Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
The shadows around the outer gate of the castle were long and heavy by the time I slipped through the old stone passage, cloak drawn tight and hood low. Gerane had been discreet, as always. He knew how to arrange things quietly, even when danger lurked behind every breath.
Solei was waiting at the edge of the gate, her silhouette tall, lean, and deadly in the moonlight, a blade strapped across her back like an extension of her spine. She said nothing as I approached.
I stopped a few paces from her. “Thank you for meeting me.”
“I’ll always meet you,” she said, voice low but laced with iron. Then her eyes narrowed. “You have safe passage. For tonight.”
I nodded, falling into step beside her as we started down the worn path that snaked into the lower quarter, lantern light flickering from the occasional post along the way.
After a long silence, she finally asked, “Why now? Why call for me?”
“There was an assassination attempt,” I said quietly.
Solei stopped walking.
“What?”
“Earlier,” I added, keeping my voice firm. “In my barracks. His blade barely missed my throat.”
Her hand drifted toward the hilt of her dagger without thinking. “No. No way. I gave you the oath. I will kill anyone who comes near you.”
“I believe you,” I said, meaning it. “But Remy’s already on it. The assassin’s dead.”
Her jaw tightened. “Remy killed him?”
I shook my head once. “No. Zander did. With Dark Fire. He left a hole in the man’s chest.”
Solei was quiet for a breath. “Efficient.”
We slipped through the back of a shuttered tavern, the warmth of spilled ale and burnt herbs clinging to the old wood. The bartender didn’t glance up. A nod was all it took.
Solei led me down a back stairwell hidden behind a tapestry. The passage beneath was cramped and reeked of damp earth, the torchlight barely cutting through the dark.
I followed without speaking.
Finally, after several turns and the scrape of metal on stone, we entered my father’s chamber.
And there, seated at a mahogany table with a decanter of wine and maps scattered before him, was Cyran.
My father.
He looked up slowly, eyes shadowed, and smiled like he’d been expecting me all along.
“My lost daughter,” he said smoothly. “Why have you arranged this meeting?”
Cyran leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled beneath his chin as I dropped the folded parchment onto the table between us. The Order’s thorn seal gleamed in the flickering lamplight, cracked open but unmistakable.
“We found this on the assassin that tried to kill me,” I said quietly.
His eyes flicked down to the seal, and for the first time since I’d entered the room, something flickered across his expression, just a flash of stillness. Not fear. Not guilt.
Surprise.
“I didn’t order your death,” he said at last, tone flat but tight beneath the calm. “Solei has warned me she’d be displeased.”
“She’d be more than displeased,” Solei muttered from where she stood behind me, arms crossed, her tone coiled with promise. “She’d slit your throat herself.”
Cyran gave her a slight look, amused, not insulted. “Besides,” he added, “I’m no longer involved in court politics. Not directly. I wouldn’t risk exposure by sending a killer after my own daughter.”
I stared at him. “Then what about the king?” I asked. “Do you have anything to do with his sickness? With whatever’s rotting him from the inside out?”
His expression hardened. “No. I’m not involved in the king’s decline. That game is beyond me, and I no longer care who wears the crown.”
Solei shifted, pushing off the wall. Her eyes were bright, even in the dim light.
“It doesn’t matter what you say,” she told Cyran.
“The assassin was Malstom. I secretly messaged our people and started an investigating once Ashe told me about the attack. The bartender told me who the assassin was when we entered the tavern. Once Remy finds out that he works for us, he’ll assume it was you. ”
Cyran stood so fast the chair scraped back with a loud screech.
“That’s impossible.”
“Who’s Malstom?” I asked, pulse spiking.
Cyran’s jaw flexed. “An Order assassin. One of our more talented recruits. He’s from Roweath originally. Highly trained. Precise. I brought him into the fold after Remy disappeared. After we stopped looking for him.”
I stared at him. “Then if you didn’t send him… someone is setting you up.”
Silence followed.
A heavy, twisting silence that wrapped around all three of us.
Because someone wasn’t just trying to kill me.
They were trying to frame Cyran.
And ignite a war between the guild, the Order… and possibly the new sects securing themselves in the villages.
The silence after my last words created a noticeable tension.
So I cut through it.
“Are you aligned with the Crimson Sigil?” I asked, voice quiet, but razor-sharp.
Cyran didn’t flinch.
He didn’t lie.
He simply said, “Yes.”
That single word hit like a blade to the gut. Not just because it confirmed my worst fear, but because of how easily it left his mouth. No shame. No hesitation.
“Tell me about them,” I demanded, pulse thudding in my ears. “Tell me what they want.”
Cyran’s gaze met mine, steady and too calm. “The current court is rotted. Dripping with false titles and bloated nobility that’s never lifted a sword or bled for the people. The Crimson Sigil doesn’t want to play politics. They want to purge it all.”
“By eradicating the nobles?” I asked, heat creeping into my voice.
“And culling the fae blood,” he said simply.
I sucked in a breath.
“They believe power should not be inherited,” he went on. “It should be earned. And those born with it should be watched… controlled.”
“Are they working with the Blood Fae?” I asked. “Is that where this is going?”
His jaw tightened. Just a flicker. “It’s possible. But if they are, it’s only to use them. They’ll turn on the Blood Fae as easily as they’ve turned on the halflings. That alliance would be temporary. Tactical.”
My throat tightened. “So you want to eradicate me. The riders. My squad. Every bonded soul.”
Cyran stared at me for a long, terrible moment. “There may be room for some of you,” he said at last. “But not as the kingdom currently exists. Not under a royal leash.”
I stepped back, breath caught somewhere between rage and disbelief.
And yet… as my mind flicked to Theron, to the way he smiled like he already wore the crown, to the way he treated dragons as weapons and riders as pawns—
I understood.
I didn’t agree.
But I understood.
“We still need the dragons,” I said. “Even if the court is broken. Even if everything changes.”
Cyran gave a slow, calculating nod. “Then you’d best decide which side of that change you want to be standing on.”
“There is no safety without the riders,” I snapped, the heat in my voice rising like fire catching dry timber. “Without the dragons. You know that.”
Cyran leaned forward over the old stone table, the maps and coded letters beneath his hands forgotten.
His eyes were focused, shining like polished obsidian.
“I do know that,” he said calmly. “But not in the capacity they exist now. Dragons, riders serve the crown, not the people. That has to change.”
“So you’ll tear it all down?” I demanded. “Kill the riders who were chosen—bonded—just because the court that surrounds them is broken?”
“You were trained to be a weapon,” Cyran said. “Taught to obey, not question. Even now, you wear their colors.”
“I earned those colors!” I hissed. “We bleed for this kingdom! My squad would die to protect people they’ll never meet. And you think the answer is to kill us because we didn’t rise up sooner?”
Cyran’s voice darkened. “No. I think the answer is to stop pretending that dragons owe loyalty to nobles who have never proven worthy of it.”
“And who decides who’s worthy?” I shot back. “You? The Crimson Sigil? Assassins in the night? That’s not justice. That’s replacing one tyrant with another.”
We stood across from each other, the distance between us small but unbreachable.
His face remained unreadable. “You still think you can change the system from inside?”
“I have to,” I said, breath ragged. “Because if we burn it all down without a plan, the only thing left will be ash. And power always finds a new master. You taught me that.”
Something flickered in his eyes—pride, maybe, or pain.
But I didn’t wait for his answer.
I turned on my heel and stormed out of the chamber, Solei falling into step behind me like a silent shadow. My boots echoed through the tunnel, each step heavier than the last.
Because I’d drawn my line in the sand.
And now I wasn’t sure which side would survive it.