Chapter 11
The ride was long, silent, and smothering. Eris sat rigid, wrists bound in unyielding steel, her eyes swallowed by a thick blindfold. The engine’s low hum vibrated through her bones. Each turn carved sharp lines of tension through her nerves.
No one spoke. No explanations. No reassurances. Only the suffocating presence of the Obsidian Guard. Her fingers curled in her lap as the cuffs bit cold into her skin. The air reeked of leather and iron, a scent like prison, like a tomb.
She brushed the charm at her throat—Kareon’s. A quiet anchor. It pulsed faintly, holding borrowed warmth like a secret.
The vehicle slowed. Hydraulics hissed, and somewhere ahead a gate groaned. The door wrenched open.
“Out.”
A hand yanked her forward. She didn’t flinch. Her boots struck stone, sharp and echoing.
A breeze stirred, carrying the faint scent of cedar and ash.
It slipped beneath her hair, brushed her cheek like the ghost of a hand.
This was not mere wind. It was presence.
And with it came a whisper, wordless and felt more than heard.
For a breath, the ache in her chest eased. She wasn’t alone. Not entirely.
The blindfold came off, and light exploded behind her eyes.
When her vision cleared, she saw the Obsidian Citadel—a fortress of black stone, its towering spires clawing at the sky.
The walls were seamless and bannerless, power made into monolith.
Two guards flanked the entrance, faceless beneath obsidian helmets, armor gleaming with disciplined menace. One shoved her forward.
She walked without fighting. Chin high, and spine unbending.
The corridor swallowed her. The walls narrowed with every step, black stone pressing in on either side. The air sharpened, cold with judgment.
Her steps rang like a verdict, each one counted, not in fear, but in defiance.
At the end of the corridor, a heavy steel door loomed. It groaned open.
Inside, gray stone walls enclosed a cold, metal floor with a single chair bolted at the center like a throne for the condemned. They shoved her into it, strapped her down, locked her still. Overhead, a single bulb flickered, casting long and fractured shadows.
Eris stared forward. Breath steady, face unreadable. She remained silent, unmoving, and unbroken.
Behind the one-way glass, a man watched her. Avaristo swirled the crimson in his glass, watching it cling to the crystal before sliding down in slow, deliberate legs. A drink for kings, for conquerors, for men who didn’t inherit the world but claimed it.
On the other side of the glass, Eris Dragov sat bound to a steel chair. No tears, no pleas. Just stillness, poise. Even in chains, she looked like a queen.
Avaristo took a slow sip, savoring the taste of control. “She practically opened the door,” he murmured.
Behind him, Miloseva Arxsen, Advisor to the High Inquisitor, stood with her hands folded, eyes locked on the girl beyond the glass. Her silence was her reputation. “You’ve just struck at the heart of Goznoth’s two oldest powers,” she said, her voice cool and clipped. “Some would call that war.”
Avaristo gave a soft laugh. “War? Not yet. War wastes pieces before the board’s set.
” He set his glass down, watching the liquid still.
“She was never the goal,” he said. “She’s the fracture.
” He let it hang, deliberate. Then, “We’ll give her back, bruised, breathing. Just enough to ignite the fault lines.”
Miloseva didn’t reply. She knew better during warcraft in motion.
Avaristo stepped closer, gaze lingering on Eris’s silhouette through the glass.
“The Dragovs will see her in chains and feel the insult. But they won’t retaliate.
They know the truth.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“Our armies outnumber theirs ten to one. They won’t declare war.
They’ll retreat into politics, pretending diplomacy still matters.
” He turned slightly, voice softening. “But the Lycans won’t wait.
To them, she’s more than blood. She’s prophecy.
The moment the Dragovs hesitate, the wolves will smell cowardice.
” He flicked his hand toward the girl in the chair.
“They’ll believe she was never safe among her own. That the Dragovs failed her.”
“And the Dragovs?”
“They’ll see a princess tainted. Marked by wolfkind. And they’ll blame the Lycans for drawing our gaze.” His voice cut sharper now. “Firstblood pride. Lycan fury. Neither side will yield.”
He leaned in, voice cooling. “They’ll rip into each other—faith against bloodline, prophecy against tradition. And when they’ve burned through what’s left of their legacies—”
He took a final sip, then raised his glass in quiet mockery.
“—we’ll clean the ruin. No heirs. No alliances. No survivors.”
