Chapter 4 Thorn and Blade
Chapter four
Thorn and Blade
-Maris-
Maris had never known such pain.
Every step back from the training yard felt like dragging open wounds across stone. Her arms throbbed from endless dagger drills, her ribs screamed from repeated strikes, and bruises blossomed like cruel flowers beneath her pale skin.
But that pain was something she clung to a proof that she was still herself, still Maris of Eryndor, and not yet swallowed by this cursed, nightbound place.
They passed through a side hall in Calyrix Castle, dim and cool, its walls lined with iron sconces that dripped fragrant wax, shadows dancing like caged spirits. Maris’s boots scuffed over a black marble floor polished so bright it nearly reflected her ragged state.
When they reached her assigned chambers, the hearth flickered low offering an inviting warmth. As she walked within the threshhold the twin wraiths bowed in perfect tandem, flaxen-haired, their eyes the same eerie shade of ash-gray.
“Mistress Maris,” one intoned.
“We have prepared your supper,” the other finished.
She blinked at them, dizzy.
Valea waved them forward. “She is to be bathed. Then changed.”
They nodded, taking Maris gently by her arms and helping her toward an adjoining bathing chamber.
The copper tub steamed in the center, fragrant with a hint of crushed herbs and rose oil.
The twins stripped her sweat-soaked leathers with efficient, impersonal hands, ignoring Maris’s flinch at every new bruise.
The water burned at first, then eased, sinking deep into her bones as they scrubbed away dirt, sweat, and fear.
They poured a rinse of perfumed water over her hair, combing through the tangles with near-silent patience.
When they were done, they dried her, wrapped her in a thick crimson robe, then dressed her in a gown of black silk and lace, whisper-soft, its fine straps leaving her arms bare and the neckline scandalously low.
Like a prize, she thought bitterly — or a sacrifice.
Valea waited for her in the sitting area before the hearth, her gaze hard but not unkind.
“You will rest tonight. At daybreak, training will resume. From dawn to high noon, you will spar, drill, and be tested. The afternoons you will spend with the historians, learning the truth of Achyron, of the five gods, of their gifts and their wraith. You will study the curse. The Veil. Our ways.”
Maris swallowed, “And the evenings?”
Valea’s mouth thinned into something near a smile.
“You will dine in court with the King and the nobles, unless the King commands your presence privately.”
A shiver raced down Maris’s spine at that.
“Rest now,” Valea added. “No one will disturb you tonight.”
Maris tried to laugh but could only manage a hollow breath.
Valea left, closing the heavy oak door behind her with a solid finality.
Maris found the gilded bed too large, too cold, so she settled instead into a cushioned armchair near the hearth.
On a small side table lay a book, its cracked leather spine stamped with the crest of Nythra.
Curious, she opened it, trying to lose herself in the pages. The story was about a chosen child who tried to save their kingdom from divine punishment, but in the end — failed, sacrificing their own soul to spare a city that burned anyway.
The tale sank like stones into her already drowning mind.
Is that to be me? A sacrifice for a pointless cause.
Hours must have passed in the firelight, the flicker of flames making her eyelids heavy.
Then, a single knock.
Maris startled upright, the book sliding from her lap to the rug with a soft thud.
Before she could call out, the latch turned, and the door to her sitting room opened without waiting for her response.
Kael stepped through the door like a dark tide pouring into her chambers, his cloak settling around him with silent finality.
The faint scent of iron and a darker sweetness clung to him.
His shadows pooled at his feet. His eyes, glowing and unearthly, found hers where she stood frozen by the hearth.
“You’re awake,” he said, quiet but certain, as if he’d known she would be.
Maris clenched her fists around the silk of her nightdress, the crimson fabric shivering between her fingers.
“Why are you here?” she demanded, voice raw.
Kael stepped closer, studying her in a way that made her skin burn.
“I came because…” He hesitated, something she hadn’t seen him do.
" I thought I'd offer you the best explanation for my actions that I have.
" Then he exhaled slowly. “I was drawn to you. I pulled from my kingdom to Eryndor by a force beyond myself to you. From the moment I first crossed the human borders, I could feel… something. Like a thread, guiding me through the dark until I found you.”
His brow furrowed, and for the barest instant, uncertainty flickered across his perfectly carved features.
“I do not fully understand it myself,” he admitted.
Maris’s chest felt like it might explode with rage. “So you stole me away,” she spat, “because of a FEELING? Because of some string of fate you couldn’t name?”
Kael’s jaw tightened, but he did not look away.
“Your life, before,” he said evenly, “was nothing but tending to the ashes of the dead. A dull existence of half-empty hearths and plague-haunted streets.”
Her eyes flashed.
“And you think that makes this better?” Her voice broke on the last word, fury sparking through every nerve. “You think tearing me from my home, my families graves, makes my small life worthless?”
His eyes softened, if only slightly.
