Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I shake my head. No. He’s wrong. Mallen’s protected me. He taught me to fight. He would kill my father to keep me safe. He wouldn’t—he couldn’t—be part of this.
“He’s helping your father,” Darian says.
“No.” The word rips from me. “You’re lying.”
“I wish I were,” he says. “But if you marry someone outside Larksbind—anyone else—the power returns to Starsfall. To whoever sits on the throne.”
My stomach turns. My head spins.
My father. Or someone just like him. Someone he’s placed in my path.
Darian watches me carefully, as if gauging how far he can press before I start to splinter.
“I’m sorry, Azhara. I know you care for him. But he’s not who you think he is.”
“He wouldn’t hurt me,” I whisper.
“He doesn’t need to,” Darian replies. “He just needs to marry you.”
Everything inside me breaks. I leap to my feet, reeling. The clearing is too small. The trees are too close. My thoughts too loud.
“You’re the same,” I snap. “If he wants the throne, so do you.”
Darian rises slowly, hands open. “I don’t need your throne. I have my own. Please, just listen—”
But I’m already shaking my head, tears stinging my eyes. I scream at him to leave me alone. I don’t know who’s lying. I don’t know what’s true. But I know I can’t bear this anymore.
“Don’t follow me,” I say without turning.
“Azhara—”
“You think if you repeat it enough, I’ll believe you?” I keep walking. “That if you sound calm and sorry and noble, I’ll ignore everything else?”
His footsteps crunch behind me, slow and careful.
“I don’t want Starsfall,” he says. “I want it to survive.”
“You mean you want to survive.”
He doesn’t answer right away. I feel him just behind me now, matching my pace.
I stop suddenly and turn to face him. “You’re all the same. You act like it’s about protecting me. About saving the realm. But it’s always power. Always strategy. And the only thing that ever changes is who’s holding the prison key.”
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t raise his voice. “I’m not asking you to trust me. Just to see him clearly.”
“I do,” I snap. “You think because you’ve known him for a few weeks that you know him better than I do? He’s known me since I was a child. Trained me since I was ten. He taught me everything I know.”
“Exactly,” Darian says.
That word stops me cold.
“What?”
“If you were meant to be hidden—if your father wanted you out of the game—why train you to fight? Why sharpen you into a weapon if he doesn’t plan to use you?”
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
Darian takes a step closer. Not threatening. Just...present.
“You don’t forge a sword and then bury it,” he says. “You draw it when you’re ready to strike.”
My lungs burn. My thoughts stumble, catch, refuse to land. He’s not talking about my father. Not anymore.
He nods once. “You’ve survived. You’ve grown strong. And when the moment comes, he’ll have someone the realm trusts. Respects. Loves.”
A doll dressed in armor. A crown on a leash.
“No,” I say, because I refuse to let it be true.
I turn from him again, spine straight, steps clean. My face burns and my throat tightens, but my pace is steady. The wind catches strands of my hair and drags them into my mouth. I don’t push them away. I don’t break stride.
Behind me, Darian’s voice comes quieter now. “You said it yourself—he taught you everything. That means he knew exactly what you were becoming. What you were capable of.”
I say nothing. The trees blur at the edges of my vision.
And I silently curse myself for leaving the horses behind.
“You think your father didn’t know what was going on?” he presses. “That Mallen didn’t report everything? When he runs your father’s palace guard? The army? When he controls half the informants in Starsfall?”
“I never said he reported anything,” I mutter.
“And why is he the one who selects the daemons for the first trial of the Reaping?”
I stop walking.
The forest stills around us. Not a bird calls. Not a breath moves the leaves.
“How do you know that?” I ask.
Darian’s voice is low. “Because my father has spies. In the capital and major ports. In Varethorne and Nyxford. We’d be foolish not to, as long as your father’s still on the throne.
One of them intercepted some reports a month ago.
It included details of the daemons Mallen rounded up for the Reaping. ”
“You’ve been spying? On Starsfall?” I snap. “Why would I believe anything you say to me now?”
He doesn’t answer.
