Chapter Twelve
Many years ago, the Kingdom of Magic was ruled by a royal bloodline. But as time wore on, a Council emerged. And then, a century before the Great War ever scarred the world, the balance of power shattered.
The Council turned.
They plotted against their queen, weaving betrayal into the very fabric of the kingdom. When the moment came, they struck, slaughtering the entire royal family in a single, ruthless purge, as though erasing them from history itself.
All but one.
A princess survived.
Tabitha Wysteria
Hagan watched the sun sink far below the horizon from the terrace outside his chambers.
His hands were still slick with blood. Blood drawn from the prisoners kept deep within the keep’s dungeons.
Drakonians, captured and delivered to him so he might explore the limits of blood magic.
So he might learn what it could do to flesh. What he could do to a body.
It was all for research, of course.
Though he enjoyed it far more than he should have.
At times, screams drifted upward on the evening breeze, thin and broken. Each one made his chest swell with pleasure. He revelled in their agony.
For days now, he had felt adrift. Ever since the goddess Eris had been cast back into the god realms—killed by Mal Blackburn—something within him had gone unmoored.
He now had free rein over his witches, unchallenged and unchecked, yet he despised the truth he dared not speak aloud: without Eris, he no longer knew which direction this war ought to take.
When his witches had told him of her death, he had cursed her name. Not because she was gone—she was not truly dead, and he knew it. Eris would return, reborn in another vessel, just as she always did.
He had not even mourned his sister Vera.
Why should he? His sisters had never loved him. They had only blamed him. Cursed him. For he was the reason their mother had fled their father’s side.
And he was the reason she had died.
Hagan closed his purple eyes and drew in a slow, steady breath.
His mind slipped back to a quieter time—to days long past, when he still lived within the drakonian castle as the son of a noblewoman.
He could see himself then, so much younger, unshaped by the brutal training of the Red Guard.
In that memory, Alina entered the hall, draped in one of her extravagant gowns, all silks and splendour.
‘Have you ruined her yet?’ a voice drawled behind him.
Hagan turned to find his sister approaching.
To the world, she was not a witch named Dawn, but a drakonian noblewoman called Adara.
Even now, it was strange to look upon her, to see skin kissed gold by the sun and hair as soft and bright as spun metal.
Yet her eyes… though brown, they still burnt with Dawn’s familiar fire.
Perhaps that was what had made Ash fall so completely under her spell.
‘Have you stopped pretending your feelings for the Fire Prince are real?’ Hagan teased. He laughed quietly at the way her expression tightened.
‘I sometimes forget how utterly despicable you are,’ she replied before moving towards where Alina and Ash stood together.
Hagan followed at a distance, struggling and failing to suppress the smile that continued to spread.
‘You look lovely this evening,’ he said, lifting Alina’s hand and pressing a kiss to her knuckles. He took a private pleasure in the way colour bloomed across her cheeks.
‘Thank my mother,’ Alina replied. ‘She’s the one who insists on parading me about in these ridiculous dresses.’
‘But they are beautiful,’ Dawn said, envy slipping unmistakably into her voice.
Alina seemed to sense it; she cleared her throat and nodded, visibly uncomfortable.
‘I shall ride to the wall to-tomorrow,’ Ash said softly, pitched low enough that only they could hear. He never seemed to mind his stutter in the presence of friends; it was strangers who unsettled him.
‘What for?’ Hagan frowned.
‘The k-king wishes to re-start pa-patrols,’ Ash explained.
Alina sighed. ‘A ridiculous waste of time. There’s nothing beyond the wall.’
Ash fixed her with a hard look. ‘There are ru-rumours of witch sightings.’
Alina rolled her brown eyes. ‘Then why doesn’t father simply burn whatever remains of that dreadful place and be done with it?’
Hagan fought to contain the surge of anger that rippled through him at her words.
He caught the brief flash of fury in Dawn’s eyes before she smothered it, as she always did.
