Chapter Five
Rhael
G
Elara’s footsteps rang along the corridor long after she had vanished from sight, the echo threading through the stone like a lingering spell. The sound should have brought relief, instead it hollowed out the space that the insignificant human left behind.
Even in retreat she had looked at me with that cold defiant glare – unyielding and unafraid– It had been infuriating. Yet she had intrigued me, the burn on her throat had caught my attention.
The scar had been angry, raw as though it still burnt with the fire that had caused it. It suited her, rage-filled and unrepentant. I had almost asked her about it.
Almost.
A King should not concern himself with the punishments of a slave. Whatever she had done to earn such a brand, was not my burden to unravel. I should not care.
I sat back against the cold embrace of my throne. Taking a moment to admire the silence that filled the room once more. I had preferred it this way for as long as I could remember. No nobles whispering false flattery, no council demanding attention.
The throne cradled me as it always had. Rumour claimed it had been carved from the bones of my ancestors’ enemies and fused with magic. It had never been comfortable to sit on, it was not meant to be. A King should never forget the cost that came with his crown.
Tonight, that discomfort had felt worse. Too narrow. The back was too tight across my shoulders. As if it were quietly questioning whether I was meant to sit upon it at all.
I flexed my fingers against the armrest and found my hand still curled, my knuckles white with tension. As if it expected to have something trapped within its grasp.
The thought that came next was unbidden. If my hand had found Elara’s throat there, would I have tightened my grip? Or would I have given her comfort?
I would not touch her. I would never touch her.
I had told her my people would not harm her. The promise had left my lips before reason could temper it. I had not made such an impulsive decision in years. Yet today I made several.
The first had been purchasing her.
A thin crack split beneath my fingertips. I glanced down to find spiderweb fractures marring the black stone beneath my palm. Shadows seeped from the fissures, thin and curious. They coiled around my wrist before dissolving as I forced my hand to unclench.
“Pathetic,” I muttered into the empty hall.
I was King of the Fae. My displeasure could topple a court. My wrath would unmake armies. I had broken alliances with a wave of my hand and watched rulers bow beneath my silence.
Yet, one human girl refuses to kneel, and I am reduced to a boy, coveting something I cannot claim. Demanding a toy that was not mine to play with.
The chamber did not argue with me. Instead, the shadows along the vaulted ceiling thickened, drawn to my own unrest. The castle responded to whomever sat on its throne. Under my magic it had grown colder, darker. The stone drank in the light and turned my kingdom into a land of shadows.
Under my brother, the throne had shimmered like storm clouds lit by summer lightning. Gold had danced along the corridors, laughter had carried where now only echoes lingered.
My brother, Averan, had ruled in warmth. I ruled in shadow. That was because my brother was dead, and I was to blame.
I drew in a slow breath, using my teeth to pull my lip ring into my mouth.. Grounding myself with the sharp taste of metal, it bent faintly beneath the pressure. If I kept this up, I would need to replace it before the next moon. I could already feel the metal morphing under the weight of my teeth.
It was not the human who unsettled me, I told myself. It was what she represented. Defiance. Choice.
She had mocked me with that exaggerated curtsey, and I should have punished her for it. Forced her to kneel until her pride cracked and spilled at my feet. Instead, I had offered her the one thing slaves like her whispered of in their sleep...
Freedom.
The word lingered in my mind like a curse. It was not just slaves who dreamt of living in freedom. Sometimes kings did too.
Pushing the thought to the back of my mind, I sat back. If she was successful, I would keep my word. I always did. Elara would earn her freedom if she did as I asked.
I hoped she earnt it quickly and would be gone from my life. The harsher part of me knew it was the safest option for us both. I had enough fractures within my own foundation without potentially inviting another to the mix.
My gaze moved over to the far corner of the hall, where the war table waited. Beckoning me as always. A slab of black stone, inlaid with silver lines that mapped every border of my realm and those beyond it.
