Chapter 33
Chapter
Thirty-Three
Zander’s jaw tightened as though he were steeling himself, then he slowly dropped to one knee before me. My breath caught in my chest. Dust and ash still lingered in the air, the ruins of Veralin’s reign surrounding us, but none of that mattered when he slipped the silver ring from his own hand.
Dark Fire shimmered around the band as if it, too, recognized the importance of this moment. He looked up at me, his bright-lavender eyes cutting straight through the chaos.
“I don’t want you to think for another minute,” his voice was rough, raw, “that I would ever accept my role as king without you at my side.”
My lips parted, but the words tangled in my throat. My heart hammered so hard I thought Kaelith might hear it. “Why now?” I whispered, overwhelmed by the sheer audacity of it, by the heat in his gaze that seared straight through my soul.
“Because there’s nothing left to wait for,” he said simply. “Because I need you to know, need everyone to know, that I will not do this without you.”
My eyes burned, a rush of tears making the ruined world blur. “I don’t know what to say,” I choked, voice shaking as my whole body trembled with the force of too many emotions at once.
He smirked, tilting his head with that infuriating, impossible charm that had undone me from the start. “How about yes?”
A laugh broke from me, tangled with a sob, and I dropped to my knees in front of him, throwing my arms around his shoulders. The ring pressed between our palms as I clung to him, heart splitting wide open.
“Yes,” I whispered into his ear, again and again.
Around us, the riders cheered, voices rising like the roar of dragons in the skies.
The Light Fae lifted their blades, shouting in unison, their victory cry echoing through the broken courtyard.
Even Kaelith’s thunderous roar joined the chorus, a sound that vibrated through my bones and set my soul alight.
In that moment, surrounded by ash and ruin, by blood and fire and the scent of storm, there was only him—Zander, my king, my future husband, my everything. And there was only us.
His lips crashed against mine, and I didn’t care that we were being watched by riders, by fae, by gods themselves if they chose to witness.
Every wall I had built to protect myself crumbled in the fire of his kiss.
All the waiting, all the wondering if he could ever truly choose me, not just a commoner, not just Kaelith’s rider, but the granddaughter of the Blood Fae king, melted away beneath the press of his mouth.
The burden I had carried since the moment I bonded with Kaelith—the fear that I would never be enough—lifted from my shoulders like smoke torn apart by the wind. I kissed him as if it were the last moment of my life, like every breath in my body belonged to him.
Time stopped.
The battlefield, the fae, the endless blood and ruin, it all vanished until there was only his heartbeat against mine and the taste of him flooding me with something I’d been starved of my entire life. Hope.
Then a shrill cry shattered the stillness.
It pierced up from the cavern below, jagged and desperate, the sound so full of agony it froze the blood in my veins.
Zander and I broke apart, scrambling to the side of the broken stone.
I leaned over the jagged ledge with him, staring down into the yawning blackness where the caged dragons thrashed.
The cry rose again, echoing off the cavern walls. A sound of hunger. Of rage. Of something dying—or being born.
The imprisoned black dragons thrashed against their confines.
The sound shook me to my marrow. The black dragons below screamed as if the very marrow of their bones were splitting apart. Their bodies writhed in their cages, wings thrashing against rusted bars, tails lashing until sparks of stone scattered from the cavern floor.
Color—impossible, unnatural color—rippled across their scales like oil spilled over water, shifting from shadowed black to hues I couldn’t name.
Their claws raked at the bars until the air was filled with sparks and the metallic screech of steel under relentless assault.
Their cries weren’t only rage. They were pleading. They were begging.
Ashe, Kaelith whispered, the grief in her voice palpable, they scream as if they are being unmade.
The fae commander, Leyriam, stepped forward slowly, his white braids brushing over his armor as he began his descent into the cavern. Each step was deliberate, cautious, but fearless.
Zander’s hand brushed mine once before he followed, and I forced my trembling legs to move after him. The stairway curved down into the darkness, torchlight catching on the obsidian bars that shimmered with ancient runes.
When we reached the cavern floor, the dragons turned their glowing red eyes toward us. Their screeches became deafening, rattling the earth. They hurled their pain at us, at me, as though I could be the one to free them. My chest ached with the weight of it.
“What is happening to them?” My voice was raw, the words torn out of me.
Leyriam’s pale eyes flickered as he watched the black-scaled titans writhe. “I am… unsure,” he admitted, though his voice carried the weariness of ages.
Kaelith’s mind pressed hard against mine, urgent. Ask him about the spell. The one he bound to the chest.
“Leyriam,” I said quickly, almost shouting over the dragons’ thrashing, “the spell you cast around the chest—what did it do?”
His head tilted, profile cutting against the dim light. “It blocks all magical tethers. No power, no bond, can touch what is inside. It cannot be corrupted, nor accessed, by anyone but me.”
“And when you die?” Zander asked tightly, stepping closer to the bars as one dragon’s tail slammed against them hard enough to rattle the cavern walls.
“My son,” Leyriam said, calm despite the chaos. “And his son after him. My family line was forged for this purpose. Our bloodline possesses the strongest wards left on this isle. When I return to the earth, it will be their sworn duty to maintain the seal.”
The dragons screamed again, their scales shuddering with unnatural waves of color. I staggered back, pressing my hand to my chest as if I could smother the ache tearing through me.
“They know,” I whispered. “They know what’s been done to them. And they know we can’t save them.”
Leyriam’s expression darkened. “Perhaps not yet. But if this war is to mean anything, we must ensure no one ever uses them again.”
The cavern pulsed with the weight of screams, scales scraping against steel, and then a new sound split the air.
Not a scream.
A roar.
The sound shook the stone, deeper, more commanding, and for a heartbeat all the other black dragons fell silent.
My gaze shot to the far cage where the dragon inside thrashed with unusual strength, sparks of gold shimmering beneath its black hide.
At first, I thought it was another ripple of corruption, another illusion of suffering.
But then the black scales split, burning away, until molten gold burst outward like dawn breaking free of night.
Light—pure, radiant gold—gleamed off the beast’s wings as his eyes turned from blood-red to blazing amber.
“How is that possible?” My voice cracked, the question trembling from me.
No… Kaelith’s voice cut through me like a blade, grief searing across our bond so sharp my knees buckled. No. It cannot be.
“What is it?” I rasped, clutching my chest as if I could hold myself together.
Kaelith’s agony flooded me until I nearly stumbled off the stone steps. Her roar echoed in my skull. That… Her voice shook with anguish. That is Siergen and Ria’s son. Ria still held the egg within her when she was killed. We had no idea… no idea it had been ripped from her body.
I covered my mouth with my hand, horror strangling me. “Veralin forced it to hatch.”
Yes, Kaelith hissed, and the weight of her fury scorched me from the inside out. He enslaved it like the others. He made my brother’s child into his weapon.
“Who is it bound to?” Zander demanded, his voice low, lethal.
Kaelith’s silence pressed hard against me, a silence laced with despair. One of the fae still alive. But like the others…
Her grief gutted me, hot and raw. Siergen’s son will die.
I swallowed hard, bile rising in my throat. “This… this was Veralin’s final revenge.”
Zander turned his Dark Fire eyes toward the golden beast as its body slammed again and again into the bars. His jaw was tight with rage.
“To watch Siergen’s child die,” I whispered, my voice breaking as tears burned behind my eyes. “To destroy the Unifier—not by killing him, but by killing his child.”
Kaelith’s roar echoed so loudly through the cavern that the torches fluttered. When my brother learns of this… it will destroy him.