Chapter 7
GRAVYN
Gravyn had spent his life enforcing the will of the gods. He punished those who defied them and rewarded obedience with positions and pity that passed for grace.
Vasten had been neither reward nor pity. He’d been a boy who fucked and lied and left headaches in his wake. Everything Gravyn tried to polish into a son only rusted. Such a waste.
Vasten had always been a disappointment to him. Just like whatever whore his mother had been. But he’d been the only bastard Gravyn had let live, and this was how he repaid him?
If the Bloodstone hadn’t killed him, he’d have done it himself.
Still, the prophecy had been clear. “When the stars fall and the Tree of Stars weep silver, the Fateless shall rise and burn the realm unless she is bound by blood.”
Gravyn had bled for that line. He had slit the last scribe’s mouth to keep it secret. He alone carried the translation in his head and he would keep it that way.
The girl—Narya—was a wound the gods had not yet stitched.
Fateless, unbound, and touched by starlight. Her crystal offered no sanction. He had carved the binding runes on her himself, once believing they would awaken when her crystal bloomed and tethered her to Moonstone blood.
But the aelith had turned black, not blue.
The gods had rejected her, and that was proof enough for him: Narya was the harbinger. If she could not be bound by his bloodline, then she must be burned so the rest of the realm might survive.
He paused outside his cousin’s chamber and practiced grief until the muscles in his face obeyed. The perfect mask. Then he knocked twice and entered.
Ultherion sat behind a crescent-shaped desk made of moonquartz, its outer edge gleaming like the tip of a blade. He was scribbling with a quill carved from a silvaryn’s horn, his midnight-blue robes spilling across the floor around him in heavy folds.
Gravyn moved to the centre of the room and dropped to his knees, bowing his head low. “I come to offer my shame and deepest regrets for my son’s failure.”
The king didn’t respond right away. He finished writing, each letter slow and measured, then set the quill aside. The only sound was the faint clink of his silver rings against wood and a sigh.
“Is that all you do, cousin? Beg?”
Still on his knees, Gravyn lifted his head, just enough to meet the king’s gaze.
Ultherion’s glacial eyes stared down at him dispassionately, as if Gravyn were nothing more than a peasant begging for their wretched life. Gravyn didn’t flinch. He knew what game they played, and in the end Gravyn would be the one to win it.
“I do not beg for myself,” he said. “I beg for the sake of the kingdom.”
Ultherion arched a pale brow at him. Slowly he turned his chair, clasping his hands in front of him. “And what need has the kingdom of you now, Gravyn, when your son almost brought war upon it?”
Gravyn clenched his fists, but his face remained motionless. The picture of contrition. “I can still fix it.”
Ultherion regarded him for a long moment. Gravyn thought he might refuse. Then he said, quietly, almost bored: “Let the girl burn. If the gods truly wanted her, they should have lit her crystal.”
The gods had always been tools to Ultherion. But as for the girl? A broken match he had no use for? Gravyn could work with that.
Ultherion turned away, already tired of the conversation, then added, “What is it you seek to fix, cousin? Your reputation or mine?”
Gravyn smiled thinly. “Both. With one stroke.”
Ultherion returned the knowing smile and stood.
Moonlight from the stained glass caught his long white hair, giving him an otherworldly edge like the gods he liked to emulate.
His robes caught the breeze from the windows and drifted behind him as he circled gracefully back to the desk.
So unlike the Bloodstone King in the way he moved and conducted himself.
Gravyn had watched Daigen break a man’s jaw without even drawing his sword.
He didn’t wear moon-glass robes or lean on symbolism like his cousin.
Daigen was symbolism, forged from the bones of a war god.
It disgusted Gravyn that the wrong king now sat the Moonstone throne.
“You presume much, cousin,” Ultherion stated as he settled back in his chair.
“I serve, cousin,” Gravyn replied coolly. “And I am ready to prove my loyalty again.”
Ultherion scoffed under his breath as he sealed the scroll with dark-blue wax and pressed his signet into it. The very ring their grandfather had promised Gravyn if his cousin hadn’t been born and ruined everything.
His eyes flicked to the name scrawled at the top of the scroll: Narya. His lips curled.
Ultherion held the scroll out to him. When Gravyn reached for it, he tightened his grip, and pulled his hand in.
“This is not for her execution,” he said. “This is a formal decree. You will see it delivered to the Bloodstone King personally. But stay out of sight. Be discreet.”
Gravyn blinked, then he grinned. Perhaps his cousin wasn't as foolish as he thought him to be.
“If they break,” Ultherion continued, “then I win. If they rage, I reign. Either way, the girl will suffer for it.”
Gravyn let the chill of that sentence pass through him with a smile and bowed his head in silent assent. “My liege.”
Ultherion released the scroll and waved him away. “Go. Make an example of her. Let them remember who shapes these tides. As for the Bloodstone, he will either kneel or drown in them. Leave him to me.”
Gravyn nodded once, folded the scroll into his cloak, and left without another word. He did not look back.
Let his fool of a cousin wear his silks and sit on his crescent throne.
Let him think himself divine. When the sky split open and the gods fell silent, it would be Gravyn’s name the realm cried.
And as Ultherion’s bloodline burned, Gravyn would not weep for him.
He’d light the torch and bask in its fire.
His hand flexed at his side as he walked.
Soon the moon would fall, and when it did, Gravyn would be the one standing in its light.