Chapter Fifty
War should never be excused. It is cruel, and there are no victors. Only survivors that rewrite history with their memories.
Tabitha Wysteria
Ylva had been asleep for far too long. When she finally stirred, her back throbbed and her legs protested sharply from the awkward curl she had been forced into.
Waking was an ordeal in itself, made worse by the absence of light, by the endless dark pressing in around her.
There was no dawn here, no dusk. No way to measure the passing of hours.
Only stone. And silence.
Ylva groaned softly, and on the other side of the wall Arden chuckled, the sound warm despite everything.
‘How do you manage?’ she asked, her voice quiet and worn thin. She was so very tired, tired of the darkness, of the waiting, of the constant strain of survival.
‘I’ve had years of training, little wolf,’ Arden replied lightly. ‘We used to tell each other stories to pass the time. Close your eyes and go somewhere else.’
‘I do go somewhere else,’ Ylva muttered, rolling her aching neck and thinking of those strange dreams where she wore white fur and ran beneath a dead sky. ‘I’m not sure it’s much better, if I’m honest.’
‘Then let me tell you a story,’ Arden said, cheer threading through his tone. ‘Close your eyes, little wolf.’ A beat passed before he added, amused, ‘Close them, Ylva.’
She scowled into the dark. ‘How did you know I hadn’t?’
‘I’m Black Lotus. I know everything.’
She swore beneath her breath, which only made him laugh, a sound that felt like sunlight in a place that had never known it.
‘Are they closed now?’ she asked, unable to stop her own smile from creeping in.
‘Most definitely not.’
‘That’s impossible! You can’t tell.’
‘I know you too well, little wolf.’
The teasing faded from her expression. She straightened slightly, something fragile flickering through her chest. She longed to ask him about herself, about who she had truly been, but the faint burn of her runes flared in warning beneath her skin.
So she bit her lip instead and said, softer, ‘I promise I’ll close them if you tell a good story. ’
‘That I can do.’
‘Very well then, Arden Briar.’ She closed her eyes at last and leaned her head against the warm stone, imagining him on the other side, perhaps mirroring her posture. She hoped he was. ‘They’re closed.’
Arden’s quiet chuckle drifted through the wall. ‘Do you know the story of how the world was created?’
‘I don’t think I do.’
‘They say that thousands of years ago the gods grew restless in their immortality,’ Arden began, his voice lowering as though the darkness itself leaned closer to listen.
‘So they challenged one another. Not with swords or storms, but with creation. Each sought to outdo the other by shaping lands, forging seas, breathing life into creatures more wondrous than the last.’
His words seemed to ripple through the stone.
‘It was the Sun God who first drenched the world in light, casting day across the empty lands. But Nyx—the Goddess of Night—answered him with shadow and stars. She wrapped the world in darkness and silence, and the Sun God did not take kindly to being rivalled.’
A pause. A shift in tone.
‘Some say his anger was not born of pride, but of love. That he had once loved Nyx before Zeus. That Thanatos was his. There are whispers that Nyx and the Sun God had stood side by side in the beginning, until she left him for the king of gods.’
The stone seemed colder somehow.
‘And when Nyx bore Eris to Zeus, the Sun God’s jealousy turned venomous.
They say he tried to kill the child. Tried to snuff out the reminder of what he had lost.’ Arden’s voice softened.
‘Nyx fled. She vanished into hiding, retreating from the heavens entirely. Zeus remarried in time and sired more children with his second wife, and none of them ever saw Nyx again.’
A breath.
‘The Sun God descended to the mortal lands in search of her, fury blazing in his wake. But mortals are fragile things, and sometimes… their fragility ensnares even gods. They say he fell in love with a mortal woman and chose to remain among her kind.’ A faint, thoughtful hum drifted through the wall.
‘No one truly knows the ending. Some believe he stayed for love. Others say that even now, he walks beneath mortal skies still searching for Nyx, chasing the shadow she cast across his heart.’
Silence settled between them like dust.
‘That is how the world began,’ Arden finished quietly. ‘With love, rivalry, and gods who could not bear to lose one another.’
