Chapter 26
Evie
Iknew it was neither the place nor the time, but I had to say something.
I had to tell His Majesty that I knew, and if I knew, it was only a matter of time before someone else would know too.
I knew it was foolish. I knew the king, least of all the magisters, would want to keep this secret buried for eternity and let it rot.
Whether they were ready to face what they had done was a fight I could not win. But I had to say something.
The groans hadn’t left my mind since we’d fled Drachenfels. Since we’d returned to Befest on Kael’s horse, silent as stones. I felt these poor souls scratching at my thoughts, aching to be heard, acknowledged, thanked. Their presence surrounded me like walls no force could break.
And Kael had no idea how much it ate at me. So much so that the threat of an imminent siege felt almost benign. He told me to head to the lower halls for shelter, but all I wanted was to return to that mountain and make it right. Somehow.
The souls needed peace. I had no idea how to give it to them, but I felt I could if they only let me.
Let it lie, he had said. I could not.
I saw the storm in his eyes, the one I had grown to know deeply, the one I had even learned to tame. It looked like pure blue fire, like the fires of hell. He was going to leave no survivors.
Just like at Drachenfels Keep.
Did Dereck Thorne deserve it?
Because of this man, this earl, the kingdom had fractured, and many had turned to violence in desperation.
Part of his propaganda was to claim the cure was a curse, and many perished even after it had spread across the kingdom.
Because of him, feeding on fearful hearts, countless lives that could have been saved were lost.
But who were we to say that death by lightning was proper punishment?
It was the same story again.
Drachenfels had taught me that nothing was simple.
No one was wholly guilty or wholly innocent, not even the ones who died screaming in those tainted halls.
The echoes there had shown me pieces of lives twisted by fear, by duty, by the kind of choices people only make when the world is already burning.
Good men did terrible things. Monsters wept.
And I kept wanting to believe that if someone suffered enough, there should be a line drawn somewhere, a point where punishment turned into cruelty.
But if I looked at it honestly, most of us crossed that line long before we realized it.
Dereck Thorne had been cruel, yes. He had fed the fire until it swallowed half the kingdom.
Yet even now, when I pictured Kael’s lightning catching in the air, I wondered if any mortal deserved that kind of end.
The echoes that haunted me whispered otherwise.
They whispered that justice was never clean, that vengeance only ever wore feigned righteousness.
Maybe that was why Drachenfels had become the source of the blight.
The souls trapped there had not been wicked.
Not all of them. Some had followed orders.
Some had believed lies. Some had been too afraid to run.
Some had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And in the end, they had all suffered and burned the same.
Secrets this dark didn’t come undone because one small magister dared to speak.
And still… Saying nothing felt worse.
There were no right choices. Only the ones that hurt less. Only the ones you could live with in the morning.
Maybe Dereck Thorne deserved lightning. Maybe he didn’t. But in the end, Kael would make the choice no one else wanted to make. Just as he had in Drachenfels. Just as he would again.
And I was finally starting to understand something I had fought for weeks.
Having no choice… was still a choice.
One the living made.
One the dead never had.
One I would have to make soon, whether I liked it or not. By letting it lie.
Was I capable of that?
I reached the south tower, a scurry of courtiers rushing down the coiled staircase toward the lower halls. Fear pressed around us like too-tight walls. I scanned the crowd for anyone familiar. Bramwell was up ahead with the other chancellors. Then my eyes met Lo’s.
A flicker of joy swelled in my chest. It felt good to see him.
He hurried toward me, breath short, cheeks flushed. Even with panic smudging the edges of him, his tousled hair still left him looking unfairly impeccable.
“Evie, where have you been?” His voice pitched high, not theatrical this time, only frightened.
I realized I hadn’t seen him since the day before. “It’s a long story.” One I had no time to tell.
We were swept together into the line as it funneled down the stairs.
“I’ve been worried sick!” he said, clutching my sleeve like I might vanish. “Kael found you, didn’t he? What happened up there?” His tone wavered between concern and outrage, as if torn between scolding me or fainting.
