Chapter 23
The once-familiar palace hall feels strange now, distorted. Every turn, every corridor I’ve walked a hundred times seems different, as if the stones themselves shifted in my absence.
It’s been just a few weeks since I took that cup from Mael’s hands, yet it feels like another life. Someone else’s life.
Each step toward the royal wing burns. I hadn’t stopped to ponder when the summons came, I just ran. But now, with the corridors stretching on and no end in sight, the questions catch up.
Why would Ryker call for me now, after refusing to see me so many times before?
A slow dread coils in my gut. What if this wasn’t Ryker at all? What if it’s Mael’s doing, and I’ve already stepped into the trap?
I clench my jaw, shaking the thought loose before it can root itself. No. It’s going to be fine. It has to be.
The Goldspear guards watch me pass, silent and still, their golden armor throwing fractured light across the stone. Their faces remain unreadable, but I imagine the hatred lurking beneath those expressionless masks.
Surely, they remember what my magic did in the Seventh Shrine. So many of their comrades—gone.
Do they whisper about me once I’m out of earshot? Do their hands itch to grab their weapons?
The messenger leading me moves in stiff silence. When we reach a crossroads, I turn right without thinking, my feet following a path ingrained by years of repetition.
“My lady,” the messenger says, his voice careful.
I slow, frowning as I notice his outstretched arm pointing in the opposite direction. Not toward the meeting hall. My breath stutters. A mistake, surely.
But his face gives nothing away. I glance down the familiar corridor, the one I should be taking, my mind scrambling to catch up.
“The king is expecting you,” he clarifies. “This way.”
My stomach twists. We’re going to the royal wing. To Ryker’s private chambers. My lips part, some instinct, some protest rising in my throat, but I swallow it down. “Yes, of course,” I say quickly. A nervous laugh escapes me, it echoes down the empty corridor.
The messenger doesn’t acknowledge my lapse, though his shoulders stiffen slightly before he turns away.
We walk in silence, but my mind drifts against my will to Kaelzar. How is he faring with Eva and Peonica in such close quarters? I don’t know who I should be more worried about in that volatile mix.
But as we approach the final hallway leading to the king’s apartments, the flickering torches seem to dim, pulling my mind back to the present.
The messenger knocks softly, and the door swings open from within.
My heart clenches as I step inside, my chest tightening until I feel like I might claw at it just to breathe.
The room is warm, almost stifling, sunlight spilling through the tall, open balcony doors. A small table stands at the center. An array of sweets, fruits, and bottles of tea and spirits arranged with careful precision.
Ryker stands beside the table, dressed in immaculate white and gold. As always, the white color means to signify purity, to cloak him in the illusion of honor. Just as my hair should have been.
The moment his bright blue eyes find mine, the air shifts. The weight of his gaze is crushing, his presence overwhelming. Once, I would have read every flicker of emotion in those eyes without effort. Now, they are a stranger’s eyes.
“I was told you already had a meal,” he says, his voice soft. “So I thought dessert might be in order.”
I freeze, uncertain of what to say.
For years, he was my safe harbor, my anchor in a world that sought to break me. But when the storm came, he let go. Now, there is only uncertainty.
A servant appears beside the table, holding a plate, but before they can set it down, Ryker steps forward and takes it himself. “Leave us, please,” he says.
The servant files out quietly, slipping through the side doors. The room grows smaller.
Ryker carefully selects a few pastries and a handful of chocolate-coated strawberries, arranging them on the plate before setting it down in front of a chair.
“Please,” he says, gesturing toward the seat. He hesitates, his fingers curling briefly around the chair’s back before letting go, his gaze flickering toward the balcony. “Unless you'd prefer to move outside?”
“I'm fine here,” I say quickly, my voice clipped. “Thank you.”
I lower myself into the chair, but the tension between us doesn’t settle. It lingers like a third presence in the room.
Ryker pours himself a glass of amber-hued spirit and downs it in one sharp gulp. The glass meets the table with a quiet thud, but his fingers linger at the rim, tracing it absently.
When he refills the glass and sinks into his seat, I catch the slight tremor in his hand. Guilt? A man in control wouldn’t need the burn of liquor to steady himself.
“I’ve missed you, Ray,” he says suddenly, his voice raw and unguarded. His eyes lock onto mine, filled with regret. “And I am so sorry I allowed this to happen to you.”
