24. 23 #2
Somewhere beside her, Theodore shifted. He cleared his throat once, low and threatening. His hand still held hers, but the grip had changed—cooler now. Measured. His voice was quiet, but there was no mistaking the weight behind it. “Mabel. I need your answer.”
Three lives pressed against her skin—past, present, and the one just out of reach. Only one could walk forward from here.
Time fractured. The silk cord looped around their wrists hung suspended like a promise waiting to break.
Mabel didn’t look at Lance. Didn’t look at Theodore. She stared at the space between them—the open doors, sunlight spilling in like an invitation.
“Run.” The voice echoed through her mind, loud and clear.
Her fingers twitched. Magic surged, unbidden, blooming in her palms with a hiss of flame. It caught the cord between her and Theodore in an instant, fire racing along the silk like it had been waiting.
Theodore recoiled.
The cord dropped, burning as it fell—turning vows into ash.
Gasps rippled through the temple.
Theodore’s eyes locked onto hers—wide, stunned, searching for something she couldn’t give. His hand shot out, fingers closing around her wrist.
“Let me go,” she whispered, voice splintering as she turned toward him. “Please.”
His grip tightened. Jaw set. Brow drawn. For a heartbeat he held her there, caught between fury and fear, not even sure what impulse had taken him. Then something in him faltered. His hand slackened. Fell away.
And then, she ran.
Down the altar steps, the gold-threaded train snapping at her heels like lightning. Lance straightened, hope flaring in his eyes as she neared—but she didn’t slow. She ran right past him.
“Stop her!” Cavric roared, rising from his seat like thunder.
The guards surged toward the exit, boots pounding in unison.
But Mabel lifted her hand.
Flames erupted—two walls of fire roaring to life, halting the guards mid-stride, heat licking the mosaic floor, daring anyone to follow.
She tore through the temple doors, into the light, into the unknown. And didn’t look back.
Behind her, gasps split the temple like a crack in glass—shock, fear, and awe blooming in its wake.
Theodore didn’t hesitate. His hand flew to the hilt at his side. In one fluid motion, the ancestral sword was drawn, its steel catching the gold of lantern light with a hiss that cut sharper than the blade itself.
“You bastard,” Theodore growled, voice cold and thunderous.
Then, he moved. Gasps turned into startled screams. Guests surged to their feet. Nobles clutched at their companions as Theodore stepped down from the altar and charged.
Lance barely had time to brace. He held up a hand, half in instinct, half in protest, but Theodore was already bearing down on him—blade raised, crown askew, grief and fury burning behind his eyes.
The priestess shouted for peace. Guards sprang forward, unsure whom to protect. Fabrics rustled as the crowd scattered toward the temple’s stone pillars, skirts and capes whipping in the sudden storm of motion.
The ceremony was gone. The sanctuary undone. And at its center—sword, love, and betrayal collided in a heartbeat poised to break.
Theodore’s blade arced through the air with force born of fury—and cut through nothing but smoke.
In the space of a breath, Lance vanished. A shimmer pulsed around him, and he reappeared several feet away, the air crackling faintly where he’d stood. Fingers splayed, palms humming with magic.
Theodore stumbled forward, momentum unchecked, boots skidding across the polished stone. He caught himself, barely, and wheeled around with eyes blazing. “Coward!” he spat.
But Lance was already moving again, weaving spells with graceful, practiced precision. A gust of wind swept through the temple, toppling flower urns and extinguishing two sconces. Magic thrummed in the bones of the building.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Lance shouted over the rising din, “but I won’t be struck down for loving her!”
Theodore’s sword gleamed, answering him with steel instead of words. He lunged.
Lance’s fingers flared—arcane sigils spun into existence midair, forming a shield just in time. Metal clashed with magic, sparks bursting where blade met barrier.
Steel versus sorcery. Tradition clashing with the untamed. And at the center of it—two men, neither willing to yield.
Theodore lunged again, fury propelling him forward like a storm barely contained.
His blade met Lance’s shield with a sharp crack, the rune-light fracturing under the pressure.
But Lance shifted left too slow this time—Theodore’s sword grazed his ribs, slicing through fabric and drawing a vivid streak of red.
Lance staggered, hissed through clenched teeth, and retaliated.
