Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The door swings shut behind us with a quiet thud, and the silence that follows is sharper than any shout. I stand motionless, my breath ragged, my skin still thrumming with echoes I haven’t outrun—the flowers, the eyes, the cheers for Darian that sound like both ruin and salvation.
I wanted to hate it. That part of me wanted to smile back. The fragment of me that had reached for the light in Darian’s eyes—not because I trusted him, but because I was drowning and it looked like shore. And beneath a sky of painted lies, in a hollow arena full of false pageantry, I faltered.
And I hated that Mallen saw it.
He crosses the room slowly. His boots echo against the stone as he stops in front of the mural.
He doesn’t look at me—only at the paint.
His hand rises and lays his fingers on the painted sky.
Then he applies pressure, then more, steady and deliberate.
The plaster answers with a thin crack. A hairline seam runs through the clouds, cleaving a flock of doves mid-flight, severing wings and turning grace to ruin.
He breathes once, twice, and presses harder until the wall yields with a low groan and the mural crumbles further.
“I watched him hold petals up to you,” he says quietly. “You smiled.”
His voice is level. Too level. I step closer, but he still won’t look at me.
“Mallen,” I say. “You can’t—”
“Can’t what?” He turns now, slowly, like a winter tide deciding to come in. His eyes are the color of storm-drenched pine, dark with unspoken thoughts. “You would’ve let him kiss you.”
“No. I wouldn’t have.”
“You didn’t stop him.”
I lift my chin. “I didn’t need to.”
That gets a reaction—a flicker of surprise. A beat of blistering heat, banked but alive, seems to curl through the hollow of his chest.
“I would’ve faced my father, though,” I continue. “I would’ve stood in front of the entire court, declared myself, and taken the punishment. You weren’t ready to face him.”
“You don’t understand what that would have meant.”
“I understand.” My voice is quiet, but steady. “You’re not the only one who’s bled for Starsfall. I know the price of crossing my father. I have paid it in skin and in nights without breath.”
His jaw flexes. His hands curl at his sides, not into fists, but something more dangerous—the kind of tension a soldier holds before the battle starts. Still restrained. Still silent.
And still not meeting my eyes.
“I loved you before he even knew your name,” he murmurs. “And now the crowd sings for him like he’s some savior come to claim you.”
I say nothing.
“Tell me what you see when you look at him.”
My answer doesn’t come quickly enough. He moves past me, slow and deliberate, the air around him tightening. “Azhara,” he says, and his voice cuts sharper than steel. “Do you want him?”
“I want to survive this,” I whisper. “I want to live through this. Gods, I want a life I have to lie to live. Most of all, I want you to stop treating me like I’ll break if you love me aloud.”
That lands a hit, clean and deep.
He staggers back a step, and this time, it doesn’t look rehearsed. He looks gutted.
It’s just one step—barely more than a shift of weight—but the crack has formed. His eyes glint, too bright for the dim room, and his hands flex like he’s seconds from either pulling me into his arms or punching through the wall.
His voice lowers, fraying at the edges. “I’ve waited years, living on scraps.
A glance. A smile. I stayed silent while your father paraded suitors past you like you were a prize in a glass cage.
I fought for you while pretending I didn’t care.
And now, when I finally come close—he’s there. Always there.”
Jealousy creeps in, slow and cold. But still, he holds the line.
“I didn’t ask Darian to flirt,” I say. “But you would not name what you wanted us to be. Not before them.”
His eyes finally rise to meet mine. “Because if I named it, I would not have stopped.”
I take a shaky breath.
His voice softens, but the tension only coils tighter. “He doesn’t love you, Azhara. He wants the crown. He wants to win. You’re a symbol to him. Tell me you know I’m right.”
“And what am I to you?”
For a moment, everything halts. Even the clock waits.
Then—
“You’re everything. You’re the only thing I can’t survive losing,” he says, almost broken. “Azhara—”
My name slips from his lips again, softer this time.
Not a plea. Not a command. Just a sound full of ache, like it’s the only word he remembers how to say.
His eyes glint with something I can’t describe, and for a heartbeat, I think he might fall apart.
From grief. From loss. From failing to protect the only thing he ever wanted.
There’s a question in his eyes, and his body screams that the answer’s already killing him.
He crosses the distance between us in two strides, his hands braced against the wall on either side of me. Still not touching me. Still in control. But barely.
“I see the way you look at him,” he breathes. “And I’m trying not to come undone.”
“You already are.”
