Chapter 53 #3
The Korona scrambled to her feet, backing away, teeth bared. “If it weren’t for your mate, I would have gotten what I needed.”
“Shut the fuck up, Iaoth,” Vaeron snapped, startling me with the vehemence of his words. Several others in the room gasped at his disrespect. Even the bubble lights overhead flicked from the force of his voice.
Gently, he guided my feet back to the floor again. I swayed, unable to hold myself upright as sorrow swelled from the center of my being. Vaeron kept hold of me, his steady presence the band preventing me from fracturing completely.
“Everyone out,” he barked, his attention still fixed on his sister.
A mass shuffling of feet told me no one dared disobey.
Lyriasthe caught my eye, sadness and apology etched into her expression, as she disappeared with the crowd, leaving only the Korona, Vaeron, me, and Heraphia’s lifeless form in the chamber.
The moment the door snicked shut, Vaeron pounced.
“You went too far, Iaoth.”
She sniffed, sticking her nose in the air. “You don’t appreciate what’s at stake.”
A growl rumbled in my mate’s chest. With violence brimming beneath thin fetters, he released me, and I crumpled to the ground, too weak to hold myself upright.
In two strides, he towered over his sister.
All I could do was watch on as his courtly mask slipped away, and pure, unfiltered rage rose instead.
“You say that, all the damn time. Yet you do not appreciate what I have done for you. What I continue to do for you.”
Iaoth made to strike him, but he caught her slender wrist. His fingers tightened to the point she made a pained noise.
“I know exactly what’s at stake, sister. Now more than ever. You have no idea the lengths I would go to. But this? This was not the way,” he snapped, throwing her away like she was nothing more than an annoying feather.
She tripped over strewn cushions and landed heavily on her side.
“I am taking Sylaira to my rooms so she can grieve in peace. Then I will deal with Heraphia’s body. Go before I decide that exercising restraint isn’t my best option right now.” The threat in his tone was clearer than the crystal-carved chairs.
“You wouldn’t. Stadiel would–”
“I. Do. Not. Give. A. Fuck. What. Your. Husband. Thinks,” he roared, each word louder than the last. The walls shook from the might of his voice. A crack rent the air, and a slab of marble fell and shattered against the ground.
Iaoth scrambled to her feet, smoothing out her wrinkled silk dress. She opened her mouth to say something else, but Vaeron cut her off.
“Go.”
That single word, spoken without his magic, had me wanting to obey, and it wasn’t even directed at me.
She huffed, then strode toward the door like she’d been the one who decided to leave.
Vaeron whirled, crashing to his knees beside me. He cupped my head, lifting my gaze to meet his. Sorrow bloomed through the fury in his expression. “Little fugitive…”
His nickname for me was the lightning strike that started the squall. A sob wrenched from me, and I collapsed into his arms.
“She’s dead, she’s dead,” I repeated, because I could say nothing else. Because if I stopped saying it, I would have to truly believe it.
Her power, in the end, had killed her.
This place, being separated from Zuriel, had killed her.
Iaoth had killed her.
“Why didn’t you stop this?” I snapped, shoving away from him as anger thundered inside me.
“Sylaira, I didn’t–”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t know,” I hissed, crawling away from him and toward my best friend. With trembling fingers, I reached for her lids, lowering them so she appeared as if she were sleeping—at last.
Vaeron’s heat poured into me, his shoulder brushing mine. “I didn’t realize she meant to attempt to power share today.”
“Why didn’t you come sooner?” My voice cracked on the question that had slipped out of me before I could stop it. “Why weren’t you here? I called for you. I needed you.”
Strong arms wrapped me up. I went stiff, shoving at the cage, as salt pricked the back of my throat. Vaeron held firm, stormwood filling my nostrils. The tidal wave of grief crashed through me, too powerful to resist on my own, and finally, I stopped fighting him.
“I know.” His voice fractured on the words.
“I know, little fugitive.” He buried his face in my hair, inhaling deeply.
And then, his pain flooded down our bond.
The self loathing. The fury. The tremor in his chest betrayed what he so rarely showed.
“I felt you breaking, but I was too far. Too late. As I always am when it comes to you.”
He turned me, forcing me to look at him. Our foreheads pressed together. His face blurred as more tears claimed space.
“I am so, so sorry, Sylaira. You are the only one I’d raze this realm to protect. And I failed you anyway.”
His confession shattered my heart into a thousand tiny raindrops. I collapsed forward again and sobbed. He held me like that, a storm of sorrow and regret raging between us. He stroked my hair, whispering soothing, affirming words. He squeezed my arms, grounding me amid the tempest.
Until eventually, the squall silenced.
I picked my head up, and he wiped away my tears. Kissed my swollen eyelids, then my forehead.
“I will arrange for Heraphia’s body to receive full rites and a pyre fit for a Korona,” he swore. “Are there any prayers or rituals she would have wanted?”
Because she was so young, her funeral should never have been a thought at all.
“Peace,” I whispered, my voice hoarse from crying. “She would want everyone to pray for peace.”
The word tasted like ash now. Was this the price the Goddess had told me I would pay? If it wasn’t…I didn’t know that I had the strength to bear what burden awaited me.
“Then I will find a priestess who can do that,” he promised.
He pressed his lips to mine, and I fell into it—willingly, desperately—because the alternative was replaying Heraphia’s last words and the way her power had consumed her.
Never had I wanted this gift; the trauma of my first visions put me on that path.
But watching my sister burn out because of it?
That solidified the belief that Sight was a curse, more than a singular vision forced upon me ever could.
Vaeron peeled himself away, then hauled me to my feet. “Let me take care of you, Sylaira,” he murmured, reaching like he was going to heft me into his arms.
I nodded, too weak, too drained to protest. So he scooped me up, and I rested my head against his powerful chest. The steady beat of his heart was an anchor as we wound through servant passages in this Goddess-forsaken palace of nightmares.
Until he placed me in our bed and curled around me like he alone could hold back the deluge drowning my soul.
He would raze the realm for me; I would become the maelstrom the monarchs could not survive.
The storm was still gathering inside me. Watching. Waiting. Working out exactly when to strike. But when it finally broke…
It would level everything in its path.