Chapter Thirty
The hunter studies every track
Beware the prey that watches back
Rhaema tugs at the fabric draped across Elyssara’s shoulder in a sharp line, pinning it with the precision of hands that have worried at seams for a lifetime.
The gown is rust silk, molten as copper, crossing her chest before sweeping over her left shoulder.
Her Lightborne mark spills out the side of the fabric—a gleaming reminder of exactly who she is.
The structured waist and asymmetrical neckline give her the appearance of strength, fortitude.
Of someone intentional—someone who knows exactly what wearing rust among Caelorian royalty means.
But it’s the flowing back train with a long, thigh-high split that transforms her defiance into more than just a statement—this turns her into a weapon. A moving flame when she walks. The Lightborne.
“Hold this in place,” Rhaema directs, passing a bejeweled mask. Elyssara takes it in. It looks to be made of black volcanic glass, the edges sweeping out like the wings of a great bird. Swirls of molten copper filigree wind and weave in intricate patterns at the edges.
Elyssara lifts the delicate mask, holding it over her face.
A low, appreciative rumble vibrates in Kael’s throat. “You look fucking perfect,” he practically groans, his ocean-lightning eyes drinking her in like a man starved.
His praise still makes her core tighten. The reverence in his voice, the adoration in his eyes.
“Watch your mouth, boy. You’re not in the bathhouse anymore,” Rhaema grouses, though there’s an undeniable fondness in her tone.
But Kael moves to Elyssara despite his great aunt.
His calloused hands grip her hips, trailing up her back. “You will make the most spectacular fucking queen, my love,” he murmurs, his eyes catching on her stained lips.
Rhaema stills for half a heartbeat at the words. Like hearing hope spoken aloud frightens her more than war ever could.
Kael lifts his hands to the silk copper ribbons of her mask. “Allow me,” he breathes, as he drops his mouth to her neck, and lays soft, indulgent kisses across the bare expanse of her shoulder.
Gooseflesh breaks out across her skin, and a moan slips past her lips involuntarily.
“Holy gods, you two,” Rhaema complains, snapping her eyes away in mock disgust.
Kael chuckles. A rich, hearty laugh that makes Elyssara’s stomach clench.
He’s so beautiful when he’s disarmed. So reverent. So playful.
Something she hasn’t seen since the Battle of Kryntar.
Like this, she can almost pretend they are simply two people getting ready for a celebration instead of war. Almost pretend they still have time.
“If you ruin that dress before the ball, girl, you’re walking into the palace naked,” Rhaema quips.
She shakes her head like she’s trying to erase the image.
“I’ll get the other costume,” she says to no one in particular, stumbling over the bolts of fabric strewn across the floor and workbenches in her haste to leave.
“Try not to burn the realms down before I get back,” she mutters under her breath.
But there’s pride buried beneath the complaint.
Kael uses the moment alone to spin Elyssara so her back presses against the broad expanse of his chest. The heat of him—the strength, the power, the hunger of hands that know so much violence—seems to have its own gravitational pull.
Because she leans into him, drops her head back on his shoulder, as he moves forward until his mouth finds her neck again.
Their bodies move as one. Like Starbound lovers connected by mind, heart, and form.
He ties the silk in place over her cascading auburn hair that tumbles freely down to her waist.
“You are a divine vision, my queen,” he praises, pushing her hair further over her shoulder and kissing the nape of her neck again with heat and hunger. “You are a queen for the people.”
She’s thought about being queen endlessly since that day in Starlit Grove. Since the day the Obsidian Crown showed her the fallen monarchy. Her mother running for her life as Thalmyr’s family removed the Dawnmere’s from their rule. Thought about the kind of ruler she’d like to be.
Because from everything she’s seen, rulership and leadership are rarely the same thing.
Rulers sit above their people. Leaders stand among them.
A ruler forces loyalty. A leader earns it.
Elyssara has seen what happens when power forgets the people it claims to protect. Hunger in the slums while palaces overflow with silk and wine. Children conscripted in the name of duty, rather than naming it for what it really is: dominion. Truth buried so deeply even memory cannot reach it.
If she is to wear a crown, it will not be as someone distant and untouchable.
It will be as someone who remembers.
It will be as someone who serves the people of her godsforsaken kingdom.
Rhaema stumbles back through the workshop, huffing in agitation at the lack of space.
Not that anyone is stupid enough to tell her that she’s the one who put it there.
“Kael, your costume is ready. Put it on out there, would you? I don’t need to walk back into you two doing it on my godsdamned workbench,” she snaps, pointing to the side room she just emerged from, but her irritation is superficial.
Kael’s lips lift into a smirk. He presses another indulgent kiss to Elyssara’s shoulder. “Of course, Rhae,” he mocks.
His hand never leaves her waist for long. Like some part of him is always checking she’s still there.
Kael strides across the room, easily navigating the tumbled fabrics, in the same way he strides everywhere: like he owns it.
He always does. He moves like a man who grew up knowing he’d be king. A man trained in the art of presentation and performance. For Elyssara, she feels just like she did in Virellin—a fraud pretending to be respectable. A thief pretending to be queen.
