Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
My horse spins, dancing beneath me with more spirit than sense.
She isn’t my usual mount, and after an hour’s ride, she’s still barely winded, too full of nerves and fire.
I tighten the reins, thighs clenched as I work to keep her from bolting.
My father watches, feigning concern with a smile I know too well. He’s enjoying this.
Darian shifts forward in his saddle, eyes flicking between me and the mare. She kicks out when he approaches, ears pinned, breath flaring hot.
“Want to trade?” he calls, easy and amused.
I shake my head just before the mare rears. I manage to stay in the saddle, keeping my voice calm as I assure him I’ve got it.
“You don’t look like it,” he says, watching the horse’s sweat-flecked flanks. “She’s running hot.”
The hounds give tongue, and the rest of the riders take off after them. I try to urge my horse to follow, but she twists and stamps in protest. A guard rides up, strikes her flank, but it doesn’t work. She bolts.
Wind tears the breath from my throat. She’s not galloping—she’s fleeing. I lean forward instinctively, trying not to fight her too hard, but we’re off the path, barreling through undergrowth, hooves scraping stones. My fingers are numb around the reins. I shout once, a command she ignores.
Hoofbeats. Behind me. Gaining.
“Let her run!” Darian shouts.
He’s chasing.
The guards fall behind. Darian’s the only one riding fast enough. He rides low, reckless and swift, cutting through the trees, angling closer.
“We’ll lead them off!” he yells.
The mare screams beneath me, biting the air, and I don’t have time to argue.
We break through the trees toward the outer wood, her pace barely slowing. I catch a glimpse of the guards dropping behind us as Darian pulls ahead and slams his horse’s shoulder into mine, forcing the route. He points toward a narrow path that’s half-overgrown.
“This way!”
We vanish into the underbrush, thick branches clawing at my arms. Darian pushes through first, carving a route through the narrow path. My mare follows his gelding by instinct. Her ears twitch—still alert, but not furious now. She’s tired. Slowing.
I pull harder on the reins and finally get her under control. We reach a clearing and stop, both working hard to breathe. I slide off, legs shaking, hands slick with sweat.
Darian dismounts smoothly, tossing the reins over a low branch. He moves toward my horse, and she snorts, warning him. He murmurs something low. Calming. Then crouches.
“Hold her,” he says.
I do. She shifts under my hands, edgy but no longer wild.
Darian reaches under the saddle, feeling carefully. His fingers go still. Then he pulls out a narrow, wicked shard of metal. Blood stains the leather.
He doesn’t say anything at first. Just stands slowly, the blade cradled in his palm like an accusation.
“I should’ve checked her myself,” he mutters. “That’s not an accident.”
I look away. My skin crawls.
“You know who did this.”
“My father,” I breathe.
Darian exhales. “He meant for you to fall. Injure you enough to bring you into line.”
I nod.
Darian watches me. His eyes are too sharp for his easy smile. There’s a stillness in him now—precise and calculating, like a scalpel deciding where to cut.
“It’s more than that.”
I don’t answer. I don’t need to. This morning’s mount wasn’t a mistake. The guards saw her state and said nothing. And Mallen wasn’t here to intervene.
That thought hurts more than I expect it to.
I should fear my father.
Anyone with sense would.
But I don’t. Not in the way I used to be.
Fear’s gone brittle inside me, all cracked and hollow.
He’s broken so many parts of me that it’s hard to tell which ones still feel.
And maybe that’s what scares him now. Not my obedience.
Not my silence. But the pieces of me he can no longer reach—and the ones already sharpened into weapons.
What I feel now is the absence of Mallen. He would’ve stepped in—he always did, somehow, quietly, as if it was nothing. A whisper to a stable hand. A change to the day’s plans. I never saw it for what it was. I never thanked him. I just assumed I was fortunate. That luck is distant now. Stolen.
Darian turns, pacing once before looking back. “He’s done this before. To others.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. You’ve been kept too sheltered to understand. Your father doesn’t just punish. He designs consequences. Every strike is meant to lead somewhere. Everything is control.”
“I’m not na?ve.”
“I never said you were.”
The words fall quiet between us.
I stare down at my gloves. They’re turning crimson. Blood’s soaked through the fabric, smeared across my palms. It’s not even mine, but it feels like it should be. Like I earned it.