Ylva snorted softly. ‘And you believe any of that to be true?’
Arden gave a faint laugh through the stone. ‘Why not? Stranger things have happened.’
She hummed in reluctant agreement, her thoughts straying unwillingly to the goddess Eris and the madness in her eyes. If gods walked the world wearing mortal flesh, then perhaps stories were not stories at all.
Before she could answer, the cell door groaned open.
Light poured in like a blade.
Ylva recoiled, squinting as several warlocks stormed inside. The air shifted, thickened, and then she felt it: cold magic snapping around her wrists and throat. Chains, not iron but spellwork, coiled into place with a sickening finality.
She gasped.
‘What’s happening?’ They had stopped chaining her to take her to Hagan. Something was different. Something had shifted.
‘We’re leaving,’ one of the warlocks replied flatly.
Her cell door swung wide, and she was dragged into the corridor just as Arden’s door opened opposite. He stumbled forward into the dim light, and for a heartbeat the world narrowed to him.
The urge to reach him, to bury her face against his chest and feel the steady proof of his heart, nearly broke her. To know he was flesh and blood and not another cruel dream.
He looked drawn, thinner perhaps, but not broken.
His gaze locked on hers. The same desperate need shone there.
He moved as though to step towards her, but a warlock yanked him back. Arden hissed, teeth bared, a flash of something feral in his expression. Tattooed hands rose in warning, green smoke curling like a venomous serpent between them.
Ylva swallowed.
Not now.
They exchanged a single, weighted look, fear and understanding entwined. Obey. Observe. Survive long enough to find an opening.
‘Can I wash somewhere?’ Arden asked, voice rough but steady. ‘I haven’t bathed in weeks.’
‘Not a chance,’ a warlock spat.
They were driven up the winding stairs and out into the vast square courtyard at the heart of the keep. The sight that greeted them made Ylva’s stomach twist.
Dozens of witches stood in neat rows, emerald fire spilling from their palms. Bodies burnt upon the stone—drakonian bodies—their forms curling and blackening as the unnatural flames devoured them. Scrolls too were being fed to the fire, parchment shrivelling into ash.
Ylva’s attention snagged on the scrolls.
Were those the very ones Hagan had pored over for hours, day after day? The knowledge he had hoarded so greedily, now reduced to smoke?
Beside her, Arden went rigid.
His green eyes darkened to something lethal at the sight of so many fallen. His jaw clenched; his shoulders drew tight with barely restrained rage.
‘Don’t,’ Ylva mouthed urgently, forcing her eyes to his. ‘Not here. Not yet.’
There were too many of them. Too many witches, too much magic thick in the air. To attempt escape within these walls would be suicide.
They were shoved forward again.
‘Where are we going?’ Ylva demanded of the warlock gripping the invisible chains that bound her.
‘Shut up,’ he snapped without so much as glancing at her.
She bit back another retort.
If the courtyard was any indication, the keep was being abandoned. Preparations were underway; bodies burnt, knowledge destroyed, no trace left behind.
They were leaving.
Heading north towards Fae lands.
Fierce hope ignited in her chest. Good. Let them march. Let them leave the safety of their stronghold and venture into open land. That would be their chance. To run. To reach Arden’s people. To finally, finally be free of witches and of Hagan’s shadow.
Hagan appeared above them, leaning over the stone balustrade of one of the higher floors, his robes stirring faintly in the rising heat of green fire. From that height he surveyed the courtyard—witches burning bodies, warlocks feeding scrolls to the flames.
Even as he feigned indifference, Ylva felt it.
Those purple eyes had found her.
They always did.
He descended at an unhurried pace, boots striking the stone with deliberate calm, and stepped into the patio as though he were strolling through a garden rather than overseeing destruction.
‘Let’s go,’ he commanded. ‘We’re taking too long. Just burn the whole fucking thing to the ground.’ The order rippled through the courtyard. Flames leapt higher.
Ylva noticed two witches trailing behind him, each commanding large wooden crates with their magic. Something precious was inside, carefully packed, not cast to the fire.
