Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
Remy stood slowly from the corpse, the blood-slick parchment still clenched in his fingers. The fire in his eyes had cooled, replaced now with calculation. Worry.
“Solei,” he said, glancing toward me. “Has she been by? Did she say anything at all?”
I rubbed my arms, trying to shake the cold that clung to me. “She has a few times. She warned me but also said…” My voice faltered, my memory slicing deeper than the assassin’s blade. “Solei said she would never hurt me again. That she was sorry.”
Remy’s jaw tensed. “Did she say she’d protect you?”
“She inferred it,” I admitted, pushing a hand through my tangled hair. “But I’m not sure I believe her.”
“I do,” Remy said quietly, surprising me. “If she gave you the oath, even implied it, she won’t break it.”
I studied him. “You trust her that much?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he knelt again beside the corpse and retrieved the dagger from the assassin’s belt, examining the hilt, the balance, the make. “This… it’s Order standard issue,” he muttered. “Not just someone imitating them. It’s real. But Solei would’ve known.”
“Then maybe someone’s trying to frame the Order,” I said slowly. “Make it look like they ordered the hit.”
“Why?” Zander asked, stepping closer, his voice tight with control. “To discredit them? To cause division between their agents?”
“Or worse,” Remy said, standing fully. “To divide us. If someone wants you dead, Ashe, and they can make you doubt the few allies you have left…”
He let the thought trail off.
The room was too quiet. Too heavy.
“Who would do that?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Zander didn’t move.
But I saw the name burn in both their eyes long before anyone dared speak it.
Theron.
Zander crossed the room in three strides, his eyes raking over me like he was assessing wounds I couldn’t see, though there were plenty of those too.
He didn’t speak right away, just lifted my chin gently with two fingers and studied the fine line of blood along my cheek from the blade’s first pass.
“You need to see Meri,” he said, quiet but firm. No argument in his tone, just that steady command I used to find so infuriating.
Now it just felt like safety.
I nodded, too tired to pretend otherwise.
“I’ll walk with you,” Zander added.
Remy didn’t object. He stepped back from the corpse and exhaled, glancing toward the shattered doorway.
“I’ll find out how he got in,” he said, his voice low. Dangerous. “The guards on the outer gate… they’ve worked for the Order before. Guard pay is laughable, but the Order’s coin? That talks.”
Zander’s eyes narrowed. “So getting inside the compound was easy.”
Remy nodded grimly. “Too easy. Someone opened a door.”
I turned toward him, the fear in my chest colder now. “You think it was… someone in the guild?”
“I think,” Remy said slowly, “someone wants you dead badly enough to risk pitting the Order against the dragons. That means they’re either very stupid…”
“Or very powerful,” Zander finished.
Remy gave a humorless smile. “I’ll find out who ordered the hit.”
And the way he said it—
Gods help whoever it was when he did.
Zander kept one hand gently at my back as he led me through the corridors. His touch wasn’t demanding, it was protective, a tether against the whirlwind that still spun inside me.
I was exhausted. Not just from the fight or the attempt on my life, but from the lingering aftershocks of Perin’s magic. My insides still ached like they’d been wrung out and put back wrong. Every breath was shallow. Every step a quiet defiance.
Meri looked up the moment we stepped into the healers’ quadrant, already reaching for her satchel.
“She needs rest,” Zander said before I could open my mouth.
“She needs healing,” Meri corrected gently. “Sit.”
I didn’t argue. I sank onto the edge of the nearest cot, my legs trembling with the relief of being off them. The clean scent of salve and pressed linen filled the air, grounding me in ways magic couldn’t.
Meri knelt before me, her fingers featherlight as she tilted my face toward the light. “That slice’s shallow. Clean. But the energy under your skin’s another matter.”
“I tried to heal,” I admitted, wincing as she pressed a palm to my ribs. “It didn’t go well.”
“You’re too depleted,” she murmured.
Her magic came soft and slow, like sunlight through fog. It seeped into the wounds under my skin, easing the burn where Perin’s power had curled through my muscles and tendons like knives. I exhaled for the first time in what felt like hours.
Zander stood behind her, arms crossed, jaw tight. Watching me like he couldn’t quite relax.
When Meri finished, she rose and turned to him, her expression somber. “Your father’s condition has worsened.”
Zander stilled.
“He’s wasting away,” she added. “If you want to speak to him while he still knows you, it should be soon.”
His features shifted, pain, regret, something unreadable flickering beneath the surface.
“I’ll go,” he said after a beat.
I touched his arm. “I’ll go with you.”
“As will I,” Meri said.
He looked at me then, truly looked at me. And nodded. Quietly. Gratefully.
Meri walked beside us as we ascended the winding staircase, her healer’s robes whispering against the stone steps. She didn’t speak, and neither did we. The air in the castle was too still, like it had already braced itself for death.
Zander’s jaw was clenched so tightly I could see the muscles ticking in his cheek.
I stayed close to his side, matching his pace, even as unease coiled tighter in my chest with each step.
When we passed the upper corridor, a pair of castle guards eyed me.
No scorn, no welcome. Just a weighted silence I didn’t know how to read.
