Chapter 28
Afraid of the dark
LORIEN
The council chamber is colder than I remember. It’s got the same stone walls, the same high-backed chairs carved with our house sigils, the same great hearth at the far end, but the warmth has leached from the room.
Or maybe it's just the company.
Soren sits at my right, arms crossed, his face carefully blank.
He’s never been good at hiding his temper from me, though.
I can see it in the set of his jaw, the tension in his shoulders.
Across from him, Orlith’s fingers drum against the polished wood of the table, his mouth pursed in a tight line.
He, too, is waiting. The generals are not.
“This cannot continue,” General Varyon says, voice clipped.
He’s the eldest among them but still built like the soldier he used to be, all hard muscle and sharper edges.
“A second attack. Another breach by a sargath.” His gaze flickers to Jude, then back to me.
“And this time, it almost killed you, Majesty.”
Jude sits beside me, stiff but composed, his dark curls still slightly damp from the bath he forced himself to take after waking.
He says nothing.
He doesn’t have to.
“They’re growing bolder,” Orlith says. “It’s no longer just border raids or strikes at outposts. This was the heart of the palace. They knew where to aim and what to use and managed to get through our defenses even though we’d bolstered them after last time.”
“The library,” General Rhyse adds, voice taut. “Of all places, the heart of our knowledge. Yet again. That thing should never have crossed our threshold, let alone twice.”
“They can conjure a sargath,” Soren says. “We all know what that means.”
Silence. It’s an ugly thing, pressing against my ribs. The kelpies have always been creatures of hunger and malice, but they are not creatures of vast power. Conjuring a sargath takes powerful magic—dark magic. Magic they should not possess.
Unless they have recovered from what they lost.
I do not voice the thought aloud. Not yet.
“We cannot ignore it,” Rhyse, another of my generals, says. “We have lost too many already, and next time, it could be a queen lying in ruin.”
My fingers curl against the arms of my chair. “We are not ignoring it.”
Varyon leans forward, his fingers drumming on the stone table. “Aren’t we? This is twice now that our enemy has struck where they should not be able to strike. Twice, they have done it unchallenged.”
“And yet it did.” Rhyse’s stare doesn’t waver. “We all know how.”
The words settle like iron into the chamber. They are waiting for me to say it, to name the source of their unease. When I don’t, Orlith speaks instead.
“Magic,” he says flatly. “His magic.”
Jude shifts but does not react otherwise. I glance at him, but his expression remains carefully schooled—impassive, unreadable.
Soren is less composed. “That’s a dangerous accusation.”
“Is it?” Varyon counters. “The attacks started after he arrived. Both were in the library. Both were where he was, both times the sargath came to him.” He leans forward. “It came for him. And somehow, it was strong enough to push past the barriers that have protected us for centuries.”
“The kelpies control the sargath,” I remind them. “Not Jude.”
“They do,” Rhyse agrees. “But tell me, Your Majesty, what do kelpies hunger for most?”
It’s a trap. One I see too late.
I grit my teeth. “Magic.”
Rhyse spreads his hands, as if that says everything.
“Helena’s magic, and the magic she stole from them. They’re drawn to it, Majesty,” he continues, “as sharks to blood. The stronger the magic, the greater the hunger. And he—” His eyes flick to my concubine. “He is the last vessel of Helena’s power.”
I feel it like a spark of ice in my gut. A chill that creeps outward, tightening my spine, curling my fingers against my palm.
Jude is not a thing to be hunted. He is not bait. Not expendable. He is—
Mine.
I glance at him, and he is still, the calm eye of a storm, his gaze sweeping over the war chamber without flinching, without reacting.
His hands are folded neatly in his lap, his shoulders loose, his face unreadable, but I see the tension behind his stillness.
A carefully held breath. A weight pressing down upon him, one he has learned to bear without shifting beneath it.
And I hate it.
“I see.” His voice is smooth, measured. “And what, precisely, do you suggest? That I leave? That you send me to the kelpies as a tribute?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Orlith snaps. “No one is suggesting that.”
Varyon scoffs. “Aren’t we?”
