Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
NYXARA
T he castle walls groan under the weight of my return.
The torches that line the corridors flicker erratically, their flames sensing my presence, twisting toward me as if drawn to my anger. Shadows stretch unnaturally across the black marble floors, bending under the force of my magic. The air tastes of iron and war, thick with the scent of burnt wood and the lingering remnants of the battle that took place at my borders.
And I was not here for it.
I was away. Distracted.
With her.
My claws flex at my sides as I walk, each step measured, my thigh-high boots slamming against the floor in time with the steady, sharp beat of my rage. Morrin strides beside me, his beady black eyes narrowed, wings drawn taut in a way that tells me he’s barely holding back his fury.
Not at the war. Not at the deaths.
At me.
“The Sentinels have been waiting,” he says, voice clipped. “They will have the full account of what happened while you were gone.”
While I was gone.
The words are a knife against my ribs.
I do not reply, do not acknowledge the sharpness in his tone, because he is right.
I allowed myself a distraction—a temptation I should have ignored. And in that moment of selfishness, my people paid the price.
The war chamber doors loom ahead, the carved stone etched with runes that pulse faintly in my presence. The guards stationed at the entrance bow low, pushing them open without a word.
Inside, the Sentinels are already gathered.
They stand rigid, unmoving, waiting.
A heavy silence blankets the room.
I step forward, my gaze sweeping across the large war table in the center of the chamber. A detailed map of my lands stretches across it, now marred with newly drawn markings—borders breached, strongholds weakened, casualties counted.
Too many casualties.
“Speak,” I command.
One of the Sentinels, his violet eyes flickering like dying embers, inclines his head. “The king’s forces pushed into the eastern borders at dawn. The attack was coordinated, efficient. They knew where to strike, how to maneuver. They came in larger numbers than anticipated.”
A sharp pulse of magic flares in my chest, controlled but lethal.
“How many of my warriors fell?”
“Hundreds,” the Sentinel answers. “More wounded.”
A muscle tightens in my jaw.
Hundreds.
Hundreds dead while I lay tangled in silk sheets, foolishly believing I could afford a moment of respite.
I exhale through my nose, forcing the fire curling in my lungs to settle.
Morrin steps forward, his wings rustling against the heavy silence. “The human filth didn’t just come to test our defenses this time. They came to take.”
I lift my chin, eyes locked onto his. “And what did they take?”
He hesitates, just for a breath. “Land. Power. The belief that we are untouchable.”
The war chamber seems to darken, the torches flickering as my anger coils tighter.
I drag my claws across the edge of the table, slow, deliberate, the sound like steel scraping against stone. “What remains of their forces?”
“They have retreated beyond the valley for now,” the Sentinel reports. “But they will return.”
Of course, they will.
They did not just come to attack.
They came to send a message.
I exhale sharply, straightening, forcing my expression into something cold, something calculating. “Prepare the patrols. Double the defenses along the borders and make sure the wounded are tended to. They will not catch us unaware again.”
The Sentinels bow in unison, ready to carry out my orders.
I turn on my heel, prepared to leave—to strategize, to prepare for what is coming next—when a shift in the air stalls me.
Something is wrong.
The castle’s magic shudders, the walls humming with warning.
A figure steps forward, emerging from the stone itself, his body forming from the very walls of the chamber. One of the Spectral Guard.
I meet his glowing violet gaze but his silence is answer enough. A cold feeling creeps down my spine, one I haven’t felt in centuries.
“What is it?” my voice is quiet, but no less deadly.
The Spectral Guard inclines his head. “She is gone.”
The entire room stills.
My breath halts.
The steam of the war maps curls in the heavy air, the weight of the words pressing down on my chest, sharp and suffocating.
I turn my head, slow, deliberate. “What?”
The Spectral Guard does not shift, does not flinch. “The sea witch has escaped. She was seen leaving through the north gate, into the forest, heading toward the human encampment.”
A sound escapes me, low and lethal.
A snarl.
The table beneath my hands cracks, the force of my magic splintering through the polished obsidian, veins of heat spidering outward.
Betrayal.
Again.
The castle seems to shift around me, the very foundation responding to my fury. I hear Morrin inhale behind me, his feathers ruffling, but I do not turn to him. I cannot. Because my mind is already twisting backward—dragging me into the past, to another betrayal, to another moment of weakness.
To him.
To the human king I once trusted, who whispered pretty lies in my ear, who swore loyalty and then plunged a dagger into my back the moment I turned away.
And now his son holds my realm’s destruction in his hands.
Because I was foolish enough to let my guard down. Again.
A sharp crack fills the room as the map beneath my hands shatters, water from an overturned goblet spilling over the edges, hissing as it meets the heat rolling from my skin.
The Spectral Guard does not move. He waits, silent as the grave.
I rise to my full height, the power within me thrumming like a storm, my drenched gown clinging to my skin, my claws curling into fists.
“How long ago?” My voice is deadly calm—the kind of calm that precedes a massacre.
The Spectral Guard inclines his head. “Within the hour.”
An hour.
An hour she has been with him.
