Chapter 30
Chapter
Thirty
The door creaked softly behind me as I slipped into the barracks. The fire in the wall sconce had been lowered to a soft glow, casting long shadows across the room. Most of the squad was already in bed, blankets pulled up, but no one was asleep.
Voices carried low and easy, the kind of conversation you only had in the safety of worn walls and familiar faces.
“Hey,” I said quietly.
Riven popped her head up from her bunk, grinning. She pointed to something on my bed wrapped in cloth. “I grabbed you some sweetbread from the dining hall before they cleaned up.”
My stomach growled on cue. I hadn’t even realized I was hungry.
“Thank you,” I said, crossing the room and sitting on the edge of my bunk. The sweetbread was still warm, cinnamon clinging to my fingers as I took a bite.
“So…” Riven asked, shifting to lean on her elbow, a wicked gleam in her eye. “What happened?”
I chuckled. “Nothing like that, if that’s what you’re implying. But I did talk to Quinn and Meri.”
Jax sat up a little straighter, the blanket slipping off his bare chest. “That healer Meri?”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice dropping. “Something’s going on.”
The room went quiet.
“Quinn doesn’t have much in the way of security. His guards think it’s ‘babysitting duty.’ And Meri told me healers are being pulled from Warriath and reassigned to outer regions without explanation.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Jax said, rubbing a hand over his short-cropped hair. “This place is supposed to be the safest in the kingdom.”
“And now we’ve got whispers about some rebellion,” Naia muttered from her cot. “Commoners rising up. Trying to gather magic users.”
“Or protect them,” Cordelle said from his bunk, eyes sharp in the dim light. “If the king is as unstable as we fear, maybe they’re not rebelling. Maybe they’re preparing.”
Riven snorted. “You think they’re just going to wait until the castle eats itself and then swoop in to take over?”
“Would it be that hard?” Ferrula asked. “If our own court can’t keep its heir safe and the warders are dying? What would it really take to crumble the whole thing?”
I looked down at the sweetbread in my hand and suddenly didn’t feel hungry anymore.
“They’re not trying to win a war,” I murmured. “Not yet. They’re watching one unfold.”
The silence that followed wasn’t just thoughtful.
It was heavy.
Because deep down, I think we all knew—
We were already standing on the fault line.
We talked for a while longer, our voices low in the flickering firelight. The conversation drifted from rebellion whispers to Kaelith’s newest grumbles, and Cordelle’s theories about dragon lineage, but even that eventually dulled beneath the weight of exhaustion.
I yawned mid-sentence, and Riven laughed. “Alright, Ashe, time to get your beauty sleep.”
I rolled my eyes, dragging myself up. “Fine, fine. Try not to plot the kingdom’s fall without me.”
The room chuckled softly as I padded toward the washbasin at the back, letting the cool water chase away the worst of the day’s grime. My muscles ached as I changed into my long tunic and slipped back into bed, tugging the blanket up to my shoulders.
The second my head hit the pillow, my eyes grew heavy, lashes fluttering closed.
For a moment, there was peace.
Then Kaelith screamed in my mind.
Ashlyn!
I mumbled, disoriented. A dream? My thoughts were sluggish.
GET UP OR HEIN’S RIDER WILL DIE! she roared.
My eyes snapped open, the heat of her panic setting fire to my veins. I shot upright in bed, breath shallow, already scanning the room for a threat.
What’s going on? I demanded, pulling back my covers.
Get to the prince’s room. Now! she snapped, and the bond burned like lightning.
I didn’t hesitate.
I grabbed my boots and sprinted through the back of the barracks, slipping into the tunnel we’d once used to infiltrate the castle, the same one Siergen had shown me. The stone was cool beneath my bare feet as I ran, my breath ragged in my chest.
Guards’ voices echoed faintly from the main hall, and I pressed myself into the shadows, ducking behind a support beam as they passed by, too distracted to notice me. The moment they turned the corner, I took off again, heart hammering.
I reached Zander’s hallway. The air was too still.
Something was very wrong.
My hand trembled as I pressed the carved edge of the secret panel and slipped through, emerging in the castle hallway.