Strategy was how I chose to run my kingdom, and the presence of the map in the throne room cemented that into everyone's mind. I was not living for music or laughter. In my soul I knew I needed revenge.
I rose and crossed the room, each step causing the thoughts of Elara to dull in my mind. Crushed beneath the weight of far more pressing matters. The human was trivial. My enemies were vast.
Crystal markers glow across the stone, each representing an attack or an assumed threat.
There were too many. Far too many. Along Vaetharyn's northeastern border, red stones clustered thick as dried blood.
Raids, burned villages, people who had suddenly vanished only to be found drained of blood.
That signature was unmistakable. Noctharis.
The vampires and their pets had been more active this year than they had in the previous six.
It was the signs of war. Not with bold and open declarations, but hidden, until you laid them all out onto a map. The devastation was plain and simple. Though, I knew a creeping war was no less lethal than one announced by a trumpet.
My fingers traced the map’s curve, lingering along each border I had secured and closed in the last several years.
Lycanthyr sat to the southeast. Vast forests containing wild magic, the wolves had never formerly broken their peace even though the relationship had frayed into non-existence.
My finger reaches around to the south. The human slums. I barely pause to think of the place. Once perhaps it had borne a noble name. Now it survived by selling its people into servitude. Surrounded by ruin and desperation.
In the west lay endless waters and just beyond the coast lay Dobhar. The Siren Queen’s stronghold. No envoy had ever reached its shores and returned, it was a cold unknowable place I had never once desired to visit or claim.
The North is where my finger stopped. Pyrhador.
The cavernous region of the dragons rose from the map, jagged and immense.
Their numbers had dwindled in recent years, but they were not yet defenceless.
The harpies and Valkyries that clouded their skies, were not to be messed with.
Even if the dragons had become lazy in their years on this earth, there were still beings willing to protect the kingdom.
Once upon a time, each of these places had been our allies. I would have even gone as far as to call the kings of the werewolves and dragons’ friends. Now I did not hear from them. Not since my brother's death, since betrayal had cleaved my world in two.
However, my kingdom could not stand alone. I had known this, battled with the realisation for months. Despite this, I still recoiled at the thought of reaching out to another ruler, bowing to them, and asking for help.
“You need allies,” Averan’s voice murmured in memory. He always believed alliances would make us strong, shared feasts, aligned futures. He had worked hard to maintain such relationships, he had died for that belief, and in the span of seven years I had destroyed it all.
I clenched my jaw fighting the nausea that turned to bile in my throat. The memory of his body, laying there lifeless and bloodied, on this very stone floor filled my mind as if I was standing there even after all this time.
His throat had been ripped out, discarded beside him as if no part of him was worth taking. We had been betrayed by someone I had once thought a friend, perhaps even more than that. But they had sold our secrets in exchange for power, and nothing had ever been the same since.
When I found him that day, I was ashamed to say I vomited. The contents of my stomach mixed with my brother's blood as I cried tears, begging for someone to heal him.
One moment he was King. The next, he was in pieces on the floor and I was King. As though he were nothing but a piece to be replaced. I never forgot him, and I swore I would never forgive.
To protect Vaetharyn I had dismantled every single alliance Averan had forged.
I sent dragons into battles without promised reinforcements, withdrew ships meant to meet with envoys from Dobhar.
I had even ordered the nymphs to deepen the river, dividing us from Lycanthyr, until it became a near impassable chasm.
The message was clear to all. Stay out of Vaetharyn, you are no longer welcome.
I did not regret keeping my people safe by any means necessary. But I also recognised what I had lost, friendship, support. Never once had I needed them until now.
My fingers lingered over the border of Pyrhador. The Dragon King had called me a butcher when his warriors fell. I knew if I had gone to him first, he would have demanded recompense. Blood for blood.
In my rational mind I dropped my gaze southward towards Lycanthyr.
I had spilled blood there as well. A hunting party had trespassed in my kingdom, so I had torn them apart, without a second thought.
