Chapter 68
My friend beamed with pride as she strode into Vaeron’s room with the Kisst. Maelsar’s expression morphed into pure panic, his aquamarine irises flicking between them like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“Stadiel has departed for the front,” Sevren explained while Maelsaer attempted to school his features.
“Your intended told me that drinking the wine at dinner wouldn’t be wise.
Imagine my surprise when everyone around me dropped into their dishes, fast asleep.
Followed shortly by the sentinels stationed there. ”
“Father, I can explain,” Maelsar said in a rush. “I know I’m the heir now, but–”
The Kisst held up a hand to stop his son. “Saethir’s presumed death was unexpected, but everything in this realm is about to change. Lyriasthe is bold and brave and exactly the kind of wife I hoped you’d have, regardless of your position. Once this is all over, you have my blessing.”
Maelsar’s mouth opened, then shut again. He shook his head like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You’re not mad?”
“My son,” Sevren said, stepping forward and gripping Maelsar’s shoulders, “your mother and I have only ever wanted you to be happy. She’ll be pleased that you want to settle down at all.
With all your time on the road, she was beginning to worry you never would.
That she’d have to arrange someone for you instead. ”
Maelsar hugged his father, smiling wider than I’d ever witnessed. Then he snatched Lyiasthe and kissed her.
I found myself grinning too, joy brimming in my chest. This was what we fought for. Vaeron’s happiness hummed down our bond, and he drifted to my side, draping his arm over my shoulders.
Lyriasthe pulled away and faced the room. “We need to act quickly now. Everyone is still in the throne room, and I’m not certain how long it will take for the valerian to wear off. At least I managed to convince some of the servants to help us. We’re going to need it.”
How right she was.
“We should move out now then,” Vaeron said. “Is Iaoth with them?”
Sevren shook his head. “She didn’t come to dinner.”
Vaeron strode toward his desk and started strapping on his weapons. “Which means she’s likely still in the royal feather.”
So she was terrified of her husband and also mourning his cold departure.
Mayyal’s words about the Korona drifted back to me.
About how she’d been married to him before she’d come of age.
When I was one hundred and sixty, I had only cared about dancing and finishing my schooling.
I couldn’t imagine being married then—and to someone like Stadiel.
“If she’s alone, it will be even easier to overpower her,” Vaeron growled, the promise of violence in his tone making the hairs on the back of my neck rise. He turned to us. “Are you ready?”
The bond pulled taut between us, vibrating with anxiety. This could either go very right…or very wrong. I inhaled a bracing breath, holding my mate’s gaze. Staring deep into those eyes, to the other half of my soul.
“We’re in this together, little fugitive. I love you.”
“I love you, Vaeron.”
Lyriasthe rolled her shoulders back. “We fight for peace.”
“Always for peace.” I grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze.
Maelsar secured his sword. I sheathed a dagger at my thigh, the weight far too comfortable now. But I might need it; I’d rather have it than not.
“I’ll leave first and distract the guards. They’ll be ready for your magic,” the Kisst promised, retreating to the door.
Maelsar and Vaeron readied themselves as he stepped outside. Voices drifted back to us.
“Now,” Vaeron whispered.
Maelsar flung his hands forward, the air in front of him wavering. My mate hauled open the door, revealing the disoriented guards. The Kisst offered us a subtle nod as we raced away.
Lyriasthe twisted her hands, bringing an Illusion around us. And I tapped into my power in search of moments in the near-future where a sentinel or Sightkeeper might cross our path.
All the while, my heart thundered against my ribs. We were walking toward a moment I’d dreamed of for months. Toward the female who’d tormented me long before I set foot in the palace.
It was too quiet, in the way that the eye of a storm was. In the way the moments before rain fell was.
A reckoning awaited me—us. And the world held its breath.
Once we were closer to the royal feather, we slowed to a crawl, my friend and I ducking behind our males.
“Four sentries ahead,” I whispered. True to my word, we spotted them when we rounded the final corner.
When we were within striking distance, the males leaped forward, driving their blades into the necks of the sentinels and wielding their light to lower the dead to the floor without a sound.