They were accustomed to this; accustomed to pretending, to swallowing their reactions whole.
Still, some moments made it painfully difficult.
Hagan reached for Alina’s gloved hand, rubbing it gently. ‘There is no need to fear witches, princess. They cannot harm you. You are safe here, within these walls.’ He exchanged a knowing glance with Dawn.
Alina huffed. ‘I’m not frightened of imaginary monsters. If they dared show themselves, our dragons would burn them just as they did a century ago.’
‘Alina…’ Ash warned, his gaze sharp.
‘What?’ she snapped, irritation tightening her features. ‘I’m only saying what everyone thinks.’ Then her expression faltered, pain flickering across it. ‘Hagan, you’re hurting me.’
She looked down at his hand, now clenched around hers with crushing force, enough to splinter bone. Hagan smiled faintly as he continued to squeeze, savouring the fear that bloomed in her eyes, before finally releasing her.
‘I apologise, princess,’ he said smoothly, fury neatly veiled.
Alina rubbed her aching hand, brow creased in confusion.
‘Shall we escape this dreadful ball?’ Hagan offered quickly, eager to amend his misstep.
Ash’s golden eyes lit with immediate enthusiasm at the thought of fleeing the suffocating dances and watchful court. Alina opened her mouth to protest, but Hagan leaned in and pressed a kiss to her cheek. She stilled, then nodded.
Hagan took her hand once more and drew her from the hall, with Dawn and Ash close behind, leaving the music and the masks in their wake.
The doors to Hagan’s chambers burst open without warning, wrenching him from his daydream. He glanced over his shoulder, a scowl forming. Who would dare enter without knocking? The answer, of course, was no one.
Until now.
His eyes flashed at the sight of Theodora strolling in as though she owned the place.
He drew breath to reprimand her insolence, then stopped.
He had never paid her much attention before.
She was slight, pale, her face dusted with freckles.
Her long brown hair held nothing remarkable to his eye.
She was the sort of woman most people forgot the moment she left the room.
Plain and unremarkable.
And yet, something had changed.
She looked the same, yes, but now there was a sharpness to her, something that demanded a second glance. Perhaps it was the danger coiled within those purple eyes—once wide and fearful, now narrowed, defiant, alive with challenge.
She spotted him on the terrace and planted herself in the centre of the chamber, one hand settling on her hip. A laugh escaped her lips at the irritation and confusion etched across his face.
‘Oh, do stop sulking,’ she said lightly. ‘Even in a different body, I ought to be recognisable.’
The voice was Theodora’s, but roughened, threaded with a dark seduction.
Hagan exhaled slowly.
‘Eris,’ he said. ‘You’ve returned.’
She nodded, sliding her hands languidly down her borrowed form. ‘I’ve acquired myself a new vessel. I trust you don’t mind. You never cared much for this one, did you?’
‘I don’t care for any of them,’ he replied.
Eris arched a brow. ‘Don’t whine.’ She strode onto the terrace, casting a bored glance over the landscape below. ‘We need to plan. My death has delayed matters.’
‘You’re right.’
‘You’ll gather the witches and march on the Kingdom of Fauna,’ Eris said.
‘And you?’
‘I’m going to bring you gifts.’ Her smile turned wicked before she pivoted and returned to the chambers. With deliberate slowness, she twisted and tugged at the dress she wore, letting it slip from her shoulders and pool at her feet. She stood naked before him, utterly unashamed.
‘You’ve already fucked this body once, haven’t you?’ she asked, lifting her long brown hair to bare her throat.
Hagan did not move from the terrace. He watched her carefully, unease coiling in his gut. He did not know what game the goddess was playing, only that a part of him suspected she would be his undoing the moment he ceased to amuse or serve her.
‘You couldn’t touch me when I wore your sister’s flesh,’ she continued, her cruel smile widening. ‘We gods have no issue with such things… but I know mortals tend to recoil from bedding their kin.’
