Chapter 29
NARYA
Ipaced my room until I was sure my boots would wear a hole in the floorboards.
I couldn’t stop. Dawn had risen and dusk claimed its place, and still no one had come for me.
Thràena visited only twice. First in the morning to help me dress, then in the evening once the servants had cleared my dinner plates.
We spoke little, yet it was a strange comfort simply not to be alone.
When I asked after Daigen, she offered only, “Court business,” and that I would be sent for soon.
I did not ask why I hadn’t been summoned to court myself.
I didn’t want to be. Still, the longer the silence stretched, the more restless I became.
I no longer cared about the Starlights or the Bloodstone Tree.
I needed to know why the emissary had been sent, and for what reason I was mentioned.
I asked Thràena about it before she left. She claimed not to know and continued acting stiffly around me. It was only once she prepared to leave did she say anything useful, helping to reduce the tension between us a little.
“I truly am sorry, about the cloak,” she whispered, turning to look at me. “I did not know how much it meant to His Majesty. Otherwise, I would not have… would never…” Her voice broke. “Please forgive me, my lady.”
I stared at her contemplatively for a minute. I saw no deceit in her eyes.
And if I was to remain in this palace, I would need allies.
I smiled at her. “Narya,” I corrected gently, lifting an eyebrow. “Remember?”
Thràena’s sullen face suddenly lit up. “I will see what I can find out about the emissary.”
In the end, there was no need.
Moments after she left there was a knock on the door, and I stopped pacing.
“Come in.”
Emerias and Captain Izyák entered, both looking grimmer than I’d ever seen them. Dried blood streaked Emerias’s temple; Izyák’s nose was swollen and purple.
“He needs you,” the captain said, his voice hoarse, almost pleading.
My heart jumped against my ribs. Daigen needed me.
Not wanted. Needed.
I went with them without a word.
The palace corridors were eerily silent. Guards outside the great hall hushed the moment we appeared. Two hurried to pull the doors open. A crash sounded within, followed by a bellow that made my stomach clench.
“What’s going on?” I whispered.
“Your Moonstone King enjoys baiting us into war,” Emerias muttered as light spilled through the widening gap. “He may have succeeded.”
It’d been a long time since war broke out between the kingdoms. The Sun Alliance had helped keep the pace, to a degree. So why now? What did it have to do with me?
When the doors fully opened, Izyák stepped ahead while Emerias kept beside me.
Inside, the hall lay in ruin. Tables, chairs, and benches lay splintered, some still smouldering from whatever fury had destroyed them.
Columns were cracked and bleeding dust. No one dared move among the wreckage.
The courtiers huddled at the edges of the hall, their faces pale and eyes fixed on the dais, where something blue lay at the foot of it.
The closer we got, the clearer it became.
A man lying in a pool of his own blood, limbs severed and scattered around him. Somehow he was still alive. His mouth opened and shut like a fish gasping at the shore. The one eye still attached to its socket rolled to the side and found me as we passed.
I froze to the spot, my entire body locking up. I knew that eye.
Saer Davrin. Our village governor.
He was King Ultherion’s emissary?
Daigen’s low voice curled through the hall to me.
“My lady.”
He slouched upon his throne, one hand hanging loose, the other gripping a bloody scroll that dripped onto the stone. His face was hollowed, like he hadn't slept in days. He watched me as I approached.
“He is one of them, is he not?”
Everyone looked at me, including Saer Davrin.
Not only had Daigen remembered my list, he’d delivered one of them to me.
“Yes,” I said softly.
“Make it quick.” He lifted the scroll, blood spattering the dais. “According to this, we have little time.”
Izyák withdrew a knife from his belt, flicked it around and held the handle out to me. Saer Davrin gave a gargled scream as he tried to awkwardly crawl away, through all his blood.
Emerias kicked him back down with a merciless boot.
At the same moment, a Bloodstone noble stepped forward, nervously clearing his throat.
“My liege, perhaps – perhaps it is wise to keep this one alive until—”
Daigen turned his head a fraction. The male recoiled.
“Anyone who touches my mate will suffer my wrath!” he roared, slamming his fist into the throne. “Their bones will decorate my halls, their skulls my throne, their flesh my altars—and so will those who defend them!”
His gaze snapped to me in silent command.
Another monster on my list. Another chance to get my revenge.
