Chapter 18 #3
“You know, I’m not as stupid as you think,” Xander commented, leaning forward, elbows braced on his knees. “I know the King is stronger than me. That’s why I need you.”
Her brow furrowed, her stomach twisting in on itself.
“Me?” She scoffed. “What makes you think I can do anything? I’ve tried to escape him.
I’ve tried to defy him—” Her voice faltered.
“I can’t. He has no weaknesses. If your plan hinges on me, then I’m sorry, but you really haven’t thought this through. ”
A thin, humourless laugh slipped from her, and with it came the familiar sting of feeling foolish—foolish for being here, beneath the city, beneath the King’s very nose. Xander wasn’t the city’s saviour. He was just another ruin like her, and his careless conviction was going to damn them all.
“That attitude right there,” he pointed to her, “that’s why he’s still standing,” he said, a smirk tugging at his lips. “You carry enough pessimism for the both of us.”
“You live in this city as long as I have,” Ellaryn shot back, a sad smile forced into place, “and you learn that anything brighter than the dark doesn’t survive long enough to matter.”
When Xander spoke again, his voice was quieter. Careful.
“Is that why you became Ruin?” he asked, studying her. “If you can’t beat the dark, join it?”
The words struck like knives between her shoulder blades.
“Join it and it will find a way to beat you down anyway.” She muttered, expression unreadable, but her fingers curled against the armrest.
Something flickered behind the devastatingly bright blue of his eyes. It passed so quickly she barely caught it. Was it pity? Understanding? Something softer?
She tilted her head to one side, like a dog trying to interpret what it was seeing.
He noticed.
In a heartbeat, he cleared his throat and sat up straighter, whatever had surfaced vanishing behind that familiar mask.
“When you left the other day,” He asked quietly, almost as if he wasn’t allowed to say it, “What was he doing to you?”
He hesitated, then added, “That power he used—what was it?”
Ellaryn’s gaze dropped to the desk. She traced the shallow grooves in the wood, as though they might offer her somewhere to hide. The words lodged in her throat.
“He has your soul, doesn’t he?”
The words hit Ellaryn all at once, and she felt her throat close. She nodded—subtle but there—finding the action easier than words.
“Well… pieces of it,” she amended, her voice unsteady, fingers curling into her thigh. “I don’t know how he does it. I only know that when he pulls on it—twists it—” Her breath shuddered. “It feels like I’m breathing daggers. Like my lungs are lined with glass.”
She hated saying it aloud. Hated how real it became once the words left her mouth.
“It’s how he calls me,” she whispered. “How he finds me. How he keeps me from running. From hiding.”
Her jaw tightened. “I can’t disobey him. Not without paying for it.”
For the first time since she’d met him, Xander looked unsettled—not afraid, but deeply, dangerously angry. His jaw flexed, his hands curling at his sides as though restraining something violent.
“Soul magic.” He finally said.
The words landed heavy between them, final as a sentence. The colour drained from his face.
Her stomach clenched. “You know it?”
He shook his head once. Then again, slower. “I wish I didn’t.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, already bracing herself.
“Soul magic… It’s dark.”
“No kidding, he’s the Dark King; what did you expect him to cast spells of light and love?” Ellaryn almost scoffed as the words left her mouth, lips upturning at the ridiculousness of it, but the man’s expression did not match hers; his usual carefree demeanour had left his face.
“I mean, it’s dangerous… like really dangerous.” His eyes traced hers, and then he muttered, “For both the caster and the target.” His expression softened, like he had something to say but kept the words at bay. Her gaze narrowed in on his.
“If there’s something you need to tell me, just say it. I’m not fragile; I won’t break.” Her jaw ticked.
He cleared his throat, sitting up straighter. “Well… It’s dangerous because it links you to him.”
“Meaning?” Her brow raised, heartbeat kicking up a beat.
“You’re bound to him,” Xander said. “Tethered. If he pulls, you feel it. If he commands, your body obeys. But it also means… if he dies—”
“I die.”
The words left her mouth before she could stop them. Before she even understood them.
When they settled, they felt foreign—dense, immovable.
Xander’s expression softened with something close to regret as he met her eyes. “Along with anyone else bound to his soul,” he said quietly.
Death had never frightened her.
Once, she had welcomed it—longed for it, even. But now, faced with its certainty, she hesitated. Not because she feared the end, but because there were things left undone.