He shuts his eyes. His voice is hoarse. “Do you love him?”
“No.”
“Then say it.”
“I don’t love him.”
His breath shudders out.
I want to feel relief—but I don’t. The sunlight is too hot on my skin. Too bright. My body is too full, as if it can’t contain what’s rising inside me. Not rage. Not grief. Power. The kind that rattles the gods. The kind that undoes things.
The magic in me uncoils. Uncaged. Uncontrolled.
The darkness flickers again—then catches, a spark on dry leaves.
It crawls higher, clawing its way through my ribs, like it’s prying them apart and trying to get out.
Every breath is a wound. Every heartbeat rings too loud, too fast. There’s no space inside me for this much wanting, this much terror.
The magic of death bound in me stirs.
It moves, but not outside. It’s inside. Inside me—building like a storm gathering on the horizon, licking at the edges of my soul with fingers made of shadow and inevitability. My veins thrum like wires strung too tight. My hands tremble. I can’t keep it down. I can’t hold the edges in.
“I can’t—” My chest contracts. “I can’t breathe.”
Dread descends like a curtain. I claw at my ribs, my arms, the walls—anywhere to anchor myself. My vision smears. The floor tilts. Light fractures. The thundering in my head drowns out the world, and still it rises—still it wants out.
Mallen freezes. Just for a second. But it’s enough. The shift is seismic. His pain shatters beneath my panic, and he’s reaching toward me. Whatever storm was in him gets bottled, corked, sealed.
He grabs my wrists, not rough, not harsh—just anchoring. Grounding. His eyes are wide and terrified.
“Don’t you dare leave me,” he says hoarsely. “I need you to calm down. Stay with me.”
But I’m already gone.
I’m not in this room. I’m not in this body.
I’m trying to claw my way out of everything all at once.
My skin feels wrong. My throat’s closing in.
I kick, I flail, I thrash against him. My fists pound at his chest and my screams pierce the air.
I’m suffocating—not on air but on pressure, on history, on the mess of my life that never stops compounding.
He wraps himself around me like a shield. Like a cage. Like a prayer.
“Azhara...let me keep you safe. Please—”
But his voice is distant now, like it’s traveling through water. Like it doesn’t belong to this moment. The panic is too loud. My pulse is a roar in my ears. There’s a tearing sensation deep inside me, like something sacred is splintering apart.
“Let me keep you safe, Azhara. Please.”
“No,” I shriek, fighting like a wild animal. “Let me go. I can’t do this. I can’t breathe. I need to—”
“What the hell?”
The voice cuts through everything.
We both freeze.
Mallen goes rigid beside me. His limbs lock, his breath sharpens, and the sudden coil of violence simmers beneath his skin.
I twist in his grip, and he doesn’t stop me.
Darian stands in the doorway, eyes wild, chest heaving, his tunic half undone and his fists clenched like he’s holding himself back from running—or striking. His gaze darts from me, to Mallen, to the shattered wall—and back again.
He doesn’t understand. Of course he doesn’t.
He sees a man gripping a woman who’s screaming.
He sees darkness in a place where light died long ago.
He doesn’t see the panic in my lungs. The terror threatening to tear me apart.
The fury on his face is cold, calculated, and devastating.
“Let her go,” Darian growls, “or I will end you.”
“Darian—”
Too late. He’s already in motion.
Mallen spins, releasing me just in time to meet Darian’s charge head-on. The crack of a fist meeting a jaw echoes in the room. Mallen staggers. Recovers. Responds with a brutal punch that sends Darian reeling into the wall.
They collide like gods in a ruin.
I scream, scrambling backward into a corner, my heart still racing from the panic attack, now layered with a fresh wave of horror.
They don’t stop. Darian’s fists fly, precision and fury blended into each strike. Mallen counters with brute force and frightening speed. He’s not holding back. Neither is Darian. Every hit lands like thunder.
Darian is protecting me. Mallen is fighting for me. And neither of them is listening to the person they’re trying to save.
I scream again, louder this time. My voice is raw and ragged. “Stop it!”
No one hears.
They crash into the dresser. Wood splinters. They tear through my chamber like beasts with no logic. A chair flies. A vase shatters. My room is wreckage and war.
“GUARDS!” I scream, shrill and commanding.
The door slams open and palace guards flood in, weapons drawn, confusion on their faces as they try to untangle the fight. They charge, far too late. Mallen has Darian by the throat, and Darian’s driving an elbow into Mallen’s ribs.
I’m done screaming.