Chapter 40
Dark blood spread across the floor, and crumbled stone lay strewn where magic had struck. Broken glass littered the chamber, and the wall stood torn open where he had forced Kiran’s escape, its edges scorched.
As Imani stared into the gaping hole in the late-evening sky, she knew the man who’d wrought such destruction was already flying far beyond Kehemol.
Pain pressed through her body as she rubbed the back of her neck, blood still seeping beneath her clothes.
Kiran had healed enough of the wound to keep it from killing her, sealing the most serious damage and slowing the blood loss before Saevel drove him away.
But torn flesh still burned across her chest beneath her clothes, and the remaining damage pulled whenever she breathed too deeply, lifted her arm, or twisted her torso, leaving her mobile but far from whole.
She nibbled her cheek, wondering where Kiran would lick his wounds.
To her right, Saevel sat unmoving on the Throne, magic surging through him in pulses. Some remained with their heads bowed, or even kneeling.
A High Sentinel came forward from the Niflheim ranks, his voice carrying through the chamber as he raised it for all to hear. “By blood, by right, and by the will of the Throne, Saevel Illithiana of Niflheim stands as your king,” he declared.
All voices fell silent, replaced by the sounds of bodies hitting the stone floor in surrender. The High Sentinels who had initially stood by Kiran now knelt, bowing their heads, probably hoping for mercy from the monarch.
Imani remained standing, though, along with Meira. She worked her jaw back and forth, on edge despite getting everything she wanted.
Niflheim had a new king, its true monarch. And he had his heartmate next to him.
She wasn’t sure what that made her, and a pang of worry twisted in her stomach as she imagined the Essenheim people turning against her in favor of Meira.
Her sister stood at Saevel’s side, close to him, his body angled to shield her, his presence marking her as his in front of the entire room.
Without Meira, today’s victory wouldn’t have been possible, and she was proud of her sister.
The acknowledgment struck Imani in the chest. Meira had gone into danger, found the true king, and brought him back when no one else could.
Love followed close behind the pride, old and stubborn enough to survive everything between them.
But resentment ruined both. Imani could still love her sister and admire what she had done without trusting her again.
Meira had already proven that love would not stop her from betraying Imani when she believed she was right.
Glamour held over Meira’s brow, but Imani could still sense the Crown of Life there, a presence just beneath the surface, hidden but not diminished.
It marked Meira as her equal. Power emanated from her sister, even though Imani had taken her Divination magic.
Rumors of the monarchs being heartmated weren’t new. And they would spread.
The thought that Meira might one day challenge Imani sent a chill down her spine.
She had never wanted her sister dead. Even when betrayal had hollowed out everything between them, she had imagined confinement before execution, keeping Meira locked away somewhere secure, much as Tanyl had done, until Imani understood what threat the second Crown actually posed.
But there had been no time for that choice.
Kiran had fallen, Saevel had wielded the Throne, the Fabric was breaking around them, and Imani had barely learned how to rule one kingdom before being handed another crisis.
Meira stayed beside Saevel, watching him with an openness Imani had not seen in years. Niflheim gave her a place, a crown beside its king, and a life that did not require her to challenge Imani for Essenheim.
Which reduced the immediate threat, although it did not erase it.
Two queens still existed. Two Crowns still answered. And Imani was too new to rule to pretend she understood what that meant.
For now, Saevel mattered more than the uncertainty. Meira had wanted a heartmate since she was little, and Imani wanted to believe that finding one had given her something worth protecting rather than another reason to reach for Imani’s throne.
Still, her hands clenched into tighter balls. Imani would remain Queen of Essenheim, and until the crisis around the second Crown demanded action, she would treat that problem like every other threat pressing against her new reign… and survive the more immediate danger first.
She stumbled against the wall to stay upright as a deep, violent tremor ran through the palace, unrelated to the Throne of Destruction behind her.
Crumbling stone answered a second later, the sound of it breaking carrying in from outside the Throne room.
The noise built as it traveled, distant collapses echoing through the structure and drawing attention toward the city beyond.
Order dissolved in the hall as voices rose and people turned toward the exits and the walls.
