Chapter 13
The iron door groaned open, steel scraping stone.
Dr. Alfric Faelan, royal physician, and Commander Toren Saverius, Dragov’s fiercest warrior, stepped inside. The stench hit first: blood, rot, old screams soaked into stone. Then they saw her.
Eris lay motionless on the cold floor, her body slack against the stone.
Consciousness clung to her by a fraying thread.
Blood mapped her neck, shoulders, and chest in brittle, drying trails.
Her torn blouse hung in tatters, exposing more ruin than it concealed.
Her skirt was twisted around bruised, pallid skin. Her breath barely stirred the sour air.
Silence stretched, then cracked across their faces in a flash of disgust. A muscle ticked in Faelan’s jaw.
"Monsters," Saverius muttered, his voice raw. "They left her like a carcass."
Dr. Faelan dropped to his knees, fingers brushing her jaw and wrist. Her pulse was faint. “She is conscious. Barely.”
They moved fast, laying her flat against the cold stone, unforgiving against damaged skin.
Dr. Faelan’s hands skimmed her skin, assessing the bruises, blood, and any wounds Rurik had carved into her before reaching for the blood drip and sliding the needle into her arm. A slow stream entered her veins; her pulse fluttered, then surged, and finally, sound returned.
Muffled voices echoed, distant and blurred as a sharp weight settled in her arm, a pinch somewhere beneath the noise. Eris’s lashes fluttered. Her eyelids dragged like lead. Shadows loomed above her.
A voice broke through, urgent. “Princess, can you hear me?”
Eris tried to respond, but her lips barely moved. Whatever sound she made was too faint to catch the air.
Another voice followed, firm. "Can you stand?"
The words made no sense. They hung foreign and wrong inside her mind, disconnected from the body she could not command. Her brows furrowed. She tried to speak, but syllables collapsed against her teeth.
That was all Saverius needed. His jaw tightened. Without a word, he lifted her into his arms.
Eris exhaled a broken sound but did not resist. Her fingers twitched weakly against the fabric of his uniform, clutching at him without strength.
Dr. Faelan stood, adjusting his bag, and cast one final, cold glance around the chamber—a place of humiliation and suffering he would not forget.
The heavy doors groaned open, revealing the dimly lit corridor beyond.
The Obsidian Guard lined the walls, their faces carved into masks of cruelty.
Mocking eyes followed the slow procession; some smirked, others exchanged murmured jokes.
Saverius did not falter. His steps were sure, his grip unshakable.
Strength returned to her limbs slowly, but enough to lift her head, just barely. Her gaze drifted back toward the fortress, a monument to monsters, a place she would never forget.
From the highest tower, Avaristo watched and smiled.
Below, the broken princess was carried away, her rescuers moving with frantic urgency.
How predictable.
A single wounded girl, and the mighty Dragovs crumbled like sand.
He tapped a gloved finger against the windowsill, silver eyes glinting with satisfaction. “Run home, little princess,” he murmured. “Let them mend you. It will make shattering you so much sweeter.”
With a final glance, he turned away. The real game had yet to begin.
The car’s doors slammed shut, sealing them in tense silence.
Eris shifted, forcing herself upright though every movement hurt. Dr. Faelan, seated beside her, was already reaching for his medical bag.
“You need treatment. Tell me where it hurts.”
Eris shook her head. “I’m fine.”
A lie. Even she didn’t believe it.
Dr. Faelan studied her, his keen eyes assessing, patient but firm. “Princess—”
“I just need a cloth.” Her voice was quiet but unwavering.
Dr. Faelan hesitated, waiting for admission, for surrender, for anything. But she gave him nothing. Her mind was elsewhere, far from bruises or broken skin.
She was with Stephan.
She pictured him watching the recording. The moment he saw Rurik’s hands on her, the blood, the helplessness stamped across her face. What had it done to him?
Guilt coiled around her ribs. This was her fault, her choices, her mistakes.
And now he bore the weight of them as well.
No matter how strong Stephan was, no matter how disciplined or ruthless, she had always been his one weakness.
She had seen it before, in the way he held her too tightly after danger, in the unspoken words behind his eyes.
To the world, he was iron, but with her, he was vulnerable, and she could not be the reason he shattered.
She needed to see him, to steady him, because as much as she needed him now, he needed her more.
Dr. Faelan finally handed her a damp cloth. She took it with shaking hands and wiped at her skin, as if that could erase what had been done. To make herself clean enough to face them.
The car sped through the dark roads of Rimashenko territory, carrying her home. Eris Dragov sat in silence, the cloth limp in her lap, bracing for what came next.