I stare at the path ahead, remembering. The times Mallen would come back from the forest bloodied, shaking his head when I asked where he’d been.
The times he’d refused to answer me when I asked him how he caught the daemons, and ignored the warnings coiling through my gut when he told me it was necessary.
And now I wonder.
Did Mallen tell me the whole truth? Or only what he wanted me to know?
I think of the men who died in the arena. Of their blood and their screams. And of the few who made it out to be slaughtered later.
They’d known this wasn’t fair. They’d known it was about breaking them.
And maybe breaking me.
The trees sway slightly in the hush, and I press my palm to my ribs, as if I can hold myself steady from the inside out.
I turn back to Darian slowly. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because you deserve to know the truth.”
“I don’t need saving.”
“I know.”
“Then stop looking at me like you want to.”
His mouth presses into a line, but he doesn’t look away.
I hate him, in this moment. Not because he’s wrong, but because he might be right.
Because he’s saying what I don’t want to say aloud. What I’ve suspected in moments I buried.
Mallen has sat through my father’s late-night councils. He knows about the prisoners who vanished. About the raids on Larksbind’s ships that no one ever punished. He’d told me none of it concerned me. That I should keep my head down. That I wasn’t strong enough yet to change anything.
He’d taught me to fight. Taught me to obey. Taught me to be silent unless I was commanded to act.
And I had thought that was kindness.
That it was love.
“Why not tell me this from the start?” I whisper.
Darian exhales, slow and hard. “Because I didn’t want you to think I was like him.”
I look up at him sharply. “How’s that turning out?”
“Not ideally,” he says. “But would you have believed me?”
“That was never your choice to make.”
“No,” he agrees. “But I didn’t have much of one. Mallen was your shield. We both know I’d only have pushed you further away if I’d said anything earlier. So I kept my mouth shut.”
“But you’ve decided it’s time to shatter any illusions I have left?”
“No,” he says, stepping closer. “I’ve decided it’s time you choose for yourself.”
I flinch.
It’s not the words. It’s the way he says them. Like I’ve never been allowed to. Like everyone else has already chosen for me.
Mallen. My father. The court. Even the realm.
“I have,” I bite out. “I’ve chosen every time. To survive. To obey. To keep my head above the tide while all of you played your games underneath it.”
“I know,” he says, voice tight. “But you don’t have to keep doing it alone.”
The silence that follows is too loud. The forest presses in. I can hear his breath behind me. My own blood in my ears.
“Please,” Darian says quietly. “Let me help you. Just this once.”
His hand brushes mine. I don’t pull away. Not immediately. The touch is tentative. Hesitant. A connection offered, not claimed. And gods, part of me wants to believe him. To believe he’s different. That this isn’t just another way to lead me down a path someone else already paved.
But trust is a currency I no longer have.
I turn my hand and press my fingers to his chest—gently, yet firmly—pushing him back. “Don’t.”
He stills.
“I’m not ready,” I say. “And if you think I’ll run into your arms the moment I fall out of Mallen’s shadow—”
“I don’t.”
“Good. Because I’m not running anywhere.”
The hurt flickers in his eyes—but only for a moment. Then it’s gone, buried beneath that calm he wears like armor.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
It sounds real. Not wounded. Not manipulative. Just...real.
I nod once, a jerky, awkward motion. My throat aches.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “Whether you’re trying to help or win. But I’m not choosing sides. Not tonight.”
“I can live with that,” he says.
I start walking again. Slower now. He keeps pace beside me, silent.
The path is narrowing. The forest grows darker.
A nightingale calls once, sharp as flint, and then falls quiet, as if it never meant for its song to be heard.
Neither of us speaks for a long while. The space between us is filled with questions that neither of us dares ask.
My steps are uneven, and my heel catches on a root, my ankle twisting as heat sears through the joint.
I hiss through my teeth and keep walking, though I’m dangerously close to hobbling.
Darian doesn’t reach for me. Doesn’t offer to steady me. Just slows his pace a fraction more, as if he understands that even kindness would scrape too raw right now.
I wrap my arms around myself, jaw tight.
The ache in my ribs pulses in time with the pounding in my skull.
