Chapter Thirty-Seven
I’ve spent so long writing this diary of mine. It has been my companion throughout my life. Without it, I’m not sure I could’ve dealt with everything I discovered. About myself. About the gods. I do fear what will happen if anyone ever reads this. They will probably think of me as a monster.
And perhaps, they may be right.
Tabitha Wysteria
‘Arden Briar,’ Ylva said, her shoulder pressed to the comforting warmth of the stone. ‘How long do you think we’ve been here?’
She had told him everything, every shard of knowledge she had gathered in the dark.
Of the gods, of one of them entwined with Hagan.
She counted witches and warlocks in her mind, memorised their steps, their habits.
She traced the keep again and again in thought, mapping corridors she could not see, stitching together an escape from memory and will alone.
‘Too long,’ Arden answered.
‘I’ll find a way to knock Hagan out and come back for you,’ she said, the words fierce with promise.
‘Ylva…’ His voice tightened, strained through the wall between them. ‘That’s too risky. Hagan is no mere mortal. He’s a warlock, and not one we should toy with.’
‘I need to find a way for them to bring you with me,’ she insisted, chewing absently at the skin around her thumb. ‘It would be easier. Safer.’
‘And how do you plan on doing that?’
‘We’ve been reading old texts. Some are written in ancient wolverian. I could tell him they speak of the Fae, pretend I don’t fully grasp their meaning. He might call for you.’
There was a pause. Then, dry as ever, ‘And you think he’s foolish enough to fall for that?’
Ylva shrugged, then sighed when she remembered he couldn’t see her. ‘If I gain his trust…’
‘I suppose I should settle in, then,’ Arden replied lightly. ‘That will take a lifetime.’
‘You are not funny.’
‘And you need to be careful.’
‘Are you calling me foolish?’
‘No, little wolf. That’s not what I meant.’
‘Then what did you mean?’ she pressed, hearing the frustration sharpening his voice through the stone.
‘Only that it won’t be easy to fool Hagan.’
Ylva hesitated. ‘You sound like you know him.’
‘I’ve met him before.’
Her breath caught. ‘He said… he said he was the reason I died.’
Silence flooded the narrow cell, thick and heavy, and for a moment Ylva wondered if Arden had withdrawn entirely. Then she heard his sigh, soft and weary, bleed through the stone between them.
‘He was,’ Arden said quietly. ‘He is.’
Ylva nodded, then swore under her breath, once again forgetting he could not see her. ‘It won’t happen again. I can do this.’
‘It’s not that simple, little wolf.’
‘You don’t think I can handle him?’
‘That’s not it.’ His voice tightened. ‘He’s dangerous.’
‘And I’m a valkyrian.’
‘That doesn’t make you immortal!’ The anger in his voice cracked like a whip in the dark.
‘No,’ she replied, stubborn as steel, ‘but I will find a way for us to get out of here.’
‘We need to be patient. We need to be smart.’
Ylva lashed her leg out in frustration, the toe of her boot striking the opposite wall with a dull thud. The cell was so small she could barely stretch, barely breathe. ‘We don’t have time for patience, Arden.’
‘We have nothing but time,’ he shot back. ‘We’re prisoners.’
‘Why won’t you just let me try it my way?’ she snapped, teeth grinding, her chest tight with fury and fear.
‘Because I can’t lose you again, Wren!’ Arden cried.
The world seemed to still at the sound of that name. The silence that followed was suffocating, pressing down on her lungs, her heart, her thoughts. Ylva sank back against the stone, breath shallow, eyes wide as his words settled deep inside her.
She wanted to turn, to lean into the wall and let herself fall through it. She wanted to reach him, to see those green eyes filled with too much feeling, too much history. To touch him, to remind him she was still here.
Alive.
‘Arden… I…’
But before the words could find their way out, light spilt into the cells as the main doors creaked open.
It cut through the darkness like a blade.
Ylva released a quiet, defeated sigh when a witch appeared, finger curling as she beckoned Ylva forward.
Ylva did not speak to Arden. She could not.
She stepped out of the cell and left him behind, the stone swallowing his presence whole.
Ylva muttered under her breath the moment she was ushered back into Hagan’s chambers.
Nothing had changed. He sat exactly where he always did; at his desk, hunched over scrolls as though the world might crumble if he looked away.
He patted the empty chair beside him, a silent command.
But before she could move, he cleared his throat.
‘Are you not forgetting something?’
Ylva bit down hard on her lip, tasting blood rather than allowing the urge to spit at him to win. She turned towards the bed instead, her glare settling on the wolverian gown he had laid out for her, pale and unforgiving.
‘Hurry up,’ Hagan said, already bored, his attention firmly fixed on the scrolls before him.
She stripped quickly, movements sharp and efficient, refusing to linger even for a breath.