Allowed. His regret doesn’t change what his silence cost me. He let them take everything from me, and now he offers sorrow as though it is some great act of generosity.
“A delayed apology is better than none, I suppose.” Cold, cutting words slip past my lips.
The air shifts, the tension snapping taut. His expression falters. Before I would have softened at the sight of his regret. I would have let the hope win. But faith is a fragile thing, and mine was shattered long ago.
Ryker is the first to break the silence, dropping his gaze with a heavy exhale. He drags a hand through his hair, leaving it disheveled.
“I deserved that,” he mutters. “I just… I hope we can fix this somehow.”
Fix this. Fix us. Fix me. As if I should want to be.
I think of Kaelzar, of his sharp, unrelenting presence, so unlike Ryker’s quiet regret. Kaelzar would never hesitate like this. He would demand it, take it, fight for it.
I close my eyes for half a breath. “Do you even know what happened that night?”
“Yes,” he says, his tone darkening. “Mael told me.”
“And what exactly did he tell you?” I press, leaning forward.
Ryker rises abruptly, pacing the room. His hands clench and unclench at his sides. “Must we relive it?” he snaps. “We’re here now. It was a mistake, a terrible one, for which both of you have paid dearly.”
“Both of us?” I shoot to my feet, the chair scraping loudly against the floor. “What, pray tell, has your brother paid for it?”
Ryker’s jaw tightens, and for a fleeting moment, genuine pain flickers in his eyes.
“You didn’t see him wallowing in grief,” he says defensively.
“He begged for my forgiveness, offered to marry you, even to leave at my discretion. And when I refused to allow it, he ran to the Vapor Islands, ready to give himself to the gods and become a Sibyl. My men barely reached him in time. A few more hours, and he would’ve lost both his eyes. ”
“When you refused him…” I scoff, shaking my head. “How convenient that your men found out right in time to save him. Let me guess, someone ‘accidentally’ informed you?”
Ryker’s face hardens, denial etched into every line. “What are you implying?”
I step closer, refusing to let him deflect.
“I’m implying that Mael always has a way out.
That no matter what he does, someone is always there to stop him from paying the full price.
” My pulse pounds, my breath quickening.
“Meanwhile, I—” My voice breaks before I can stop it. I swallow hard. “I had no one.”
His eyes darken. “That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” I force out a bitter laugh. “Where were your men when I was being chased by fire in the first Challenge? Where was my convenient rescue when I was about to be eaten by the Fleshleeches?” I press my palm against my chest, as if I can keep the memories from spilling out. “Where were you?”
He flinches, the first real crack in his composure.
Good. Let him feel it.
I exhale sharply, shaking my head. “You say Mael suffered, but you don't even question if it was real. If his regret was anything more than self-preservation.”
“That’s enough,” Ryker warns, voice tight.
“Is it? Because I think the only difference between Mael and me is that he had the luxury of your belief. And I didn’t.”
Ryker looks away, jaw clenching. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Because you refuse to hear it,” I snap. “Because if you do, you’ll have to admit that the brother you’ve been protecting isn’t the man you want him to be.”
He turns away, dragging a hand through his hair again, his breathing uneven. For the first time, I see it, the war inside him. The desperate need to defend Mael battling against a truth he’s spent years refusing to face.
I open my mouth to push him further, to make him finally see what’s been right in front of him all along. “You need to know exactly—”
“No!” Ryker spins around, his eyes wide, glinting with a sheen of moisture I hadn’t expected.
“I can’t bear to hear the details of what happened between you two.
I’ve forgiven him. I’ve forgiven you too.
But forgetting what I was told, what I imagined, it's not that easy. I’m trying, trying so damn hard, to silence those thoughts.
To stop staring at the ceiling every night, terrified of the pictures my mind painted.
So please, I’m begging you, don’t make it worse. I don’t need to know.”
I stare at him, my mouth still open.
And suddenly, the anger and frustration dissolve, slipping off me like water down stone, leaving only a quiet, aching pity.
After everything I’ve endured, I feel forged, hardened, while he stands before me like a man made of cotton— soft, absorbent, defenseless beneath a sky on the verge of breaking.
The truth from me would be the downpour that soaks through him, warping his shape, unraveling what’s left of his resolve until there’s nothing left but a pile of ruined mush.
I close my mouth and blink. What would my truth even change? Would he accept it, believe it?