Chapter 30 Violet
Violet
“Did you even try to look for me?” I demanded as I hurled a pillow straight at Sebastian’s head.
He was asleep.
Asleep while I had been locked in a cell underground with the last person I ever wanted to be trapped with.
Okay—technically Celine would be the last. But Adar was a very close second.
Sebastian caught the pillow without even opening his eyes. “I knew where you were.”
I froze. “Excuse me?”
His eyes cracked open, lazy and entirely unapologetic. “I didn’t know Bronwen’s plan,” he said, voice rough with sleep. “But the moment I saw her knock Adar out, sling him over her shoulder, and then ask you to help her ‘find something’ downstairs, I figured it out.”
I crossed my arms. “You figured it out.”
“She knows where everything in this castle is,” he continued calmly. “She never needs help.”
“You could have stopped her!”
“I could have,” he agreed easily. “But then I would’ve had to deal with her wrath. And”—one corner of his mouth lifted—“I wanted to see if it would work.”
I opened my mouth to yell but a shadow slid around my waist and tugged. The next second I was on top of him, the mattress dipping beneath us as his hands settled firmly at my hips.
“And it worked,” he murmured, his thumb brushing slowly along my side. “Didn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Only time will tell with him.”
Forgive Sebastian. He’s perfect and does no wrong. The idea came like a gentle nudge. For a moment, I listened to it, letting myself calm down. Then I watched the smile come across Sebastian’s face, and I pushed his influence out of my mind.
I scowled at him. “Not going to work.”
That only made his smile grow wider.
“I’m glad you’re getting better at that, but I was kind of hoping that would work.”
* * *
The library felt different now.
Or maybe it was just me.
The weight that had been sitting on my chest for days had finally eased. Things were falling into place—alliances forming, the Sun Realm slowly waking again, the constant tension between Adar and Sebastian no longer cutting the air quite so sharply.
New light-globes floated between the aisles, glowing softly and drifting just enough to illuminate the rows without disturbing the quiet of the room.
I moved deeper into the older sections of the library, running my fingers along the shelves tucked farthest from the windows. These weren’t the books anyone reached for often. These were the ones that remembered before.
“Before Queen Mother,” I murmured, scanning the dates etched into the fragile spines.
Sebastian was busy hearing complaints or praises—probably both—in the throne room, so I took the time to do what I did best.
Learn.
And if the Blade of Aros had existed before the realms split, it would be buried somewhere in these.
There.
A narrow volume bound in cracked black leather sat wedged between two larger tomes, its title pressed so shallowly into the cover that it was nearly gone. It looked less like age had erased it and more like someone had tried to.
I tugged it free, dust lifting into the air. I carried it to the table and carefully spread the brittle pages. All of it was written in the old tongue.
“Thank you, Astrid,” I murmured.
She’d insisted I learn it when I was younger. I’d complained endlessly at the time, convinced it was useless knowledge meant only to torture children with difficult grammar and dead words.
Now it meant I could actually read this.
I leaned closer to the page, slowly translating the script in my head. Most of it wasn’t helpful. Early realm divisions. Records of magical treaties. Old arguments between witches about the nature of power and who should be granted it.
Interesting, but not what I was looking for.
I flipped another page.
Still nothing.
With a quiet sigh, I closed the book and stood, wandering further down the aisle. My fingers trailed across another row of ancient volumes as I skimmed slowly.
And then I stopped.
Bronwen’s voice echoed faintly in my memory.
It was created with dark magic.
Dark magic.
I crossed the library. The section I’d organized—Night Realm history—waited along the far wall. I’d been so sure when I placed it there, but the words for dark and night were nearly the same in the old tongue.
I scanned the titles carefully until I found it. The word etched on the spine was not night. My fingers tightened around the spine as I pulled the tome free. The leather was worn, darker than the others, the edges cracked like it had been handled too many times—and never gently.
A small, quiet part of me whispered to put it back.
I didn’t.
I turned and brought it to the table, setting it down. Inside, it was chaos.
The pages were packed with writing—different hands, different inks, layered over each other like no one had ever agreed on what was true. Notes crammed into the margins, some so small they were barely legible. Whole sections scratched out, rewritten, contradicted.
It didn’t feel like knowledge.
It felt like people trying—and failing—to understand something.
My fingers hovered over the page before I leaned in, eyes catching on the first clear line.
Dark magic is wrought through death and sacrifice.
My stomach twisted.
It is loud and consuming and painful. Where nature magic grows and flows through balance, dark magic forces power into existence through destruction.
A note had been added beside it in a different hand.
More powerful.
The original script continued beneath it.
It can consume the wielder if they are not careful. But when controlled, it surpasses the strength of the natural magic most weapons and spells are forged from.
A drawing of a fae made my breath catch. His body was covered in blackened veins, eyes black with no white.
Then the last line on the page—
Dark magic demands payment.
I turned another page, then another, the brittle paper whispering beneath my fingers.