I close my eyes, inhaling deeply, forcing down the scream clawing at my throat.
Morrin’s voice cuts through my rage like a dagger.
“What did you truly expect, Your Majesty. She’s the sea witch. The queen of siren whores. She fooled you,” he says.
I hear the disappointment in his tone.
The blame.
“You let her in,” he continues, his voice sharp, cutting. “You let her get close. Close enough to see our weakness. To learn of our defenses, and now she’s given him exactly what he wanted.”
I whip around, snarling, my magic surging outward. A vase across the room explodes against the stone wall, shards flying.
“Enough.”
Morrin doesn’t even flinch. “She’s played you for a fool, Nyxara, and now the whole realm will suffer for it.”
Fool.
The word lashes through me like a blade, a precise cut meant to wound.
The torches lining the chamber walls flicker wildly, their flames twisting unnaturally, feeding off the slow, smoldering fire coiling in my chest. The castle itself seems to tighten, as if holding its breath, as if the very stone and air knows what is about to come.
I inhale sharply through my nose, swallowing down the rage, forcing it into something cold, something sharp.
Morrin watches me carefully, his dark eyes unreadable, his wings twitching with unspoken wariness. He shifts slightly, but he does not move away. He knows better.
And yet, he asks, “What are you going to do?”
I meet his gaze, my expression carved from ice and fury. The answer is simple.
“The war is far from over. He will come.”
Morrin’s feathers ruffle, his talons scraping against the stone, but he does not speak.
The air tightens, thick with power, the weight of it pressing against my lungs, my skin. The torches burn hotter, their golden light flickering violently, casting jagged shadows along the walls.
I take a step forward, my voice dropping into something dark, something final.
“He may have the sea witch,” I murmur, low and lethal. A slow exhale, steady, controlled. “But I will end them both.”
A finality settles over the room.
The weight of my words crushes the silence, a declaration sealed in fire and war.
Then, without another glance, I turn.
I storm from the war chamber, my boots slamming against the black stone floors, my gown billowing behind me like smoke, like the remnants of something already set ablaze.
The Sentinels do not move.
The Spectral Guards do not follow.
Because they know better than to stand in my way.
Because they feel it—the heat rolling off my skin, the barely controlled storm brewing beneath my ribs.
I do not stop.
Not as I stride past the throne room and push through the towering doors of my chambers. Not as I tear the ruined gown from my body, shredding the delicate fabric with a single pull, tossing the remnants to the floor as if I can rid myself of her that easily.
But it isn’t enough.
She is still on me.
On my skin.
In my lungs.
The scent of her—salt, storm, and something uniquely hers—clings to me like a ghost.
I grit my teeth, my claws flexing as I stalk through my chamber, through the archway leading to the spiraling steps downward.
Down into the depths of the castle.
To the baths.
The onyx floors are cool against my bare feet, the air damp with steam, thick with the scent of night-blooming jasmine and heated stone. The large inground pool shimmers in the dim torchlight, water black as ink, cut only by the glimmers of molten gold veins that ripple beneath the surface.
The moment I reach the edge, I do not pause.
I step in.
The heat envelops me, curling around my skin, licking up my thighs, wrapping around my waist like a lover’s grasp.
I sink deep, until the water closes over my shoulders, until I am swallowed by the warmth, until my body no longer feels like my own.
But it’s still not enough.
The filth of her betrayal is still here.
The memory of her hands on my body, her mouth at my throat, her magic curling around mine—it clings to me.
Like poison.
I grab the cloth from the bath’s edge, scrubbing against my skin with brutal force. Harder. Until my flesh is raw, until my nails rake along my own collarbone, until I feel something other than this wretched, twisting ache in my chest.
She betrayed me.
She made a fool of me.
And now, because of my weakness, my people are dead.
I scrub harder, my breathing ragged, my claws dragging down my arms, my legs, my stomach, as if I can carve her away, as if I can cut out whatever piece of me allowed her to get this close.
But no matter how much I scrub, no matter how furiously I wash her away I cannot stop the way my chest tightens. The way my throat closes. The way my eyes burn.
And then, the first tear falls.
A single drop of blackened grief slipping into the water, vanishing into the abyss.
I go still.
I close my eyes, my body trembling.
Not from pain or loss, but from rage. A deep, seething, burning rage that consumes me whole. A rage that does not weep or break, but instead will set the world on fire.
I wipe at my face, forcing the tears away, shoving them down, burying them beneath vengeance. She chose this. She left. She betrayed me. And now…
She will burn for it.
I force myself upright, my movements measured, deliberate. The water curls as I rise, hissing as it drips from my skin, steaming against the air. I step onto the black marble, reaching for the heavy silk robe waiting on the hooks near the entrance. I pull it on, tightening the belt at my waist, my expression set in stone.
The sea witch thinks she’s won. She thinks she can walk into the arms of my enemy and strike me down from afar. That she can leave me. I bare my teeth at my reflection in the polished obsidian walls, my magic coiling like smoke, seething, pulsing, waiting.
She will learn her mistake soon enough.
Because the king may have her now, but when I come for them I will end them both.
And I will not hesitate.