Would I tell him about Drachenfels? Was I now part of the secret, bound to honor it?
“I can’t tell you now, Lo. We have to get to safety.”
He blinked at me, wild-eyed. “What is happening, Evie?”
What? He didn’t know?
“They told us to head down the south tower into the dungeon for shelter,” he said, panic rising like a tide. “It’s Dereck Thorne, isn’t it? He’s actually coming, now, tonight?”
Lo could be dramatic, yes, but this wasn’t for show. His fear was real, raw, clinging to him like a second skin.
I nodded.
We moved down the coiled steps. The air thickened with dread. We would pass the armory before reaching the dungeon. Everyone walked slowly, but I could feel it in the crowd, that tenuous edge. One wrong word, one stumble, and the whole descent would collapse into a stampede.
I glanced through the open doors to the armory, a large circular chamber where steel and blackiron adorned the walls and shelves.
Hundreds of soldiers swarmed through the gates on the opposite side, streaming back up to the castle.
They shuffled in tight formation, the clank of metal a steady rhythm in their well-practiced march. Only one remained behind.
Kael.
We moved so slowly that I could take a good look at him. He stood with his back to me, shirtless, muscles shifting beneath the lightning scar that cut across his skin. He had half his reinforced leather armor strapped on and seemed to stare at himself in the reflection of a blackiron shield.
We headed down more stairs.
Suddenly, the urge to be close to Kael seized me. My feet moved on their own.
“Go, Lo. I’ll be there in a moment,” I said, giving him no chance to protest.
“Evie! Where are you going?” he shouted behind me as I pushed through the press of bodies, climbing back up.
Surprise followed the echoes of my footsteps until I slipped free of the crowd and into the armory.
The air inside was cool and metallic, carrying the faint bite of oil and old battles. Racks lined the curved walls, empty of weapons that normally stood in tight formation like silent sentries. Some swords remained, their edges catching the torchlight in sharp, unforgiving glints.
It wasn’t chaotic like the halls outside. It wasn’t loud. This chamber held purpose, weight, a history of being used rather than displayed.
Kael turned when he heard my steps. His expression shifted from calm to a scowl. “What are you doing here?”
“Nice to see you too.” Humor was always better than awkwardness.
But what was I doing here? I didn’t know. All I knew was that I didn’t want to be away from him.
Maybe I wanted to climb back up with him and stand at his side. Maybe I wanted to bear witness to his storm when it struck the rioters.
Maybe I just needed to see that what had happened between us, in Stenhalla and in Drachenfels Keep, had been real.
“I will stand with you,” I said, firm and clear so he would have no room to refuse. “And do not dare tell me to hide. I want to be here when you fight them.”
He frowned. “Why?”
Yes, Evie. Why?
Because the answer lived beneath my skin, hot and restless, clawing upward ever since the mountain.
Because something in me had shifted the moment I’d watched him walk through storm and ruin without flinching.
Because the power inside him had stopped frightening me and started calling to me instead.
But it was more than that.
I knew why.
I didn’t want to be alone with the past anymore.
His power drowned the noise. His presence calmed the echoes. His storm was the only thing stronger than my fear.
I wanted that again.
Not his protection.
Not his pity.
I wanted the truth of him. The raw, terrible force that everyone else feared, and I somehow understood.
I drew a breath, steadying the quiver in my voice.
Because I cannot hide while you fight.
Because I would rather face lightning beside you than shadows without you.
And because, gods forgive me… I am not afraid of your storm.
Those were the words that trembled in my chest.
But what I said was only this, quiet and bare, “Because I don’t want to face this alone.”
He stepped toward me, drawing closer, towering over me. “So you are willing to stand in the eye of the storm just for some company?” His tone held a quiet condescension that pinched at my heart.
“It is where it is safest, isn’t it, the eye of the storm?” I whispered, meeting his beautiful blue eyes.
