Chapter 34
DAIGEN
She betrayed me.
I watched her at the portal, the light clawing around her, pulling her into my enemy's home.
She'd rather kneel to them than stand beside me.
All the things I’d done for her crowded my chest until I fought to breathe.
All the nights I kept vigil over her, the soldiers I sent to carve her a path, the altar I spared her from death.
I had bled to make a place for her in this realm.
I'd planned my future and reign around that small, fierce shape of her.
She had been mine in every language I knew.
And yet she chose them!
Power rose inside me. Not the slow, obedient tide I’d learned to tame. But a hot, feral current—darker and angrier than I’d let surface in years. It moved through me like the beast had finally been unchained.
Izyák lunged as if to catch her. I stopped him with my arm. His eyes asked the question he had no words for: what will you do?
"What I planned all along," I said. "War."
Only now I didn't intend on just winning. I would bring the realm to its knees for what happened this night.
I could have let strategy close the wound. I could have signed orders and buried the betrayal like any other loss. But this was no ordinary betrayal.
This was my mate.
She stepped through the portal. The light sealed behind her.
Ellia stood beyond the mist, watching me with that thin, knowing smile. She bowed slightly and then slipped into the trees. Her words came back to me, after I squeezed the truth from her in the skinning chamber.
'You want the truth, Daigen? Let her choose. If she stays, she’s yours, but if she goes through the portal… then you’ll finally know what you mean to her.'
The little witch had baited me with doubt. Now that doubt turned into vengeance.
Ultherion wanted a war? He would have it.
He had wanted the price paid; I would make the price so heavy his hands would bleed from carrying it.
I let the images come. Ultherion’s pathetic crescent throne, the pale banners, the Moonstone Palace—all of it burned to ash.
I saw the bone and glass of their bridges melting into rivers of light; their Tree of Stars burning, the crystal leaves shattering.
I saw carnage and crowns going up in smoke.
The vision steadied me. Focused me on the battle ahead.
“Do you know what happens when a king is made to bleed for his pride?” I asked Izyák, though the question was for the cold place beneath my ribs. "The realm burns."
I would burn it until the price was paid and there was nowhere left for Narya to run.
Then I'd bring her home and make her kneel in the ashes of her consequences.