Chapter Ninety-Eight
The Fate Sleeping Between Them
Some fates sleep only to wake in blood.
The guards did not come—of course they didn’t. In the halls of a libidinous prince, screams carried no weight at all.
Xavien was already at the door, bare-chested, voice low and honed like a weapon.
“Hold the corridor. No alarm,” he told the Sagittarii in Elvish.
“The lantern fell in the solarium. There is ash on the floor. Send the ashman.”
(Attempt on my life. Body. Quietly.)
“Circle the garden. Move the children west.”
A bowstring thrummed in answer. Bootheels faded down the hall.
He stepped half into the corridor, flicking his fingers at Jasmine.
“Lady Inara—inside. Now.”
Then the panic slid back into its sheath.
He ushered them through an inner door to a study carved of stone and silence. Shelves rose in flawless ranks, spines aligned by hue and height. A long table sat square to the floorboards, a map anchored beneath polished weights.
Xavien shut the door and worked the locks. The bar. The bolt. The lower catch. Thumb press, knuckle tap—once, twice, thrice. Back to the first. Again. The ritual steadied him.
To Amerei, the sound of bolts became a metronome against her ribs, her own heart racing with every click.
“Here.” He guided her and Jasmine to a settee beneath the window’s arch. Evander lingered in the corner seam, gaze fixed on the garden shadows.
Outside, the palace whispered in code.
Inside, Xavien’s world held immaculate order.
Evander offered a folded scrap. “This was in his hand.”
Xavien accepted it without ceremony. The paper bore a spidery script and a smear of blood. A laugh broke from him, brittle as glass.
“My crimes,” he said. “Adultery. Usurpation.”
A pause.
Then— “Sorcery…”
His face shuttered.
The note vanished into his palm.
“What happened?” Jasmine asked, steadying a hand at Amerei’s chest.
“Vykenra is not happy we’re here…” Evander glowered. “The scholar who fetched them from the courtyard—he drew a knife and Amerei—”
“Amerei?”
“No.” Xavien’s voice cut, smooth and commanding. “He will be recorded as a man who died of convulsion in the corridor. The steward will pen it. The physician will sign it.” His gaze fixed on Jasmine. “Lady Inara, you saw nothing. Say so with conviction.”
Jasmine lifted her chin. “Gladly.”
Amerei pressed herself into the settee, her world cinching to a thread of memory. Heat—the weight of Viktor’s chest against her back.
“Every sound. Every scream. You give them all to me.”
Her mind reached for him now, fingers closing on the cord between them—then stilled.
Wings beat the back of her eyes.
Dragons.
Silence means duty.
The cry died in her throat.
Viktor was preparing for war.
And she—safe. Behind Xavien’s door.
“Send my husband soldiers.”
Xavien did not answer at once.
Across the chamber, he bent to search a trunk, golden hair spilling forward as though even that was meant to taunt. Bronze-tan skin caught the lamplight, all honed lines and sculpted strength—too perfect, too deliberate.
The black serpent tattoo coiled from his chest across his shoulder, winding down the muscles of his back as if it owned him.
Each slow shift of his body made the ink ripple like something alive. He was fit, dangerous, beautiful—everything her blood insisted she notice and everything her soul refused to want. Dask, she hated herself for even seeing him.
His hand brushed a folded linen shirt, but he left it untouched. He crossed to her with unhurried grace, lowering to one knee. Heat reached her first, then the scent—spice and sea. His gaze lifted.
“I will do all that I can to give you what you ask. But I cannot commission soldiers.”
She trembled.
“Then you will tell the king.”
His hand hovered, as if to touch her arm. He pulled back, eyes glinting.
“Elarien…”
She stilled at the sound of him calling her beautiful, loathing how it wound through her like both knife and caress.
“We do not ask the king for anything anymore.”
He tipped his head, dark eyes gleaming beneath his brow.
“If you want something from him, you must get it from her.”
He tapped his temple, miming a crown set there.
Her voice fell to a whisper. “Your mother…”
“Yes." His smile curved darkly. “My mother. The woman who gave this back to you.”
His gaze rose to the diadem in her hair.