My jaw locks. A pulse of anger hums low in my chest, dark and possessive. They would not speak this way if it were another merman they were so casually discussing. And if it were me, they would lay down their lives before offering me up like a lamb to slaughter. But Jude?
Jude is different.
To them, he is a danger. A mistake. A liability that I am too blind to cut loose.
They are wrong.
Soren slams a hand against the table. “Enough.”
The sound echoes through the chamber, cutting through the tension, the threats unspoken, the weight of the war pressing against us all. Eyes flick to him, startled, but his glare is cold and sharp.
“We will not entertain this any longer,” he growls. “The kelpies have pushed us to the edge, but we are not so weak as to turn against our own.”
Orlith exhales sharply through his nose, but he inclines his head. Varyon looks displeased, but says nothing.
It is Rhyse who speaks. Who says what the others are thinking. What they are do not want to voice because they fear my wrath, although they are content to let it blacken their hearts and stain their souls.
“He is not our own, Majesty.”
There’s a beat of silence.
“He is human.”
And then another.
“And he is Helena’s blood, Sire. That is inescapable. Irrefutable. What flows through him, flowed through her.”
And now the silence turns sharp, a blade honed to a whisper-thin edge.
It cuts through the chamber, through the air, through me.
Its steel rests against my throat, like a challenge thrown at my feet.
The metal of it presses against my ribs, cold and suffocating.
My grip tightens on the arms of my chair, the wood groaning in protest beneath my fingers.
My people—my generals—dare to sit before me and speak of him like this?
Like he is something to be cast aside? Like he is not mine?
Soren stiffens beside me.
Orlith exhales, quiet and measured.
But it is Jude who moves first.
He does not flinch.
He does not cower or protest.
Instead, he lifts his chin, slow and deliberate, and meets Rhyse’s gaze head-on.
He looks like a man who has known this accusation all his life.
Who has worn it like a second skin. His hands rest lightly on the table before him, his fingers curled with just enough tension to suggest restraint.
To suggest that the words have struck, but they will not break him.
“And what would you have me do?” His voice is quiet, even, but I can hear the edge beneath it, the blade wrapped in silk.
“Would you have me bleed for you, General? Would that prove something?” He tilts his head, and there is something unreadable in his gaze, something dangerous.
“Shall I let you cut me open and see if my veins run with darkness?”
“Yes.”
I move before I think. My hands are round Rhyse’s throat before my chair finishes scraping against the stone.
My claws dig into the skin beneath his jaw, pressing hard enough that the veins there throb against my palm, pulsing with the fragile beat of his life.
His breath stutters, a strangled sound caught between his teeth, and I watch as the flicker of unease in his gaze blooms into a far more satisfying emotion: fear.
“You dare demand his blood?” I snarl.
The words lash through the chamber, sharp enough to strip flesh from bone. Silence crashes in their wake, thick and absolute, the kind that crushes the air from the room. My generals do not move. Do not breathe.
My pulse is a drum against my skin, my fury a living thing, clawing at my ribs. I meet Rhyse’s gaze, and I let my anger show now, let it fill the room like the tide pulling out to drag men into the abyss.
Rhyse’s lips part, a desperate wheeze dragging through his throat, but I am not done. I lean in, letting him feel the weight of me, the strength in my hands, the unrelenting truth of what I am.
“Why should I spare you?” I demand.
“I speak what others will not,” he splutters out, the last of his breath raw as his defiance buckles beneath the iron grip of death.
“What others will not,” I echo, my tone softer now. Lethal.
Rhyse’s face shifts from its usual aqua to something paler, something sickly.
His mouth gapes open, but no words come out, just the wet rasp of air trying, and failing, to reach his lungs.
His eyes bulge, the whites stark against the darkening skin around them.
His body spasms, his limbs jerking against mine as his instincts scream at him to fight, to run, to survive. But there is no surviving me.
Not when I am like this.
Not when I am angry.
I press harder, feeling the delicate structures of his throat strain, feeling the beat of his pulse slow beneath my grip. Rhyse has always been a soldier, a warrior, a man of steel and blood, but here, now, he is nothing but flesh.
Fragile.
Mortal.