At the top, two more guards opened the king’s chamber doors without a word. They didn’t meet Zander’s eyes.
I stepped inside, expecting the scent of incense or medicine.
Instead, it smelled like dust.
And death.
The King of Warriath lay beneath a canopy of dark velvet and gold-threaded sheets, but no finery could mask the truth of what he’d become.
My breath caught.
He looked like a husk, skin stretched taut over brittle bone, cheeks sunken so deeply they cast hollows in the torchlight.
His hands, once rumored to grip sword hilts tighter than any of his sons, were curled against his chest like withered leaves.
Each shallow breath rattled in his throat, barely audible.
Meri moved forward first. She didn’t flinch, but I saw the flicker in her eyes. The sadness.
Zander followed, and for the first time since I’d known him, he looked… lost.
“This isn’t possible,” he said, voice rough. “He didn’t look like this two days ago.”
Meri’s fingers hovered over the king’s chest, her magic glowing faintly gold as she scanned him. Her brows drew together. “He’s been… drained,” she whispered.
“Drained?” I echoed.
“Not by natural illness,” she said. “This is decay. Something is leeching him. Stealing strength, piece by piece.”
Zander took a staggering step back. “Who could do this?”
“Fae magic,” Meri said quietly. “Dark-rooted. Possibly blood magic… or worse, something older.”
My stomach knotted.
Someone inside this castle was unmaking a king.
And doing it slow enough to ensure every son fought for a dying throne.
Zander stood at the edge of the king’s bed, fists clenched at his sides, his breathing shallow as he stared at the crumbling figure that had once ruled an empire.
Meri’s hands hovered above the king’s chest, the soft gold of her magic pulsing like a heartbeat. She didn’t speak for several seconds, her brow furrowed deep in concentration.
“Can you stop it?” I asked her quietly. “The… decay?”
Her lips thinned, and she didn’t look away from her work. “Maybe. But not with standard healing. This isn’t rot of the body, it’s rot of essence. Something is draining him at the root. A poison would be easier. And kinder.”
The doors banged open behind us.
“I told you it was the Order,” Theron’s voice snapped through the chamber like a whip. “He was poisoned. Likely during that last summit when the envoy visited from Uriden.”
Zander’s head snapped up. “You don’t know that.”
“I don’t have to,” Theron replied, striding toward the bed with his ever-present guards in tow. “Who else has the knowledge and reason? The Order has always worked in shadows. This is their doing.”
Meri straightened slowly, turning toward him. “With all due respect, Your Grace, I have seen dozens of poisons in my time, and I can heal them all.”
“Then why isn’t he healed?” Theron demanded, his gaze flicking to the king’s wasted frame.
“Because this isn’t poison,” she snapped back, her voice sharper than I’d ever heard. “Not in the traditional sense. Poison kills the body. This is something older. This eats at the magic inside the king. The very thing that feeds his fae heritage.”
I held my breath. So did Zander.
Theron sneered. “Convenient that a healer suddenly can’t do her job.”
“I could, if I wasn’t being second-guessed by a boy who can’t tell the difference between venom and spell rot,” Meri fired back, stepping between him and the bed. “If you truly cared for your father’s life, you’d listen instead of looking for someone to blame.”
Theron’s expression darkened, but he didn’t lash out. Not here. Not with the king between them.
His gaze cut to Zander. “I hope you can see what’s happening. The Order has infiltrated more than we realized. They’ve taken our father. They’ll take more if we don’t act.”
Zander didn’t reply. Not yet. He looked between the healer… and his brother… and then down at the withered shell of the man who’d raised them both.
Something deeper was happening here.
And this fight wasn’t just about healing anymore.
Theron’s gaze settled on me like I was something sticky he’d stepped in. “This is a family matter. She shouldn’t be here.”
The words hung in the air, thick and final.
Zander’s head snapped up, his expression twisting in something between fury and heartbreak.
His eyes met mine. Devastated. Torn. He didn’t say a word, but I felt it.
Every protest he wanted to scream. Every moment of defiance, he swallowed back in the name of his father, who lay gasping for breath a few feet away.
I swallowed the tightness in my throat and forced a small nod.
“It’s okay,” I said softly, and my voice didn’t tremble even though my heart did. “Meri and I will head back. I’m exhausted anyway. You should stay with your father.”
Theron’s lip twitched in something like victory, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a glare. I just turned and walked out with my chin high, letting him believe he’d gotten what he wanted.
Meri fell into step beside me, her healer’s robes rustling as we moved down the quiet hall.
“You’ve got some balls,” she muttered once we turned the corner. “Standing up to Theron like that.”
I smirked. “You’re one to talk. I thought his face might pop off when you mentioned spell rot.”
She grunted. “I’ll likely be transferred to an outer kingdom by morning.”
I winked at her. “Not if Zander has anything to say about it.”
She gave me a side glance. “You’re not actually going to rest, are you?”
“No,” I admitted. “I need to meet with Cyran.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “Your father?”
“Yes,” I said, voice tight. “But don’t tell Zander. He’ll be pissed.”
“Why?”
“Because my father may have just tried to have me assassinated.”