Vaeron kept his blade in hand as we slipped inside the royal chambers. Only a few candles flickered in the receiving room, and Iaoth was nowhere to be found.
Vaeron gestured for us to follow him. We went through another space filled with books, then an indoor garden with a small pool, before finally reaching a sitting chamber. At the rear, curtains fluttered in a small breeze.
And a sob drifted out with it.
“Radiant Mother, please, why do you punish me so?” came Iaoth’s shrill voice through her cries.
Damn her, I will not feel sorry for her.
“All I want is to bear him a child. He will love me then, truly. Not the way he has before. But a real love! Like a fated mate. Why did you bless Vaeron and not me? I’ve done everything you’ve asked.”
I wanted to roll my eyes at her dramatics. But Vaeron had gone preternaturally still in front of me, his head cocked ever so slightly to the side.
“At least I think I have. I’ve forgotten so much…”
Vaeron sucked in a sharp breath.
“Do you think Stadiel used her magic on her?” I asked him through our bond.
He didn’t reply. Instead, he took a step forward. We made to follow, but he held up a closed fist.
“What is he doing?” Lyriasthe hissed under her breath.
“Let him go,” Maelsar whispered back.
My mate slipped through the curtains and disappeared into the darkness. I slunk closer, too curious to stay away.
The gossamer brushed against my cheek as I peered through it.
Iaoth was on her knees, prostrated across a cushioned bench at the foot of the bed. Her head hung limp, misty hair in disarray all around her. And above her stood Vaeron, his back to me. Yet that impeccable posture was fractured.
“Iaoth…”
She looked up at him, eyes shining and so full of sorrow. “Go away, Vaeron.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he rasped.
“As if you would have cared. You’ve always hated me,” she scoffed, dragging her arms to her sides and rising to her feet.
“Do you remember what I said to you on your wedding day?” Vaeron asked, his voice so, so quiet.
“It doesn’t matter now. Everything our father wanted for me is gone.” She swallowed hard, spinning on her heel and approaching the window.
Vaeron followed her, frowning. “Do you remember?”
A long moment passed. “I have no memory of that day. I barely remember my childhood at all now.” A shaky breath fled her lips. “I have no idea who I was before. All that’s left are fleeting glimpses and things that you or Stadiel have told me.”
In that moment, the Korona looked hollowed out. Broken. A shell of the heartless tyrant I’d known. It was all wrong; she was supposed to be carved of cruelty and coldness.
“I told you that no matter what happened with him, you were still my sister. And that I would not fail you like I failed our mother when the Demons attacked.”
Iaoth lifted her gaze, narrowing it on Vaeron. “Your eyes are different. And your hair. Like how they changed after Mother died. I remember that much. Stadiel found that particular memory useful.”
Nausea churned in my gut. He’d edited her memories, not just erased them.
Fury pounded down our bond, yet my mate’s face remained impassive. “It seems the bronze you allowed Stadiel to thread into my flesh had some unintended consequences.”
Iaoth’s expression morphed from sorrow into the spiteful glee I knew far too well. “How disappointing that you turned out exactly as Father knew you would be. A monster.”
The word was a knife to my mate’s heart, spearing agony directly into my own. I shot through the curtains and stomped toward the Korona, light leaking from my fingertips. “Vaeron is nothing like your father. If anyone is, it is you, Iaoth.”
“How dare you speak to me like that,” she snapped, wrath whipping toward me.
But I was a storm, with thunder in my heart and lightning in my veins. No longer would I abide the abuse she directed at my mate. White snapped out of me, encasing Iaoth in my rage.
Pain shaped her into this creature of righteous fury. And it felt good to cage her. Frighteningly good.
She shrieked, thrashing against my hold. Her power surged, battling with mine to peel it off her flesh. “Stop your mate, she’s going to kill me!”
“She’s not going to. I am.” Vaeron’s words raised the hairs on my arms. For gone was my mate; the Issaraeth emerged in his place. He drew his bronze-edged dagger, the indigo gem catching in the light of my swirling power.
