Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Mallen paces the length of our chamber, hands clasped behind his back, as if he’s measuring the floorboards for war.
He’s spent the week rooting out those with lingering loyalty to my father with swift and exacting precision.
There were few, and they’re already dead.
Mallen offered no mercy, no trial. I considered intervening.
But the look he gave me—grim and steady—spoke of gangrene that was too far gone for anything but amputation.
He left me the court instead. Alone. My chance to establish myself as ruler not just in title, but in presence.
The nobles know my face, but not my strength.
My father made sure of that. He spent years whispering poison—calling me weak, touched by death, unfit to rule.
They flinch when I enter the hall. They avert their eyes.
The few who witnessed me kill him understand now that I am not powerless.
But respect? That will take time.
It isn’t how I want to govern.
But death holds sway over mortals, and, for now, Mallen lets the rumors spread. They say I brought untold darkness into the throne room. That the fire my father rained down burned away everything but me. That the dead listen when I speak. Some say that they obey me.
They say Mallen is the only one who steadies me—that without him, I’d burn too brightly, too wildly.
That the gods were wise to demand the Reaping, to force my hand and control me.
They say Darian was too perfect, too golden, that I was never meant to be his.
That power has always belonged to the ones who the gods deem worthy, and that somehow, I am only worthy because of the man standing beside me.
So the lords bow more deeply to Mallen.
They respect him.
They obey him.
They call him king.
Not to my face, but often enough in the corridors. He commands the army. He conquered Starsfall. He has always been the blade, and I—until now—was the one hidden behind it.
He knows this.
It’s why he’s pacing now, like a man walking toward judgment.
He knows he’ll be the one to crown me in the eyes of the court—even though I’ve already proved myself worthy. To Starsfall. To the gods. To myself.
A sigh tears from his chest. “Where is your tea?”
When Evie arrives a breath later, flustered and pale, Mallen snaps. The pot is cold. Barely steeped. He doesn’t shout—but the tone of his voice is enough. She flinches and nearly drops the tray.
Marcus steps through the door before I rise.
“Enough,” he says, turning to Mallen, in a voice as dry as old parchment. “You’re being unreasonable.”
Mallen turns, jaw tight, and slams his hand once against the sideboard.
I’ve tolerated his scowls and the storm cloud gathering around him as he’s tried to find another way to give me what I deserve.
He’s raged against the nobles, irritated that they still haven’t accepted me for all I am, infuriated that he has to be the one to give me power.
But this? This petulance? This is beneath him.
He turns to me, eyes darker than I’ve seen them in days.
“You’ve carved your throne from ash and bone,” he says.
I rise slowly, silk whispering around me. “Then let me dress for it—before I remind you what it cost me.”
Marcus raises a brow. “Come on,” he says to Mallen, already gripping his sleeve and hauling him backward. “Before she throws you off the balcony.”
At the threshold, Mallen hesitates. “What will you wear?”
“A dress,” I say, smiling. “A nice one.”
Marcus drags him away before he can answer.
Evie lingers in the silence that follows, more cautious now.
She knows what I can do—and what Mallen means to me.
Her hands tremble as she brushes my hair into a braid and threads it with emerald pins.
She spends too long on my makeup and then helps me into my gown.
It’s a deep green silk that shimmers with every breath, cut to expose skin I wouldn’t normally show anyone but him.
We cover the worst of it in jewels. The rest, I leave bare.
For Mallen.
I catch my reflection as she fastens my sandals. The woman in the mirror is no one’s daughter now. She’s no man’s conquest. She is the queen. And if Mallen’s mood frays over today, he’ll have to swallow his pride and get over it.
“He’ll like it,” Evie says softly.
I nod, though we both know it’s not the dress bothering him.
He doesn’t want to kneel.
Not again. Not in front of them.
He’s brushed it off every time Marcus raised the subject, but the tension in him is undeniable—like a sword not yet drawn.
He’ll do it. Because Starsfall will follow where he leads, and he loathes that it has to be this way.
Because I asked. Because I need him to. And because he needs it too, even if he doesn’t want to admit it.
This isn’t about humiliation. It isn’t even about what’s right.
It’s about truth.
About power. And sharing it.
The knock comes. Marcus enters, takes one look at me, and forgets himself.
“You look stunning.”
“You’re not bowing,” I say.