I threaded my way through the halls to his room easily.
I reached for the door, his door, and opened it with a silent push.
The door creaked open under my hand, and I stepped into darkness so thick it felt like stepping into a grave.
And then—the scent hit me.
Blood.
My heart slammed against my ribs as I rushed forward.
Zander lay sprawled on his bed, his tunic ripped open, soaked crimson. His chest barely moved. Pale skin marred by vicious gashes, one deep enough to reveal torn muscle and darkened veins. Blood pooled beneath him, dripping steadily off the mattress.
I staggered to a halt, bile rising in my throat.
There was a trail of it, leading to the door. Whoever had attacked him hadn’t left clean. Good. I hoped they were bleeding out in some corridor.
They’d come while he slept.
Cowards.
I dropped to my knees beside him and pressed trembling fingers to his neck.
No reaction. No flinch. Just the faintest pulse beneath my touch, weak, thready.
Kaelith, I whispered into the bond, he’s not responding.
The blade pierced something vital, she growled, her voice dark with urgency. He won’t survive it without help. Use your blood, Ashlyn. Or he dies.
I looked around frantically, hands slipping on the bloody sheets until I saw it.
A letter opener, silver, curved, lying forgotten on the bedframe, already soaked in Zander’s blood.
I snatched it up, and wiped it off, my heart hammering, and pressed it to my wrist. It sliced clean, sharp, the pain immediate and hot.
I climbed onto the bed, straddling his waist, and lifted his head carefully with one hand. “Stay with me,” I whispered, my voice shaking. “Just… stay.”
Then I pressed the bleeding cut to his lips.
Blood smeared over his mouth, pooling in the corner. He didn’t move.
Seconds passed like hours.
Still nothing.
My body trembled, the bond with Kaelith pulsing wildly, like she could feel my desperation.
Then—a twitch.
His brow furrowed. A breath, shallow, but there.
The wound on his chest shimmered faintly, then began to close, slowly, the torn muscle knitting together like the skin was stitching itself from the inside out.
Veins darkened with new strength.
His pulse steadied beneath my fingers.
I let out a choked breath, nearly collapsing over him.
It had worked.
But gods… barely.
My hands were still stained red as I pulled back to stare at him, the blood from my wrist mingling with his on the sheets. Zander’s breathing was steady now, shallow, but even. His face was still pale, but some of the deathly edge had faded from his skin.
He was alive.
And it wasn’t enough.
My chest ached, the pressure building so fast I couldn’t breathe. My heart pounded in my ears, drowning out everything, except the rage, the fear, the echo of Kaelith’s voice in the back of my mind.
He would have died without you, she said. But you did it. You saved him.
But I didn’t feel like I had. I felt like I was unraveling.
Someone had slipped past the guards.
Someone had bled him in his own bed.
And I hadn’t been there.
Magic surged in me like a second heartbeat, sharp and wild. I tried to swallow it down, to shove it back into the space where I kept it buried, but it clawed free, crackling beneath my skin, burning behind my eyes.
I staggered back from the bed, hands shaking, blood still dripping from my wrist.
Ashlyn, Kaelith warned, her voice tight now. You need to reel it back—now.
But I couldn’t.
The dresser rattled, and outside, the sky flashed with pale, jagged light. Thunder boomed so loudly it shook the castle walls, and the wind howled like something alive.
I gasped, falling to my knees beside the bed, clutching my hands to my chest as the storm built in me.
Kaelith! I reached for her across the bond, desperate for the grounding, the cool, calm effect of her mind.
But she pulled back.
You must learn to control it, Ashlyn, she said, sorrow and strength braided into her tone. I am not ready to anchor. You have to be stronger than your fear.
Lightning cracked again, this time closer, too close, and my breath hitched, my vision blurring.
I curled forward, trembling, trying to pull the storm back into myself.
Trying to become small.
Because the storm inside me wasn’t just magic.
It was grief.
I lay on the cold floor, chest heaving, fingers digging into the stone as the storm inside me cracked and clawed against the walls of my skin.
My blood still sang with magic, raw and uncontained. I could barely think, barely breathe—
Until his hands slid around my waist.