Iaoth’s eyes went wide, and she struggled against my luminous binds. “Guards! Capture these traitors. They must be executed!”
Vaeron’s laugh was low and sinister. “They will not hear you, sister.”
His own magic spilled out of him, twining with mine. A shiver rolled down my spine as we joined.
He raised his arm and stepped forward. My heart beat wildly against my ribs. With a scream, Iaoth’s power detonated, a gust of wind blowing me back.
But the Issaraeth was unmoved. His lips curled back from his teeth. Insidious lust for violence surged from the depths of him, that wicked blood magic begging to be unleashed.
The blade sliced through white.
Air froze in my throat.
A flash of my future blinded me. A mirror of monstrous rage, where instead of my reflection, it was the female who had tormented me staring back.
“Wait!”
Vaeron halted with the edge a hair’s breadth from his sister’s throat. He tilted his head over his shoulder, flashing his cold, lifeless eyes. Like he’d pulled so far back from the male he’d become and allowed the Issaraeth to be his only embodiment. “You wanted this.”
I swallowed hard, holding his gaze. “I did. Still do. But if we kill her, we’re no better than them.”
His fingers betrayed the barest twitch. Tears streamed down Iaoth’s cheeks, her body trembling in my magic’s grasp.
My attention locked on her. “I could let him end your life, Iaoth. Part of me wants nothing more than to drown you in the grief you’ve caused me.”
Goddess, I wanted her dead. I’d dreamed of it. We’d planned for it. The taste of it already coated my tongue.
But I’d been irrevocably altered since Heraphia’s death. All she’d ever wanted was to live in a world of peace. I had too, until Iaoth had snuffed out her flame.
How could we claim to be any different from the current regime if we fed the same hunger for power?
“I am not you, and I will never be like you. I refuse to be someone who destroys others to alleviate my own pain.” I snatched the bronze shackles secured behind Vaeron’s back with the end of my sleeve.
Dark desire swept down our bond. I looked up at my mate, at the desire in his eyes. The obsession. The devotion. “There’s my storm. Now show her exactly what she deserves.”
I stepped forward, luminosity filling the bedchamber to the point of blinding. The metal weighed heavy in my palm as I stared Iaoth down. “Vaeron and I will not start our reign with your blood on our hands. The memory of your demise doesn’t get to survive inside me while I sit on your throne.”
“I am your Korona! You cannot take my power from me!” she protested, shrinking back from the dagger still at her throat.
“Not anymore. Today, I am taking your fucking crown.” I leaped forward at the same time Vaeron issued a Command.
“FREEZE.”
Iaoth went still, unable to even blink. I snapped the bronze cuffs around one wrist, then the other.
Vaeron captured the shackles, dropping his thrall and shoving her hands together.
The chain linked with a satisfying click.
“For too long I thought your collar was my duty. I’d been conditioned so thoroughly by our father that I didn’t even realize I was choosing to stay there.
Until Sylaira. She freed me from the cage I couldn’t even see. ”
A keening wail ripped from Iaoth, and she collapsed to the ground, sobbing. “You ruined everything! You always ruin everything!”
I crouched down, reaching for the glittering diadem resting on her brow.
“The Korona of Ruin,” I mocked, lifting slow, measured, so she could feel the weight of it leaving her.
Iaoth’s sorrow shook her slender frame as I tossed it away, letting the metal clatter against marble.
The sound was a death knell, though no death would follow.
Because as much as she deserved to die for what she’d done, I would not surrender that last piece of myself and give it to her. She didn’t get to leave a permanent stain on my soul.
We would find another fitting punishment for her—one that trapped her as thoroughly as she had trapped us.
Maelsar and Lyriasthe stepped through the curtain, the witnesses to what we had done.
They’d allowed us the space to reclaim our autonomy from a tyrant.
And now, they took in the sight of the three of us.
Maelsar struck his palms together once. Twice.
A slow, deliberate applause. Lyriasthe offered a triumphant grin.
Together, they sank to their knees, hooking their thumbs together and fluttering their palms over their hearts.
“Long live Koron Vaeron and Korona Sylaira of House R?viel.”