He grins and then corrects himself with exaggerated flair. “Majesty.”
I arch a brow. “Does he have the ring?”
“He does.”
My fingers trail over my jewelry. Casually. Perhaps too easily.
“He’s still in a mood?”
“Oh, yes. Don’t let that fool you. Mallen would kneel for you a thousand times if you asked him to. He resents it because Threnos needs to see it. He’s your equal, Majesty, not your better, and he’ll make damn sure the nobles know it.”
They say that Mallen conquered Starsfall. They believe he tamed the monster locked inside it—and me. But they’re wrong. I am not caged. I only learned how to dance inside the bars.
And today, I will claim what’s mine.
We walk the long route through the palace, taking the same path I walked each year for a decade as I entered into a game I never wanted any part of. I played it anyway—and remade its rules. Not just to survive, but to win on my terms.
Today, I walk this path freely.
For the last time.
Today, we begin to rebuild what my father broke.
We reach the final corridor, where light fractures through the windows like spilled wine on glass. My footsteps echo—soft and ceremonial—across marble veined with memory. Every tile remembers.
The doors ahead yield without protest, opening to the altar of the Reaping: bare, wide, aching. Once a place for death. Today, it waits for a vow.
The nobles are already gathered. The square is full to bursting, every level and ledge packed with people.
Banners ripple in the breeze, their colors brighter than memory.
Children dart between their elders’ legs, playing swordfights with sticks, their laughter piercing the murmurs of the crowd.
A woman sells flowers from a worn cart, tossing blossoms like blessings into the street.
Still, Starsfall holds its breath—hope and hesitation braided so tight they bleed at the edges.
I step into view, and a hush falls over the crowd.
We descend the steps, and the crowd erupts as I raise my hands—not in praise, but in acknowledgment.
The gesture they expect. Starsfall roars for freedom, for victory, for the start of a new monarch’s reign.
It believes itself reborn. It wants to believe we’ve turned the page, that history won’t repeat.
The nobles speak in reverent murmurs, but their silence says more. They remember what a crowned monster looks like. They know my father is gone. What they do not know is whether we are a lull or the next disaster, wrapped in finer cloth.
They fear what lies behind the veil—war at the doorstep, ash in the well, names carved into gravestones before they’ve been spoken aloud.
Our reign will be different. That’s the lie I breathe like a prayer. That’s the truth I want and bleed toward. A time of healing and laughing. Of peace, too, if we are fortunate.
I close my eyes and reach for the magic that’s returned to Starsfall.
It stirs like it’s waking from a winter’s sleep.
It flows in our rivers, floats through the air, and roots itself in the trees.
It whispers beneath our feet. It threads through the kingdom, glimmering in the sunlight.
I feel it now, humming just under the surface—certain, waiting, wild.
It gathers on my skin like dusk before the fall of night—too close, too quiet. It stains my breath. And when I open my eyes, the sky gleams like a fever dream. The colors too vivid, the edges too bright. Unbearably alive.
The wind moves through the trees, and they answer in elegy. The meadows smell of dust and pollen and new beginnings. Somewhere, a child laughs. Somewhere else, a bell tolls once, low and strangely solemn.
A poet will write a sonnet about this day and miss the point entirely.
My gaze finds Mallen. He waits at the base of the steps, his clothes marking him as royalty. As my equal. But it’s his eyes that hold my attention—green as moss after rain, green as envy, green as memory. The same shade as mine. A mirror. A message. A vow returned.
He looks like a king.
But I’m the one in command.
He doesn’t show apprehension, not to them. But his nervousness flows into me through our bond, a quiet unease threading under his control. His gaze moves down the length of me—green silk, bare skin, emeralds glinting like armor. He stops. Stares. I feel it as it shatters him.
The crowd cheers again, and I blush—but not for them. Never for them.
Only for him.
He walks toward me, gaze steady, mouth curled in a smile meant only for me. There’s no script now, no performance. Just the two of us, tied together by more than memory.
By thread. By blade. By blood.
“Azhara,” he says, voice quiet despite the noise.
“Mallen.” My voice catches. My throat’s too dry, my chest too tight.
He waits at the final step, giving me the high ground. Marcus stands at my side now, hand resting lightly on his blade. The place Mallen once guarded with silence and fire. The place he abandoned, so I could choose it for myself.