Chapter Nineteen
Power always finds a way
To call its hungers duty’s name
The sun finally slips beneath the horizon.
Not all at once, and definitely not mercifully.
But enough. Enough that the air loosens its grip on Elyssara’s lungs.
Enough that the sand stops burning through leather and bone.
Enough that shadows stretch long and forgiving across the outskirts of Azhareth.
Relief comes in pieces here. Never whole.
They crest a low rise and the city reveals itself—not just the pale stone walls that shroud Azhareth, but the sprawl beneath them.
Low homes pressed tight together. Canvas and clay and half-built stone. Cooking fires already lit. Children moving barefoot through dust that never quite settles.
This is not the advanced, wealthy continent Caeloria is sold as—this is the overspill of those who didn’t make it inside the walls.
“The Outside,” Kael murmurs, the words spilling from his lips in a low, solemn admission.
The Outside.
Elyssara’s eyes drag across the structures intended to be homes, but snag on a long line of people holding empty buckets.
A breath catches in her throat.
But before she can ask—
“Water rations,” Kael explains. “A bucket for each family.”
But that’s not what Elyssara wants to know. That much she’d already gathered.
“And inside?” she presses, already knowing the answer.
“No limits,” Kael mutters.
Elyssara’s eyes drift closed in resignation—because leaders may be different, but their power always looks the same.
“And what determines if someone lives inside or outside the walls?” Elyssara snaps.
Kael doesn’t hesitate. “Usefulness to the crown,” he spits, disgust coating his words. “If you’re useful to the Crown, you live inside. If you’re necessary but invisible, you may work inside, but you will always live outside.”
Power always looks the same.
“So this wall is celebrated as safety, but it’s really just another way of having people crawl for the Crown?” Elyssara shakes her head in disgust.
“The walls have nothing to do with safety, El—they’re about selection,” Kael growls, and even in the fading light, Elyssara can see the veins that blacken at his neck.
Those who didn’t make the cut.
Those who are forced into a life beyond the boundary.
Elyssara feels it immediately—the difference between poverty born of scarcity, and poverty engineered by power.
Kael slows without a word. Elyssara follows suit, alert but calm. The heat still clings to her skin, but the edge has dulled. Her head clears just enough to notice the way Kael’s jaw tightens.
“Relax your posture. We don’t need to look any more like a threat than we already do,” he says, moving steadily on both feet despite the hunger. The thirst.
“We are a threat,” Elyssara says through gritted teeth, stumbling slightly, but ready. “And I don’t care who knows it.”
Kael stiffens incrementally. “Here… you should.”
Elyssara swallows thickly, but silence is all she offers.
They walk for a while.
At the sight of their weapons and leathers, people of the boundary pull threadbare curtains over exposed window frames—as if that could keep out danger.
Parents shout for their children already hiding in abandoned structures.
Doors slam shut.
And the Outside descends into an endless hush.
The kind of quiet that precedes danger.
Elyssara feels it settle over her skin like judgment—not fear of what she might do, but certainty of what power always does.
They stop before a small dwelling set back from the others, half-hidden behind a low wall of stacked stone. A pot simmers over a fire outside, steam curling into the cooling air.
Kael moves toward the small home.
Elyssara follows, but her eyes catch on an older woman through the window—tawny skin, deep creases at the corners of her eyes from a life spent smiling, eyes of rich chocolate.
Her home flickers with candlelight, and the sound of conversation over a meal.
Her laughter spills from the room as her head tips back in unbridled joy. The woman’s midnight-black hair falls in long, cascading waves down her back, and Elyssara smiles. Smiles, because finding happiness in darkness is the greatest rebellion against oppression—it reminds her of Ronyn.
“Here,” Kael says, and strides toward the splintered door only half-hanging on its hinges.
For the first time since the desert, his shoulders ease. This place seems natural to him.
The door flies open before he can reach for it, and the woman steps forward without hesitation, her body crashing into his with the kind of intensity that only comes from missing someone with your whole being.
She draws back and cups his face in both hands before he can stop her, thumbs pressing into his cheeks like she’s confirming he’s real.
“You’re thinner,” she says, though not unkindly. No, she says it with fondness. Familiarity.
He huffs a breath that might be a laugh. “You say that every time, Aunt Kiva.”
Aunt Kiva.
The words land like a war hammer.
Kael never speaks of family. Certainly never from Caeloria.
“That’s because it’s always true, my boy,” she laughs, looking up at him from her petite stature. “Well, come in. Must be serious business if you’ve come back.”