Far across the hills of Goznoth, the imposing Dragov estate rose, unshaken.
Pale marble veined with silver shimmered beneath moonlight.
Its columns stood tall, its carvings silent with memory.
It had weathered centuries of triumph and betrayal.
Tonight, the estate braced for something far more fragile: a family fracturing beneath its own name.
Inside the grand hall, beneath the banners of House Dragov, three men stood. Three rulers. Three warriors. Three Dragovs. Waiting.
Stephan. Yori. Raphael.
The silence was thick with unspoken accusations. When Raphael finally spoke, he did not raise his voice; he simply exhaled and turned to Stephan.
"She hid it from us," he said, pausing. "She hid it from me." His gaze sharpened. "And so did you."
Stephan didn’t flinch. “I had no choice.”
Raphael stepped forward. “No choice?” His voice was ice. “You are my son. The heir to this house. And you chose to conceal a political catastrophe from your own blood?”
“She trusted me,” Stephan said, jaw tight. “I would not betray that.”
“And yet, she betrayed us.”
The words hit like a lash.
“Fraternizing with Lycans?” Raphael’s voice rose. “Do you understand what you have enabled?”
Stephan’s hands curled into fists, but he stayed silent.
Raphael’s cold voice dropped, precise. "And now she is bruised, battered, humiliated. Was it worth it?"
Stephan looked away, the truth cutting deep.
Yori stepped forward. His voice was measured, but not without feeling. “They are young, Raphael. And deeply in love. That should count for something.”
“This is not about love,” Raphael snapped. “It is about duty.” He turned to Yori, his eyes hard. “And you—you let your daughter run wild. And now this is the result.”
Yori’s face remained unreadable, but his hands clenched at his sides.
“You let her think she was untouchable,” Raphael continued.
“You never held her accountable. And now she has paid the price. You coddled her. Raised her without discipline. And now she is broken. She is a disgrace. Just like…” His voice faltered, only for a moment. Then it hardened. “Just like she was.”
The silence that followed was sharp as a blade.
No name was spoken, because none was needed.
Seraphina. The stain on the Dragov legacy that could never be erased.
Stephan’s voice broke through, savage. “Say that again, and—”
Yori cut him off, voice rising like thunder. “Don’t you dare call my daughter a disgrace.”
Raphael didn’t blink. He ignored the warning, turning instead to Stephan. “I hope,” he said coldly, “you are not still considering marrying her. She is unfit to be queen. Unfit to be your wife.”
Stephan flinched from doubt. Not of Raphael, but of Eris. The library had shaken them, cracked their certainty. Would she still want this—them?
Raphael saw the flicker of doubt. “You hesitate.”
Stephan straightened. His voice was quiet, but solid. “My choices are mine. You will not control them.”
Raphael exhaled, tone laced with contempt. “Is this your queen? A girl who endangers herself? Who allies with our enemies?”
Stephan’s breath stuttered, but his voice was steel. “What Eris and I decide is ours. No one else’s.”
Raphael’s eyes narrowed. “Pathetic,” he muttered. “Love will get you both killed.”
He did not shout. He simply delivered the truth like a blade. The words lingered, tightening like a noose, until a sound broke through the tension: an engine roaring in the distance.
All three men turned sharply. A car was arriving. Eris.
The conversation died mid-breath, disintegrating like dying embers. Without a word, they moved toward the entrance, their steps urgent, their thoughts heavy with the unspoken.
Stephan’s pulse thundered, steady and suffocating with dread and longing as they waited in silence inside the estate.
The car rolled to a deliberate stop. When the door opened, every face flinched.
Commander Saverius stepped out first, his figure cutting a sharp silhouette against the night.
Without hesitation, he circled the car and opened the passenger door. His movements were precise, but barely restrained rage simmered beneath them.
A pale hand emerged, delicate, resting lightly in his. A foot touched the stone, graceful and hesitant.
Stephan barely breathed. Then she stepped out.
She stood at the threshold of her family estate, poised yet fragile, wrapped in a trench coat she clutched tightly across her chest. It concealed what had been done to her, but not all of it; the weariness in her frame and the tremble in her limbs bled through everything.
At the entrance, her parents waited.
Elara broke first. With a choked gasp, she rushed forward, her hands trembling as they cupped Eris’s face and skimmed her shoulders and arms, checking with frantic, desperate movements.
“My darling,” she whispered, her breath ragged. “My precious girl. Are you hurt? Gods, what have they done to you?”