36. Eirene
THIRTY-SIX
EIRENE
The transformation completes itself in a rush of agony and ecstasy.
I feel the boundary slide into my bones, feel the Veil wrap around my heart, feel myself becoming part of the magic I’ve served for eight years. I’m no longer just a witch who bleeds for the barrier. I am the barrier. My blood is its blood. My will is its will.
The Shadow Court recognizes what I’ve become. The darkness around me shifts—not fleeing anymore, but observing. Calculating. I’ve crossed a threshold no human was meant to cross. I’ve made myself into the door the Sovereign wanted to create.
But I’m not its door. I’m mine.
The creatures that were fleeing before now keep their distance with renewed fear.
I can feel their hunger, their desperate desire to consume the power radiating from my wounds.
But they can also feel what that power would do to them.
My blood has gone from toxic to lethal. One touch, and they would dissolve like morning mist.
Good.
I start walking again. Faster now—the floor of stolen memories recognizes me, parts before my feet like water before a blade. The walls pulse with the freed souls I’m carrying, their power mixing with mine, their hope fueling my determination.
And in the mark on my chest, I feel Varkhul respond.
Not just his presence—his recognition. He can feel what I’ve become. Feel the change in our link, the way my blood now sings with power instead of merely dripping with sacrifice. He’s fighting harder, I realize. Holding on with renewed strength because he knows I’m coming.
Because he knows I’m not the same woman who fell to her knees in the darkness when the Sovereign first spoke in stolen voices.
I’m not a sacrifice anymore.
I’m a weapon.
The throne room opens before me like a wound splitting wider.
I’ve been walking through nightmare landscapes for hours—corridors that shifted and changed, rooms that tried to trap me in memories that weren’t my own, pits that opened beneath my feet and swallowed my blood before I could pull myself free. The Shadow Court has thrown everything it has at me.
None of it has slowed me down.
The freed souls I carry have guided me, their whispered directions leading me through the labyrinth of stolen grief.
They know this place—they’ve been trapped here for years, some for decades, some for longer.
They know every turn, every trap, every horror the Sovereign has created from their consumed memories.
And now they’ve led me to its heart.
The throne room is vast—larger than any space has a right to be, stretching up and out until the walls disappear into shadows that feel like they could swallow worlds.
The floor is paved with severed ties, each one a relationship destroyed, a love lost, a promise broken.
Walking on them feels like walking on graves.
At the center of the room, the throne waits.
It’s built of crystallized darkness, all sharp angles and hungry edges. Empty, for now—the Sovereign doesn’t need to sit. It is everywhere in this place, woven into the walls, saturating the air, pressing against my transformed blood with endless hunger.
And before the throne, hanging in chains of pure shadow—
Varkhul.
He looks worse than I imagined.
And gods, I’ve never wanted to touch someone so badly in my life.
The shadow-chains have torn into his wrists, his ankles, his throat—leaving wounds that weep darkness instead of blood. His armor is gone, stripped away to reveal the scarred chest beneath. The claiming mark over his heart blazes with strained light, flickering like a candle in a storm.
His eyes are closed. His face is twisted with pain. And I can see the memories playing across his expression—the executions, the deaths, the guilt he’s been forced to relive over and over while the Sovereign fed on his suffering.
My heart cracks open at the sight of him.
This is my mate. My claimed. The man I’ve chosen to love despite every reason not to. And the Sovereign has been torturing him while I fought my way through its nightmare realm.
Fury rises in me—hot and clean and utterly merciless. The power I’ve gathered, the souls I’ve freed, the boundary magic flowing through my veins—it all coalesces into a single burning purpose.
I’m going to make this entity pay for every moment of his suffering.
“Varkhul.” His name comes out hoarse, rough with the blood I’ve swallowed and the magic I’ve consumed. “I’m here.”
His eyes snap open.
The forge-fire gaze I know so well is dimmed by pain, but recognition blazes through the haze. He sees me—bloody, transformed, glowing with the power of the Veil itself. And despite everything, despite the agony etched into every line of his face, he smiles.
“Took you long enough.” His voice is a rasp, torn raw by screaming. “Was starting to think you’d gotten lost.”
“Traffic was terrible.” I’m moving toward him, bleeding footprints marking my path across the floor of severed ties. “Lots of shadow-creatures to scare off. Walls that kept trying to trap me.”
“Excuses.” The word is weak, but his eyes are bright—brighter than they should be, given what he’s been through. He’s not broken. Hurt, damaged, suffering, but not broken.
The Sovereign couldn’t break him.
Pride swells in my chest—fierce and possessive and utterly inappropriate for the situation. This is my mate. This is the man who faced twenty years of suppressed guilt, who relived every execution he’s ever performed, who felt every death from his victims’ perspectives. And he’s still making jokes.
Gods, I love him.
I want to climb those chains and kiss him until neither of us can breathe.
Want to press my body against his and feel the heat of him, the solid reality of muscle and bone and heartbeat.
The need is almost overwhelming—my body remembering what we shared at the stones, craving his touch the way parched earth craves rain.
But first, I have to get him free. And that means dealing with the monster that put him in those chains.