“Not worthless,” he said. “Simply…without purpose. Here, at least, you might serve something greater, however small.”
Maris let out a strangled laugh, tears hot and unwanted behind her eyes.
“I am human, Kael. I am twenty-five. My years are numbered on a short string, and you — you and your court will still be here long after my bones are dust.”
Kael watched her, that same unreadable expression, like a statue carved by a god who’d forgotten to finish it.
“Then perhaps,” he murmured, stepping closer until his cold shadow covered her, “you will burn brightly in what years you have. That is more than many humans ever know.”
Maris trembled, so full of rage and sorrow she felt she might collapse.
Kael’s hand hovered near her face, but did not touch her, as if the slightest brush would snap them both apart.
“Rest,” he said, voice suddenly quiet. “Tomorrow, you begin again.”
And with that, he turned, cloak trailing like night itself, and vanished through the door, leaving her alone with a roaring ache in her chest that refused to die.
-Kael-
Kael left Maris’s chambers with his mind tangled in impossible knots.
He walked the halls of Calyrix Castle, ancient shadows welcoming him like old companions, the scent of burned candle wax and moonlit roses thick in the air.
Rage still simmered in his blood, though he hid it well.
No one had ever raised their voice to him so boldly, no one since his father, who was dust now within the obsidian crypts.
And yet Maris had dared.
Part of him wanted to snarl, to break her spirit beneath his boot until she understood her place. Another part, far darker, wanted to taste her rage on his lips, to devour that spark of defiance until she trembled for him alone.
He exhaled, trying to quiet the thunder in his skull.
He found Riven and Corin waiting outside the hall, weapons resting on a nearby pillar.
Riven, massive as a boulder, dark braid coiled down his back, raised a brow at Kael’s approach.
“She lasted longer than I wagered,” he rumbled, voice like distant thunder.
Corin, all whipcord grace offered a cruel grin.
“But she’ll break eventually. They all do.”
Kael’s expression turned to steel, he haulted his steps.
“You will train her,” he commanded, voice sharp enough to cut bone. “Don't break her.”
Riven and Corin exchanged a wary glance.
“You ordered us to test her,” Corin reminded, lightly.
“And you will continue to test her,” Kael said, “but I will not have you destroying her spirit. She is not replaceable.”
“A human, highness, is always replaceable. ” Riven muttered, disbelief etched in the line of his mouth. Kael’s jaw flexed.
“She is more than that. That is all you need to know.”
The men exchanged a cautious look, but nodded. Neither was foolish enough to argue once Kael’s voice fell to that quiet, lethal register.
The men bowed slightly, acknowledging the edge of denouement in their King’s tone.
He dismissed them with a curt wave, moving deeper into the fortress until he reached his own wing. The heart of Calyrix’s — black marble walls etched with silver filigree depicting the gods’ curses and blessings in swirling script.
Servants were already waiting — silent, masked, trained from birth to serve without question. They stripped him of his war leathers, working in efficient silence, their eyes never lifting to meet his.
He stepped into a great stone tub steaming with water scented faintly of night jasmine and bloodroot. The heat eased the ache of too many days spent leading drills, hunting rogue nightbound on the borders, and battling his own desire.
She had dared to shout at me.
The thought made his hands curl around the rim of the tub, knuckles white. What he wished he could have done in that moment — to press her against the stones, to taste the fury on her tongue, to remind her exactly who commanded this kingdom — it set something monstrous alight in his blood.
But he had not. He had walked away, letting her stand there defiant and wild and unbearably beautiful. A savage fondness creeping in.
You do not even know what you are playing with. He reminded himself.
Sleep came late, restless, thick with half-forgotten dreams.
In his mind, she stood before him again, but this time, her black nightdress fell away in rags under his clawed hands, her pale skin bared to candlelight, the silver starbursts of her eyes wide and unguarded.
She did not fight him in the dream — she welcomed him, parted her lips to his, let him taste every inch of her.
He dreamed of sinking his fangs into the curve of her neck, of taking her so thoroughly she would never think to defy him again. The dream was so vivid he could smell the copper-salt of her blood, hear her broken moans.
He awoke gasping, sweat-drenched, his entire body hard with a need he had no right to feel.
Kael could not rest after that.
In silence, he called up the deeper shadows, the night woven magic that laced through his veins like second blood.
It obeyed him instantly, wrapping him in darkness.
The castle fell away around him, until he was nothing but a moving piece of night itself.
He drifted through walls, through locked doors, until he reached her suite.
There she was curled on the edge of the bed too big for her, deep silk hugging her skin.
Her dark hair spilled across the pillow, moonlight tracing her pale throat, her breathing deep and even.
Kael stood over her, silent, watching.
What are you, Maris of Eryndor?
If she had woken then, she would have seen the monster and the male both, at war behind his cold, unblinking eyes.
But she did not wake. Kael stood there until the first gray of dawn cut across the sky, and only then did he retreat to his own chambers, leaving her untouched.