“She wants the realm, Amerei. Convince her she can have it, and the world is yours.”
The room blurred until this moment—Evander’s steady breath, Jasmine’s shifting weight—all dissolving as if gravity itself bent toward him, pulling her into his orbit.
“I don’t want the world,” she said at last, tears breaking on her lashes.
“I want men with bows who will live through dragonfire. I want horses that won’t break when the sky does. I want—” Viktor’s name swelled in her chest. Her eyes fell shut, hard. “—Sevrak to hold.”
The words tumbled raw, not regal—born of smoke and memory, of villages gone. She did not care if she sounded like a pleading girl, only that he listened.
“It will,” Xavien said softly, his hand brushing her arm.
Her skin crawled with the ghost of his touch, but she held still. He would not see her recoil, not when she needed his help.
“But you ask for soldiers, Elarien. And I am not the hand that signs them.”
Her voice cracked, barely above a whisper.
“Take me to her. Please, Xavien.”
“Elarien… my queen, don’t beg.”
He lifted her hand, lips grazing her fingers.
“I’ll take you.”
His gaze dipped to the torn edge of her bodice.
“…don’t change out of that dress.”
Evander’s voice rasped like stone. “It’s bloody and torn.”
“We’ll mend it,” Xavien said, then smiled. “Jasmine will mend it.”
He rose, stepping to his desk, rifling through a drawer.
Jasmine raised her head.
“Jasmine will see that her queen is dressed for court. Let us out of this room or find her something from your wife’s collection.”
Xavien’s eyes never left Amerei as he pulled the linen shirt over his shoulders. “The princess’s gowns were cut for ceremony. Your figure asks for a jeweler’s hand.”
He swept on a black cloak, soldier-cut.
“I’ll find a master seamster worthy of you, my queen. For now… my mother must see how easily her favorite son was nearly torn from her.”
He grinned at Amerei with the warmth he gave his children. Playful. Unguarded. Her stomach knotted, unsettled by how easily he wore that charm, how quickly menace could soften into something that almost disarmed her.
Evander broke the spell.
“Let me guess. You are her only son.”
Xavien tilted his head.
“I’m surprised a man of your esteem is unaware.”
His eyes gleamed with pride as he spoke, savoring the boast.
“My father has seven sons and three daughters. I intend to double his progeny.”
Evander’s laugh sputtered.
“You’ll have to convince your wife to come home first.”
Xavien riposted, smooth. “Must I though?”
He held his stare a beat too long, unblinking. Evander straightened.
Jasmine worked quickly to bind the torn bodice, linen pulling snug.
Xavien squared himself at the door, nodding to Evander first.
“When we enter Castle Draekenra,” he said, hands clasped behind his back. “You are no man-at-arms. Walk as if you are the captain of her guard.”
“I am.”
“And Jasmine,” he continued. “You are a lady-in-waiting to she who is still a maiden.”
Jasmine glared as she tied the knot.
“Surely the Queen Mother will ignore a torn dress when she sees this ‘maiden’s’ wedding band…”
Amerei’s fingers fumbled to her necklace. The band caught against her skin, a weight she had worn as vow and shield. Her chest tightened—surrendering it felt like tearing a piece of herself away.
“Here,” she whispered. “Keep it for me. Please, Jasmine.”
It pooled into her palm, heavy with memory, before disappearing inside her hand.
“Evander,” Xavien called, sliding open the door locks. “Take Lady Inara with you to speak to my own captain. Have him ready the carriage.”
Jasmine dropped her hand to Amerei’s knee.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Amerei’s pulse kept in time with the room’s small sounds.
Lamp, hush, bolt. She should have been rehearsing words for the elven queen.
Instead she was hurled back to the sound Xavien made when he crawled—crawled—through smoke and ruin to reach her scream.
The memory seared: gold hair spilling wild across his brow, dark eyes burning with something raw, almost intimate.
Heat rose in her, unwanted, as though he had branded her with that look.
“Go with Evander.”
The words tore from her.
She dropped her arm, and the shirt with it—her bodice bound in a crude knot.
Jasmine straightened, breath sharp. She rose without a word.
