CHAPTER FIVE
ELYSIA
NINE YEARS AGO
The cottage feels too quiet without her.
The funeral was a gentle, heartbreaking affair.
Villagers, mages and High Mages alike filled the meadow behind the cottage, lanterns drifting through the softly glowing trees, each one carrying a flame for Selene Morningstar’s soul.
Moonlillies and luminescent white roses were woven through her bier as voices had risen in song, soft and reverent, the melody carrying into the river like a prayer.
It should have been beautiful. It was beautiful.
But beauty does little to soothe grief.
Now, silence presses against the cottage walls, heavy and smothering. I sit curled in my room, knees drawn up to my chest, listening to the faint creak of the floorboards beneath my father’s restless pacing.
His study door opens and closes, his voice low, but tight with something I rarely hear from him… rage.
I slide from my bed, and my bare feet whisper against the cool wood.
Hair clings to my face still damp with tears, but curiosity sharpens my grief into something else.
I creep down the hall, pressing myself against the wall just outside his study.
The crack beneath the door glows faintly, lit by the steady shimmer of rune-powered light.
“I’ve uncovered enough, Veynar.” My father’s voice rumbles. “More than enough to prove it. Selene did not die by chance; The Council engineered this plague.”
A pause, then another voice carries through the crack of his study door.
Councillor Veynar.
He had been at the funeral, his hands clasped in sympathy, eyes damp with sorrow.
“Eryon…” he says softly. “I understand your grief. I grieve with you. But to accuse The Council of such monstrous acts… it isn’t rational. You are blinded by your loss.”
“Blinded?” My father’s tone is fire and steel.
“Do you think I haven’t seen the records?
The shipment logs? Do you think I haven’t traced where the early doses of the ‘cure’ went?
Who received them and why? The Council engineered it, released it, and controls who lives and who dies.
My wife was murdered, Veynar. Murdered by the people I bled and fought to serve. ”
My breath snags in my throat. Stomach knotting so tightly I nearly stumble against the door.
“You must be careful with your words, old friend. Accusations like these, if spoken in the wrong place…” his voice sharpens, “you risk more than your own life, think of your daughter.”
Ice shatters through me.
In a blink, I’m back in my room, limbs moving on instinct at a speed that makes the world lag behind me. Adrenaline sharpens every one of my senses as my fingers close around the belt of throwing knives waiting in my armoire, hands shaking as I fasten them across my chest.
I’m no master yet, my magic still flickers and dies when I push it too far, but knives? Knives have always obeyed me.
I peak round my quarter’s doorframe as the office door bursts open. My father storms out, his shoulders squared and eyes blazing. Veynar follows, his composure cracking as fury twists at his features.
“You’ll damn yourself, Eryon!” Veynar hisses. “You’ll damn her too!”
“If the people know the truth, perhaps damnation will fall where it belongs.” My father stops in the middle of the main living quarters, spinning to face him.
His hand crackles with magic, fire sparking to life across his palm.
“I’ll bring this to light, Veynar, and I’ll expose every last one of them. ”
Veynar snarls, magic bursting from his hands, and my father counters with fire, searing bolts of violet striking against his flames.
The clash rattles the walls, jars on the shelves tumble to the floor, smashing into shards.
The air grows thick with heat, the scent of smoke and ozone curling through the cottage.
I step into the hall, knives in hand and heart hammering, but my aim will not waver.
Father pushes forward, fire roaring against Veynar’s defence, but the man is quick and cunning.
A whip of water coils around Father’s arm and wrenches him sideways.
He hits the ground a breath later, body convulsing as Veynar twists his very biology against him, evaporating the water within his blood.
I don’t think. I don’t breathe.
Two blades fly from my fingers in a single breath, whistling through the air before they hit their mark true.
The first hits his chest, the sound of flesh tearing as the blade sinks into his heart.
The second buries into his eye with a wet, sickening crunch.
Veynar staggers backwards, his magic flickering for a pulse, then extinguishes with a hiss.
Blood spills dark and thick as he collapses to his knees. For a heartbeat, his face is nothing but shock, but then he falls, dead before he strikes the floor.
The silence afterwards is deafening.
For a long time, neither of us speaks; the only sound is the soft crackle of dying embers and the faint whistle of wind against the windows. The air still smells of ozone and blood, of magic burnt too bright.