Most of the entries were rituals—warnings scratched into the margins beside them in hurried ink.
Diagrams had been partially erased or scratched through, like whoever wrote them had reconsidered sharing the knowledge halfway through recording it.
Then a name caught my eye.
Blade of Aros.
My breath slowed as I dragged the book closer and leaned over the page.
I had assumed the blade existed for one purpose. Soul transfer. That was how it had been used on August. But the text in front of me told a very different story.
I read slowly, translating each line from the old tongue.
Before Alentara was split into realms, a witch spelled the blade as a weapon against the creatures overrunning the land.
My brows pulled together as I continued reading.
The blade was designed to raise armies of the dead—fallen warriors called back to serve the wielder.
The next lines were written in darker ink, the handwriting more deliberate.
Souls must be sacrificed to the blade in order to command the dead.
My eyes moved lower on the page.
The souls are released when the blade is wielded, and then they are called back after their purpose is fulfilled.
I stared at the words for a long moment, trying to picture it—battle after battle, armies of the dead marching under the command of whoever held the blade. My fingers tightened slightly against the fragile page as the realization slid through me, cold and impossible to ignore.
There were a millennium’s worth of souls trapped inside that blade.
The memory rose before I could stop it—Bronwen half smiling as she told me that if anyone ever tried to hurt Sebastian, she would bring hell down on them.
At the time, I’d thought she meant war.
Now I understood.
Hell had a shape. A weight. A black stone set into a hilt.
Hell lived in a box in her closet.
And if it came to it, Bronwen would open that box without hesitation and let the world fall just to keep Sebastian breathing.
The realization settled in my chest.
Her having that blade scared me far more than it comforted me.
Theron is here. Sebastian’s voice cut through my thoughts so suddenly that I startled and dropped the book. It hit the table with a dull thud.
What? Why? I asked down the bond.
Come to the throne room.
I didn’t bother shelving the book.
I was already moving out into the main corridor. The castle was louder than usual, voices echoing off the stone as people moved quickly through the halls.
I skidded to a stop when I nearly collided with a line of fae being escorted toward the entrance.
Guards guided them along with quiet direction.
Some of the fae looked irritated, their voices rising in hushed protests as they were ushered away.
Others twisted around to glance back over their shoulders, craning for a glimpse of whatever—or whoever—had warranted clearing the castle.
That alone set my teeth on edge.
I slipped past them and pushed through the throne room doors.
Theron bowed the moment he saw me.
The sight of him like that was strange. Ice fae glamour lay cleanly over him, altering everything about his appearance. His hair had been turned white, almost silver in the light, and his eyes had taken on that same pale metallic sheen.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said.
I stopped short. “Nothing? Then why are you here?”
“That,” he replied carefully, “is the problem, My Lady.”
Sebastian stood beside the throne, his arms crossed as he watched the exchange. Shadows shifted restlessly at his feet, sliding over the marble floor like dark water. Adar stood a few steps away from him, posture rigid, attention fixed on Theron.
“There has been no talk of you,” Theron continued. “No discussion of the Sun Realm. No fear. No speculation. No curiosity. Nothing about what this means.”
My stomach tightened.
“I know the Ice Sovereign felt it,” Theron went on. “Several Advisors told me that they were in council when it happened. He stopped mid-sentence and said, ‘The Sun is back.’”
Sebastian’s jaw flexed.
“And then?” I asked.
“And then… nothing,” Theron said. “Since that moment, he has shown no reaction at all. He has always been cautious. Suspicious. Yet with this—” His hands curled slightly at his sides. “There is absolute silence.”
I frowned, trying to find a reasonable explanation. “Maybe that’s a good thing,” I said slowly. “Maybe he doesn’t care.”
Sebastian shook his head immediately. “There should be something.”
The certainty in his voice made the unease in my stomach twist tighter.
All of us looked back at Theron.
“What do you think?” I asked him.
“I questioned one of the other Advisors,” he said. “I asked what they believed would happen now that the Sun Realm had risen again.”
My chest tightened at the word.
“She told me she didn’t know,” he continued. “That none of them were informed of the plan to attack the Sun Realm last time. One day they woke to a courier announcing that the Sovereign had left the realm with his Commander and the Guard. And then—days later—they heard the Sun Realm had fallen.”
Cold crept slowly under my skin.
“And after that?” I asked.
“It was never discussed,” Theron replied. “Not publicly. Not privately. I would have assumed since they destroyed the realm once, they would not want it to rise again.” His silver gaze sharpened as he looked between us. “But there is no reaction now. No debate. No fear.”
Sebastian’s shadows, which had been shifting restlessly across the marble floor, stilled completely.
“Just like before,” Theron finished.
I turned to Sebastian, dread settling deep and heavy in my chest as the realization began to take shape.
“We need to speak to the Ocean Sovereign,” I said.
Because silence like that didn’t mean ignorance.
It meant something was already in motion.