked at my deepest, and I dug my nails into his back.
The last of his light dimmed as we lay entwined on the floor of Drachenfels, submerged in darkness once more.
When the storm finally stilled, all that remained was truth.
Raw, bare, and binding. No more walls, no more masks.
In the hush that followed, we finally met, not as storm, echoes, and flesh, but as ourselves.