Xavien turned as they left, hand finding the top bolt. The door closed on Jasmine’s last look—warning, love, refusal—then the locks spoke: top, bar, lower latch. A thumb-press. A knuckle tap. Once. Twice. Thrice. Back again.
Xavien exhaled hard. His hands stilled.
“I know that look,” he murmured softly as he glanced at her from over his shoulder.
Amerei sat very still on the settee’s edge, fingers pressed where Viktor’s knife had once lain, chest aching at the emptiness.
Xavien’s gaze lingered there, then rose.
“My children look as you do… when they have much they wish to say.”
He offered his hand, and though she did not take it, he kept it open.
“Come.”
His voice was quiet command as he drew her through the inner door. The parlor shimmered with onyx silks, shadows and lamplight colliding. He guided her toward the basin, setting the comb on its shelf with careful grace.
“Whatever you need,” he said—and then, with a sun-warmed smile: “I do feel wicked sending Lady Inara off. Still, six daughters gave me practice. I could manage a braid, if you were feeling brave.”
His laugh was soft, practiced self-mockery.
She glanced at the comb, then away.
“Have you ever killed a man, Xavien?”
The words burst out of her, quiet but fierce, cutting the air like steel drawn bare.
Xavien straightened, hands folding neatly at his back. The silence before his reply stretched until it throbbed.
“No,” he said at last. “Elvish princes do not tread battlefields. Not unless the war has ended.”
Her gaze did not waver.
“I have,” she breathed, heart sinking.
“One with Viktor’s sling. One with… Viktor’s knife.”
Something flickered in Xavien’s eyes.
His fingers twitched, reached—then drew back.
All at once he clasped her upper arms, easing her to sit against a bench. A woolen blanket waited. He swept it over her shoulders as though sealing the words away.
“Then your hands have known what most queens are spared.” He lowered himself to her eyes. “And that is precisely why you should never need to use them again.”
He glanced toward the door—toward the bolts he’d counted—then back.
“You have been at war so long, Amerei. You’ve forgotten what peace feels like.”
And he wasn’t wrong. From the moment her mother died, she had been in exile. Then came Zeporah’s house, where distance was a cage. And since the Vykenraven—every night a different bed, every day closer to war.
“Elarien,” he said at last, voice dangerous in its promise. “You’re safe here.”
He crossed to a cabinet, drawing out a dark silk robe.
“Suffer the gown a little longer—for the Queen Mother’s theater.”
A wry tilt of his mouth.
“When we return, there will be a bath waiting. Rosewater if you wish. Or plain—the way soldiers prefer.”
A half-smile, sharpened at the edges.
“I won’t ask you to join me for supper.”
He came back slowly, lifting the robe so she could slide her arms through. His fingers moved carefully at her shoulders, setting the seams with precision.
“You want soldiers,” he went on, tying the sash with exacting care. “So I’ll take you to the only mind that can conjure them with a word.”
He rose, gathering the room back into order. She reached without thought and caught his wrist—warm skin, serpents shifting over tendon. His name left her like a tide receding. “Xavien…”
Memory broke against her ribs in waves.
Viktor—falling and rising on the cliff’s black spine.
Viktor—lit by dragon-breath in the Vykenraven.
Viktor—running through the redwoods to Aerdania.
Viktor—walking into tomorrow’s fire.
The ache of him tore at her chest, and still she was here, caged in Xavien’s chamber. The contrast hollowed her, shame burning that he should see her falter.
“Xavien,” she whispered again, as if her voice could wake fate itself. Her throat tightened—storms, she hated that he heard her fear.
“I want to watch the battle. Tomorrow. At the basin.”
He inclined his head—the gravity of promise.
“We will,” he said. “We’ll watch him hold the line.”
His shadow spilled over her, closing in like a tide, drawing her into him until there was no space left to retreat.
A vow gathered behind her eyes.
He felt it before she spoke.
“What if he does not survive?”
The world stilled.
She held her breath.
He saw it: the weariness of a soul, the flame that kept daring to rise.
He closed his hand over hers, lifted it against his chest, forcing her to feel the steady thunder there.
“Then mine,” he whispered, dark eyes pinning hers with dangerous beauty, “will be the last bed to ever hold you.”