Chapter Twenty-Six
Even though it was the drakonians that started the Great War, and they managed to massacre so many witches, and destroy so many cities…
They were still not strong enough to defeat them entirely.
That is why the war lasted so long. It took them years to try and convince the other kingdoms to join them in the fight.
For it was the other kingdoms that knew the truth.
If you enter battle against a witch, be prepared to die.
Tabitha Wysteria
When Ylva was returned to her cell, she could almost feel Arden’s despair seeping through the stone between them.
Again and again he had asked whether they had hurt her, his voice threaded with quiet panic.
And each time, very patiently, she had told him she was unharmed.
Only then had his breathing steadied, the tension in him easing at last.
She had lost track of how many days had passed since she’d been dragged from the cell. Time blurred in the dark. They were fed three times a day proper meals, which had surprised her more than anything else. Yet it was the darkness that gnawed at her most, pressing in, relentless and suffocating.
‘Breathe,’ Arden murmured from the other side of the wall.
‘How are you so calm?’ Ylva asked, easing herself back against the warm stone. She did this often, resting against that very wall, the one that separated them, pretending that the heat beneath her skin was his warmth, that if she closed her eyes she might imagine his arms around her.
Silence followed, stretching long enough that she wondered whether she had spoken aloud at all.
‘When we are trained in the Black Lotus,’ Arden said at last, his voice steady despite the words, ‘we are kept in cells like these. Underground. In complete darkness. Days pass like this, mostly filled with torture, until we are summoned to carry out the king’s will.’
Ylva’s body went rigid.
‘You learn to endure it,’ he continued quietly. ‘But it takes time. When I was younger, I panicked. I screamed. I cried. And every time I did, they came and beat us for it. So eventually… you learn to swallow the fear.’
‘That’s horrific,’ Ylva whispered.
‘It is,’ Arden agreed.
Ylva sighed and let her head rest against the wall, her eyes drifting shut. There was little point keeping them open in the dark.
‘Your voice helps,’ she muttered. ‘It really does, Arden Briar.’
He chuckled softly. ‘Does it?’
‘It does.’ She felt the tightness in her chest ease, her breathing finally slowing. ‘Tell me about the girl you miss so much.’
‘You won’t grow jealous, little wolf?’ She could almost hear the curl of his smile in the words.
‘I’ll try not to,’ she replied, smiling despite herself. ‘What is she like?’
‘A tempest,’ Arden said. ‘Wild. Brave. She spoke so much even the flowers seemed to shrink back and the rain itself would pause to listen. She feared nothing. Well, she did truly, but she hid it well. She cared more about doing what was right than about being afraid.’
‘She sounds incredible,’ Ylva whispered.
‘She is.’
Ylva’s smile widened, soft and genuine. ‘I hope I meet her one day.’
‘I hope you do too, little wolf,’ Arden said quietly. ‘You’d like each other very much.’
‘You think?’
‘I’m certain.’
Ylva opened her mouth to reply, but the door to the cells creaked open and a blade of light spilt into the darkness.
Her eyes snapped wide, her brief calm shattering as tension seized her body.
A witch she did not recognise appeared at her door, unlocked it, and crooked two fingers in a sharp command for Ylva to follow.
‘Where are you taking her?’ Arden demanded, his voice striking the stone like a blow.
‘Shush,’ the witch snapped. With a flick of her fingers, invisible force yanked Ylva’s arms tight behind her back.
‘I’ll be fine,’ Ylva called out quickly, willing the steadiness in her voice to carry through the wall, to reach him and anchor him.
‘Be quiet.’ The witch snapped again, and Ylva’s mouth sealed shut as if stitched by magic itself.
Panic surged. She fought the binding spell, straining against it, but it held fast. Arden’s voice rose in a shout as he cried her name, frantic, his voice breaking.
But she could not answer him. She was dragged down the corridor by unseen hands, hauled up the stairs, through the keep, until they reached the same chamber she had stood in days before.
The witch shoved her inside and slammed the doors closed.
She had forgotten, however, to release the magic.
Ylva stood there for hours, bound and silenced, the weight of her own helplessness pressing in on her chest. At the desk, Hagan sat writing, his quill scratching softly across parchment.
He did not so much as glance in her direction.
Ylva tried to make a sound, to draw his attention, but whether he heard her or not, he gave no sign.
Time stretched and warped, until nearly two hours had passed in suffocating stillness.
