Chapter 28
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
“Ineed you both to stay here until it’s safe,” I whispered, crouching beside Veyna and Elara in the shadows of the cell. Elara’s fingers curled tightly around mine, reluctant to let go.
“But—”
“Kaelith is waiting on the beach,” I interrupted softly. “If something goes wrong, get to her. She’ll protect you.”
Veyna shook her head, the movement sluggish but certain. “My magic is tainted now. She’ll smell it the moment I step near. The dragon won’t let me close to her, Ashlyn.”
“She will, Kaelith is monitoring our conversation,” I insisted, but Veyna’s expression didn’t change.
“She’s right,” Elara whispered. “Kaelith will protect me. I’ll tell her what happened. She trusts Ashe. That’s enough.”
My throat tightened as I squeezed Elara’s hand once more. “Stay close to each other. And remember—no matter what happens, get to the beach.”
I turned, leaving the door ajar as I stepped into the corridor beyond.
I didn’t make it far.
“The king requests your presence,” a fae in a deep-crimson robe said, stepping from the corridor shadows as if he’d been waiting there all along. His eyes glittered unnaturally, and his power wrapped around the air like cold silk.
I gave a slow nod, wiping any trace of emotion from my face.
“Then take me to him.”
He turned without another word, and I followed him silently, boots echoing off the cracked stone as we made our way back toward the throne room, toward Veralin, and whatever game he intended to play next.
The doors creaked shut behind me with a heavy finality, echoing like a warning across the vast obsidian chamber.
Veralin sat with an almost lazy poise on his black throne, his fingers curled around the armrests like talons waiting to tighten. The smile that unfurled on his face chilled me.
“I trust your reunion with the princess went well.”
“She appears unharmed,” I said carefully, though my voice held steel.
“And you met Veyna.”
My jaw clenched. “Yes. How you could treat your own granddaughter so callously is beyond me.”
His eyes sparked crimson, amused rather than insulted. “You will find power far more addicting than blood, Storm-born.”
“I doubt it.”
His smile widened, predator sharp. “Well,” he said, rising to his feet with eerie grace, “let’s test that theory.”
I didn’t move as he descended the dais, his robes trailing like smoke behind him. The room dimmed around him, not by shadow, but by presence. His power thickened the air, made it hard to breathe.
“I offer you a kingdom, Ashlyn,” he said, his voice a coaxing hiss. “A realm where dragons and fae kneel alike. I offer you the throne beside me. Not as my puppet. Not as a pawn. As a queen. The rightful heir to two bloodlines.”
“I don’t want a throne,” I said, though the words came slower than they should’ve.
He laughed. “That’s the lie all rulers tell themselves before they realize what they are.
Power has always been in your blood—ancient, dangerous, divine.
Your magic calls dragons like war drums. Your presence weakens the wards that once kept me at bay.
You’re not a mistake. You’re prophecy given flesh. ”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. Not yet.
His voice softened, but it slithered through my thoughts like a promise wrapped in silk.
“You could unmake Warriath and build something new from the ashes. You could end centuries of chains for our kind. Do you think the humans will ever truly accept you, Storm-born? You were born to rule, not to beg for a place at their table.”
My fingers curled tightly into fists.
He stepped closer, his eyes glowing. “Choose me, and I will give you everything. Your dragons, your friends, even your former fiancée… they will serve under your banner or burn.”
And for a fleeting moment, the blood in my veins pulsed with ancient power.
A kingdom.
A throne.
An empire of fire and storm.
But I looked him in the eye, my voice as steady as the flame in my chest.
My breath caught in my throat.
“How do you know so much about me?” I asked, forcing the words past the rising pulse of unease. “You knew I’d come. You knew about the wards, my power... everything”
Veralin strolled back to his throne, his black robes whispering over the floor like smoke on stone. When he sat again, it was with a sigh, like we were merely old friends sharing secrets.
“I have… a friend in the castle.”
My heart thudded, and Kaelith stirred in my mind, a low hiss of warning. A spy. One close enough to know the workings of the court and your background.
“Are you willing to tell me who?”
His crimson eyes gleamed, the fire in them licking higher at my question. “Not yet.”
“Then what would I have to do to gain your trust?” I asked, even as my instincts screamed at me not to play this game.
Veralin leaned forward, folding his hands like a king preparing a wager.
“It’s simple really.”
I waited.
His next words dropped like daggers.
“Just kill the prince.”
My breath fled me.
“You mean Theron?” I said, trying to hold on to some semblance of rationality.
But he smiled, and I knew the answer before he gave it.
“No. Prince Zander Rayne.”
The air in the room seemed to still, like the shadows themselves recoiled.
