Chapter 38
Kiran’s mouth curved in knowing satisfaction as the chamber’s uproar fell into silence.
“Did you really think I didn’t see this coming?” Kiran’s taunt echoed across the stone. Tightening his fingers around his bone wand, he rolled his shoulders, loosening as raw power gathered in his pulsating magic signature.
“I knew you’d go looking for him,” he continued, casting a fleeting, sidelong look toward Imani.
The glance made Imani acutely aware of the person who was not standing beside her.
Ellisar remained in Essenheim because she had left him there to hold the kingdom while she crossed into Niflheim.
Bringing both rulers into Kiran’s territory at once would have left everything they had just reclaimed vulnerable.
She had known that when they separated. Right now, with Kiran and Saevel preparing to tear the Throne room apart, she still felt his absence.
“I knew you wouldn’t leave him buried where he belonged.
” Kiran’s wild gaze snapped back to Saevel, his expression hardening into a cold and lethal stare.
He took another step. “So, I let you.” A beat.
“I wanted this room full. I wanted witnesses.” He shifted his weight, ready to attack.
“When I end him,” he said, his voice dropping to a heavy, final register, “there won’t be a single soul questioning who their king is. ”
Energy violently ruptured through the chamber as both men lunged, thrusting their wands toward the obsidian Throne.
The ancient structure answered in visible, concussive pulses that drove outward, rippling across the floor and climbing the walls.
Jagged lines of light spiderwebbed to the Throne’s surface, splitting and converging as two opposing claims tore at its ancient magic.
With tremendous force, the division’s impact pressed into the room, and stone cracked beneath the dais, the fissures spreading as pressure built with nowhere to vent.
Their magic signatures collided, and waves of blistering heat rolled through the chamber as the competing forces deadlocked.
Magic roiled through the room as both men fought the Throne’s magic, wrenching its power and trying to force it to their wills. Arc after arc of stray energy struck the floor in hard bursts, splitting stone and carving jagged scars into the pillars.
“You feel it, don’t you?” Saevel’s voice cut through the deafening clash, punctuated by another massive surge. “It answers me.”
The Throne answered again before Kiran could reply.
Light raced through the jagged lines already burning across the obsidian and surged toward Saevel, feeding directly into his wand without resistance.
The force drove outward from him hard enough to fracture another strip of stone beneath his boots, yet none of it turned against him.
“You’re forcing it,” Kiran shot back, redirecting a lethal strike. “You always did mistake brute strength for magical finesse.”
But Kiran twisted his spell. He dragged the edge of his bone wand across his palm, opening the flesh, then pressed his blood into the spell.
Imani understood flesh magic. It probably let him treat his own body as a conduit, forcing a false pathway between his magic signature and the Throne where the monarch’s natural connection should have been.
The spell let him seize part of the power moving through it and redirect it before it could fully reach Saevel.
It gave him control over smaller portions of the Throne’s power, compressed into faster, more precise attacks.
Kiran had to keep forcing the connection every second it remained open, though. He drew from the Throne through blood and flesh, building the stolen power into precise, targeted strikes that slashed easily toward Saevel.
“I took what you never had the will to hold,” Kiran sneered, driving a focused burst forward that sheared the very air between them.
In response, Saevel called upon the Throne, and it answered in broad, devastating waves. The magic moved through him naturally but heavily, each release larger, wilder, and harder to contain, leaving his muscles trembling under the strain.
“You stole it,” Saevel ground out, stepping into the gale of magic without breaking stride. “And it will tear you apart.”
Saevel’s claim was obvious now. One bent the power to his will; the other merely carried it.
Saevel unleashed a massive, focused strike meant to end the fight.
Kiran met it head-on, violently forcing his own magic into the beam’s path.
The collision shattered the magic’s trajectory.
Instead of landing true, the redirected energy splintered under the strain, tearing in a broad, blinding arc across the chamber.