His fingers flicked once. The guard moved without a word. Avaristo turned back to the glass, golden eyes catching the flicker of the light.
Two empires. One girl. And soon, they would unravel from within. When the dust cleared, Goznoth would be his. The old world would fall with them—its oaths, its pride, its dying gods.
The Lycans and Firstbloods still clung to myths, to faith, to blood. But only gold endured. Only power ruled. And the Obsidian Order was no longer asking for a place in history; it was taking the throne.
Beyond the glass, a door creaked open and figures entered.
Eris’s skin went cold. Obsidian-armored guards, precise and mechanical, moved in.
One unlocked her cuffs while another yanked her upright.
The chair scraped across stone, discarded.
She staggered but caught herself before they could drag her.
Their grip bruised, but she didn’t flinch.
“On your feet, Princess,” the officer said, his voice smooth and controlled. “Someone’s been eager for your company.”
She didn’t respond. They marched her through a narrow hall, lights humming above, shadows pressed tight to the walls. Her pulse pounded but her breath held steady.
Another door loomed, wider and colder. Inside, a single chair waited. They shoved her down into it, offering no restraints this time—a calculated mercy, leaving her hands free.
She looked up.
Avaristo.
He looked every inch the ruler he imagined himself to be, draped in black lined with gold filigree, more shadow than man.
The embroidery along his sleeves shimmered faintly, etched with the elegance of empire and the cruelty of permanence.
His vest, woven from obsidian silk, caught the low light like the whisper of a blade, power made wearable.
But it was his eyes that held true dominion, gold and predatory.
His gaze swept over her, taking in the torn lace, the smudged skirt, and the wild auburn hair spilling down her shoulders. It was a quiet inventory, a calculated study.
He examined her like an exquisite threat: something valuable, volatile, and already compromised.
Then he smiled and reclined in a throne of polished obsidian, one leg crossed, a glass of aged blood resting between his fingers like a scepter he did not need to lift.
The thick, dark liquid curled against the crystal.
When their eyes met, his smile deepened, amused.
Eris felt it immediately—the way his gaze slid beneath skin and bone, the way the silence in the room bent to his will.
It was the pressure of being observed not as a person, but as a piece on the board, already moved, already marked.
Her breath caught, and a shiver slipped through her before she could stop it.
He saw it. He savored it.
“At last,” he drawled. “I was beginning to think you preferred confinement to conversation.”
Eris forced stillness over the nausea curling in her gut. “Avaristo.” Her voice was cool. “Let us not pretend this is a conversation.”
His lips twitched. “Oh, but it is. You’re just not the one asking the questions.” His gaze swept over her, slow and unbothered. Then his mouth curved, not quite a smile. “Tell me, Eris…how’s our hospitality? I trust my men were…courteous.”
Her fingers tightened against the cold metal beneath them. “Charming, really… A hospitality to remember,” she said flatly, her voice iron-clad despite the ache blooming under her skin.
His smirk widened. “Good. I’d hate to think you were uncomfortable.
” Avaristo’s eyes stayed on her, amused.
Then, with a tilt of the head: “You must be exhausted. The pressure. The scrutiny. The weight of…expectation.” His voice dipped, soft and serpentine.
“You’re young, after all. It’s natural to stumble. ”
Eris felt the trap coil before it snapped shut. Her brow arched, sharp. “Is evasion a personal quirk, or just another tactic?”
He chuckled softly, tapping a finger against his glass. “Let’s not dance around it. Your entanglement with the Lycans was always going to be…inconvenient. The Dragovs were bred to command, not consort.”
He sighed, as though speaking to a child. “But then, youth is famously reckless. I, for one, am forgiving.” He set the glass down, deliberate. “I wonder if your family will be.”
Ice laced her spine. There it was, the true strike. She didn’t move, but he caught it, the faint tension in her shoulders, the breath she didn’t quite control.
His eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “Ah. So you do understand.”
Her voice sliced through the fog. “If you think they would turn on me, you are more deluded than I feared.”
The words slid out smooth as glass, but somewhere deep, a whisper curled, unwelcome. Avaristo wasn’t wrong. History had done worse.
He leaned forward, gold eyes darkening. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what happened to your great-grandmother…” He smiled cruelly. “Lady Seraphina.”
Eris’s breath hitched. He felt it, and it delighted him.
“You are young,” he murmured, “but surely not na?ve.” He leaned in closer. “History always finds a way to repeat itself, Eris. And the Dragovs have never been kind to their disappointments.”