“Why aren’t you running?” he growled, so close his voice made my bones vibrate. “Why do you still look at me like that?” He'd asked this before.
“Do you hate it?”
“No.”
“Do you hate what happened between us? Do you hate what I saw in Drachenfels? Do you hate it as much as what you did?” I knew he didn’t. I only wanted to wrench the truth out of him. I wanted him to face it as I had.
That the past did not define us. That the choices we made did not bind who we were today.
That if he accepted it as I had, something else might take root in the hollow it left.
Love, perhaps. Or was I being foolish?
Thunder began to pour from his irises. I could not tell whether it was anger or something else. He walked me backward, step by step, until my back struck the wall. I was not sure I would survive him this time, his storm, his fury, but I wanted to find out.
“I would never hate anything of what happened between us,” he said at last, his voice so dark it could have turned me to ash.
“Then stop pretending you do.” Defiance rose in me like fire. “I’m not the one who is running. You are. From yourself. From your power and everything you think you did. And that is exactly why the storm is always so furious.”
He stroked my face with a gentleness that did not match his eyes, then slid his fingers through my hair and tugged, hard, opening my neck for him. “Since when are you so wise, Magister?” He kissed my neck, then sank his teeth into me.
I yelped. He pressed a hand to my mouth to hush me, pouring his furious gaze into mine.
“You shall stay here, safe and sound, because if something happens to you, my love, I will turn this entire fucking kingdom to ash.”
My love.
Was he aware he had said that?
His hand slipped from my mouth and seized my neck. Our lips crashed together in a furious, hungry kiss.
When we tore apart and I caught my breath, I felt it. The tip of a blade right between my ribs. His dagger, pointed at me.
“They could push a blade deep within your skin.”
I shivered.
He drew the dagger back and sheathed it, then caught my throat with both hands. He pushed hard. Air fled my lungs.
“They could strangle you until you cough blood.”
He held me there, my throat contracting in desperation, until the black began to close in at the edges of my sight.
Then he let me go and used his magic to pin me to the wall. Lightning danced along his arm until it spread to his fingertips.
I wasn’t fast enough to release my power.
The bolt struck my skin, hitting the scar on my shoulder as though it were a conduit.
It hurt. Incredibly so.
I fell to my knees, clutching my shoulder, tears threatening to spill.
“Or I could accidentally unleash my storm on you,” Kael said at last, staring down at me.
Then he kneeled in front of me and gathered me into his arms as I tried and failed to dry my tears. My head found the crook of his chest and he held me tight. His scent—leather and cedars—wrapped around me like a warm blanket, and for a moment everything felt right again.
“I don’t know how to love you without breaking you, Evie,” he whispered against my temple like a confession, his hand sliding through my hair. “So you’d better stay here.”
Then we both heard it. A loud boom. Like a boulder crashing into stone. The ground shook above us. Screams and shouts echoed somewhere far away.
Kael rose to his feet. “That is my cue. The siege has begun.” He paused as he looked at me. He seemed to hesitate, and I caught a flicker of deep sadness in his eyes. “Stay away from me, Evie. As you said yourself, the storm is always so furious.”
He dressed and left. Just like that. He took the coiled stairs leading up, and I was alone in the armory, the lightning scar on my shoulder burning beneath my clothes.
Tears spilled freely. Was that it? Were we done?
Another boom shook the ground and walls.
Had us making love under his storm not proven to him that this was possible?
That we were possible?
To the abyss with you, Kael, I thought.
I knew what he felt for me. I had always known. And now, finally, I could admit the truth to myself.
He did not know how to love me without breaking me? Then he would have to learn. Because I wasn’t about to let him go.
I was falling for him, so we might as well fall together.
I rose to my feet. The ground shook again. When it steadied, I rushed up the coiled staircase.
The shouts above grew sharper as I climbed. A storm was about to break over the castle, and Kael would be at its heart. I pressed a hand to my burning shoulder and kept climbing.
If he thought I would stay behind, he had forgotten who I was.
I was done running from storms. I would walk straight into his.