Chapter 2 #4
“That sounds…” Elathiel said softly when Aldric finished, her smile warm, eyes thoughtful, “…unexpectedly beautiful.”
Seraphae ducked her head, cheeks glowing faintly.
Aldric’s hand found hers on her thigh and gave a gentle squeeze.
A pleasant silence settled between them.
Then, naturally, Seraphae did what she always did.
Her fingers wandered, found him, and squeezed.
Gently.
Aldric felt heat rise to his face and cleared his throat.
Seraphae only smiled at him.
Bright, innocent, and entirely pleased with herself.
Aldric deliberately shifted his focus away from her. Being suddenly this aware of her in this setting made him uncomfortably warm.
After a moment, he lifted his gaze and looked between the queen and the king.
“How did you meet, Your Majesty?”
The table went quiet again, but this time, the silence felt different. Softer. Expectant.
Elathiel smiled, her gaze drifting somewhere far beyond the hall.
“I wasn’t born in Nerathys. I came from a land beyond this realm.”
Aldric noticed her wings now. Just enough for the light to catch them. Their shape was elegant, refined, but the edges were scorched, darkened and uneven, as if they had once burned and never fully healed.
“The adjustment was difficult at first,” Elathiel went on gently. “But in the midst of this land, I found someone.” Her eyes softened. “Someone wonderful. Kind. Loving. And always far too afraid to show it.”
She turned to he husband.
If Goroth could blush, he would have. Deeply.
Instead, he cleared his throat, shifting in his chair, clearly unprepared for praise.
“You simply needed help,” he muttered gruffly. “I chose to help you.”
Her smile widened.
“You did,” she said warmly. “And then I decided I wanted to stay and become part of this land.”
She lifted her gaze again, eyes green as new leaves.
“The brand changed me,” she added almost absently. “After I made that choice.”
“How?” Aldric asked, careful not to break the moment.
Elathiel considered the question, then smiled.
“It’s difficult to describe. It wasn’t pain. Or magic.” A pause. “Just… alignment.”
Goroth snorted softly.
“That’s one way to put it.”
Elathiel glanced at him, amused and the room felt fuller for it, as if something old and true had settled comfortably among them.
Aldric nodded, absorbing it all.
Then he glanced toward the sisters.
“So… all of you will eventually be married off to princes of some sort?”
The girls burst into giggles.
“Well, yes,” one of them said brightly. It was Nyxelle—no, Nyssara. Aldric hesitated just a fraction too long, clearly recalibrating. “But since Saphie is the eldest, she has to marry first. Then it’s our turn.”
Heat crept up Aldric’s neck.
All eyes shifted to him.
Every sister leaned in just a little, brows wiggling in unison. Seraphae only smiled. Slow, knowing, and entirely unhelpful.
Aldric cleared his throat.
“Is there no other way for you to live?” he asked.
The sisters laughed again.
“Oh, we live a very long time,” Zira waved dismissively. “Saphie will find someone eventually.”
“Maybe dark-haired,” Kaela added thoughtfully.
“Dark eyes are definitely her preference,” Lillith chimed in.
“…Maybe a knight,” Vaeris finished.
The table dissolved into giggles.
Seraphae’s smile widened just a fraction.
The queen lifted a hand.
“Girls, enough,” Elathiel said calmly. “Please.”
The laughter faded.
“Aldric has traveled a long way with Seraphae,” the queen continued gently. “They deserve rest. Not more pressure.”
The sisters pouted, but obeyed.
Seraphae glanced sideways at Aldric, her eyes bright and unreadable.
Goroth cut in before another question from the sisters could escape.
He stared into his goblet, voice distant, almost inward.
“My daughter mentioned you used the pass beneath the Shadow Mountains to return to Isendor.”
Aldric nodded.
“That is correct.”
“I’m curious to hear what you faced down in those cursed mines.”
Aldric drew a reluctant breath.
He spoke first of the whispers. Of the way the shadow’s will pressed against his mind, subtle and persistent. Offering doubt in gentle shapes.
Temptations that sounded like mercy.
Like rest.
Like surrender.
He spoke of his former self. Old convictions. Old hatred given form before him, wearing his own face. Of how it tried to break him through force.
And how he fought it.
He spoke of the descent.
The pits.
The horrors.
The despair.
Of those who had been left behind and devoured in the deepest cavern beneath the mountain, humans and demons alike. Husks. Hollowed things. Slowly consumed by the nameless shadow until nothing of them remained.
His voice tightened.
“Then,” Aldric said quietly, “the creature became Seraphae.”
A sharp, involuntary sound escaped Seraphae’s throat.
He did not look at her.
He never told her about it.
“It guided me. Led me deeper. And when I realized it was not her…” He swallowed. “It reveled in my despair. In everything I hadn’t said. Everything I feared I never would.”
He stopped there, just for a moment.
The table was utterly still.
Goroth leaned forward, forearms resting heavily against the table.
The sisters had forgotten how to breathe.
Even Elathiel’s expression had gone grave.
“That broke me,” Aldric admitted at last. “Believing she had followed me there. That my last hope had been nothing but another lie.”
Goroth’s voice was low when he spoke.
“How did you overcome the darkness?”
Aldric lifted his gaze.
“At that point, when I had nothing left to give… my hand rested, as if guided, on the heartstone of my sword.” He drew a slow breath. “And something spoke.”
The table did not move.
“It wasn’t my voice,” Aldric continued. “It came from within. Deeper than thought. Deeper than fear. As if it had always been there, waiting for the moment I could no longer stand on my own.”
A murmur rippled through the table.
“It wasn’t loud. It reassured me. It just said…” He swallowed. “There is no courage without fear.”
Silence.
Then:
“So it begins.”
The words fell like a stone into still water.
No one moved.
After a long moment, Goroth spoke calmly.
“What was the name of the sword?”
“Dreyrath.”
“Where did you find it?”
Aldric hesitated, then answered truthfully.
“A blacksmith in Kael’durith gave it to me. He told me to call him… Varnir.”
Goroth went rigid.
For the first time that evening, the king looked genuinely shaken.
Around the table, the sisters rose in unison.
Elathiel stood as well, her expression unreadable.
“Goodnight,” the queen said quietly.
They left without another word.
Seraphae paused only long enough to lean in and kiss Aldric’s cheek.
Her skin felt cool.
Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.
Then she was gone.
The doors closed.
Only Aldric and Goroth remained.
The king studied him in silence.
Then, slowly, Goroth stood.
Urgency and something far more serious cut through his gaze.
The night, it seemed, was far from over.