Chapter 21
SERIS
The tent flap fell shut behind me, muffling the sounds of the encampment. Outside, five hundred soldiers prepared for war, sharpening blades, checking armor, speaking in low voices about tactics and formations. Inside, silence pressed against her ears like water.
I stood motionless in the center of the small space. A bedroll lay neatly arranged against one canvas wall. A lantern hung from the central pole, casting warm light that did nothing to ease the cold settling into my bones.
Five hundred.
The number circled her thoughts like a predator. Five hundred Fae who believed I would lead them to victory. Who trusted that prophecy had marked me for greatness. That my bloodline made me worthy. That destiny would guide my hand when the moment came.
I lowered myself onto the bedroll, legs folding beneath me. My hands rested in my lap, fingers interlaced. The roughness of the wool blanket barely registered, paling in comparison to the chaos in my mind.
What if they were wrong?
The question surfaced without permission, flooding my mind with images I couldn't stop. The resistance breaking against the capital's walls. Arrows falling like rain. Screams echoing through stone corridors as soldiers cut down warriors who had believed in me. It would be the same as Vaelthorne.
I saw Kaelen falling. Kane and Kael bleeding out in some forgotten hallway. Zephyr's laughter silenced forever.
Daemon, his shadows disappearing forever.
My breath shortened. The tent felt smaller, the canvas walls leaning inward. I pressed my palms flat against my thighs, trying to anchor myself in something solid.
Vaelthorne burned behind my closed eyes. I saw the Festival of the Veiled Night with the same Fae, but this time bloodied and missing limbs. Lifeless bodies dancing without vigor. Veil-bloom petals withered, colorless, falling like ash. Lyralei's face as the arrows struck, eyes wide with surprise.
"I can't do this."
The whisper escaped before I could stop it. My voice sounded thin, childlike, and pathetic.
I was supposed to be the one to free my people.
The daughter of Lyanna. The daughter of prophecy who would save them all or damn them trying.
But sitting here in the quiet, stripped of spectacle and ceremony, I felt only the crushing weight of what I didn't know.
My mind latched onto the potential disaster of my own inadequacies.
Loneliness settled over my shoulders like a cloak woven from all the losses of my people.
My mother's execution. My father's death.
The months in Blackstone's cells, muzzled and shackled, reduced to a weapon with no will of its own.
The warmth of belonging I had found in Vaelthorne, ripped away in fire and blood.
Everything I touched crumbled and burned to ash. Everyone who trusted me paid the price.
The tent flap shifted.
Daemon stepped inside, moving with the same quiet grace that made his presence feel like shadow made solid.
He let the canvas fall closed behind him, sealing us in together.
His dark eyes found mine immediately, reading my expression, not in the way he had been trained as an assassin, but with open worry.
"You're spiraling."
I looked away, fixing my gaze on the lantern's flame.
Daemon crossed the small space, settling onto the bedroll beside me. Close enough that I felt his warmth, far enough to give me space.
"You're drowning yourself in possibilities that haven't happened yet."
"They will happen." My voice cracked. "If I can even get us there, we march into the capital.
Into a throne room where a creature from the Void waits to devour us.
And all these people, Kaelen, your team, five hundred soldiers, they're the last spark of hope my people have left.
Not me. I can't be what they say I am. I don't have it in me to be what prophecy says I am. "
I turned to face him, letting him see the fear I’d been hiding.
"What if I'm not?" she whispered. "What if I'm just a girl who survived too long, and everyone dies because they believed in something that was never real?"
Daemon's jaw tightened. For a moment, he said nothing, simply watching me with an intensity that made me want to look away again. Then he shifted, angling his body toward me.
"Do you think Lyralei and Kaelen are idiots?"
The question caught me off guard. "What?"
"Kaelen. The warrior who's led this resistance for decades, who survived the Purges and kept these people safe and hidden while the kingdom hunted them. Do you think she's a fool who would throw five hundred lives away on blind faith?"
"No. But…"
"She knows exactly what we're walking into.
So do Kane, Kael, and Zephyr. Every soldier preparing outside this tent understands the odds.
" Daemon's voice remained steady, grounding.
"They're not following prophecy, Seris. They're choosing to fight because they've been enslaved, hunted, and murdered for generations.
Because they're tired of hiding while a tyrant rules.
Because your mother gave them hope that change was possible, and you carry that legacy forward. "
"I didn't ask for this." The words came out sharper than intended. "I didn't choose to be born into a prophecy with impossible expectations. I just want, "
I stopped, breath catching.
"What do you want?"
The gentleness in his question undid something inside me. I closed my eyes, searching for truth beneath the fear.
"I want to stop being afraid. I want to sleep without nightmares of everyone I've lost. I want to look at tomorrow and see possibility instead of death.
" My voice dropped to barely a whisper. "I want to believe that choosing to fight means something more than just delaying the inevitable, and that there is a place for joy in this world. "
"It does." Daemon's hand found mine, fingers intertwining.
"The resistance existed before you. They've been fighting this war for years.
But they've been surviving, not winning.
Defending, not reclaiming. You give them a chance to end this, not because the prophecy demands it, but because you have power the king can't match and knowledge Lyralei gave you. "
"Knowledge I barely understand. Power I can barely control."
"Two weeks ago, you couldn't touch the Veil without it consuming you.
Now you can draw from the forest, manipulate distance, and reflect magic back at its source.
" His thumb traced circles against my palm.
"You're not the same girl who burned in Blackstone's chamber.
You're not even the same girl who arrived in Vaelthorne.
