Chapter 26 The Decision
Chapter twenty-six
The Decision
-Alarik-
The fire crackled in the war room’s hearth, spitting embers into the perfumed air, but Alarik barely noticed. His gaze was locked on the parchment in his hands, thin, slightly bloodstained, and still warm from its courier’s arrival.
Kael had slaughtered an entire outpost, one he had visited only days ago.
It was not a tactical maneuver on Kael's part but a massacre.
Alarik smiled, slow and serpentine.
“Strike a King, and he forgets he's not a god,” he murmured, tossing the letter aside onto the polished table beside a half-drunk goblet of bloodwine.
Zairon stood at the window, arms crossed. “You’ve poked a wolf in his den.”
“I kissed the soul he guards like a starving hound,” Alarik replied, eyes dancing with quiet malice. “The den was always going to burn.”
Zairon didn’t return the grin. “That outpost was a risk.”
“They were all risks. I only regret the mirror. It gave me the cleanest connection.” Alarik swirled his goblet thoughtfully.
He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. And there it was — the tether.
Delicate as silk. Invisible to any eye but his own. And yet — a living thing.
Maris.
Her essence sang to him like a cursed harp. Something ancient and half-woken, wrapped in too-human fragility. He’d left fragments of his power inside her with every dream. Every whispered word. Every curious glance she cast inward.
It had been subtle at first, just threads. A hint of faelight to test the soil.
But now?
Now the bond pulsed beneath his ribs like a second heartbeat. Her dreams called to him without effort. Her thoughts stirred like mist through a web he’d spun from silver lies and desperate questions. He had woven himself into her. And he was beginning to feel the cost.
His jaw tightened.
Dream meddling wasn’t like other magic. It left marks. Scars in the soul if you weren’t careful. Too much, and the boundaries blurred. Alarik had walked through the minds of kings and children —warriors and madmen. He had never lingered too long. Until now.
Maris was different.
Not just because she was beautiful. Not because she intrigued him with her defiance or that glittering starburst magic.
But because her dreams were not entirely her own.
They were shared.
Something else had touched her. Someone.
Something old and god-born.
Alarik’s smile faded.
“I can’t reach her into her thoughts tonight,” he said softly.
Zairon glanced over, eyes sharp. “Has Kael found a way to block you?”
“No.” Alarik’s brow furrowed. “She’s afraid.”
He could feel it.
Panic curled at the edge of her consciousness, an animal cornered in the dark. Her magic sparked and screamed. Her pulse ran wild.
She had seen something. Felt something.
A war was coming. But it wasn’t just steel and blood that would decide the victor.
It was what she became.
“What are you thinking?” Zairon asked, tone guarded.
Alarik stared into the fire.
“She’s not ready,” he said. “But if I wait too long…”
“You’ll lose her.”
“I’ll lose more than that.”
The bond thrummed again, like the strike of a bell across kingdoms.
He stood, white-blonde hair glinting in the firelight, and moved to the window that faced north. Toward her.
Maris.
The girl he was meant to ruin. The girl he couldn’t stop thinking about.
He had only ever meant to toy with her. To guide her gently, bend her just enough to reveal what slept inside her. The Veil Breaker. The gods’ last thread of mercy or perhaps their undoing. Encourage her to come to his side over Kaels.
But now… her dreams felt tight with fear. She was shaking in her sleep. He could feel her, like a tether drawn taut, fraying at the edge of something dangerous. Something final.
And Kael — Alarik closed his eyes and swallowed hard.
Kael’s temper was legend. And Alarik had stoked it. Lit the fire.
What would he do if he discovered the truth?
What would he take from her?
“She’s not safe with him,” he muttered, hating the twist of emotion in his own voice.
Zairon shifted behind him but said nothing.
Alarik’s jaw clenched.
“She is the weapon we need. The last move on the board. If he breaks her, if he trys to bind her soul to himself before she even knows who she is, then we all lose.”
He turned away from the window and crossed the room in a single, graceful stride.
“I didn’t want to do this,” he said —half to himself. “I thought I could wait. Let the dream grow. Let her come to me willingly.”
The bond was changing. And Kael was unraveling faster than anticipated.
Alarik reached for his armor like a prophecy fulfilled.
“If I don’t act now,” he whispered, “I may never get the chance.”
Zairon finally spoke. “You’ll take her?”
Alarik didn’t look back.
“I’ll steal her from his bed if I must.”
His voice lowered, a cold, final note in it:
“Because if I don’t, Kael will destroy her — cast doubt on her magic, her potential — And with her end, any hope this cursed land has will go with her.”
-Kael-
Kael entered Calyrix’s great hall in a gale of shadow and blood-soaked power.
His release of power at the border had been brutal, cleansing in the way only carnage could be.
His shadows were slow to settle, dragging behind him like a living storm.
Rage still simmered in his marrow, his knuckles split open from too many kills.
But the moment he crossed into the palace proper, something felt wrong.
He moved with a purpose directly to his chambers before his mind could name the fear unraveling in his spine and there she was.
Collapsed in the center of the floor, cradled in Valea’s arms, her body trembling like a struck chord.
Maris’s skin glistened faintly, kissed by starlight that no hearth could explain. Her breath was shallow, her gown rumpled, her eyes wide with a terror that was ancient, wordless, glowing brightly.
Kael was across the room in a heartbeat.
“What happened?” His voice came out as a growl, dark with panic.
Valea didn’t flinch. “A dream.”
Kael froze. “A male?”
“No,” Valea whispered.
She looked up at him with something near reverence in her hardened eyes.
“She saw her, the goddess Eiren.”
Kael’s heart dropped like a stone. “Eiren?”
Valea nodded once. “She came with a message.”
Maris stirred, eyes unfocused but glimmering. Her lips parted, and when she spoke, her voice was soft like the echo of a prayer.
“She kissed me.”
Kael knelt beside her burshing her hair back.
“The goddess made of stars. She… knew me.” Her hand trembled in Valea’s grip. “She said I was called.”
Kael swallowed hard, shadows whispering around his throat.
Valea let go gently, allowing Kael to slide his arms around the girl who had become the axis of his every thought.
“She showed me… the Veil,” Maris murmured. “It’s fraying. Tearing. It holds back something… monstrous. And I—”
Her voice broke. Her whole frame did, curling in on itself.
“I think I’m what’s meant to mend it. Or destroy it.”
Kael’s jaw flexed.
Eiren’s blessing and now it pulsed beneath the skin of this breakable —stubborn girl who had once sewn patches onto noblemen’s coats.
Valea stood, face unreadable. “I’ve already sent for Aldwyn. He’ll help us decipher what she saw.”
Kael barely heard her.
Maris was burning in his arms not with fever, but power. Something sacred. Something blasphemous. A mortal girl kissed by a vanished goddess.
He pressed his lips to her hairline and held her tighter.
And in the quiet between heartbeats, he realized something bone-deep:
The goddess had given him a weapon. Or perhaps a warning.
Either way, he would not let her go. Not now. Not ever.