Chapter 23 Sebastian
Sebastian
Days passed.
On the surface, things fell back into rhythm after Lirra left. The castle moved the way it always did. Guards rotated. Reports came in. Plans began forming before the last ones had even settled. It should have felt like control again.
It didn’t.
Because Violet didn’t settle.
The bond had changed. There was pressure in it now. A constant, underlying hum that hadn’t been there before. Her power sat closer to the surface, no longer buried deep and waiting to be dragged out. It pressed outward, restless, testing the edges of her control.
I had hoped crowning herself would make it easier for her.
It didn’t.
It made everything louder.
The realization didn’t come all at once. It settled in pieces. Because the only times I ever saw anything close to the truth of what she carried were accidents. Moments where instinct moved faster than thought.
I saw it most clearly the day we argued—when her focus wasn’t on control, but on me. On anger. On everything she wasn’t trying to hold together. That was when it slipped out, threading through the space around us.
The room grew warmer, every movement from her had wind pushing against my shadows, and even her skin glowed a little.
She didn’t notice.
Then, a few days later, Adar pushed too far during a strategy meeting. A careless comment, sharp enough to provoke.
Violet didn’t think.
The air thickened around the table, pressure building in a way that made even him still. A flicker of flame licked along the wall where there had been none a heartbeat before. Then she exhaled—and the force of it split the table clean in half.
Stress pulled it out of her too.
The constant weight of it—the maps, the messages, the quiet expectation pressing in from every direction. A realm waiting for her to decide how much of herself it was allowed to have.
At night, when she stood on the balcony and stared west, the bond hummed with restless heat, steady and insistent. Even the sky seemed to react—the stars dimming faintly around her, like they couldn’t decide which sky she belonged to anymore.
And every time it happened, she apologized.
Like she had done something wrong.
And then there were the moments she stopped guarding herself entirely.
Late. Quiet. When the world narrowed down to breath and skin. When she forgot—just for a moment—that she was supposed to be careful.
Her power expanded—smooth, vast, terrifying in its certainty. Heat moved in steady waves, in a way that made my shadows recoil on instinct.
More than once, I had to brace a hand against stone just to stay where I was, to keep from answering it with power just as dangerous.
And afterward, every time, she went still.
Like she had revealed more than she meant to.
I never said anything.
Not then.
But the gap between what she believed she could do and what she actually was kept widening, day by day.
She was holding herself back.
So between everything else in the past week—sending Achluos to watch the other realms, forcing patience in my dealings with the Flower Sovereign instead of simply taking what I needed, and managing the steady weight of the Night Realm—I studied her.
Constantly.
We trained in the mornings as I got into her mind, and gave her small influences.
I wanted her to recognize what it felt like to have an uninvited presence and push it out.
She was getting better at that. After, I always tried and failed to bring forth more of her powers.
She needed to learn control and not only awaken through emotion.
We always started the same—small manipulations of air and heat that stayed well within what she’d already proven she could do.
But the moment I pushed further, she’d shut down.
I also stopped pretending I knew better than her. I had spent too long deciding things for her under the excuse of protection—handling threats before they reached her, keeping information back until I understood it, making choices in the spaces where I thought she didn’t need to carry the weight.
I had watched too many people do that to her already.
I wasn’t going to be another one.
So I changed it.
Every meeting, she was there. Not seated beside me like something to be shielded, but across from me, part of the discussion.
When Bronwen spoke of supply routes, she heard it.
When Adar questioned strategies, she answered.
When we spoke of the other Sovereigns and what it would take to either align with them or survive them, nothing was filtered before it reached her.
Every instinct I had still pushed back against it—against letting her carry knowledge that could put a target on her back faster. Against giving the world more chances to reach her through what she knew instead of what she didn’t.
But I did it anyway.
Because she had been right.
She was not someone to manage.
She was a Sovereign.
And if I treated her like anything less, I would become exactly what I had always hated.
That didn’t make it easier to watch.
Now, Violet sat on the edge of the bed, elbows braced on her knees, staring at nothing.
“You’re worrying,” I said.
She startled slightly. “No, I’m not.”