My whole life, I’ve carried the guilt of knowing my mother’s death was my fault. That my life had drained hers. That my father had used his magic to bind the darkness I’d unleashed on the world. That he was what kept the curse in check—that his cruelty was the price of my existence.
And now I see.
He didn’t become a monster because of me. He always was one.
This was never my fault.
“I didn’t think he’d do this,” I whisper. “I thought the worst thing he wanted was control.”
Darian doesn’t answer right away.
He steps closer. “Let me tell you something they don’t want you to know. Before the war—before the gods withdrew—your mother was the only bridge between our kingdoms. She was from Larksbind.”
“I know that.”
“No,” he replies, quieter now. “You know where she was from. Not what that meant.”
The words slam through me harder than they should. It’s not just what he says—it’s how he says it. Like it costs him. Like he’s been carrying this too long, waiting for me to be ready to hear it. And now that I am, he’s not sparing me from the truth.
“Larksbind and Starsfall balance each other,” Darian says softly. “They used to exist in harmony. Until your father decided harmony wasn’t enough. He wanted more territory. More power. We tried to contain him peacefully. We failed.”
I stare at him, my bloodied hands aching from gripping the reins. “He attacked you.”
“He nearly destroyed us,” Darian confirms. “The only reason we survived was your mother.”
“My mother?”
He nods. “She was from Larksbind. He loved her. Obsessively. My father said she was...content. Happy, in her own way. The truce was her idea. She believed her love for him would hold him back. So she married him. And for a while, it worked.”
A wind moves through the trees, dry and sharp. My mare shivers beside me.
“But peace never lasts long in the hands of a man like your father,” Darian continues, voice low.
“A seer made a prophecy. She foresaw your mother’s death in childbirth.
Your father panicked. He tried everything to stop it—everything but letting her go.
And when all else failed, he turned to Obcasus. ”
My heart stops.
“That’s not—” I swallow. “That’s not what happened.”
“Yes, it is,” Darian says. “You’ve been told a lie your entire life, but I swear to you, Azhara—I’m telling you what really happened. My father was there.”
I meet his eyes, and the darkness in me stills. There’s no doubt in his gaze. No hunger for leverage. Just truth. Excruciating and raw and inescapable.
“I’ll swear it on the gods themselves,” he says. “On the stones of Larksbind, on my blood, on whatever you ask—I’ll swear it.”
And I know.
I don’t know how, but I do.
He’s telling the truth. I feel it the way I feel the night before the sun sets.
“He used Obcasus.”
“That’s forbidden,” I mumble. “You can’t use it. No one can—”
“He tried,” Darian says. “He rekindled the old magic. He threatened the gods with destruction if they didn’t intervene to save her. It was madness. It nearly destroyed both kingdoms.”
The reins slip from my hands.
“He unleashed the Obcasus, even though he knew the gods themselves had locked it away.”
I stumble backward, eyes burning.
“He failed. Your mother died anyway. But not before you were born.”
The trees blur. The ground sways, now unsteady beneath me. My mother had fought for peace, and now she was gone because my father tried to tear the heavens open to keep her.
To keep me.
He said it was my gift. My existence. He said that’s what killed her.
He catches me. His arms tighten around me as I tremble, breath coming in ragged gasps.
“Breathe,” he murmurs. “This isn’t your fault.”
But it feels like it is.
“Your father shouldn’t have challenged the gods,” Darian says.
“He angered them when he used Obcasus and demanded their obedience. So they punished him. They stripped Starsfall of its magic—and in doing so, they punished us too. Larksbind is subtler in power, but our kingdoms are always connected. When he broke the balance, we lost our gifts as well.”
“The Reaping,” I whisper. “It wasn’t meant to be—”
“A ritual of death?” he asks, without any bitterness in his voice.
“No, it wasn’t meant to be destructive. You were supposed to heal the wound he caused.
Bridge the damage and teach him some humility.
That is the purpose of what you contain.
Your magic. Your choice. But your father twisted this into sport and a demonstration.
A bloody, gilded spectacle to prove his dominion.
To remind both nations who holds the leash. ”
I shake my head. I don’t know why.
“He’s lied to you your entire life—about who you are, about the Reaping, and about what happened in Starsfall.”
I bring my hands up, trying to back away, but Darian doesn’t let go. His arms stay tight around me. I push against him, struggling to fill my lungs with air.
“Let me go—”
“You’re safe,” he says, and I hate how gentle his voice is. “Just breathe. Just breathe for me.”