She ignored the way the fine hairs on her arms lifted when his purple eyes flicked towards her bare skin, cold and appraising.
The moment the gown was pulled into place, she moved at once—straight to the chair, spine stiff, hands folding tightly in her lap as she sat.
There was a rose upon the desk, its red petals dark as fresh blood. Hagan lifted it at last and reached for Ylva. She leaned back at once, instinct sharp as a blade.
‘It is to decorate,’ Hagan said, irritation threading his voice.
‘Why?’ Ylva frowned, blue eyes dropping to the hand that clutched the rose as though it might yet be used as a weapon.
‘You will look prettier.’
Her scowl deepened at the word, but after a moment she stilled, grudgingly allowing him to tuck the crimson bloom into her hair. He studied it for a long while, eyes lingering, before giving a slow, satisfied nod.
‘My mother loved wearing red roses in her hair,’ he said suddenly, already returning his attention to the scrolls as if the confession meant nothing at all.
‘Why?’ Ylva asked.
‘The drakonian queen had an odd fascination with roses,’ Hagan replied.
‘She would have them dyed gold, so they might match her ridiculous gowns. Red roses were too ordinary for her, she needed special ones. Golden ones. After all, she was the Golden Queen.’ His mouth twitched.
‘My mother wore the plain red roses simply to spite her.’
Ylva’s brow creased. ‘Your mother was not a witch?’
‘She was,’ he said. ‘But she lived in the drakonian court. She glamoured herself to look drakonian.’
‘Did you grow up there too?’
Hagan glanced towards the window, expression distant, as though the past lingered just beyond the glass. At last, he nodded. ‘Yes. I grew up with Ash Acheron and Alina Acheron.’
‘They were your friends?’ Ylva asked, carefully.
‘I suppose they were.’
‘And yet you tried to slaughter them?’
Ylva waited. She waited for anger, for violence, or for the snap of blood magic tightening around her throat. It never came. Instead, Hagan smiled.
‘Yes,’ he said simply. Then he tilted his head, studying her, the smile sharpening into something dark and feral. ‘Imagine, then, what I am capable of doing to my enemies, if this is what I can do to my friends.’
Ylva did not need to imagine it.
She had already been forced to watch.
‘Do you not wish to have friends?’ Ylva asked softly, the question slipping free before she could stop it.
Her voice was low, cautious, as though even the air might punish her for such curiosity.
She did not look at him. She kept her blue eyes anchored to the scroll before her, its words long since blurred.
He watched her for far too long. She felt it like a pressure at the nape of her neck, those purple eyes dissecting her, weighing her. She had the sudden, violent urge to claw them from his skull.
‘Why would I want friends?’ he asked at last.
Ylva shrugged, a small, helpless gesture. ‘Why not?’
‘Friends betray.’
The bluntness of it made her glance up despite herself. ‘Is that what happened to you?’ she asked carefully. ‘A friend betrayed you?’
Hagan’s purple eyes hardened, sharpening into something cold and unyielding. ‘Everyone betrayed me.’
Ylva frowned. ‘Everyone?’ Her voice wavered despite her effort to keep it steady. ‘Surely there must be someone who didn’t. Someone who lo…loved you.’ The word felt strange on her tongue when paired with him.
‘No.’ Hagan shook his head once, final and absolute. ‘They all betrayed me in the end.’
Ylva nodded, glancing back to the scrolls as though they might offer refuge. She could feel the weight of his stare on her skin, hot and invasive, until warmth crept up her neck and stained her cheeks. She wanted him to look anywhere but at her.
‘Then I can understand why you’d hate the world so much.’
The words drew a sharp, startled breath from him, so unexpected that she looked up despite herself.
He was watching her closely now, measuring her, as if trying to decide whether this was a trick, a lie, or something far more dangerous: understanding.
Ylva hoped—gods, she hoped that he would believe she cared. That he would think she felt sympathy. That he would mistake calculation for compassion.
She needed his trust. Needed it like air. Needed it so she could carve out a sliver of freedom and drag Arden with her out of this waking nightmare.
And yet the thought curdled in her chest. By earning his trust only to shatter it, she would become just another betrayal.
Another knife in a long line of them. Another hand shaping him into the monster he had become.
If the others had kept their word, if they had not betrayed him, would this war even exist?
‘I would hate them all too,’ Ylva said quietly, turning back to the scrolls. Her spine straightened as he leaned closer, close enough that it felt as though he were scenting her, searching for the lie beneath her skin.
‘Would you, valkyrian?’ His voice was low, threaded with menace.
‘I would.’ She forced the words to sound firm and certain. Unflinching.
But the light that flared in his eyes, the slow, wicked curve of his mouth, told her everything she needed to know.
She had not convinced him at all.
And Hagan knew, perfectly and cruelly, exactly what game she was trying to play.