I crossed the room anyway and dropped in front of her, close enough that she couldn’t avoid me. “You’ve been doing it all day.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s funny coming from the king of worrying.”
I ignored that and took her hands, turning them over like I could read something in her skin she wasn’t saying out loud. “What’s bothering you?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Everything.”
“Be specific.”
She hesitated, then said, “Transferring.”
I stilled. “Why?”
Her fingers tightened slightly in mine. “It’s not going to be simple. We aren’t going to see each other every day.”
I had been waiting for this.
There had just always been something more urgent standing in front of it.
“I think it has to do with Queen Mother’s lands,” I said. “I can transfer between other realms without issue, but her lands are in the direct path between our realms. We’ll find a way around it and make it work.”
Her shoulders loosened a fraction. “Good,” she murmured.
I watched her for a beat. “Now what?”
She didn’t hesitate this time. “Someone got in my head.”
My grip tightened before I could stop it.
“I know we’ve been training,” she went on. “But how can I be sure that I could stop them if they tried to make me hurt you?”
I forced my shadows to stay still. She needed me calm.
“If they could do that,” I said evenly, “don’t you think they would have already?”
She studied me. “You always have an answer,” she said.
“Yes,” I said. “So give me the next problem.”
“I need alliances. Treaties. I need to talk to realms that already hate us and convince them not to panic when they realize the Sun Realm is back.”
She pulled one hand free, dragging it through her hair. “And we don’t know how they’ll react when they find out the Sun and Night Sovereigns are… this.” Her eyes flicked to mine. “If that goes badly, we’re definitely looking at war. And I’m not ready for that.”
I had already run through those outcomes a hundred different ways.
None of them were clean.
“Is that all?” I asked.
She huffed a quiet breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “No.”
Of course not.
“I’m worried about Bronwen.”
That caught me off guard.
“Bronwen?” I repeated. “She’s safe. No one is getting into this castle to hurt her.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Violet shook her head, frustration tightening her voice again. “I’m worried about what she’s doing to herself. The way she shuts everything down, pushes it away like it doesn’t exist.” She swallowed. “One day it’s all going to come back at once. And when it does—”
She didn’t finish.
She didn’t need to.
I studied her for a moment, the way her mind moved from one problem to the next without pause, never settling long enough to breathe.
“Your mind never slows down, does it?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No.”
I believed her.
And that worried me more than anything else she’d said.
* * *
Dinner was supposed to be uneventful.
That was the lie we told ourselves every time we sat at a table together.
Violet sat at my right, her posture perfect in the way of someone holding too much inside their body.
Adar took the opposite side of the table, back straight, expression already carved into displeasure.
Bronwen arrived last—as usual—sweeping into the room like it belonged to her, which, functionally, it did.
This time, Finnel followed behind her, struggling slightly as he dragged something large beneath a heavy sheet.
Bronwen clapped her hands together. “I have a surprise for you, Vi!”
She didn’t wait for anyone to respond. She grabbed the sheet and ripped it away with dramatic flair.
Golden armor stood beneath it.
The candlelight caught immediately on the polished metal, sending warm reflections across the walls.
The breastplate was sculpted with subtle curves that followed the shape of a woman’s form without sacrificing protection, the gold etched with delicate lines that spread outward like rays of sunlight.
At the center of the chest, a phoenix had been engraved into the metal, its wings stretching across the armor as if it were about to rise into flight.
The shoulders flared outward slightly, layered like feathers.
It looked less like armor and more like a crown forged into steel.
Violet stood immediately.
She crossed the room without hesitation and stopped in front of it, studying the craftsmanship as she ran her fingers slowly down the breastplate.
Bronwen leaned over her shoulder. “Armor fit for the Sun Sovereign.”
Violet’s eyes softened as she traced the phoenix engraving.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “Thank you. How did you get it made so quickly?”
Bronwen waved a hand dismissively.
“Oh no. It’s been ordered for weeks now. You need to look the part.” Her smile widened. “I also have Miss Kalana making several gowns for you, but she’s taking particularly long right now.”
My shadows writhed.