There was no time to escape, and the spell caught Imani square in the chest with the weight of a falling mountain.
Magic tore through her defenses like paper, lifting her off her feet and throwing her backward.
She struck the stone wall with a sickening crack, driving breath from her lungs.
Blinding, immediate pain tore through her body.
Heat spilled rapidly down her front as blood welled from a deep, jagged wound, soaking through her clothes.
The clash died. Magic rippling from the Throne cut off mid-surge, plunging the chamber into a sudden, suffocating pause. All movement ceased; every eye locked onto Imani’s crumpled form as she slid to the floor.
“Imani!”
Kiran’s raw, anguished scream shattered the silence.
The connection to the Throne severed. Ambient power receded as he sprinted toward her.
He dropped to his knees and caught her against his chest. One arm wrapped desperately around her shoulders, while his free hand pressed hard against the gaping wound.
Blood welled, spilling hot and fast through his fingers.
Pulsing agony radiated across her chest with every shallow breath.
Yet, beneath the blinding pain, something else anchored her: Kiran’s body braced over hers, shielding her from the room.
The undeniable pull of their bond answered her panic.
Despite the agony, a brief, unwanted wave of relief washed over her.
Healing magic blossomed in his palm, drawn from deep within himself. He pushed it into her in urgent, frantic bursts, trying to force the torn flesh to knit.
“Imani, look at me,” he begged, voice cracking. He leaned over her, his forehead trembling against hers. “Stay with me. Stay with me, my darling.”
The battle, Throne of Destruction, its usurper—the entire world fell away. Kiran curled over her, turning his back completely to the hostile room. He didn’t look up. He didn’t track Saevel’s movements. His entire existence narrowed to the blood on his hands and the fragile hitch of her breath.
It exposed him completely.
She lifted a heavy, trembling hand against his arm, trying to push him away. “Ki—ran…”
Blood pooled at the corner of Imani’s mouth. His thumb brushed it from her lips with agonizing tenderness. “Don’t worry about anything right now,” he breathed, his healing magic surging into her chest. “It’s going to be fine.”
Through her blurring vision, Imani saw Saevel raise his wand. The true king drew from the Throne without an ounce of resistance, gathering its power into a single, devastating strike aimed straight at Kiran’s unprotected back.
The blow landed with a sickening crunch. The force carved into Kiran, but he didn’t flinch. He absorbed the blast without turning or pulling away. A rough, wet gasp broke from his lips, but his arms remained locked around her, his hand pressing harder into her wound.
“I’ve got you,” he said, his voice tight with agony. “You’re fine.”
“Don’t,” she gasped, her fingers weakly clutching his tunic, desperate to make him turn or fight back.
“Stay with me,” he whispered, leaning closer, as if his body alone could shield her from the inevitable.
Warm liquid splattered on the stone beside her cheek—Kiran’s blood.
The Throne surged again, driving its power mercilessly into his back, exposing the fragility of his reign.
The invasive, unstable flesh magic he had used to bind the Throne to himself unraveled as it actively rejected him, tearing him apart from the inside.
Saevel’s massive strides ate up the floor, angling to pull Kiran away.
A feral snarl tore from Kiran’s throat. He twisted just enough to place himself fully between Saevel and Imani, his arm locking her against his chest.
“Don’t touch her,” he spat, his voice raw with fury and blood. “Stay away from my heartmate.”
The words hit Imani like a physical blow, and she reeled back. In the stunned silence that followed, the grand illusion shattered.
Imani watched it happen. The obsidian crown that had marked him as king fractured into shadows and dissolved into the air. The glamour stripped away entirely, leaving his brow bare. There was no symbol, no crown, no kingdom—only a broken man bleeding out to protect her.
A low, subterranean rumble shook the chamber. The Throne’s power pulled away from Kiran completely, pouring toward Saevel in steady, undeniable pulses of light. The magic ceased, finding its ultimate, destructive resolution.
The split had vanished, and only one claim remained.