Kiva spins in the doorway, relaxed in Kael’s presence, despite the narrowed eye she keeps on Elyssara.
“I can offer you day-old bread. No water to spare today,” Kiva says, already dragging a knife through the too-stiff loaf.
“We gratefully accept anything you can offer,” Kael says, bowing his head in gratitude.
A towering, gruff man pushes himself up from a low-lying chair. “Kael,” the man grunts, extending his forearm.
“Uncle Laryn,” Kael acknowledges, gripping his arm in a warrior’s embrace and with softness in his eyes.
The man towers over Kael—pushing seven feet, and barely able to stand without hitting the rafters.
His textured onyx hair is woven into intricate braids, and pulled back in a tail.
Black ink bleeds into his rich umber skin like a story half-hidden and half-revealed.
But it’s not just his height or his burly build that fills the room—it’s his presence.
Stoic, unwavering, completely at home within himself.
“Well, I know you’re not here to see your aunt and uncle, so what business do you have in Azhareth?” Laryn teases, though there’s a seriousness to his tone—one that belies his calm exterior.
His eyes rake over Elyssara, taking her in, and it unsettles her. Like she’s being measured. Assessed.
Kael notices the way Kiva and Laryn’s gazes snag on her. The way they refuse to exhale fully in her presence.
“This is Elyssara Dawnmere, Rightful Queen of Dravara,” Kael announces, though he pitches his voice low.
Elyssara offers a small, awkward smile, still unsure how to greet people when her title is used.
“Thought as much,” Kiva says, voice unimpressed but kind. She inclines her head in a curt nod. “We may live on the Outside, but news of the Lightborne still travels. We know who you are, dear.”
Elyssara steps through the threshold of the small home. “Thank you for opening your home to us.”
But Kiva waves a dismissive hand. “Kael’s family—that’s what we do.” She glares at Kael, branding him with her stare. “Even if it has been years since he last visited.”
Kael huffs a laugh. “Your admonishments are nothing if not predictable.”
Kiva places a wooden chopping block of lightly buttered bread on a small table, and without looking up, she says, “Well, you deserve them.”
But Elyssara has too many questions to sit in idle conversation.
“Why do you live in Caeloria?” she says, almost like an accusation, the words slipping from her lips without thought.
She claps a hand over her mouth. “Forgive me, I don’t mean to be so forward.
I’m… probably just hungry or something.” She reaches for the bread, shoving it in her mouth in one large gulp.
Perhaps it’ll stop her from speaking.
Kiva’s mouth quirks up at the side. “Yes, you do.” She shifts her gaze to Kael, eyes glinting. “She’s just like her.”
Hold on. Who?
Kael can’t help the smirk that lifts his mouth. “Has her temper, too.”
“I’m right here,” Elyssara tries to retort despite a mouthful of bread.
Laryn barks a laugh, slapping his thigh. “Not many could rival Yvesha’s fury.”
Yvesha.
Elyssara can’t swallow the bread down fast enough, but before she can speak, Kael adds, “The same fire in her eyes. The same call to justice. The same defiance in the face of false power.” His eyes lock on Elyssara’s.
Elyssara knows that look—the one that will own her until the Stars themselves come for her.
She swallows down the bread, too dry after gods know how long with less than a canteen of water.
“Who is Yvesha?” Elyssara asks tentatively. But boldness grabs her tongue. “She sounds wonderful, if you ask me.”
“My sister.”
“My mother.”
Kiva and Kael speak over each other, but their tones have the same warmth. The same fondness.
Kael’s mother.
Kiva’s sister.
She sees it then. The slight slant to Kael’s eyes that match Kiva’s. The golden hue to his skin that is more than warmth granted by the sun.
Then, it hits her. “She was from Caeloria.” Her eyes snap to Kael’s. “You are from Caeloria.”
Kael, Laryn, and Kiva offer sad nods. As if the grief of losing her still bleeds. As if home is lost to them.
“From the Outside?” Elyssara asks, still trying to piece it all together.
“No,” Kiva says, more firmly this time. “We were a family of nobility. Of pride. Of power. Yvesha and I were ladies-in-waiting for Her Majesty Queen Maireth.” Kiva’s words taper off into bitterness.
“That was until King Aurius of The Shadow Wastes walked through the walls of Azhareth Castle and did not have eyes for Queen Maireth as her Royal Highness had planned, but Yvesha instead,” Kiva explains, allowing the words to hang in the air.
Elyssara’s eyes snap up. “She cast you out because a foreign king loved your sister?” she asks, her incredulity suffocating the room.