Chapter 53
Ashterion sat slouched in the obsidian throne, elbow braced on the armrest, chin resting lightly against his knuckles. Below, a dozen guards knelt in blood and ruin, shadows wrapped around them like patient executioners. The room reeked of copper and failure.
One screamed—high and wet—before a snap cut it off.
Xyliria sat beside him, her posture the picture of elegant boredom, head resting against the chair as she inspected her nails with a lazy flick of her wrist.
“I assume there’s a reason I’m watching our soldiers bleed all over the floor,” she drawled without looking up from her nails. “Or is this simply a creative outlet for your frustrations?”
Ashterion didn’t look at her.
“It’s punishment,” he said coolly. “They underestimated an asset.”
“An asset,” she repeated, smirking. “Is that what we’re calling her now?”
Another crunch of bone. Another choked sob. The shadows moved like wolves through the wreckage. Most of the guards had ceased protesting, at least outwardly. But one squirmed.
The one who laughed when she screamed.
Ashterion’s gaze snapped to him. Rage lashed up his spine like a whip. It hadn’t truly left, not since those fucking animals had shattered her leg. The inconvenient memory of her stuck in his mind. Her blood, her scream—it clung to him.
Now, his shadows forced the male’s mouth open. Another coil twisted around his leg. The same leg he’d used to stomp on hers.
The shriek that followed was brief.
“Now they’ll take her seriously,” Xyliria said, her tone indulgent.
“They should have from the beginning.”
She turned to him fully now, eyes gleaming with quiet threat. “Are you worried about our little human?”
“I’m concerned with efficiency. You wanted her broken. She can’t be broken if she escapes.”
“Oh, Ashterion,” she cooed, all saccharine steel. “You know she wasn’t going to escape. Not really.” Her fingers drummed against the armrest. “Three prisoners against an entire palace? It was suicide, not strategy.”
Ashterion’s jaw tightened. “Then why do it at all?”
“Because she’s testing boundaries. Seeing how far she can push before we push back.” Xyliria’s smile turned predatory. “It’s what wild things do when they’re caged. They throw themselves against the bars until they break.”
He didn’t dignify that with a reply. Just sat there, watching the blood pool, the scent of iron rising through the room.
Xyliria let the silence stretch for a beat longer, then asked, almost absently, “How’s the leg?”
“At least one of them proved useful,” he said flatly. “It’s a bad break.”
“Mmm. That might be useful,” she said, tapping her chin with one lacquered nail. “A wound like that offers... opportunities.”
Ashterion said nothing.
“Perhaps I’ll have a healer mend it just enough,” Xyliria mused aloud. “Let her feel it every time she takes a step. Let it remind her—”
“I’m the one who’ll be breaking her,” Ashterion said, pitch dropping to something cold and final. “Let me handle her.”
“You’re handling her,” she repeated, each syllable dripping with suspicion.
Ashterion turned to face his wife fully, his midnight-blue eyes hardening. “Yes. As we discussed. Or have you forgotten our arrangement already?”
“I forget nothing, husband.” Her voice was silk over venom. “I simply question your sudden... enthusiasm for the task.”
The doors opened with a low groan.
Ashterion didn’t need to look to know who it was.
Merrick.
He cursed internally.
I told him not to come himself. Fucking uncooperative fool.
Merrick strode in like he hadn’t ignored a direct order from his own gods-damned High Lord.
He inclined his head to Xyliria with the barest hint of deference.
“My lady,” he said smoothly. “After your recent... complication, I thought it prudent to personally review the security measures. Can’t be too careful when your new asset has already tried to flee. ”
Xyliria barely looked up from her nails. “Yes, yes, lovely. Just don’t get in the way.”
Dismissed, Merrick turned to Ashterion with a knowing look. “Can you show me exactly where you found them?”
Ashterion’s eyes slid to Xyliria, who waved a hand without lifting her gaze. “Be back soon. We have guests arriving shortly. I don’t want them kept waiting.”