At last, his tattooed fingers snapped together.
The magic shattered.
‘You damn bastard!’ Ylva snarled at once, rubbing her wrists where the bindings had held her. ‘You knew I was there and you ignored me!’
Hagan turned then, his face unreadable—smooth, empty, as though emotion had never learnt to live there at all. Perhaps it truly hadn’t.
‘Do you forget your place?’ His voice was low and glacial, edged with something lethal. Ylva stiffened as the words settled. ‘You are a prisoner.’
‘And what do you intend to do with me?’ she asked, lifting her chin despite the fear curling in her stomach.
Hagan did not answer. Instead, his purple eyes travelled over her slowly. Ylva’s muscles locked under the weight of his gaze, bracing for something vile, until she realised, with a shiver, that there was no desire in it at all.
He was not looking at her like prey.
He was studying her.
And for what purpose, she could not yet tell.
‘I brought something for you,’ he said, tilting his head towards the bed. ‘Put it on.’
Ylva did not move at once. She kept her gaze fixed on the warlock, suspicion tightening her spine, waiting for the twist of a trick. When he turned back to his writing, apparently disinterested, she finally crossed the room with measured steps. The sight that awaited her made her pause.
A gown lay arranged upon the bed.
It was a deep, wolverian blue—rich and cold as twilight over snow—cut in the style of northern royalty.
Puffed sleeves, a high turtleneck clasped with lace, fabric heavy with elegance and restraint.
It was breathtaking. And it looked as though it would steal the breath from anyone forced to wear it.
Ylva did not touch it.
‘The dress belonged to princess Wren Wynter,’ Hagan said quietly. ‘The witches found it in her castle. It was her mother’s wedding gown. The late queen’s.’
‘And you stole it,’ Ylva accused, her voice sharp.
Hagan shrugged, the motion careless. ‘It would have burnt otherwise.’
‘And you want me to wear it?’ She frowned, eyes narrowing. ‘Why?’
Amusement crossed his purple glare. ‘Someone ought to.’
Ylva’s eyes dropped to the gown despite herself. Slowly, almost unwillingly, she reached out and brushed her fingers over the fabric. The material was cool, smooth, and it stirred something she had not expected. A hollow ache. A whisper of nostalgia she could not name.
She frowned, unsettled.
She did not know the Wynters. She had never met the wolverian princess. And yet, standing there, with her hand resting on that stolen blue silk, it felt as though she was touching a ghost.
Ylva knew the answers already. She felt them coiled beneath her skin, waiting.
But the runes carved into her body stirred, tugging insistently, urging her to leave it alone.
Do not think. Do not remember. So she obeyed.
She pressed the feeling down until it dulled, and turned her attention back to the warlock.
‘I’m not wearing it,’ she said evenly. ‘It would be disrespectful.’
‘I don’t care what you think,’ Hagan replied without looking up. ‘Get changed. I won’t repeat myself.’
Ylva sighed. She knew too well how little choice she had. Rage burnt bright in her chest. She wanted to scream, to claw at him, to tear those purple eyes from his skull. Instead, she swallowed it all down. One battle at a time.
She stripped and dressed as quickly as she could, ignoring how the warm air managed to rise gooseflesh along her skin. It was only when the fabric settled against her that she realised, too late, that he was watching. Her breath hitched, blue eyes flicking up to meet his.
The dress fit her perfectly.
Hagan cocked his head, his gaze sliding over her with the slow, assessing interest of something cold-blooded, like a lizard basking in the sun.
‘Are you happy now?’ she asked, knowing she ought to stop, knowing she wouldn’t.
‘I’m never happy.’
The words stopped her.
Ylva stilled, studying him in a way she hadn’t allowed herself to before. Was it true? Could someone truly exist without happiness? And what kind of life carved a person hollow enough for that to be their truth?
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she said quietly. ‘It must be awful to live like that.’
Hagan’s head snapped towards her.
The shock on his face should have satisfied her.
It should have felt like a victory. Instead, her chest tightened.
For just a heartbeat, he did not look like a warlock or a monster or a man in control.
He looked like a forgotten child—one left alone too long, only to realise that no one had ever been searching for him at all.
Hagan let the quill slip from his fingers. It struck the desk with a soft, final clatter before rolling to the floor, forgotten. He rose and moved towards Ylva.
She stepped back instinctively, the hem of the gown tangling around her ankles, her heart lurching with the certainty that this was the moment he would kill her.
