Chapter 25 Violet
Violet
I couldn’t stop pacing.
The Night Realm’s garden had become familiar over the past week.
I knew which stones shifted underfoot, which flowers leaned toward warmth, which stretches of shadow cooled my skin when my power ran high—also known as where Sebastian’s shadows preferred to be when he wasn’t physically there.
I knew where the path curved without looking.
Today, none of it grounded me.
My clothes felt too tight, and the crown on my head grew heavier the longer it sat there.
“You’re going to carve a trench into my garden,” Sebastian said mildly from where he leaned against one of the low stone pillars.
“I can’t help it,” I snapped, pivoting too sharp causing the crown to almost fall before resuming the same tight stretch of path. “She could have come here. You asked her to come here.”
“I did.”
“And she refused.”
“No,” he corrected calmly. “She insisted we come there. That’s different.”
“That seems worse.”
His mouth curved. “The Flower Sovereign likes control. Likes appearances. Coming to the Night Realm would put her at a disadvantage, and she knows it.”
I adjusted my crown again. “I don’t like that she’s setting the stage. I don’t like walking into her realm again. And I really don’t like that this is happening at all.”
He pushed off the pillar and crossed the space between us before I could start another lap. His hands closed gently around mine.
“You’re ready,” he said.
I searched his face, trying to decide whether I believed him. “Do you feel that,” I asked, “or do you want that?”
“Yes.”
The answer was immediate.
I let out a weak huff of laughter. “That’s not comforting.”
He squeezed my hands once. “We’ve trained every day for a week. You’re releasing instead of suppressing. You’re not spiking. Adar’s remarks haven’t caused you to burn down another room in the castle.” A pause. “And you haven’t apologized for your power in three days.”
I hadn’t even realized that last part.
“We can’t wait,” he continued, his voice lowering slightly.
“The longer we delay, the more room we give rumors to take root. The easier it becomes for other realms to build alliances against us. And if we’re going to prove that distance won’t fracture us…
” His thumb traced the inside of my wrist. “I need to know now.”
My chest tightened. “You mean transferring.”
“Yes.”
I swallowed. “You said Queen Mother’s lands interfere. That it pulls at you.”
“It does.” His touch stayed steady. “So we don’t go through. We go around.”
Around.
As if it could be that simple.
I nodded anyway, nerves skittering just under my skin. “Where first?”
“The Forest Realm,” he said immediately. “Somewhere familiar. The clearing where we stopped to eat.”
The image rose easily—filtered green light, damp earth, the steady, watchful quiet of ancient trees.
Safe.
“Transfer there,” he said. “I’ll follow.”
That made my pulse jump.
“You’re not coming with me?”
“I need to see it from this side,” he said calmly. “And I have to bring Adar.”
As if summoned, Adar stepped onto the path. I knew he’d have to come. I just liked to pretend he didn’t exist when it was possible.
“Go,” Sebastian said, bringing my attention back to him.
I drew in a breath.
This was different from slipping through the Night Realm. I felt it the instant I reached outward—the subtle resistance in the air, the weight of distance layered over magic. The world didn’t push me away.
But it asked, are you sure?
I reached deeper.
The pull caught.
For one terrible half-second, it was as if I was being stretched between two heartbeats—thin as glass, neither here nor there. Heat flared instinctively along my spine, my power rising to defend me.
I didn’t shove it down. I let it move with me.
The world folded and green replaced black.
My boots struck damp soil and I sucked in a breath—not from pain, but from the shock of it.
The scent of moss and water filled my lungs.
I stood beside the same narrow stream where the horses had once drunk.
The oak loomed overhead, massive and unchanged.
The water murmured softly over stone. A few birds startled at my arrival, then settled again as if I’d always belonged here.
Sebastian and Adar were there a second later.
Sebastian’s eyes found mine at once, searching for fracture. “How do you feel?”
“Fine. Better than fine actually. I feel…” I searched for it. “Like I just broke a rule I didn’t know I was allowed to.”
Relief flashed through the bond.
“Good,” he said. “Very good. Now the Flower Realm.”
My smile thinned.
“The inn,” he continued evenly. “The space behind it where we tied the horses. Cobblestone. Ivy climbing the wall. Flowers spilling from the windows.”
Adar crossed his arms and I could feel the way he hoped I would fail. I was worried I would fail.