Kael wears royalty like a second skin.
Elyssara still feels like she stole hers from the grave.
“There’s no room for doubt in Maireth’s court, Elyssara,” Rhaema interrupts, her voice harsh and unforgiving.
Elyssara nods. “I know.”
“Then you’d better wipe that look off your face in a heartbeat, girl, because Maireth can smell the fear on you from the castle.”
Is she really that obvious?
Elyssara’s barely held composure fractures. “What do you think she’s planning?”
Rhaema lets out a heavy sigh. A defeated sigh. The kind of sigh built up from years of watching her network of rebels be defeated by the scale and efficiencies of massive political and military efforts. “Something you’ll never see coming,” she admits, her voice solemn. “Something diabolical.”
Irritation flares in Elyssara’s chest. “Like what, Rhaema? Prepare me!” she snaps.
But Rhaema doesn’t flinch, she takes a steady breath in, settling herself before answering.
“I can’t. Not really. Wherever you’re looking, is exactly where she wants you to look.
Wherever you’re not looking, is exactly what she wants you to miss.
Maireth is calculated, cunning, the kind of woman the gods themselves fear. ”
Somehow, hearing this unflinching woman so defeated, a knot forms in Elyssara’s gut. She swallows thickly. But Elyssara can’t crumble. Not here. Not now. Not when she’s so close.
“What kind of woman is she? What are her weaknesses?” Elyssara asks, pulling her shoulders back and forcing herself to stand a little taller.
Rhaema’s eyes settle sharply on Elyssara—so deeply they might bore a hole straight through her.
“She is a woman so brutal she would have three-day long watching parties for captured rebels while they die of dehydration and sun-sickness in the desert. The kind of woman who would sterilize women on the Outside to breed out weakness. The kind of woman who would use her own son as a decoy in Thornewood, knowing he would never survive Kael. She is the kind of woman who would do all of that and still sleep soundly.”
The words hang in the air, bitter and repugnant.
Elyssara’s stomach roils, knowing this is not the extent of Maireth’s brutality, but the very beginning.
But Rhaema keeps going. “She does not have weaknesses, Elyssara, for she has no heart. She is not human. She can’t be.
She does not flinch in the face of death.
Does not mourn in the face of loss. Does not react.
At all. She is the picture of calculated calm.
If she has a weakness, I have not found it in decades of looking. ”
Holy fucking Stars.
Gods know Rhaema has spent half her life looking.
Elyssara’s mind reels at Rhaema’s words. Reels at the reality of what she’s walking into. The woman she will be meeting. But before panic sets in, the door to the backroom creaks open, and Kael steps into full view.
Black.
Not simply dark fabric, but the absence of light itself. Matte silk layered over structured leather, a long coat falling to his calves like a spill of midnight.
And above it—obsidian.
A narrow crown rests against his dark hair, its glass-black points catching the lanternlight in cold reflections. From it descends a mask carved in the same stone, sharp and angular, framing the line of his cheekbones.
Elyssara blinks.
A king.
Rhaema has dressed him like the Shadowweave King of Zerynthia.
Gods, he’s mesmerizing. All sharp lines, and rugged edges.
A light stubble graces his face, his piercing ocean-lightning eyes pulse through the mask like lighthouses calling her home, and the long coat fits his frame with such precision it draws her eyes straight to his broad shoulders, the full presence of his honed body.
“We’re making quite the statement,” she says finally, mouth going dry at the sight of him.
Kael’s mouth curves faintly.
“That was always the plan.”
He looks down at his sleeves. “I almost thought I’d be wearing the frilly sleeves Ronyn wants to see me in,” he adds, trying to keep the mood light.
Rhaema smiles, but it’s not one of triumph. It’s one of resignation.
So Kael changes the topic.
His eyes snap up to Elyssara’s, interrupting her long-held stare.
“As much as I enjoy your ogling, El. I just received word from Teddy,” he says, gesturing to his amulet.
Elyssara’s eyes blow wide.
This can’t be good.
“The threvenar is distorted. Engineered for permanency using a resin from Caeloria. It’s Maireth, El.
She’s the one supplying it,” he says, voice low and restrained.
Because he knows what this means to her.
Knows that this means that Maireth is responsible for supplying Thalmyr with the substance that stole Dravara’s memories. And her throne.
“I asked Seren to be on alert to Gateway us out of the vaults,” Kael adds. “She said she found the witches, but she’s staying in Nymeris. Elandor can get her something from inside Azhareth Castle to use to direct the Gateway.”
Elyssara nods, settled and slow.
“She found the witches,” she repeats, a spark of happiness blooming in her chest in place of the cold, sinking dread of facing Maireth.
“I don’t think it went well,” Kael offers gently. “But El? We need to focus. Because Maireth is stealing memories from the realms, and we’re walking straight into her godsdamned home.”
Fuck.
Elyssara nods, shaking thoughts of Seren from her mind.
It’s happening. They’re walking into Maireth’s snare.
And that’s when she knows for sure: this is a trap.
And they will walk into it anyway.