I stared at him, unmoving. My voice was razor thin. “You want me to kill Zander?”
“He weakens you,” Veralin said softly. “He binds your power, clouds your judgment. He is the anchor dragging you back to a dying world. Kill him, and your full potential will be yours. No more divided loyalties. No more chains.”
I didn’t respond. Not out loud. But my magic answered.
A cold pulse of refusal that crackled in my blood.
He was wrong about one thing.
Zander Rayne didn’t weaken me.
He was the one who kept me human.
The silence stretched for a breath. Then another.
“No,” I said, my voice calm but ringing like tempered steel. “I won’t kill him.”
Veralin’s smile vanished, carved away as if it had never existed. The temperature in the room plummeted, and his power surged like a storm awakened. The shadows around the black dais twisted and coiled, slithering across the stone like living smoke.
“You would choose him?” His voice was thunder beneath the skin. “The boy who carries the fire meant to destroy us all? The wielder of Dark Fire must die!”
I took a step forward. “Then kill me. Because I’ll never lift a hand against him.”
His fury exploded.
Power lashed from his hands like blackened flame, but Kaelith’s voice rose in my mind, I am with you.
Magic thundered through my veins.
I threw my hands wide, and lightning burst from me like a scream—cracking the marble beneath my feet, splitting the obsidian columns like brittle bones. The walls shook, the ancient stained glass shattered inward, and the dark banners of the Blood Court went up in flames.
The throne cracked in two with a sound like the breaking of fate itself.
Veralin hissed, shielding his face as raw lightning snapped from my fingertips and arced across the ceiling in veins of blinding silver-blue.
I didn’t wait.
I turned and ran.
The massive doors were already half blown off their hinges from the blast, and I sprinted through the ruined entryway, heart pounding, magic still sparking across my skin like an untamed storm.
Blood Fae scattered. None dared touch me. Not with Kaelith’s power roaring through my veins and my eyes burning with fury.
I hit the courtyard, boots slamming against the cracked stone path.
“Kaelith, do you see them?” I panted, breath ragged from the sprint down the crumbling path of blackened stone. “Where are Elara and Veyna?”
They are right behind you.
I spun.
Two figures in guard’s cloaks barreled down the road toward me, heavy boots kicking up ash. Then the air shimmered like heat rising off fireglass, and their forms unraveled.
Elara’s hair whipped across her face, her small hand outstretched. “Ashe!”
Relief surged, hot and dizzying. I motioned frantically toward the beach. “Come on! Kaelith’s waiting!”
Be ready, Kaelith, I pushed through the bond as I picked up Elara and sprinted toward the glimmering edge of the wardline. We’re almost there.
I am ready, she answered, the deep certainty of her voice like steel in my veins.
We broke free of the Blood Isle’s poisoned land, the dying trees behind us giving way to sand and sea and sky.
Kaelith was already lowering herself, wings spread wide as her massive body curled toward the shore. Her violet scales caught the moonlight, and for a moment, she looked like hope made flesh.
I scrambled up her side as her body dipped, muscles flexing beneath me as I hauled Elara up beside me in one smooth pull.
But Veyna—she stopped.
“Veyna!” I called, stretching out my hand. “We have to go!”
She stood just shy of the wardline, one boot in the cursed land, one in the untouched sand. Her brown hair tangled in the wind, her lavender eyes locked on Kaelith with uncertainty, and fear.
“I can’t,” she whispered, taking a half-step back. “Your dragon—she won’t want me near her. Not with what I’ve become.” Behind her, the last remnants of the Blood Court loomed like a dark mouth waiting to devour her again.
“Get on!” I shouted, my hand stretched back toward her.
“I can’t!” she called, panic cracking in her voice. “I’m too... changed. She won’t let me near—”
She will, Kaelith said into my mind, sharp and certain.
Veyna’s breath hitched, and for the briefest second, her lips trembled. But then the shouting started behind us—real guards now, not glamoured illusions.
I reached farther, nearly losing my balance as Kaelith’s wings flared to steady us.
“You’re not staying here, Veyna. Not again,” I growled. “You’ve protected Elara, it’s time to go. Let me help you.”
Her lavender eyes locked with mine, and something shifted in them. A flicker of the girl she’d once been, maybe.
She lunged.
I caught her wrist and yanked her up with a grunt, muscles screaming as she scrambled against Kaelith’s scales. She landed hard behind me, arms shaking, and Kaelith screamed—a furious, soul-deep sound—as her wings beat once and we shot into the sky.
Wind whipped around us. Elara clung to my waist, Veyna to her, before Kaelith’s voice filled my mind.
Hold on, little storm. I’ll take us home.