I nodded anyway and pulled the memory forward. The scent of flowers heavy in the air. The hum beneath my skin that felt almost intoxicating. The way the light there always seemed too bright—too aware.
I breathed.
I released.
The transfer caught harder this time. It tore through me like silk pulled too fast, a sharp tug at my center that made my stomach flip—
—and then I was there.
Cobblestone beneath my boots. Ivy brushing my sleeve. Flowers in every direction. The scent of the blossoms hit a second later, and with it, the intoxicating charm of the Flower Realm. Looseness came over me.
I sucked in a breath and laughed outright. “I did it!”
The air shifted as Sebastian steadied beside me.
His smile this time wasn’t guarded. It was quick and bright and entirely unhidden before he mastered it.
“You did,” he said.
“How do I look?” I asked, half teasing, half genuinely unsure. “Am I glowing? On fire? About to sprout wings?”
Adar cut his eyes at me, but I ignored it.
Sebastian looked me over anyway, thorough as ever. “Neither.”
“Good.”
He reached for my hand and brushed his thumb over my knuckles, grounding himself as much as he was grounding me.
“See?” he said softly. “We can still reach each other.”
He slid his fingers between mine and the contact sent a spark straight through me. Gods. I was far too aware of him here. The last time we’d stood in this realm, I hadn’t understood what it was doing to me.
Now I did.
“Hey,” Sebastian said, tilting my chin up with his knuckles.
The look he gave me was entirely knowing.
“Are you good?”
Gods, his hands!
“I’d be better if you wrapped that hand around my th—”
His palm clamped over my mouth.
He was smiling.
I would have enjoyed it too if he’d let me finish.
“Here,” he said, pulling out a necklace out of his coat pocket—fine silver chain, small green pendant cut like a teardrop leaf.
“It will protect you from the effects of the realm.”
I took it, holding it up to the light. The stone caught the sun and refracted it softly, like it was alive under the glass.
“I’m fine,” I said. “But thanks.”
I tried to hand it back.
He didn’t take it.
Instead, before I could protest again, he stepped close and fastened it around my neck himself.
The moment it settled against my skin—
The pull eased, and the hum quieted.
I blinked once.
Oh.
“Sorry, love,” he said without sounding sorry at all. “I don’t need you influenced when we’re trying to make a diplomatic impression.”
I put my hands on my hips. “So you have a necklace that wards off Flower magic, and yet you let me spend an entire day unable to control myself last time?”
He nodded once. “Yes.”
I shoved at his chest.
He caught my wrist easily and pulled me in instead, shadows brushing lightly at my back.
“I’ll take us the rest of the way,” he said.
He reached for Adar. Shadows bent the space between here and there, folding distance inward like fabric drawn tight.
And then—
We stood before it, and I froze.
Ivory stone spiraled upward in soft, organic curves, as if the structure had grown from the ground instead of being built.
Vines wove through every arch and balcony, braided into the architecture like living lace.
Blossoms spilled over railings in impossible colors: deep violets edged in gold, pale pink petals veined in green, flowers that seemed to hold dusk inside their centers.
Water moved everywhere.
Streams curved lazily through terraces, catching light and scattering it into fractured rainbows. Petals drifted across the surface without decay, without clutter, as if even the water here understood preservation.
“Oh,” I breathed.
There were no battlements lined with archers, no soldiers stationed.
No visible weapons at all. But the power here was unmistakable.
It was woven into the stone, into the roots threading through marble, into the air that pressed warm against my skin.
This place did not rely on threat. It relied on invitation.
It offered beauty and comfort and dared you to believe you had chosen to accept it.
My power stirred low in my chest in response.
Sebastian watched me instead of the castle.
“She rules through abundance,” I murmured, reciting what I’d once read. “Through beauty and comfort and the illusion of choice.”
Sebastian’s thumb brushed over my knuckles, grounding and thoughtful. “And debt,” he said. “Don’t forget debt.”
I nodded. A soft breeze moved through the outer gardens, and every flower turned with it in unison. The motion was too synchronized to be natural and too graceful to be accidental.
I straightened.
This wasn’t simply a meeting between Sovereigns. It was a test—of my control, of my crown, of whether the Sun Sovereign could stand in a realm built on temptation and not scorch it simply by existing.
Sebastian squeezed my hand once. “You don’t have to be anything but yourself,” he said. “She’ll see you either way.”