My hands won’t stop shaking. I don’t even realise I’ve dropped the last knife until it hits the floor with a dull clink. The sound jolts my father out of whatever spell he’s under, and he turns toward me slowly, eyes wide, the firelight carving deep shadows across his face.
“Moonfire…”
My nickname is a whisper, torn between disbelief and awe. He stands on shaky legs and takes a hesitant step forward, then another, as though approaching something fragile. His gaze flicks to Veynar’s body and back to me.
“You…” His voice cracks, then he swallows hard and tries again. “You saved me.”
There’s a flicker of emotion across his face, too fast to name. Shock, pride, horror… love, even. Then he moves, pulling me into his arms, his heart hammering against my cheek. He holds me so tight it’s a struggle to breathe.
“Gods, Moonfire. You shouldn’t have—” His breath trembles against my temple. “You shouldn’t have had to do that.”
“I didn’t think,” I murmur, dazed. “He was going to kill you.”
“I know.” His hand cups the back of my head. “You did what you had to.”
But when he pulls back, his eyes are still darting, calculating. The fire in his palm has faded, something colder now burning behind his pupils… the realisation of what comes next.
“The Council will notice his absence,” he mutters, mostly to himself. “They’ll ask questions, send someone to check on him. Damn it! Veynar was too high up for this to go unnoticed.”
A fresh wave of panic cuts through me. “What will they do if they find out?”
He looks down at me, his face tightening. “They won’t.”
“But—”
“I’ll handle it,” he says quickly. “I’ll make sure no one knows he was here. I’ll do whatever it takes. You leave it to me.”
I want to believe him. I do believe him… but even through the haze of adrenaline and blood, I see how pale he’s gone, how his magic still trembles faintly across his knuckles.
“Father,” I whisper, voice unsteady. “What you said to him, before the fight. About The Council, about Mother…”
He freezes. His mouth opens, then shuts again.
“Is it true?” I whisper. “Did they really make the plague?”
He exhales, the sound raw and broken. His eyes close, and for a moment, he looks every bit as old as grief has made him. When he finally nods, it’s a small, heavy motion.
“Yes, it’s true.” He says quietly.
My stomach twists, nausea crawling up my throat. I step back, searching his face for some hint that I’ve misheard.
“They… they killed her?” My voice cracks.
He clears his throat, forcing the words through it. “They did. Not by their own hands, but by the disease they unleashed.”
My vision blurs, though I’m not sure if it’s tears or rage. The world tilts under my feet for a fleeting moment, and I stumble, my father catching me in his arms.
“I’ll explain everything,” he continues softly. “But not tonight. Not until this…” He glances towards Veynar’s body. “Not until this is dealt with. Not until you are safe.”
I nod numbly, but the word safe feels hollow.
The air is too thick to breathe, the walls too close. My mother’s laughter echoes faintly in my memory, bright and distant. The idea that her death wasn’t by chance coils in my chest like a living thing.
“They murdered her…” I whisper again, and this time it’s not disbelief but something sharper. “And you serve them.”
He flinches as I shove away from him. “Moonfire—”
“How long have you known?”
His silence answers for him.
For a long, terrible heartbeat, I see him not as my father but as another man tied to The Council’s leash, one who finally yanked it loose too late. Then I see the grief under it… the man who buried his wife under roses and lantern light, and now must hide a corpse in the ashes of their home.
The storm of emotions inside me finally breaks. I press both hands to my face and sink to my knees. My breaths coming out rapid and shallow as my chest tightens. He kneels beside me, his touch tentative but afraid.
“I’ll make it right,” he murmurs. “I swear to you, Moonfire. I’ll make them pay. For your mother. For this. For everything.”
I lower my hands slowly. The tears still fall, but the grief has changed. It’s heavier, fuelled with anger.
“I’ll help you,” I say.
The words feel strange, older than fourteen.
He hesitates, searching my face for something… for the child he used to know, but whatever he sees there makes him look away as the first sparks of hatred take root inside me, glowing steady and sure in my chest.
He nods slowly but doesn’t say another word as he waves his hand, Veynar’s body burning and disintegrating to ash in seconds, floating away on the slight breeze whispering through the cottage windows.
I expect guilt to start clawing at me for taking his life, but all I feel is certainty.
Certainty that I would do it again.
For my father, for my mother, for Cole and for every innocent person The Council uses, deceives and bleeds dry.