“He’s back—the Serpent Prince is back!” someone shouted, panic cutting through the chamber as others took up the cry, fear spreading faster than reason.
Leaders moved without waiting, pushing toward windows, balconies, and any vantage point that would let them see what approached.
A sudden, unwelcome vision of Kiran returning with the Horde behind him swam in her mind.
She had already watched him unleash them on Kehemol once.
His injuries would not stop him from doing it again.
Panic propelled her onward, cutting through the chaos as she hurried toward the nearest window to witness it firsthand.
Saevel and Meira drove forward together, his body angled toward her even as he advanced.
“Make way for the king!” someone shouted.
People scrambled aside to clear his path.
They reached the opening moments later and took positions at the front as the chamber pressed in behind them.
Saevel’s mouth gaped at the unfolding destruction, and Meira’s hand went to her chest in shock.
A deep fracture split Menlone Mountain’s face, widening in real time as stone tore free and dropped away from the ridge.
Snow and rock followed in a violent cascade, rushing down toward the edge of the city and crushing everything in its path, structures collapsing under the weight as people scattered too late to escape.
It hit her as she braced herself harder against the vibrating stone wall. Imani had felt this rumbling before—in Stralas, months ago, during a Fabric event.
* * *
The rumbling lasted only seconds, but it had been enough to rip straight through the mountain, collapsing part of the Kehomel.
Chaos reigned in the chamber until Saevel demanded order, and the Sentinels and nobles fell silent. No one appeared injured from the groundquake, but everyone was shaken.
Esa stepped to the Throne and bowed her head. “Your Majesty, this wasn’t an attack from Kiran or a natural event.”
The torches along the marble walls guttered, casting long shadows over the council’s semicircle. “You’ve encountered this type of phenomenon before?” Saevel asked. “Explain.”
Esa’s throat worked once. Her eyes blazed—violet embers recalling horrors she’d rather forget.
She lifted a slender shoulder, letting her cloak slip, revealing a white scar across her collarbone.
“In Essenheim, before the Ascension Assessments,” she began, voice tight, “the ground ripped open beneath Stralas’s palace.
Stone statues plummeted into the crater.
This”—she gestured outside the window at the fissure that snaked underfoot—“is the same.”
A High Sentinel with a silver-trimmed doublet scoffed. He leaned forward, elbows on the polished oak table. “That’s impossible. You want us to believe the Fabric itself is tearing?”
Another voice, low and clipped, cut in. “It held through wars. Centuries of weavers and warders. This is mere damage, not an apocalypse.”
“Blame Kiran!” someone barked from the back, riffling robes and pointing a chin. “He meddled with the Throne’s core. He must’ve sparked this.”
Murmurs rose, layered like a flurry of wings. Fingertips drummed on tables. Cloaks whispered across stone floors. Each leader tried to wrest the narrative before it slipped through their grasp.
“Silence.” Saevel’s single-word command dropped like an anvil. The chamber stilled, save for the crackling torches.
Lore stood, every eye sliding to his tall, straight-backed form.
He tucked a strand of hair behind an ear and advanced into the circle, wand dangling loosely in his hand.
He rapped its silver tip against his palm, a staccato heartbeat.
“We have records. Centuries of them, in fact. Minor ruptures. Magical fluctuations. Each major tear follows a pattern.”
He paused, scanning their faces. A few shifted in their seats; a nervous lord unclasped a handkerchief and dabbed at his brow. No one interrupted.
“Every tear was preceded by excessive magical output: grand rituals, prolonged sieges, power drawn beyond natural limits.” Lore’s voice lowered.
“Kiran accelerated the process when he manipulated the Throne, yes. But he did not birth the flaw. The Fabric has been degrading for years, and we have all contributed. We think it’s even the cause of Niflheim’s darkness and storms.”
A ripple of unease passed through the council.
No one could pretend the events themselves were new anymore.
Stralas had shaken, slips had opened where they should not, and instability had spread across the realm for years.
What remained disputed was the cause. Plenty of witches still insisted these were violent but natural fluctuations in the Fabric rather than evidence that something fundamental was breaking.
This was the same old argument, and they were likely recoiling from the conclusion that the events were connected, worsening, and proof of damage rather than isolated natural disasters.