Their King had sworn vengeance upon me. It had not come yet, but that did not mean it would not. Wolves do not forget.
I pressed both hands flat against the map and drew in a steadying breath. Noctharis grew bold as they used secrets they had taken from me seven years ago. I needed to act.
Elara's voice threaded through my thoughts again, persistent and unwelcome.
The way she looked at me, the challenge in her voice.
She acted as if I was not a King, but as a man who wakes each morning and chooses what kind of monster he will be.
I do not know what to do with her. However, war… That I understood.
Lycanthyr was the most sensible path. Pyrhador would require grovelling apologies, and sacrifices I could not spare. Dobhar would be worse.
Magnus Varg is many things, but he is not false. His hatred would be honest and if he agreed to fight beside me, I knew he would do so until his last breath. Their border touched Noctharis just as mine did. They very well may have felt the same creeping claws at their throats.
With a settling breath I nodded my head. My first journey would be to Magnus Varg, King of Lycanthyr.
“Majesty?” A quiet voice sounded from the doorway. It did not startle me, but my magic flared for a moment before I leashed it. Lioren, my elven steward, bows low. His pale, immaculate hands knotted tight before him.
“I did not summon you” I frowned, returning my eyes to the map. Silently plotting.
“I know, sire. But the eastern scouts have returned. I thought you would want to see their reports” he stammered. I didn’t respond. I simply held out my hand for the envelope he had in his hands.
Lioren hurried forward and placed the sealed parchment into my palm. I broke the seal without looking up, scanning the documents.
It confirmed everything the red markers already told me. The Vampires pushed deeper into my territory. The King of Noctharis showed exactly how little he cared for boundaries, even when they could lead to war. Now instead of markers on a map, I held it in my hands, black ink on parchment.
“Send words to the stables,” I said cooly, placing the parchment aside “I will depart in one week,”
“Where, Sire?” Lioren asked. His tone was one I was familiar with. Most of the stewards and advisors would approach me with caution. It was a preference of mine. A fearful court is a compliant one.
“To Lycanthyr,” I said dismissively, as if I had told him I was going on an evening walk.
“You will be going personally?” Lioren asked, his eyes wide as his tone changed to one of surprise. I had not left Vaetharyn in years, yet here I was talking as if it were something I did every week.
“Yes, myself and the human” I said, still not bothering to look up. Elara would accompany me, to test her resolve. For me to see how serious she was about earning her coveted freedom. Perhaps she would even keep me from dwelling too long in my silence.
“The Wolf King-” Lioren began, but my hand raised into the air. Commanding silence.
“He will receive me,” I stated. “He will know what is at stake.”
“At once,” Lioren said and I watched him bow from the corner of my eye. His feet scurried across the floor. The door announced his exit with a soft click.
I stood once again in my throne room, alone.
Surrounded by maps and shadows. For the first time in years, I felt tired, a bone deep, soul aching tiredness.
Seven winters I had worn this crown alone.
Burning bridges and watching battlefields soaked in blood.
Yet to survive, I would willingly ride to every King who had every reason to put a blade to my throat, and ask him to trust me once more.
In the dark of my thoughts, she surfaces again.
Somewhere in the eastern wing Elara was likely arguing with a member of my staff.
Breathing infuriating life into the stone corridors I had worked hard to keep cold.
That stupid, infuriating life that had somehow wormed its way into my veins like hope.
It was a disease. I would need to stop her spreading before she became the death of me.
“Wolves first,” I murmured to the empty hall, as if speaking the plan allowed would cement it into place. “Then the dragons, and if the gods truly despise me, the sirens”
The shadows that always followed me, flicker in response. Ignoring them I move back towards my throne. Each step a silent vow. Vaetharyn will not fall, my brother's death will not have been meaningless.
I will not allow a simple human girl, with a sharp tongue to distract me from the thing I have craved most.
Revenge.