Chapter Twenty-Five
The Night Before
The night before the madness. The night before the ache.
The night before everything would never be the same.
The tavern’s din was muffled by stone and timber by the time Viktor shoved the narrow door shut behind them. A single lantern smoked on the sill, shadows crawling long across the low rafters.
He shrugged out of his cloak, hung it on a peg, and unbuckled his sword belt, the weight of steel clattering onto the table. His boots followed with two heavy thuds, leaving him in shirt and leathers. He stood there a moment, rolling his shoulders, bones aching from every league they’d run.
Gabriel had already claimed a bed, sprawled on his back with one arm flung over his eyes.
“Ship’s gone. Storne’s plan worked.”
His tone was flat, as if the stolen munitions weren’t the tinder for a war.
Viktor dropped onto the other mattress, scrubbing both hands over his face.
“You going to tell me about Vykenraven now?”
Gabriel stirred, lowering his arm. He sat up slowly, elbows on his knees, gaze sharp. “No.”
Viktor straightened, wary.
“Not until you tell me this,” Gabriel pressed.
“You need to choose.”
His voice dropped low.
“Amerei… or Zeporah.”
He jerked his chin.
“Declare it now—before you know what tomorrow holds.”
Viktor blinked, heat flaring in his chest.
“I’m sitting here, aren’t I? With you. With her. What more proof do you need—of where I stand?”
Gabriel held his gaze, something unreadable flickering in his eyes. His answer came quiet, almost to himself.
“Proof won’t be enough tomorrow.”
The words landed heavy. Viktor caught the edge in them—something brittle that didn’t belong to the friend he knew.
“The queen’s mad,” he rasped. “I was a fool to think Storne could reason with her.”
Gabriel’s shoulders tensed with something more than weariness.
“He was trying to stop a war. Lady Zrynon isn’t just next in line to the throne—she’s Queen Cassandra’s daughter. Every curfew, every betrayal, every decree from a hall full of elves… it tears at Casqadia. People remember when it wasn’t like this.”
Viktor’s eyes lifted.
“Amerei is hope.”
Gabriel nodded once, as if it cost him.
“She is hope.”
The room went still.
Only the faint creak of rafters, the slow groan of the timbers with the sea, kept the silence from swallowing them whole.
Viktor leaned back against the headboard, but sleep was far from him. Gabriel sat rigid on the edge of his bed, hands clasped tight, gaze fixed somewhere Viktor couldn’t follow.
“Will you fight for her, Viktor?” he asked, voice quiet but unbending.
“Even if she doesn’t love you?”
Viktor stared at the dark rafters overhead, breath rough in his chest. The truth lived there, solid as steel—no sense denying it.
“Even if she never loves me… I was made to fight for her.”
Gabriel’s eyes cut toward him, sharp and searching. Disbelief softened first; then the corners of his mouth twitched, as though he’d seen something terrible and holy all at once.
“Storm take me,” he muttered, low and rough. “You mean it.”
Viktor drew a slow breath, ribs aching with it.
“I can’t let her face Zeporah alone,” he said at last. “And I can’t let her men fight alone. Not when I know now why we were given these powers.”
Gabriel’s gaze narrowed—as if bracing for something he didn’t want to hear.
Viktor’s fists clenched in the blanket.
“They’re not just beasts—the dragons.” His chest heaved once. “There are men trapped inside them—souls bound, enslaved. And Zeporah…” His voice broke, then hardened. “She means to use them as her protection.”
The silence after was a wound that refused to close.
Gabriel’s face shifted—from disbelief, to dread, to something like grief.
“That’s madness,” he said hoarsely. “No queen could—” A bitter sound caught in his throat, half laugh, half snarl. “Does she even know what she’s unleashed?”
“She’s mad,” Viktor said again.
The words hit flat and final, hard as stone.
Gabriel’s fist slammed into his pillow, the muffled crack too loud for the small room. His jaw flexed, shoulders rigid. For a heartbeat it looked as if he might break something—or himself.
Then his voice snapped, clipped and commanding.
“Go to bed.”
“But Gabriel—”
“I’m the only officer here commissioned by Storne,” he cut in, each word a lash. “I order you—go to bed.”
Defiance burned in Viktor’s chest, but Gabriel had already rolled to his side, back turned. His silence was heavier than any reprimand.
Viktor lay rigid in the dark. Sleep wouldn’t come.
Not with her breath still burning on his lips.
Not with her men marching toward a queen gone mad.
Not with the truth of the dragons crawling through his head.
The night stretched long, filled with silence and dread.
Tomorrow loomed, sharp as the word Gabriel wouldn’t say.
Vykenraven.