CHAPTER 30
LYRA
The crack is gone when I wake. For several long moments, I lie motionless with my cheek pressed against the cold glass floor, staring at the place where I could have sworn the wall fractured sometime during the night.
The white surface glows with the same sterile light that has surrounded me since I arrived, flawless and untouched, as though the cage has quietly repaired itself while I slept.
I push myself upright anyway, unwilling to trust my own eyes anymore.
Perhaps I imagined it. That possibility feels increasingly likely.
Malveris keeps returning with his ridiculous questions, the cage never stops humming beneath my feet, and my memories drift through my mind like smoke, slipping away whenever I reach for them.
If I am slowly losing my mind, at least it would explain why nothing in this place behaves as though it belongs in the same world I do.
The thought sinks into me, cold and heavy, feeding the fear I’ve been trying not to name.
I climb to my feet and begin another slow circle around the chamber, dragging my fingertips along the smooth glass wall.
Every step sends a faint pulse beneath the floor, subtle enough that I might have dismissed it a few days ago, but now I notice everything.
Every vibration. Every shift in the humming beneath the glass.
Every tiny inconsistency that might reveal a weakness.
I search for seams, imperfections, anything that suggests this prison was made by hands rather than gods.
I find nothing.
Closing my eyes, I reach instinctively for my magic.
Before the familiar warmth has time to bloom beneath my skin, the cage responds.
The hum deepens until I feel it in my teeth, white light surges through the walls, and the golden current inside me simply...
disappears. It is stolen before it can become anything at all.
I release a slow breath through my nose.
“Wonderful. How many times am I going to be captured in one lifetime?”
The glass, unsurprisingly, has no opinion.
Footsteps echo somewhere beyond the wall. I recognize them now. Malveris never hurries. He walks with a quiet confidence. I don’t bother turning around immediately. If he enjoys making me anticipate his arrival, he is welcome to enjoy it alone.
“You should eat, Cursebreaker.”
His voice glides through the chamber with the same calm certainty that accompanies everything he says.
I glance toward the untouched tray resting near the wall. Bread. Fruit. Water. Enough to keep a prisoner alive without offering the smallest comfort.
“If you’re concerned about my health,” I sneer, “this is a strange way of showing it.”
“You misunderstand.” His hands disappear behind his back as he studies me through the glass.
“I am concerned about your usefulness.”
I nod slowly. “Ah. I was beginning to miss your charming personality.”
His expression remains perfectly still.
I have discovered that insulting Malveris is like throwing stones into a bottomless well. Nothing echoes back.
“The cage feeds upon your energy, as I have told you before.” He gestures toward the chamber. “Every enchantment has a price. This one simply asks you to pay it.”
I stare at him. “So I'm powering my own prison.”
“Partially,” Malveris replies, inclining his head slightly.
I stare at him for several seconds, trying to decide whether he is serious.
“So let me see if I understand this correctly. You built an elaborate magical prison powered by the very person you’re trying to imprison.”
The corner of Malveris’s mouth lifts.
“Built?” He lets the word hang between us before shaking his head once. “No.”
His fingers trail lightly across the glass. “Some creations are far older than either of us.”
A chill crawls down my spine. “You're saying someone else made this.”
“Long ago.”
“Who?”
I already know he isn’t going to answer. I ask anyway.
His smile returns, patient and infuriating. “Now you’re asking the right question.”
He lets the silence linger just long enough for me to wonder if, for once, he’s going to give me a real answer.
He doesn’t.
Instead, he reaches beneath one arm and produces the black leather book. My stomach sinks before he even opens it.
The symbols covering its pages feel wrong in a way I still can’t explain.
They aren’t evil. They aren’t corrupted.
They feel ancient, as though they belong to a language the gods spoke before they ever spoke to mortals.
Looking at them reminds me of the Sacred Gardens.
My magic had recognized that place long before my mind understood why.
“Shall we revisit the records?”
“No.”
“It is not optional.”
“Then unfortunately for both of us,” I say through gritted teeth, “my answer remains no.”
The pages begin turning anyway. No wind stirs them. No visible magic guides them. They move of their own accord until they settle on a single page.
My breath catches as a woman stares back at me from the parchment.
Silver hair tumbles over her shoulders while light spills through the veins beneath her skin like rivers beneath ice.
Every line has been drawn with impossible precision, as though the artist hadn’t painted her at all but simply copied what already existed.
I don't know her, but something deep inside me recoils.
She feels familiar, the way Thorin did before I understood why. The way the Sacred Gardens recognized me before I recognized myself. She is beautiful, powerful, and unbearably sad.
“Does this look familiar?” Malveris asks.
My eyes remain fixed on the woman.
“No.” I swallow. “Who is she?” The question slips out before I can stop it.
His mouth curves into the faintest smile. “You still have much to learn.”