“Of course,” Ashterion said, rising fluidly to his feet. He didn’t wait for further dismissal. He was already moving, Merrick falling into step beside him as they strode out of the throne room.
They walked in silence down two halls, then a third.
It was Ashterion who broke first. “I told you to stay in the fucking city.”
“Yeah, well,” Merrick muttered without looking at him, “when have I ever been known for doing what I’m told?”
Ashterion exhaled sharply through his nose. “Do you have it?”
Merrick reached into his coat, pulling out a small, thick glass vial. The liquid inside was faintly luminescent, swirling silver against the dark.
“This is the one,” Merrick confirmed. “Belessa’s version. You were right. It’ll work faster than the others, even through the collar. What exactly are you doing, Ash?” He looked sideways at him. “Are you helping her now?”
“I’m not helping anyone,” Ashterion snapped. “I’m making sure Xyliria doesn’t get her claws into the damn human.”
Merrick didn’t respond at first.
He studied him, silent.
“Ash,” he said finally.
Ashterion’s shoulders tensed. “What?”
There was something in Merrick’s features, a flicker of that maddening empathy, of the loyalty Ashterion had never been able to scrub out of him. Something that might’ve once been faith.
But the moment passed.
“Nothing,” Merrick said. “Don’t worry about it.”
Ashterion narrowed his eyes. “Get back to the city. And don’t come back unless I specifically ask you to. Understand?”
Merrick’s mouth twitched, but not in amusement. “As you command, my lord,” he muttered, dark with sarcasm. He turned on his heel and strode off down the hall.
Ashterion watched him go for a beat before turning back.
He pushed the doors open and strode back into the throne room, shadows trailing at his heels as silent witnesses. Xyliria hadn’t moved. She lounged in her seat, fingers idly tapping the armrest in a rhythm that grated. Ashterion ignored her.
He crossed the room in silence and dropped back into the obsidian throne. He had barely settled when the doors opened again.
“The Orelith delegation has arrived,” announced the aide.
Xyliria straightened, suddenly attentive. “Finally.”
Ashterion remained seated, letting the room fill with the click of approaching boots. Three figures entered: two men, one woman. All draped in Orelith silk, all armed with diplomacy and veiled arrogance.
Ashterion’s gaze swept them. The younger male’s smile was all predator. The older one reeked of bureaucracy and quiet condescension. The woman—tall, lean, blade-eyed—watched him like a challenge waiting to be answered.
Ashterion knew the game well enough. He could already see it.
At least two of them would expect his attention.
Good.
“Welcome,” he said, voice soft and cold. “I trust your journey was tolerable.”
They bowed. As expected.
Xyliria’s laugh spilled into the silence. “You’ll forgive my husband,” she said sweetly. “He’s in a mood. But I’m sure you can find ways to entertain one another.”
The delegation smiled, oblivious. Or pretending to be.
The younger male stepped forward first. “Lord Ashterion,” he said, bowing with a grace that was just shy of sincere. “I’ve heard stories of your shadows. I must admit…” His eyes glittered. “The real thing is far more impressive.”
Ashterion’s smile returned. “Flattery this early? You must be desperate, or dreadfully underinformed.”
The female beside him laughed. A rich, low sound that drew more attention than it should have. “We were told you were ruthless,” she said, “but no one warned us how... handsome your shadows are.”
One curled lazily across the floor in response, brushing her boot. She didn’t flinch.
Noted.
“Are they yours to command,” she murmured, voice dipped in velvet, “or do they decide for themselves?”
“I don’t waste time commanding what already knows its purpose,” he said smoothly. “But they learn who feeds them.”
The younger one—Kareth, if memory served—smiled. “If we asked you to show us, would that count as diplomacy?”
Ashterion stepped down from the dais with unhurried grace, his height casting shadows over them both. They tensed.
Wise.
He tilted his head. “That depends on how creative you’re willing to be with your definition of ‘diplomatic relations.’”
