Chapter 18 Rooms of the Throne
Chapter eighteen
Rooms of the Throne
-Maris-
The shadows of late afternoon draped over the stone corridors like silk spun from smoke.
Maris walked slowly, arms aching from training and her mind buzzing with half-legends and whispered curses from another dizzying session with Aldwyn.
The lorekeeper had been especially cryptic today murmuring over passages too faded to read, pausing too long on mentions of Eiren, the sleeping goddess, as if he knew more than he dared speak aloud.
Her head throbbed.
All she wanted was a quiet bath. A cup of that strange, spiced tea the twin wraiths sometimes left warming on the hearth. But as she turned down the corridor toward her chamber door, she stopped cold.
The door was open.
And inside, the pale shadows twisted.
The twins blinked up at her, calm as ever, dressed in black and gray, their movement unnervingly fluid, as always.
“We were instructed,” one said.
“To relocate your belongings,” the other added, stacking a folded crimson nightgown onto a floating tray with eerie precision.
Maris stepped inside, eyes narrowing.
“To where?” She questioned.
“To the King’s private apartments.”
Maris froze.
The words fell into her gut like stone.
“What?”
“His orders,” the wraith repeated, voice devoid of malice. “You are to be moved to the east wing. The tower chambers.”
The tower chambers, Valea had described them as the highest rooms overlooking the Calyrix’s inner court, during her tour of the grounds.
Once reserved for favored nobles, now only housing Kael.
Her pulse kicked. “When?” she demanded.
“Now.” They answered in unison.
-Kael-
He stood in the arched window above the training yard, watching the castle breathe as the sky bled toward dusk.
He felt her presence before he heard her.
The pulse of her fury flaring like embers on the wind.
Good. He’d wanted her angry. He didn’t turn when the knock came.
Didn’t move as the door slammed open, her boots scuffing against the marble.
“I’m not some possession you can rearrange at will,” she snapped.
Kael finally turned, slowly, deliberately.
She stood like a storm barely contained — cheeks flushed, hair wild from wind and climbing stairs, those pale green eyes alight with fury.
“You need proximity,” he said simply, voice low. “You’ve begun awakening something. The magic is… unpredictable. I will not risk you.”
She scoffed. “You mean you won’t risk losing control over me.”
He let the accusation land.
“I mean — Maris I won’t risk someone else realizing what you are before I fully know myself.”
Silence stretched between them —tight as a drawn bowstring.
Maris crossed her arms, shoulders rigid. “You could have asked.”
Kael stepped closer, stopping just short of touching her.
“I don’t ask when it comes to things I protect.”
Her voice softened —just barely — a sadness in her eyes as she lifted her face to look at him fully.
“Or things you own?”
That made him flinch. But he didn’t retreat.
Instead, he raised a hand and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear slow, reverent.
“I’ve tried to stay away,” he murmured. “To let you grow without my shadow warping it. But you’re already changing, Maris. The something old hums when you move. And I feel it, every time you walk too far from me.”
Her breath caught.
He dropped his hand.
“You’ll sleep in a room within my chambers tonight. That is not a command,” he added after a beat. “It’s a truth. You’re safer there. From spies. From yourself.”
-Maris-
The twin wraiths had left her with little more than a clipped “Your new quarters are at the end of the east wing,” before vanishing into the stone like smoke.
She was reeling from the relocation — from Kael’s words — from the unsettling thrum of something low in her chest she didn’t understand.
Maris needed a distraction from her own thoughts — so she opened the heavy ironwood door to the prince’s private chambers, he wanted her here so badly, he could deal with a little snooping.
She expected stone and shadows.
What she found instead was warmth.
The rooms were grand but not cold. They bore Kael’s touch in the heavy drapes of twilight velvet, the ancient swords mounted along the walls, and the sprawling hearth glowing with embers and quiet heat. It felt like trespassing, like peeling back a corner of his mind.
A chill settled within her. A whispered thought drifted through her mind, you shouldn't be here.
Maris stepped lightly, the hem of her robe brushing the dark marble floors as she moved past Kael's massive bed, she wondered what it would be like to lay within it, wrapped in Kael's massive arms. The room smelled of him — iron, floral, but an added spice she could not place. It curled around her like a ghost.
His desk cluttered. Not carelessly — but deliberately disordered, like a man who wanted you to believe he had nothing to hide. She ran her fingers over a worn leather journal, its binding cracked, a ribbon tucked partway through.
She hesitated.
Don't open it. The voice in her mind warned.
She did.
But before she could read more than one line, a low splash echoed from beyond the stone arch to her left.
Her breath caught. Slowly, she closed the journal and turned.
Beyond the archway was a second chamber — a bathing room, she guessed.
Shadows clung to its threshold like they were waiting for her to cross.
Maris stepped forward in silent, barely realizing what she was doing.
The door was cracked. Just a sliver. She pressed her hand to it and pushed it open —slowly.
The air changed. Warmer. Damp. Scented with the spice that lingered in his chambers. Another splash, closer this time.
She froze as she peered inside.
The room was cavernous, its vaulted ceiling glowing with enchantments that made it look like the night sky had been captured above.
In the center, half-shrouded in mist, a massive sunken stone tub carved from black and veined with silver. Steam rose in lazy curls from the water, thick with herbs and dark oils. And in it reclined like a god at rest was Kael.
His ink-dark hair slicked and dripping down his front. His muscles gleamed under the low light, he was fully nude, water licking just beneath his hips, his chest slick with steam and starlight.
Two female attendants utterly naked, pale, and lovely, lured within the waters, washing him in practiced rhythm. One scrubbed his arms with a brush, the other worked at the muscle of his inner thighs.
Kael’s eyes were closed, his head tilted back against the carved rim of the tub. But Maris knew he had sensed her the moment she entered. The shadows that had greeted her intrusion now rolled lazily through the room.
Her heart hammered in her throat.
Run, the sensible part of her whispered. But her legs did not move.
The air smelled of crushed evergreen spice. She could hear the slow drip of water falling from his jawline, the faint hum of magic warming the bath, the soft exhale of Kael’s breath as one of the women dragged the cloth up over his collarbone, slow and reverent, soap sliding down his abs.
Maris’s cheeks flamed. She wanted to look away. She wanted to look more.
Her stomach flipped violently as heat twisted low in her body.
He hadn’t moved. Not a twitch. But somehow, she felt his attention like a wire between them, stretched taut, humming.
He wants me to see.
The thought hit like lightning.
Maris turned sharply, slamming the door closed behind her, her heart thundering like hooves on stone.
Back in her new chamber, she pressed her hands to her face and cursed under her breath. She felt burned by the sight of him. By the fact that he didn’t stop her. By the possibility that he had wanted her to see such a private moment.