A pulse of raw energy burst from his palm, throwing Theodore backward across the mosaic floor.
The groom crashed into the base of the altar, crumpling to one knee, blood dripping from a gash along his brow where he’d struck the stone.
His sword clattered across the floor, spinning wildly before stopping at Frey’s feet.
The temple was no longer sacred. It was a battlefield.
Most of the guests had already fled, their cries echoing beyond the temple doors.
Only the family remained now—Cavric and Auor, cold and still as stone; Ada pressed against a column, breath held; Thalen, utterly confused at the sequence of events; and Frey, standing tall between them all, lips moving swiftly around ancient syllables.
The air snapped taut. With a final word, Frey raised one steady hand and cast.
Silence. Stillness.
A shimmering wave of magic rushed outward, washing over both men.
Theodore froze mid-rise, muscles locked, breath caught in his throat.
Lance’s next spell evaporated between his fingers.
The room stilled—save for the echo of flames dancing in their sconces, and the twin threads of blood running from pride and desperation alike.
Frey stepped forward slowly, voice even but laced with steel. “Enough,” she said, her gaze sweeping over both of them. “If love cannot be given freely, then do not let war be its surrogate.”
In the silence that followed, all that remained was the ruin of what had been a wedding. And what might now become a reckoning.
The spell broke.
Theodore and Lance both staggered as control returned to their limbs. Theodore’s shoulder slammed into a pew as he caught himself, teeth clenched in pain. Lance dropped to one knee, steadying himself with a palm against the floor, sweat beading at his temple from the strain of his magic.
For a split second, the room held its breath again.
Then, Theodore lunged.
But before his blade could be reclaimed, Frey’s gaze snapped to him—sharp as a drawn arrow.
She didn’t speak, not at first. She didn’t have to.
Her eyes, usually a harbor of warmth, now burned with unspoken fire.
The look froze him in place, his hand hovering inches from the hilt.
“Don’t,” she said, voice cutting and dangerous.
“You will not spill anymore blood in this temple.”
Theodore faltered. The rage in his eyes didn’t fade, but it bent to something deeper—humiliation, grief, something too tangled for words. He stepped back.
Frey turned, her voice softening just enough to be heard. “Behave. Both of you. Or I swear by The Old Ones, I will make you.”
Cavric stepped forward, each boot striking the floor with an eerie finality, louder than the fading chaos clinging to the rafters. He moved between Lance and Theodore without a glance, his face carved in stillness—not calm, but something colder.
At the threshold of the temple doors, sunlight spilled around him, casting long shadows behind the wreckage of vows and fire.
He raised a hand. The flames Mabel had left behind vanished in an instant, swallowed by silence.
“I’ll find her.”
Not a vow.
Not a hope.
A threat.
It curled through the silence like dread, chilling and final. There was no outrage in him, no fire or raised voice. Only the terrifying precision of a man who had survived wars, buried kings, and would burn down the very world if it meant reclaiming what he considered his.
The echo of Frey’s voice still lingered in the temple’s arches, sharp from where she’d intervened between sons, grief, and fury.
Thalen remained near the front, one hand clenched around the edge of the pew. He hadn’t spoken since the shouting ceased.
Then came the cough. It was quiet at first, a stifled rasp swallowed by the temple’s vaulted hush. But it came again—harsher. His shoulders hunched forward, and the glass in his hand slipped, shattering on stone.
Thalen choked on the next breath, gripping his chest. He gasped—eyes wide, unfocused—as he staggered sideways, knocking into a column. The priestess moved instinctively, breaking from the altar, but too late to catch him as he fell.
A thud, heavy and wrong.
“Thalen!” Frey’s voice cracked through the stillness, heels skimming across scattered petals as she dropped to her knees. The priestess was already beside her, fingers at his throat, then jaw, then chest.
“He’s not breathing—he’s not—” she began, before being cut off by the sharp clamor of footsteps behind her.
Theodore moved, but Frey raised a hand—a queen’s command, not a mother’s plea. “Stay back.” Her voice trembled with held panic.
Thalen lay still.
And somewhere in the rafters above, the bells tolled—not in rhythm, but once, late, as if they, too, had forgotten how to grieve properly.
The King of Aurevyn was dead.