Kareth’s mouth parted. The female raised a brow, clearly pleased.
She leaned closer now, her fingers brushing the edge of his sleeve. He almost flinched. Almost. “I’ve always wondered what it would feel like,” she said, breath just above a whisper, “to have the darkness crawl over your skin.”
Ashterion inclined his head. “If your delegation has no further questions for this evening,” he said mildly, “perhaps we should… continue discussions privately.”
Kareth looked as though he might faint from glee.
“Don’t exhaust our guests,” Xyliria purred. “They have more meetings tomorrow.”
Ashterion dipped his chin. “Of course.”
And then, without waiting for permission, he turned and walked out of the throne room. Two diplomats trailed behind him like moths to a flame they didn’t know would burn.
The sitting room they entered was quiet, cloaked in the same low, velvet shadows that swathed the halls of the inner palace.
Pale light shimmered from a constellation of wall sconces, casting halos across dark stone and wine-red upholstery.
The doors sighed shut behind them, sealing off the throne room’s political theatre.
Here, the stage was something far more intimate.
Ashterion moved through the space with the ease of someone used to being watched, each step deliberate. He gestured idly toward the low couches that flanked the hearth, though he himself did not yet sit.
Kareth lounged immediately, boots half-kicked off, eager and too obvious by far. The woman—Naera—remained standing, though she sidled close enough that her shoulder nearly brushed his arm.
“You entertain so graciously,” she said, voice low and curved. “Is this the part where you pour us wine? Or where you drink us in instead?”
Ashterion pushed a flicker of a smile to the corner of his mouth. “I rarely partake in anything before I’ve tasted its intent.”
“Intent,” Kareth echoed, sprawling wider. “What a lovely way to say ‘motives.’”
“They aren’t always the same thing,” Ashterion replied, voice smooth as a still lake. He took a bottle of amber liquid from the sideboard without ceremony and poured three cups, setting them down with elegant finality. “But let’s pretend, for tonight, that I’m too polite to notice the difference.”
Naera accepted the cup but didn’t drink. She was watching him too closely. “Do you always indulge your guests like this?”
He looked at her, offered the lie he knew she wanted. “No. Most don’t know how to make themselves interesting enough to bother.”
It was not a compliment, not precisely. But Kareth nearly preened, and Naera’s lips parted on a smile that was all teeth.
“Lucky us,” she murmured.
Ashterion turned from the hearth to the pair of them. Their closeness wasn’t threatening, not exactly. It was performative, hungry, a coaxing dance that expected him to set the rhythm.
But still.
They were not Xyliria. The pair were dangerous, yes, but he’d long since learned how to read these moments. These two at least, were without cruelty. And they wanted him. He didn’t much care why. Whatever bargain had been struck for this moment didn’t concern him. Their want was uncomplicated.
Ashterion sat at last, not too near, but within reach if they dared. He rested one arm along the back of the couch, gaze trained on the flickering fire, content to let them approach. As the whiskey settled in him, his mind drifted.
Not toward the diplomats. Not toward the game they clearly thought they were playing.
But to Isara.
The name came unbidden, unwelcome. He exhaled once, slow, invisible.
The fire in her, burning beneath the surface, all jagged edges and broken restraint.
Ashterion took another sip of the whiskey, letting the burn anchor him. The glass was half-empty before he even realised he’d raised it again.
Naera was shifting closer, all curves and confidence, the lean of her body angled to brush his thigh. Kareth mirrored her on the other side, draping an arm over the couch, the subtle press of magic humming low between them.
And still.
Still.
His thoughts didn’t drift to the offer in front of him. Not the mouths that would part at his command, not the hands waiting to explore his skin. But to the wild, sharp flame of a human who had looked at him with fury. Defiance.
Ashterion rolled the glass between his fingers. He didn’t shift away from the warmth on either side of him. But he didn’t reach for it either.
“She’s nothing,” he murmured aloud.
Naera tilted her head. “What was that?”
He smiled faintly. Empty. “Nothing.”