He stopped just inches away. Too close. Close enough that she could feel the heat of him, could see something restless behind his purple eyes.
For a long moment he simply stared at her, so long that time seemed to thin and stretch between them.
Then he exhaled.
‘Come along,’ Hagan said quietly. ‘I will show you the keep.’
Ylva frowned, thrown by the sudden shift. Before she could speak, the doors to his chambers were flung open with a sharp crack of magic. He stepped through, then paused and glanced back over his shoulder.
‘I’m losing patience.’
She hurried after him, gathering the skirts of the gown in clumsy hands. She had not worn a dress since becoming valkyrian, and even then, never anything like this. It felt wrong—restrictive, heavy, like a costume stitched for someone else’s life.
They walked in silence, Ylva keeping a cautious distance behind him.
The keep unfolded around them, far larger than she had imagined.
Witches and warlocks moved through its corridors with purpose, their murmured conversations echoing against stone.
Most doors were shut tight, their secrets sealed away from her.
The structure was square, rising at least four levels high. Its interior yawned open at the centre, allowing every floor to look down into the courtyard below. As they descended, a sound reached her, faint at first, then unmistakable.
Screams.
Ylva faltered, her steps slowing as the noise crawled beneath her skin.
They reached the ground level, passed through a narrow hallway, and then stepped out into the courtyard.
Ylva stopped short.
The space was not large, but it was crowded, packed with witches and warlocks standing in loose rings around their work. More than a dozen prisoners lay scattered across the stone, suspended, chained, or collapsed in heaps. Some were barely conscious. Others were very clearly dying.
Their bodies bore the marks of prolonged suffering—wounds old and new, flesh broken down by pain and neglect.
Decay hung thick in the air.
And Ylva understood, with a sickening certainty, that this was not a place meant for mercy.
Ylva noticed a heap of bodies discarded to one side of the courtyard, left to rot beneath the merciless sun of the Kingdom of Fire.
The heat had swollen them, split them open.
The stench was unbearable. Thick and sweet.
She gagged, clapping a hand over her nose, forcing the bile back down her throat.
Then her attention snapped towards the screams.
They rose above the others, raw and tearing, shredding the air. On the warm stone floor lay a drakonian woman, naked, her body pinned and powerless. A warlock knelt over her, committing an act so vile Ylva’s mind recoiled even as her heart ignited with fury.
She did not think.
She surged forward, the world narrowing to red and white and the sound of her own blood roaring in her ears.
She barely made it three steps.
Pain seized her veins as blood magic wrapped around her like iron. Her body locked mid-stride, frozen, breath stolen from her lungs. She strained, fought, screamed silently but nothing moved. Not a finger. Not a breath.
Hagan stepped into her line of sight, calm as a man admiring a painting. He tilted his head, studying her as one might study an interesting flaw.
‘And what, precisely, do you think you are doing?’ he asked, his voice smooth with menace.
‘I will kill you if you do not let me go,’ Ylva hissed, every word shaking with fury. Her gaze snapped back to the scene behind him, to the warlock forcing himself upon the drakonian woman, to the way her body arched in helpless agony. ‘He’s raping her!’
‘So?’
The word landed like a blade.
Ylva’s eyes widened in disbelief. ‘Let me go. Now!’
Hagan’s stare darkened, sharpening into something cruel. ‘Do you wish to be next?’
‘I’m going to kill you!’ Ylva screamed, thrashing against the invisible grip that held her fast. She fought with everything she had, muscles burning, bones aching, but the blood magic did not yield.
Hagan stepped closer. His hand closed around her jaw, immense and unyielding, forcing her face towards the horror unfolding on the stone.
‘Watch,’ he commanded, his fingers tightening until pain flared white behind her eyes. ‘You are going to watch all of it. Every rape. Every scream. Every act of torture. Every death.’
Tears spilt freely down Ylva’s cheeks as her body shook, trapped between rage and helplessness. Her breath came in broken gasps, her throat raw as she forced the words out.
‘Why?’ she begged hoarsely. ‘Why are you doing this?’
Hagan’s answer was simple. Absolute.
‘Because I can.’
And so Ylva watched.
Not because he forced her to but because she chose to. She carved every scream into her memory, branded every cruelty into her soul. She watched so that one day, when she escaped this place, when she finally broke free, she would remember exactly what to repay.
A thousand times over.