I should’ve been smart. I should have ridden back to Starsfall and left Darian with the wounded horse.
But I decided to walk, and now we’re both picking our way through the half-wild edges of the forest with no torchlight, no trail, and too much between us to name.
The path forks ahead, the right veering steeper, stonier. My boots slip as I angle toward it, and I’m sure that this will hurt on my injured foot. Darian clears his throat softly. “That will take us along the ridge. Left loops around toward the base. Might be easier on your ankle.”
I hesitate. Then take the right anyway.
He doesn’t argue.
The only sound is our footfalls and the wind shifting through high branches. Every step jostles my side and makes my breath catch. But pain is simple. It’s real. It doesn’t wait for answers or apologies.
“What was in the reports?” I ask suddenly. “The ones your spies intercepted.”
Darian glances at me, brow furrowed. “You want the full list?”
“I want to know what you do.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “There were details about troop movements. Trade routes. The new tariffs on ships from Rivenmere and Hawkshold—”
“Stop deflecting.”
“There was a letter,” he says slowly. “From one of your father’s advisors. Marked confidential. It referenced the ‘progress of the pairing.’ Said Mallen had earned your trust. That you looked to him. That you relied on him.”
My lungs turn brittle.
Darian keeps his voice low. “It said the match was proceeding better than expected. That you’d grown ‘attached.’ That Mallen was...keen.”
I keep my eyes on the trees ahead. The leaves are thinner here. I can just make out starlight pressing through the canopy in fragments.
“He was protecting me,” I murmur.
Darian doesn’t answer.
I swallow, my throat burning. “He was buying me time. He thinks that if I’m strong enough—if I can fight—then I don’t have to be anyone’s pawn.”
“Princess,” Darian says gently, “very few things in life are either or. He can both love you and serve your father. I’m not questioning his emotions. Only his motives.”
We crest a rise. The trees begin to thin. I see a glint of silver ahead—moonlight on stone, or water, or the edge of the road that winds out of the forest. Home is closer than I thought.
I don’t want it to be.
Darian stops walking, but I keep going, slower now. Limping more openly. The adrenaline has faded and everything hurts again.
Then I hear it.
A voice—rough, low, ragged with relief and something sharper.
“Azhara?”
I freeze.
Mallen bursts out from the trees to the right, barely keeping his footing as he crashes through the underbrush.
He looks wild, disheveled, his cloak askew, his hair damp with sweat.
His eyes rake over me like a man who’s been searching for hours.
They flick to Darian, and the shift in him is immediate—tense, coiled, hand flying to the hilt of his blade.
“Did he hurt you?” he demands, surging toward me. “Tell me you’re alright? Did he—?”
“No,” I say quickly. “No, it’s not—he didn’t—”
Mallen’s eyes are wild, voice trembling. “I was on the road to Nyxford when I heard. Gods, I thought—”
“I’m fine,” I lie. “The horse bolted. I fell. Darian found me and made sure I got back.”
Mallen rounds on Darian again, as if that should somehow be proof of guilt.
I step in between them before he can speak. “He didn’t touch me,” I say sharply. “He didn’t hurt me. He helped.”
Mallen’s jaw ticks. “You shouldn’t have been alone.”
“I wasn’t.”
He looks at me then. Really looks. Takes in the bruise on my cheek, the tear in my sleeve, the dried blood at my temple. His expression crumples—just a little—and I hate how desperate I am for that to be real. That grief. That fear. That sorrow.
“You’re shaking,” he says softly.
“I’m tired,” I snap.
He nods once, drawing in a long breath. “Come. Let’s get you home. I’ll call for a healer. We’ll talk later.”
A coil of anger tightens behind my ribs and gods, it burns. Not now. Not here. Later. Always later. Always after the damage is done.
Mallen doesn’t even look at Darian again. Just wraps his cloak around my shoulders and guides me toward the path.
I glance back once.
Darian hasn’t moved. He stands at the edge of the clearing, arms at his sides, gaze locked on mine. He doesn’t call out. Doesn’t try to follow. Not yet.
But his eyes are lit with a quiet fury.
Conviction.