Warm. Solid. Alive.
“Ashlyn,” Zander whispered against my ear, his voice rough with exhaustion but reassuring. “You need to calm down. Let the power go. You don’t need it anymore.”
His voice… anchored me. Not like Kaelith’s iron presence. Not like my squad’s loyalty. His was different, something that threaded through my ribs and stilled the chaos in my lungs.
And just like that, I could breathe again.
The magic recoiled, not vanished, but tamed. My vision cleared. My fingers uncurled.
I wasn’t sure what had just happened.
But it felt as if he had died… I would have too.
I slipped my arms around him wordlessly, leaning into his warmth, still half on the floor. He wrapped his arms around me and lifted me with a strength that shouldn’t have been possible after the state I’d found him in.
We stood there, breathing each other in.
His skin was warm against mine, his body solid where mine still shook.
It wasn’t until my eyes dropped that I noticed he’d pulled off the blood-soaked nightshirt.
His torso was bare, freshly healed scars tracing across his ribs and abdomen.
Faint tremors still rolled through his muscles, but he was standing—alive.
He wore only his pants, and the sight of his bare skin, so vulnerable, so real, lit something inside me that had nothing to do with fear.
But I shoved it down. Focused.
“Who attacked you?” I asked, finally finding my voice.
“I don’t know,” he said, eyes dark. “They wore a mask. But they had access to the castle. They waited until I was in a deep sleep. I think I was drugged.”
My heart hammered. “What did you eat or drink before bed?”
He glanced toward the side table. “Just my evening cider. From the kitchens. Like always.”
I moved quickly to the goblet, ornate and silver, with his initials engraved at the stem, and lifted it to my nose.
Nothing. No scent. No sourness. No tell.
The assassin had been smart.
I set it down slowly, the reality of it heavy in my palm. “Whoever did this knew you wouldn’t taste it. And they knew how long it would take to knock you out.”
Zander’s eyes met mine.
Someone had tried to kill the prince.
And they’d almost succeeded.
Zander began pulling the bloodied covers from his bed, his movements steady and methodical despite what he’d just endured.
He opened a carved closet built into the stone wall and pulled out fresh linens, deep-blue and soft-cream, and began remaking the mattress like it was something he’d done a hundred times.
I tilted my head, watching as he smoothed the sheet with precision. “I’m impressed you know how to do that.”
He looked up at me, a hint of amusement in his tired eyes. “My mother made sure her sons weren’t reliant on servants. She said if we couldn’t take care of ourselves, we had no business leading others.”
“That’s a rare trait in nobility,” I said, moving to the other side of the bed to help him secure the corners.
He gave a small, wistful smile as he reached for the bedspread. “Yes. She was… special.”
I paused, fingers curling into the soft fabric. “You never talk about her.”
His hands stilled for a second. “Because her death destroyed us. All of us. Even Theron.”
I didn’t interrupt.
“I understand loving your mother,” I said quietly.
Zander’s eyes stayed fixed on the fabric as he spread the cover over the mattress.
“She was more than just our mother. She was the glue. The one who held the chaos of our station together. We had arguments, gods, did we fight, but she made us feel like a family. When she died, my father didn’t just grieve.
He… disappeared. Functioned, sure. Sat the throne.
Issued orders. But the man behind the crown was gone. And now…”
He finally looked at me. “I guess part of me isn’t surprised he’s lost sight of reality.”
“That’s not natural,” I said softly. “Grief doesn’t do that to someone… not like this.”
He raised a brow, and a hint of mischief flickered across his face. “Says the girl who was lying on my floor in an oversized tunic.”
I blinked, then looked down, and instantly regretted it.
The tunic barely reached my thighs. It was one of my oldest, worn soft from too many washes, and was less battle-ready and more brothel chic.
“Sorry,” I muttered, crossing my arms. “Kaelith said you needed me… immediately.”
“I did,” Zander said, voice low. “And I’m grateful.”
He glanced at the bed once he had finished making it, then extended his hand toward me, palm up, eyes warm.
“Now,” he said, voice softer, “come here.”