Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
Iturned to Remy, the air between us brittle with horror, disbelief choking every word I tried to form.
“You slept with Severeth?” I asked, my voice jagged, torn between anger and revulsion. “Tell me you didn’t.”
Remy’s face twisted in sheer panic. “No—No way,” he said quickly, shaking his head as if he could physically shake the image from his mind. “I wouldn’t—I didn’t! I thought she was your sister. Veyna. I would never—”
But Severeth laughed.
Gods, that laugh. Velvet and venom.
“Actually,” she purred, “you did.”
And then—she shifted again.
The change was seamless. Bones didn’t crack, muscles didn’t warp. She just melted into me—my face, my body, my eyes. Every line, every movement, me. Except… wrong.
Too perfect.
Too smooth.
Her lips curled into a mockery of my smile as she took a step toward Remy. “Come on, Remy,” she said, in my voice. My voice. “You know it’s you that I love.”
The courtyard stilled around us, the silence pressing in, thick and awful.
I turned to Remy, my heart beating so loud I could barely hear myself speak. “Tell me the truth,” I said, my voice shaking. “Tell me you didn’t?”
He didn’t answer right away.
And that was almost worse.
Remy took a step back, as if the weight of my words had physically struck him. His mouth opened, then closed. And when he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse—cracked.
“I thought she was you,” he said. “Gods, Ashe, I thought—”
“You what?” I snapped, rage flashing like a storm behind my eyes. “You thought she was me, and you just went along with it?”
“She knew things only you would know!” he shouted, desperate. “The bond with Kaelith. The way your power burns behind your skin. The scar on your hip—”
I reeled back as if he’d slapped me.
“I would never betray Zander,” I hissed, the fury rising so fast I could barely contain it. “Not for you. Not for anyone. How could you do this?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“You didn’t mean to fall into bed with a Blood Fae wearing my face?” I seethed. “Spare me.”
And behind me, Severeth laughed.
Not a dainty chuckle this time. A full-bodied, cruel thing that echoed across the courtyard and sliced into me with unbearable precision.
She still wore my face.
“Tragic,” she said in my voice, dragging her fingers slowly through the air as if she were weaving silk. “Really. The heartbreak. The betrayal. The moral superiority. You mortals are always so dramatic.”
I spun on her, fury pulsing so hot through my veins I thought I might burn the stone beneath my feet.
“You violated my life,” I spat. “You stole my face, pretended to be my sister, and you killed our warders. For what? To take a city that doesn’t want you?”
She smirked, her form still eerily identical to mine. “I didn’t steal anything. I created what I needed. You’re the one they all followed, Ashe. So I gave them another you. Quieter. Softer. Easier to influence.” She turned her head slightly, red eyes gleaming. “And he followed.”
“You’re nothing like me.” My voice shook with rage.
“No,” she purred. “I’m better. I don’t cling to guilt. I don’t waste power on loyalty. I take what I want.”
She stepped forward again. “And I want everything.”
Magic flared in my chest, Kaelith rising behind my ribs like a storm uncoiling.
“Then come take it,” I growled.
Because she might’ve worn my face.
But I was done letting anyone else speak in my name.
Severeth smiled, a slow, wicked curve of my lips stretched over something inhuman.
“As much as I’d love to take you up on that challenge,” she said, eyes glittering with cruel delight, “this is not the time.”
She took a step closer, slow and confident, as if she had all the power and all the time in the world. The air around her shimmered, mist curling like tendrils from her fingertips.
“But I assure you,” she murmured, her voice slipping like silk over a blade’s edge, “I’ll be back for you soon. I just have a couple of things to take care of first.”
And then—
Mist surged.
It swallowed her in a gust of wind and smoke, shadows rising and folding around her like a cloak, and in a blink—
She was gone.
“Shit,” Jax cursed, spinning. “Where the hell did she go?”
Zander’s jaw locked. “We need to move. Now. We search for her—and Inderia. Severeth won’t exit the wards. She can’t get back in if she does.”
Ferrula drew a dagger, her expression hard. “You think she’s still in the castle?”
“We know she is,” Zander said grimly. “Severeth arrived with Ashe. She got inside using her and Kaelith. And Inderia was her contact here. That means she’s the spellcaster.”
His words landed like a hammer on my chest.
I staggered back a step, breath shallow as the betrayal cut deep—brutal.
I let her in.
I believed her eyes, her words, her tremble when she touched a blade.
I trusted her.
My stomach churned. I was no better than Remy.
Kaelith? I whispered, voice shaking.
Her presence wrapped around my heart like a steady flame. Her glamour was strong, she said quietly. Too strong. Even I couldn’t see through it.
Her rage bled through our bond like smoke from a burning world. But I promise you this, Ashe… I will burn that Blood Fae traitor to ash. There will be no mercy.
I swallowed the pain, forcing it down into something sharper.
Because now I knew.
This wasn’t just war.
It was personal.
Riven’s hand found my arm, her touch steady but gentle—grounding. I hadn’t even realized I was shaking until she spoke.
“Don’t let this destroy you,” she said softly, her voice firm with that quiet fire only Riven ever mastered. “She fooled all of us. But you don’t let her take more than she already has.”
I nodded, swallowing the knot in my throat. “I won’t,” I said, but my voice was low, cracked. “But she’ll pay. Her and Inderia.”
Riven exhaled, her brow furrowing. “Why would Inderia do this? She was a princess. She was engaged to Theron. She could’ve been queen.”
Remy grunted from where he leaned against the edge of the barracks wall, arms crossed, eyes dark.
“Her position at court was always precarious. She wasn’t born in Warriath.
She came here through marriage negotiations.
Her status was conditional—built on shifting alliances.
That was… until Emlem agreed to a match between her and Zander. ”
Zander stiffened beside me.
Remy continued, voice flat. “I’m guessing she never expected Zander to become king. But when Theron did, it changed the game. She sacrificed Warriath for power. Not just a crown, but immortality. That’s what the Blood Fae offer.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Because I have been approached before. At an outpost near Uriden. The Blood Fae in question believed a lowborn like me would jump at the chance for more power.”
“What did you do?”
“I killed him, and his glamor died with him.”
I considered his words for a moment, and then frowned. “But how did they get to her? The Blood Fae couldn’t have infiltrated Warriath before the wards started failing. This… this had to have been set in motion for years.”
Zander’s gaze hardened. “Inderia traveled to several other kingdoms in the years before arriving here. She was the perfect envoy. Trusted. Elegant. Unattached.”
Riven looked up quickly. “You think the Blood Fae approached her somewhere else?”
Zander nodded. “That’s what they do. They look for ambition. For cracks. They sense those willing to betray their own. If they found her before she ever reached Warriath—”
“Or,” Remy cut in, “they found her between kingdoms. On the roads. Where the wards don’t reach. Where no one watches.”
The silence that followed was heavy. Chilling.
Because it meant this plan—Severeth’s infiltration, the warders’ deaths, everything—was not sudden. It had been seeded. Cultivated.
Planned for years.
“We have to find her,” I said quietly, turning back to Zander. “Inderia may know Severeth’s full plan. If we catch her, we might stop whatever’s coming next.”
Zander met my eyes, something steel-cold settling in his expression. “Then we start the hunt.”
Because there would be no more shadows to hide in.
Not for Inderia.
And not for the queen she wanted to become.