Hagan said nothing.
Her dangerous purple eyes locked onto him.
‘Must I beg?’ she asked softly.
Hagan stepped towards her at last, his hands settling at her narrow waist. He leaned in and traced his tongue along her neck, tasting her. She responded by steering him back towards the vast bed and pushing him down onto it, straddling him and holding him firmly in place.
‘Have you ever fucked a goddess?’ she asked.
‘You’re wearing a mortal body,’ he replied calmly, unperturbed.
Eris laughed softly. ‘True. But I still wield godlike power, Hagan. Would you like to see?’
Before he could answer, she pressed her hands over his face.
In an instant, the world tore away. Hagan was wrenched from his body and flung into another realm. What it was, he could not say. He only knew he was no longer bound to flesh, no longer standing upon mortal ground, but drifting somewhere far beyond it.
He lay upon a bed fashioned from skulls, and beyond it stretched a vast emptiness where war raged without end. Eris stood before him in her true form, terrifying and exquisite in equal measure. She was no longer wholly mortal; her body was shaped from chaos and fury, a living nightmare given form.
Hands—dozens of them—seized him, dragging him down against the cold curve of bone. They roamed him, clawed at him, whispered curses and promises alike, until he felt himself ignite beneath their touch. And then Eris climbed over him, this creature born of darkness and wrath, of ruin and desire.
Her mouth opened wide, and it felt as though she was drawing something from deep within him.
His soul, perhaps, though Hagan was not entirely convinced he had ever possessed one.
Whatever she took, it sent the world reeling, stripped reality bare, until everything became impossibly sharp, impossibly clear, and devastatingly beautiful.
She positioned herself above him, her hand closing around his already hard and aching cock.
The countless hands tightened their hold, tugging at his skin, sinking into his flesh as though intent on tearing him apart.
But Hagan welcomed it. He revelled in the way this nightmare realm sought to unmake him piece by piece.
Nothing here could destroy him.
He had been broken long before this.
He was already ruined.
The instant Eris drew him into her, Hagan screamed.
He screamed as the pleasure surged, white-hot and overwhelming, as her mouth widened further, as though she were dragging something vital from him, drawing it ever deeper into herself.
She moved above him, faster and faster, and within moments he shattered inside her.
Eris only laughed.
She did not stop. She continued, relentless, even when his body failed him, even when his strength ebbed. The hands tightened their grip, some plunging into him, anchoring him in place, tearing and holding all at once. And still she fed from him, still she rode him, still she took.
His body betrayed him again, hardening once more, and she drove him to the brink a second time, forcing another release from him.
It did not end.
What had begun as ecstasy curdled into torment.
It did not end.
He stared up into eyes as black as oblivion. Eyes that reflected no soul, no self, nothing at all.
It did not end.
Her face was the stuff of nightmares; shifting, warping, never fixed.
It changed again and again, sometimes settling into faces he recognised.
At times it was Alina above him. At others, Ash.
On certain occasions, against his will, his sister Vera stared down at him.
It was always Eris’ body, but the face was a cruelty all its own.
He begged her to stop.
She did not.
She forced him through every grotesque illusion, compelled him to endure each borrowed form, again and again. Hours passed, perhaps days. Time dissolved into suffering.
The hands that belonged to nothing and no one continued their work, roaming him, slicing into him, prising him open until there was nothing left to resist.
Hagan screamed into the void, pleading for mercy that never came.
And then, suddenly, it was over.
The nightmare collapsed, and he fell back into his own bed, body trembling with exhaustion yet strangely unharmed. Eris stood at the foot of the bed, laughing. She slipped her dress back over herself, her face alight with exhilaration, and without a word, she turned and walked away.
For a moment, Hagan wondered if it had all been imagined. But his body was slick with sweat, his breath ragged, his heart still racing. Either way, one truth settled heavily upon him as he lay there, staring into the dark.
Eris was far more dangerous than he had ever understood.