I took the knife. My hand trembled as I knelt beside Saer Davrin. His blood soaked through my dress. His eye fixed on me as his mouth worked soundlessly, then I saw that his tongue was gone.
I looked into that single terrified eye and hesitated. Would killing him return what he stole? Would it erase the hollow ache he helped carve into me?
I didn’t know.
But I wanted his blood more than absolution.
I leaned close, the smell of his suffering filling my lungs, and whispered, “How does it feel to be the animal now?”
Then I pushed the knife into his throat, savouring every sound, every gurgle for air. My body trembled as I watched his last breath leave him, then his eye rolled to the back of his head. I couldn’t move. His blood pinned me.
Only three more to go.
Izyák lifted me and pried the knife from my fingers.
“Clean it!” Daigen thundered.
Servants rushed in, dragging the body and its pieces away.
Only the pool of blood remained smeared across the floor, and a tongue. It rolled nearby until Emerias kicked it aside and a servant hurried to pick it up.
“Where is he?!” Daigen barked.
“On his way, Your Majesty,” a noble answered.
Daigen turned back to the scroll, eyes devouring the words as if he’d read them a hundred times. The broken Moonstone seal glimmered against the parchment.
Why Davrin? Why send a face I’d know? It felt deliberate.
I didn’t realize Daigen had moved, and was touching me, until his fingers lifted my chin. Didn’t feel the tears until he brushed one away with his thumb. For a moment, the hall vanished, and all that remained was us.
His scent, his heat, the smell of blood around us.
He pulled me to him and kissed me, a deep, hard, passionate kiss that felt like a claim. The taste of blood and fury on his mouth should have sickened me. Instead, it lit something wild inside me, and I kissed him back, just as hard. Just as passionately.
I had just killed a man. Yet all I could think about was Daigen.
All I wanted was Daigen.
Daigen’s mouth left mine, leaving a trail of heat that made it hard to breathe.
He returned to his throne and pulled me onto his lap, the iron weight of his arm wrapping around my waist. I didn’t resist. I was still shaking from what I’d done, still hearing the echo of Saer Davrin's last dying breath.
The safety of Daigen’s hold felt wrong and right all at once, a shield forged from the same hands that commanded slaughter. That made me want to command slaughter over those who hurt me.
“What do you know of the First Mating?”
I blinked at him, a rush of heating climbing into my face. “It’s the first night you spend with your fated one once the bond is sealed.”
His eyes narrowed. “And of First Mating rights—specifically, royal rights?”
I glanced down at the blood-stained scroll still clenched in his hand. “What is this about?”
“What do you know?” he pressed, harder now, his voice carved with something darker than anger.
Every eye in the hall fixed on me. The air thickened until my lungs refused to work. I knew history, yes. The lessons drilled into us about the Moonstone line, the wars, the kings. None of them mentioned anything about royal first mating rights.
“I don’t know anything,” I admitted. “But what does this have to do with me?”
The words scraped my tongue like a blade. A deep, silent knowing twisted deep inside me. Because somehow, I already feared the answer.
“What does Ultherion want now?” I asked.
Daigen’s fingers twitched where they rested at the small of my back. His jaw flexed.
“You,” he said, his lips peeling into a snarl. “He wants my mate. According to this scroll, your Bastard King invokes the Right of First Mating.” He thrust the parchment towards me. “Apparently it’s a law among your kin. He threatens war if it's not upheld.”
I stared at the parchment, something hard lodging in my throat.
King Ultherion had claimed me. Not a title. Not a subject or land. Me.
The words blurred as I reread them, beautifully inked cruelty dripping between every line. My tears burned, but I forced them back. I would not give the Moonstone King my tears.
I stared blindly at the parchment. It was a death sentence dressed in royal decree. A leash inked in my blood.
Was this all I was destined for? A jewel passed from one throne to another, each time a little more chipped and broken?
I looked up, my voice shaking. “What will you do?”
Daigen’s grip tightened painfully, then loosened. Bowing to this demand would ruin him; denying it would ignite war.
The look in his eyes said what his mouth hadn’t: he would burn every kingdom before surrendering me. And gods help me, part of me wanted him to. But I couldn’t let him do that for me. I wouldn’t be the reason the realm suffered.
“Daigen, you can’t go through—”
A horrified gasp tore through the hall as the doors burst open.