The scrolls.
Had he saved them? Would she still be forced to sit at his side and read to him while he plotted the ruin of kingdoms?
Hagan’s head tilted slightly, as though he had plucked the question straight from her mind.
He strode towards her. With a flick of his wrist, he dismissed the warlock holding her invisible chains. For a fleeting second the magic dissolved, the pressure easing from her throat and wrists.
Only to snap back into place.
Stronger.
Colder.
This time, the power coiled around her at Hagan’s command.
‘You’ll be travelling with me,’ he said, not even bothering to look at her.
‘No, but I—’ Panic flared sharp and immediate. Her eyes flew to Arden. If they were separated during the march, their chances of escape would fracture. They needed to move together. They needed to watch and wait as one.
Hagan’s gaze shifted to her, reading the fear in her expression as easily as parchment.
He gave the chains a vicious tug.
Ylva stumbled forward, nearly crashing to her knees.
Arden stepped towards them, jaw tight, green eyes blazing with restrained fury.
Hagan noticed.
And he smiled.
‘Did you think me so foolish as to allow you two to be alone together?’ Hagan spat, his grip tightening as he dragged Ylva nearer, until her shoulder nearly brushed his chest. ‘I don’t think so.’
Arden’s entire body went rigid.
‘Get your filthy, magic-rotted hands off her,’ he snarled.
Hagan laughed. ‘Do you not also use magic? Go on then. Use it.’
Ylva’s blue eyes flicked to Arden. She saw the moment he tried. The tension in his jaw. The way he tried to flex his fingers and nothing. His hands would not obey him.
Understanding crashed into her. Hagan’s blood magic had already wrapped itself around Arden, binding him silent and powerless.
Arden cried out suddenly, the sound ripped from him as he collapsed to his knees.
Hagan released Ylva and sauntered towards him, slow and deliberate, like a man admiring a fallen trophy. He stood over Arden, satisfaction gleaming in his purple eyes, and reached down to seize one of his antlers, yanking it cruelly.
Arden did not react.
Would not give him the satisfaction.
Hagan spat in his face, then shoved him backwards onto the stone.
‘Do not question your position here, Black Lotus,’ he said. ‘You may have been feared once. But now? You are nothing compared to us. We will create a new world. A better world.’
He lifted his boot and drove it hard into Arden’s chest.
‘Stop it!’ Ylva cried, surging forward before halting abruptly when Hagan’s head turned towards her.
Those eyes.
Sharp. Warning.
‘No wonder all your friends betrayed you, you arrogant pig!’ she flung at him, fury burning through her fear.
‘Ylva, stop it,’ Arden warned hoarsely from the ground.
‘Who would want to be friends with a beast like you?’ she spat.
The words had barely left her mouth before she realised her mistake. Her blue eyes widened as Hagan’s expression shifted.
He smiled.
But it was not a normal smile.
It was something carved from cruelty.
Slowly, deliberately, he turned his back on Arden and strode towards Ylva, who stood a few paces away. He closed the distance between them until she could feel the heat of him. His fingers rose and brushed beneath her chin, tilting her face up.
Almost gently.
That tenderness terrified her more than any blow ever could.
He studied her for a long, lingering moment, as though searching her eyes for something buried deep within. Ylva did not dare to look away. Did not dare to ask what he saw.
Then he bent closer still, his lips grazing the shell of her ear.
‘You will learn one day why I was right,’ he murmured softly. ‘Why having friends only ever leads to heartbreak.’
The words slid into her like ice.
He straightened and began to walk towards the great doors that led outside, dragging Ylva with him through the invisible chains. She twisted her head, horror etched across her face, keeping her attention fixed on Arden.
He remained on his knees until two warlocks hauled him upright and forced him forward after them.
The moment they stepped beyond the keep, Ylva saw a cluster of witches and warlocks turn back towards the fortress. They raised their hands as one.
Green fire bloomed.
Her breath caught.
She met Arden’s green stare one final time and then the world vanished in a surge of magic.