The thought is almost intoxicating.
A scrape of movement catches my attention. Jude. He has not spoken since he made his challenge, since he bared his teeth like an animal ready to bite. He does not flinch now, does not lurch forward to intervene. He simply watches, his dark gaze locked on mine, unreadable.
It is that stillness that stops me. Not mercy. Not regret.
I could kill Rhyse. I could crush his throat and watch the light go out of his eyes, and no one would dare stop me.
But Jude is watching.
I let out a slow, controlled breath and release my grip.
Rhyse collapses forward, his body heaving as he sucks in greedy, rasping breaths. He coughs, his entire frame wracked with the force of it, but I do not step back. I let him feel my presence looming over him, let him remember how close he was to death.
“That man just saved your life, General,” I murmur, low enough that only he can hear. “Speak of spilling his blood again, and I will show you just how easily I can spill yours.”
Rhyse doesn’t answer.
He’s too busy trying to remember how to breathe.
I’m too busy looking at Jude.
He doesn’t shift beneath my gaze, nor lower his eyes in deference or submission.There’s only steadiness in him, an unwavering determination or defiance, and for a fleeting second, I wonder what his life must have been like before he was brought here.
Perhaps he was burdened by the weight of things unseen, or maybe he felt the pressure of his heritage even though he did not know it.
But surely he was not as content as is he is now, here, with me and all the possibilities and protection that I offer him.
He is not his aunt.
He is not her shadow, not her echo, nor the stain they all want him to be.
He is himself.
And he is mine.
Only when I am sure of that, only when I see the tightness ease in his shoulders, when I see the breath settle in his chest, do I turn back to the others. They stand rigid, their eyes carefully averted, as if looking at me might invite the same wrath I just unleashed upon Rhyse.
Good.
They can feel my fury. They can drown in it.
Let them know my possessiveness. Let them understand that there are no lengths I will not go to for him, no acts I will not take. I would tear the sky apart for him, rend flesh from bone, reduce entire kingdoms to ruin if that was what it took to keep him safe.
Soren clears his throat, his voice deliberately even. “Lorien, if the kelpies are drawn to Helena’s magic—if they are drawn to him—then we use that.”
A new path.
A shift.
A way forward that does not end in bloodshed. At least, not in this room.
I turn my gaze to Soren, waiting.
He does not hesitate, does not flinch under my scrutiny. There is tension in him, yes, but not fear. Never fear. He has been at my side too long for that. He knows the full breadth of what I am, what I am capable of, and yet he does not cower.
He waits, patient, steady, the way he always does.
That is why I trust him.
Because he does not speak simply to appease me. Because he does not let my temper sway his judgment. Because when others scramble to salvage their own pride, Soren stands firm, unshaken, and gives me what I need: the truth.
And, for now, I will allow it.
Jude tilts his head, his lips curling into a curve close to a smile. “So you don’t want to spill my blood. You want to use me as bait. Live bait.”
“Not bait,” I correct, my voice like steel. “Leverage.”
Jude holds my gaze for a long, heavy moment.
His deep blue eyes don’t waver, and for the first time since he stepped into this war room, I see amusement in them. Not resentment. Amusement.
There is something sharp in him, something unafraid.
He knows the game we are playing.
And he is not afraid to play it.
“Leverage,” he murmurs, rolling the word over his tongue as though tasting it.
Then he smiles.
It is not a soft smile. Not a yielding one.
It is the slow, knowing curve of someone who understands exactly what I contain, what I have just done, and is not afraid of it.
It’s the look of a man who knows all I am, who sees all my darkness and my harshness, who knows the unforgiving nature of my being, and who will never flinch.
Who’ll never shrink away from me but will rise to meet me head on.
It’s the look of a man who welcomes it.
The others see it too, and I know it unsettles them.
They do not understand how a human, how someone from Helena’s bloodline, can sit so easily beneath my gaze, how he can wear my fury like a mantle instead of a death sentence.
They do not understand how he can look at me, knowing what I am, and still smile.
But that is because they do not know what I know.
They do not see what I see.
That he is not afraid of the dark.
Because he has lived in it his whole life, and now he walks in my light.