A male stumbled inside, shoved hard by another.
Nakólys.
He hit the floor and caught himself against the wall, clutching a heavy tome bound in dark hide. Behind him stood an older man who looked like his reflection blurred by time. They had the same sharp cheekbones and eyes. His father.
He shoved him again. Nakólys staggered, then knelt, the book cradled in his hands.
I started to rise indignantly, but Daigen’s arm coiled around my waist, holding me still.
“Why do you treat him like this?” I demanded.
“Because he’s a traitor,” Izyák spat before his king could.
“A useful one,” Daigen added dryly. “But a traitor nonetheless.”
Nakólys only grinned and wiped the blood at the corner of his mouth. “By useful, he means powerful. Or I would be without these.”
He lifted his shackled wrists. The translucent chains shimmered with magic. I hadn't noticed them before.
His father shoved him forward again until Nakólys nearly dropped the tome. He caught it, lips curling.
“Enough,” Daigen said.
He didn’t shout. He didn’t need to. The command was obeyed.
Nakólys placed the tome upon a table before the throne.
The crescent sigil on its cover pulsed faintly blue. “Your Moonstone King was right,” he said. “There is record of the First Mating Right. The last claim was over a century ago. A peasant girl from the Luneth Vale."
He stepped back, hands sliding into his coat pockets. "Your fated one was raised in Moonstone territory, and by their own decrees, falls under that law. I can find no way around it.”
Daigen stared at him for a long, lethal silence. “Then look harder.”
His fingers dug into the onyx armrest until the stone groaned. He lowered his gaze to the book. I looked, too, though the words were in the old tongue, impossible to fully translate. I caught only fragments: any royal, First Mating, Moonstone King.
There was no way Ultherion wanted me for himself. He wanted a weapon to wound Daigen. A torch to light the war.
Daigen lifted his head. “This changes nothing.”
The advisors surged forward in panic.
“My liege, we must consider the ramifications!”
“We cannot risk war while the Alliance still holds!” another cried.
“Do you suggest I bow to my enemy?” Daigen’s voice dropped to a sinister drawl. He rose, dragging me up with him so suddenly that his councilmen flinched. “If you think I’ll hand my mate over to any man or god in this realm, I’ll hang you for treason.”
“N-no, my liege!” one stammered. “Of course we do not. We merely ask that you seek another way—to parley, perhaps—without endangering the Lady Narya.”
Daigen’s mouth curved into a humourless smile. I thought I'd seen Daigen angry before but it was nothing compared to this. The rage beneath his smile felt like a vicious storm about to break.
Everything inside me shook. How could this be happening? Was I really what stood between peace and war?
“Perhaps,” Daigen murmured, "the gods may yet know my mercy."
He pulled me back onto his lap, no longer a seat of affection, but a throne of claim. His hands slid slowly up my arms, leaving goosebumps in their wake.
“See the court ready by nightfall,” he ordered. “We travel light.” He turned to the captain. "Prepare the men."
Boots scraped and hurried to obey the orders. Even Nakólys retreated towards the doors.
“And Luthrin,” Daigen called out, still tracing my skin with idle cruelty, “fetch Osiliath. It’s time Lady Narya meets the other woman in my life.”
Luthrin laughed softly and left, dragging his son with him.
Jealousy pricked me. He had to mean a horse. Of course he did. Still, the thought stabbed beneath my ribs.
Daigen smirked at me, his eyes gleaming with something torn between hunger and vengeance. My heart soared in response, filling with that dark longing I’d come to know and crave. When did I yield to him? When had his touch become the only thing that felt real?
I tried to move, but his hand slid to my throat, his thumb brushing the necklace he’d placed there, the ruby moon glinting against his skin. I forgot he could feel everything I did, if he wanted to.
“Now, where do you think you’re going?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” I shot back, lifting my chin. “Where are you going?”
“We,” he corrected with a grin. His blood-stained fingers trailed down my collarbone. “To the Carnelian Mountains.”
My pulse faltered. “What for?”
“Because the gods demand it,” he murmured, thumb grazing my lower lip. “You wanted to know what it means to be Bloodstone? Now you’ll feel it, in your bones, in your blood, in your heart.”
Then he stood, leaving me on his throne with nothing but the heat of his touch and terrible certainty I was about to walk into something that would either crown me or break me.