I had gotten used to her in Night Realm clothes—dark fabrics, sharp lines, things that felt like they belonged beside me. The thought of her standing somewhere else, dressed like a ruler of a realm that wasn’t mine, stirred something uncomfortable deep in my chest.
Bronwen beamed proudly at the armor. “If we go to war, it will give you more protection.”
Adar’s fork touched his plate with that precise, deliberate sound that always meant he was about to ruin the evening.
“War will be pointless,” he said, not looking up.
Violet took her seat next to me, and I rested my hand on her.
“Why?” she asked. “Are my people not worth it?”
“What people?” He sliced into his meat with careful, surgical movements.
“I saw an empty castle and creatures crawl out of sand. Not fae. Not an army.” His eyes lifted at last. “Do you intend to rule a dead realm? Or are you planning to rely on Sebastian to fight for you while you sit on a throne made of memory?”
“Adar,” I warned.
He took a slow drink and set the goblet back into the exact ring it had left on the table. “Training is not enough. Heat is not enough. If you walk into a ruin assuming it will bow, it will kill you.” His gaze locked on Violet. “Or kill everyone around you.”
Her pulse jumped under my palm. Anger that was not mine rushed through me.
“Everyone?” Violet asked mildly. “I didn’t realize you cared.”
He didn’t answer.
The temperature in the room shifted.
Subtle at first. A breath brushing my shields. She could roast me and I wouldn’t blister—I lived beneath a dome of force that flexed without waiting for my permission. Adar wouldn’t burn either.
Bronwen would.
“Careful,” I murmured.
Not to Violet.
To the room. To the air that had just remembered what fire was.
“If you want me to respect you,” Adar said evenly, “earn it.”
Bronwen made a rough sound in her throat. “Enough.”
Violet laughed.
Soft. Bright.
Wrong.
Sweat beaded at her temple. “Respect isn’t something you get from men like you, Adar,” she said. “It’s something you take—and let them resent you for.”
The bond slammed into me with the copper tang of fury and the thin, razor edge of fear she would never admit to herself. Gold leaked into the ends of her hair like molten thread. Heat crept down the length of the table.
I moved before the heat could crest.
I drove an invisible shield down the length of the table, locking it into place around Bronwen. Wood groaned under the sudden pressure.
Violet. I spoke into the bond. Breathe with me.
She didn’t look away from Adar. Heat surged harder. My shields flexed.
Not for him, I sent. Not here. Breathe.
Her fingers curled into the linen. The light in her hair flared—bright, burning—then dimmed to blonde. Then flared again before disappearing completely.
The heat dropped a degree.
Then another.
Violet broke eye contact last—only when she decided she was finished.
I eased the shields down slowly.
Bronwen shot me a look that was both gratitude and accusation—you should have had that up before he opened his mouth—then tore into a piece of bread like it had personally offended her. Adar’s jaw shifted once.
Violet refilled her goblet with steady hands, but she didn’t drink.
She didn’t breathe either.
I didn’t look away from her.
Every flame in the room guttered and went out at once, plunging the hall into sudden, suffocating dark. It wasn’t just the absence of light—it was pressure. Like the room itself had drawn in a breath and refused to release it.
Her eyes lit the space instead.
Too bright.
Gold burned through the dim, sharp enough to catch on the edges of everything—table, glass, the line of her shoulders as she sat too still.
Her jaw locked. She still wasn’t breathing.
Heat gathered under her skin, visible now in the faint shimmer of air around her, like the beginning of something much larger than the room could hold.
“Violet,” I said.
No response.
The pressure climbed.
The air thinned, pulling tight in my lungs. Across the table, Adar coughed once—short, and involuntary.
“Violet,” I said again, sharper this time. “Breathe.”
Her fingers tightened around the stem of the goblet.
Nothing.
The room constricted another fraction. My shields pressed outward on instinct, but her power wasn’t lashing out. It was pulling in.
Taking.
“Out,” I snapped. “Now.”
Bronwen surged to her feet, grabbed Adar by the collar before he could protest, and dragged him toward the doors. They were gone in a sweep of motion, the door slamming open and shut in the same breath.
The second the room emptied—
Violet exhaled in a sharp, tearing gasp.
And the dining hall ignited.