She had been selfish for too long. Loyal in the wrong ways. A weapon aimed wherever she was told. But the city needed this.
Sailen needed this.
Ellaryn lifted her chin.
“I’m prepared for whatever comes.”
Silence stretched between them, taut as a drawn blade. Xander’s gaze lingered on her face—on what the King had taken, and what still remained—before he finally looked away.
“Good,” Xander said, his voice calm but edged with certainty, “because the blade he holds to your throat will be the one that kills him.” His eyebrows drew together, a subtle crease, but the tension softened by something unreadable in his eyes.
“And how exactly will this work?” Ellaryn asked, and he smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
She found herself staring at him, uncertain how to breathe him in.
He was nothing like the people of Cinders—all soft edges and buttery hair, as if he could see through the smoke and embers that choked their city.
She found herself enjoying the act of just looking at him.
“Do you know much about the mutations?” Xander asked.
“Not really, I was only nine when—” She hesitated, and Xander let go of a shaky breath.
She could feel it, his pity seeping out of him like sweat.
It made her uncomfortable, and she shifted in her seat.
She wasn’t used to people seeing the person that lay beneath the armour.
So many thought they were one and the same, fused steel to bone.
But he had seen beneath her skin, driven his knife into her heart once before.
And if he thought even the Dark King had a weakness, she knew he saw hers.
Her faults made flesh. The person under the Ruin.
She didn’t quite know how to swallow that.
When his mouth opened again, she almost flinched.
“A thousand years ago, sorcerers started appearing out of nowhere. There are theories as to why… but none can be proven.” He paused.
“All we know is that it started happening after the Great War.” He conjured a book out of thin air and flicked through it, landing on a page depicting sketches of Potentials.
“At first, it was small things. Someone could lift three times their body weight, or run faster than man ever could.”
Ellaryn felt herself leaning closer, drawn into his story.
“Over the years, they learned to harness it. Refine it. They discovered things that strengthened it… symbols, spells.” He paused.
“Those without powers welcomed them at first. They were called Potentials, because they made life easier—helped build great monuments, multiplied harvests.” His expression darkened.
“But eventually, people grew afraid. Potentials became known not for what they could create, but for what they could destroy.”
His brows furrowed as he turned the page, and the images before him now showed people captured—bound in chains, pierced by spears, their suffering frozen in ink.
“So they were hunted.” His eyes drifted back to Ellaryn.
“And as a result, mutations grew fiercer with each generation. The more gifted someone was, the more likely they were to survive.” A dry laugh escaped him.
“It’s funny… the people who once tried to destroy us are the reason we’re so powerful now. ”
His head lowered slightly, the weight of the thought settling over him.
The same reason the King was so powerful now, Ellaryn thought. She said nothing, watching him, completely lost in his words.
“But do you want to know something most people don’t?”
Ellaryn blinked and nodded softly.
“There’s a cost to these abilities,” Xander said, and her vision narrowed.
“Power isn’t an endless fountain, no matter what people believe.
It can be drained. The more you use it, the more it diminishes if you’re not careful.
Rest can restore some of it, but the fact remains… overuse, and it fades fast.”
Ellaryn’s eyes sharpened, tracking every subtle movement, every line of his face, committing it all to memory.
“But the King?” she questioned, her body tensing at the mention of his name.
“That’s how I know his power isn’t natural,” he said, voice low but certain. “No single man could wield magic like that. The spells he casts… they’re impossible for one person to contain.”
“And yet he does,” she said, confusion knitting her brow. “If you’re right, he should be dead. So how is he alive?”
“That’s exactly what I want to find out.” With a small poof, the book vanished. “And exactly why I need your help.”
“How can I help with that?” she questioned, watching him pop another candy into his mouth.
“Magic is unique,” he began, his voice low and deliberate. “Like a fingerprint. Every time it’s used, it leaves a trace—a mark, so to speak.”
Ellaryn’s gaze sharpened, studying every line of his face as if committing him to memory.
“He bound himself to you,” Xander continued. “Which means he’s left a mark on you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Meaning?”
“Meaning I can use the bond between you as a trail.” He leaned forward slightly. “Think of it like a leash. If I follow the mark back to its source, I can trace where his power is coming from… and once we know that, we can figure out how to destroy him.”