My chest won’t expand. I can’t get air. My whole body’s locking up, and he won’t let go, I can’t breathe—
“Easy,” he says again, quieter now. “It’s going to be okay.”
I thrash once, hard, but he doesn’t release me. The panic surges higher, sharp as knives, until it becomes too much. The fear shatters and everything beneath it pours out—hot, sharp, endless.
Tears run down my face. My sobs break from me in waves, raw and unrelenting. I don’t care how I sound. I don’t care what I look like. It’s all unraveling now. The truth, the grief, the years of silence held like breath under water.
The crying eases, but the ache deepens. This isn’t just grief—it’s the shock of understanding.
Like pieces of a puzzle have finally snapped into place.
I remember things I’d buried. The way my maids were changed without warning.
The year the shrine to my mother was suddenly forbidden.
The marks on my father’s hands that he never explained.
All of it meant something.
I just didn’t want to see it.
Or maybe I did, and I didn’t know how to name it.
Darian holds me through it. He doesn’t speak again until my body stills, my tears spent, replaced by a yawning emptiness.
He only lets go once I pull back.
I sit down hard on the ground, numb, barely aware of the dry grass prickling my palms. He takes the reins from my hand and leads my horse away, tying her beside his already-secured mount.
The silence between us is thicker now. Not just grief. This is closer to recognition tinged with shame—like he sees me clearly now and knows I won’t be the same.
“Are you sure?” My voice is hoarse.
“I wouldn’t lie to you,” he says. He doesn’t waver. “I want you to know this. Even if you don’t choose me. Even if you choose Mallen.”
His eyes are shadowed now, their blue as dark as the ocean’s depths.
The wind has loosened strands of his hair, and there’s sweat on his brow, but he doesn’t look weary.
He looks resolute. Braced against the burden of what he’s shared, as if he’d do it all again if I asked.
Like he’d carry every cruel truth for me if it meant I could breathe easier.
“You’re a gift, Azhara. A blessing. You were meant to heal the rift your father opened. The gods gave you a power meant to mend what was broken.”
“Then why does it feel like I broke it?”
“Because he made you feel that way,” Darian says gently. “He raised you in the shadow of his guilt and told you it was yours. He twisted the prophecy to justify his obsession. Because when your mother died, he decided your life had to gain him something—or her death meant nothing.”
Whatever’s in my chest cracks. It’s not pain. Not exactly. This is gentler. Something like the last breath before the battle begins.
“I didn’t want to believe he was capable of this,” I tell him. “Even when I hated him. I still needed...something. A reason. A version of him that made sense.”
Darian doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, just waits.
“And now that I see it, I don’t know how to hold it. How to carry it without it swallowing me.”
He draws a slow breath. “Meaning isn’t a debt. Sacrifice doesn’t always bring purpose. You don’t have to atone for his sins.”
I close my eyes, trying to steady the tremble in my fingers. “It doesn’t make sense. The Reaping makes no sense if I’m meant to repair relations between the two countries.”
“Your father did more than twist it into a spectacle. The magic trapped in the ritual serves no one. It festers.”
The pieces start fitting together.
“When you marry someone from Larksbind,” Darian continues, “you’ll restore what was broken. Heal the rift. The gods will see it as an offering. If you don’t…” He doesn’t finish.
I stare at the ground as the truth splinters through me. My father took from Larksbind, and now I’m the price of making it right. Not a princess. Not a prize. A reckoning. A cure.
I was never free. Just owned by different hands.
I nod, numbly.
Somewhere beneath the shock, the spiral starts. Darian hasn’t mentioned my magic. Maybe he doesn’t know. Maybe it’s as bad as my father said it was, and he hid it out of shame. Or maybe that’s another lie—a brutal, binding one—that kept me caged for years.
Whatever’s inside me hums, alive and rising, reminding me it’s still here. That it’s waited long enough. It’s been biding its time like a storm beneath still water, and now it’s stirring.
And if it breaks loose, I don’t know what I’ll become.
Darian’s arm slips around my shoulders, pulling me close. He’s warm. Strong. And for a moment, I let myself lean into it. Just to breathe.
We sit in silence, surrounded by trees and fading light. I try to stitch my thoughts together.
Then Darian says, almost gently, “Mallen knows.”
The words land like a knife. I go rigid. My heart stops. “What?”
“He’s always known,” Darian murmurs. “About the Reaping. About your father’s plans. About the power in you.”