You've become exactly what you need to be. "
I opened my eyes, finding him watching me with something between hope and resignation. "And what if it's not enough?"
"Then we die trying." Daemon said it simply.
"I and everyone else outside would rather die than survive in a world with nothing to live for.
We've sat around long enough. In three days, we enter that throne room.
Either we destroy the Devourer and break the binding, or we don't walk out. Those are the only outcomes."
The truth settled between us, heavy and undeniable. No escape routes. No clever tricks. Just the brutal mathematics of survival against impossible odds.
"You're terrified," Daemon continued. "So am I. But fear doesn't make you weak. It makes you honest."
"Is that what your assassin training taught you?"
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "My training taught me to suppress fear until it became background noise. You taught me to feel it, and choose anyway."
I studied his face. Sharp angles. Dark eyes that had witnessed horrors most people couldn't imagine. A mouth that curved into rare smiles I had learned to treasure. Hands that shook on their own when a dagger wasn't in their grip.
He was dying. We both knew it. Even if my control slowed the progression, the binding to the Hollow Throne would kill him eventually unless we found a way to break it.
"Why?" The question emerged raw. "Why are you doing this? You could have stayed hidden. Built a life somewhere far from thrones and prophecies. Let the kingdom tear itself apart without you."
"I tried that." Daemon's hand tightened around mine.
"Spent years telling myself revenge was pointless, that my father's sins weren't my responsibility.
That I could carve out some fragment of peace for a few years if I just walked far away.
" His gaze held mine. "My team and I left.
We traveled east. Within a few days of our journey, we witnessed villages being burned and people being enslaved.
We thought we would see less of the king's tyranny the farther we were from the throne.
We were wrong. It didn't matter how far we went.
We only found chaos. We would settle in a village, only to have to defend it from the king's forces. "
He exhaled slowly.
"Eventually we realized we had to do something. There was no escaping this. So we began to gather intelligence. We learned about the prophecy, but that isn't why I'm here."
"Why are you still here?"
"I'm here because of you." He lifted our joined hands, pressing my palm against his chest where I could feel his heartbeat.
"Prophecy didn't command me to break you out of that chamber.
Didn't force me to follow when you ran. Didn't make me choose to protect you instead of using you.
Those were my decisions, Seris. My choices.
You made this mission personal for me. It's no longer just about saving people I have never seen. It's about helping someone I love."
I felt his heart beneath my palm, steady and strong despite the curse slowly consuming him. I felt my own pulse matching its rhythm, our connection deepening with each breath.
"I'm afraid of failing everyone," I admitted. "But I'm more afraid of losing you."
"Then we make sure neither happens." Daemon's free hand came up to cup my face, thumb brushing my cheekbone.
"We walk into that throne room together.
We fight whatever's waiting. And we come out the other side, or we don't. We choose this.
Not because destiny demands it, but because we refuse to let fear win. "
I leaned into his touch, letting myself believe for one fragile moment that choice could be enough. That two people standing against an empire might actually change something. That the battle could end in something other than ashes and regret.
"I want this." The realization crystallized as I spoke it. "Not glory. Not vindication. Just... freedom from the fear that's haunted me since the day they killed my mother. I want to stop running."
"Then we stand." Daemon's voice roughened. "Together."
I moved without thinking, closing the small distance between us. My lips found his in a kiss that tasted of desperation and determination in equal measure. His arms came around me, pulling me closer, and I felt the tension in both our bodies shift from anxiety to something fiercer.
This wasn't escape. Wasn't distraction from the future's potential horrors. It was acknowledgment that we chose each other, this fight, and believed that intention mattered as much as outcome.
Daemon's hands moved to my shoulders, then down my back, his touch grounding me in the present moment. I responded in kind, fingers tracing the sharp planes of his face, the strong line of his jaw, memorizing details I might not have the chance to learn again.
We undressed each other slowly, deliberately. No frantic desperation. Just quiet commitment to being fully present, fully here with each other before whatever the future brought.
When skin met skin, I felt something inside me settle. The fear didn't vanish, I suspected it never would, but it no longer controlled me. Daemon's weight pressed me into the bedroll, solid, real, choosing me just as completely as I chose him.
We moved together with the same careful intensity, learning each other's rhythms, finding connection in touch and breath and the space between heartbeats. I anchored myself in the sensation. Daemon's body aligned with hers in perfect synchrony.
This was choice. This was freedom. Not running from death, but claiming life with both hands and refusing to apologize for wanting more than survival.
When we finally stilled, tangled together beneath the blanket, I felt the quiet return, but it was different now. Not oppressive silence, but peaceful rest. The weight on my chest had eased, replaced by Daemon's familiar presence and the steady rhythm of his breathing.
"Whatever happens," I whispered against his shoulder, "I don't regret this."
His arms tightened around me. "Neither do I."
Outside, the encampment continued preparing. Blades rang against whetstones. Voices murmured battle plans. The machinery of war ground forward with inexorable momentum.
Inside the tent, two people who'd chosen each other held on against the approaching storm.
My eyes grew heavy. For the first time since Vaelthorne's fall, sleep came without fighting it. I let myself drift, trusting Daemon's presence and the choice we made together.
Tomorrow, we would face the Devourer. Tomorrow, five hundred soldiers would march against an empire. Tomorrow, prophecy and power would collide in a throne room built on blood and bones.
But just for tonight, we belonged to each other and nothing else.
I fell asleep wrapped in Daemon's arms, fear finally quieted by the fierce certainty that whatever tomorrow brought, I wouldn't face it alone.