I drag my eyes away from the page. “What are you talking about?”
He closes the book with deliberate care. Relief washes through me before I can stop it.
“That,” he says quietly, “was the wrong question.”
I frown. “Then what should I be asking?”
His crimson eyes hold mine with unnerving patience.
“You should be asking why she exists.”
* * *
THORIN
Another council table splinters beneath my hands.
The crack of breaking oak reverberates through the war room like thunder, silencing every guard and council member gathered around it. Maps slide across the fractured surface before spilling onto the stone floor beneath us, parchment curling as my shadows pour over them in restless waves.
No one moves.
No one speaks.
They have all seen my temper before, but none of them have seen this.
The mark on my wrist has not stopped burning since Lyra disappeared.
Every hour it reminds me that she still lives somewhere beyond my reach, trapped behind magic powerful enough to sever almost every trace of the bond between us while leaving just enough behind to torment me.
I feel flashes of her terror like lightning striking across an empty sky before vanishing again.
Confusion. Loneliness. Exhaustion. Every glimpse disappears before I can hold onto it, leaving me grasping at shadows while she suffers somewhere I cannot reach.
It is a cruelty I would not wish upon my worst enemy.
The curse feeds upon every helpless thought.
Darkness crawls over my forearms in branching veins, winding beneath my sleeves while the shadows at my feet grow thicker, heavier, more alive with every heartbeat.
They no longer obey me so much as anticipate me, rising before I command them, as though they share my desperation.
“We searched the western routes, Your Majesty,” Mazelle says carefully, dipping her head. “We have found nothing.”
“Have you searched the northern passes?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. There was no sign of the rebels. Not even a trace.”
“The river crossings?”
“Still nothing, Your Majesty.” Mazelle lowers her gaze. “We will find her.”
Each report lands like another stone added to the weight crushing my chest. Three days have passed.
Three days of searching every village, every ruin, every abandoned temple and forgotten cave within hundreds of miles of Andell.
Three days of discovering only empty camps, cold trails, and rebels clever enough to vanish before my Shadow Guard arrives.
Three days without her.
My eyes are completely black. I cannot suppress the darkness threatening to unleash itself on everyone in this room.
“The Rebellion knew exactly how to orchestrate her capture. This betrayal came from within. Andell is a fortress. Someone with intimate knowledge of this palace had a hand in it.”
My shadows surge around me, carrying my fury through the room.
“If they intended to kill her, brother,” Onyx says quietly from across the room, “she would already be dead and you would not feel her as you do.”
My hands tighten against the shattered table until splintered wood bites into my palms. Onyx’s words cut deep because he is right. Death is simple. Death can be avenged. This…this is something far crueler.
Whoever took Lyra wants her alive.
The realization coils around my ribs like iron and the mark flares without warning.
Pain lances through my wrist, but it’s the sudden connection that locks every muscle in my body.
For a single heartbeat, I feel her. Fear crashes into me first, followed by confusion so profound it steals the air from my lungs.
Beneath both lies something far worse—a loneliness so complete it hollows me from the inside. Then she’s gone.
The room explodes.
Glass fractures.
Windows shatter inward beneath the force of my magic.
Shadows erupt from every corner of the chamber, swallowing the walls, ceiling, and floor until the room drowns in my fury. Several guards stumble backward, hands flying to their weapons on instinct before realizing there is no enemy to face. Only the king they have sworn to serve.
I register their fear. It means nothing.
All I can think about is that for one heartbeat… she was there. Alive. Afraid. And alone. And someone is making her believe I cannot reach her.
A terrible calm settles over me, colder than rage. But this is far more dangerous. I was not given the name Shadow King without reason, and the rebels are about to learn why.
I straighten slowly and look at the guards gathered before me.
“Search again.”
Mazelle hesitates. “We’ve covered every—”
“I DID NOT ASK WHAT YOU HAVE ALREADY DONE!” My voice cracks through the chamber like thunder. “Find her.”
Every person in the room hears the promise buried beneath it.
“You will search every ruin, every tunnel, every abandoned fortress, every cave, every forgotten shrine, and every rebel stronghold on this continent. If you reach the edge of Solaris, you will begin again.”
The shadows coil around my boots like living smoke.
“If anyone stands between me and my queen…”
I let the silence finish the sentence before I do.
“... they will discover why the gods cursed my bloodline instead of letting it die.”
No one argues.
No one questions the order. They know better.
They bow, gather what remains of the ruined maps, and leave without another word, as though lingering another heartbeat might earn them the same fate as the shattered glass.
I remain alone beside the shattered table, staring toward the eastern horizon. Somewhere beyond those mountains, Lyra is waiting. She believes she is alone. She is wrong. I will tear this continent apart, stone by stone, if I must.
No wall will shelter those who took her from me.
And no god will save them.