Chapter 44
“It’s time,” Ellaryn said. “We have to do this now.”
“Wait. There was something that I found… something that could help you.” Xander stood up, pacing the small, crowded space; even now, in the thick dark of the dungeons, the shadows seemed to repel him. “I’m close; I can feel it. If I could just have some more time—”
“We don’t have more time, Xander.”
“Please, Ellaryn.” He pleaded with his eyes, like sapphire stars in the night sky—bright, sparkling, somehow still full of hopes and dreams and wishes.
“No,” she whispered, looking away. That stare. That stare had a way of sucking her in. A milkyway of potential. Of what-ifs. She couldn’t feed into it. “It has to end now. He’s only going to get stronger.”
“Please, Ellaryn.” His voice broke. “Let me do this. Let me try to save you. Just one last time.”
She shook her head. “It’s too risky.”
He let out a hollow breath, his hand coming up to cover hers, holding it against his face like it was the only thing anchoring him.
“If you could see yourself the way I see you,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper, “nothing would be too risky to save you.”
Her breath caught. She couldn’t see herself the way he did. Too many of her own choices, too many terrible things, weighed on her. She had always thought of herself as Ruin. And yet… he loved her.
He had loved her completely.
She had let him fall from a great height. She had broken him in ways he might never forgive. But now, she could let him have this. One last wish. One final chance to try.
Before she left him.
“Just… please.” he searched her face, like he was trying to memorise it. “Don’t make me beg.”
“…Okay,” she said finally. The word was fragile. “But promise me something.”
“Anything.” He said, his eyes never leaving hers.
“If you can’t figure it out… if there isn’t another way…” Her voice wavered. “We stick to the original plan.”
He hesitated.
Just for a second.
Long enough to feel the lie forming in his chest.
“I promise,” he said, knowing it would be the hardest thing he had to do.
Not killing the King. Not saving Cinala. But watching her die.
“Now come on,” Xander said as he pulled her through the walls as if they were water.
This was it.
It was now or never.
They moved through the castle’s bones in a blur of shadows and mist. Stone walls seemed to bend around them, corridors folding and twisting as if the castle itself resisted their passage. Each step was silent, but every heartbeat thundered in Ellaryn’s chest.
Her hand remained in his, tight, grounding her as his glamouring magic pulsed in her veins. Every brush of his skin sent sparks through her nerves—electric and impossible to ignore.
Around them, the air shimmered with menace, and she could sense the King’s influence threading through the halls, seeking, watching. Yet Xander was there, unwavering, a tether of warmth and strength she clung to.
Each step felt stolen, each breath borrowed. Even cloaked in his invisibility glamour, creeping through the castle together left them feeling exposed—too visible, as if the walls themselves were watching.
The Defiers stirred as they passed, just enough to make Ellaryn flinch. Her teeth clacked together before she could stop them, the sound loud in her own head, panic spiking sharp and sudden. For a heartbeat, she was certain they’d been noticed.
Then the beings settled back into their rigid stillness.
Ellaryn forced herself to breathe again, slow and controlled, until her pulse eased back into something resembling normal. She didn’t dare look back, though the shadow of her future loomed over every step.
Hand in hand, they slipped into the banquet hall and out onto the balcony, towards the steps that led up to the beacon of souls.
This was his plan. If they could get past Scornszar unnoticed. If they could get to the top of the tower, he could find a way to release the souls. Her soul.
Ellaryn’s breaths came in shallow gasps as she tried and failed to steady herself. Scornszar was circling the beacon in warning, as if he knew they were close. She could feel the heat radiating off of him, as if he didn’t just breathe flames, but was made up of them.
Xander squeezed her hand tighter; just that act alone seemed to steady her.
“Whatever you do,” Xander said, pausing as if weighing each word, “don’t let go of my hand.” His voice carried a sharp edge of concern. “The glamour only works when you’re touching me.”
She wasn’t sure how the invisibility worked, but it did.
With each step she took, she could feel her boots against the hard stone stairs; she could feel Xander’s flesh against hers; she could see him, see her own hands, like the cloak wasn’t over them.
But Scornzar was still circling; Defiers were unmoving, and the Knights were none the wiser—they were invisible.
She was invisible. And they were going to get her soul back.
Ellaryn had dreamt about this day, the moment she was reunited with the piece of herself she had longed for for over a decade. But her conscience was heavy—crushing—and a part of her mind wondered if she didn’t die with the King, would the weight of her actions kill her first.
Swallowing hard, she continued up the crumbling, winding steps that circled the tower. Xander had been giving her reassuring glances as they climbed higher. She wondered how she could love and hate a look so much at once.
Guilt.
She felt it so hard it could have winded her. Her soul may not be there, and while he was holding onto hope, she knew that hope in Cinder’s was fickle.
The air became thinner the higher they climbed, Scornszar’s wings batting the wind in their direction.
Falling embers followed his gusts, littering the air around them.
She had never been this high up before. Never seen the suffering below from an aerial view.
Her raven hair danced with the breeze as she looked down on them.
Even from up here, she still felt connected to them.
Still felt every scream and tear as if it were her own.
The stairs were just a thin string wrapped around the top tower now, and Ellaryn felt like she had to hold her breath. Carefully placing one foot in front of the other. Xander looked back at her for a moment, his eyes a warning for her to be careful.
They could see the blue beacon of souls, feel the power thrumming through the air.
They had made it to the top. Unseen, unnoticed.
The air thinned the moment they reached the door.
A thick slab of aged wood stood between them and his darkest secrets, its surface worn smooth by time and violence alike.
Just imagining what might stir beyond it made Ellaryn’s stomach twist. Beside her, Xander squeezed her hand a little tighter—silent reassurance in the face of what waited on the other side.
Xander hummed an incantation and, just like all the walls before, it bled like mist as he pulled her through.
As Ellaryn’s eyes adjusted, a faint blue glow emerged in the darkness, like a thousand sapphire fireflies; the souls fluttered above them, overcrowding the spire.
She watched them suspended in floating cages. They hovered just beneath the ceiling, stretching wall to wall, forming it entirely—a restless canopy of imprisoned light.
She lingered for a moment, almost spellbound by the drifting embers of light above them, before turning to Xander.
“Do you really think mine is up there?” she asked, a fragile thread of hope flickering in her eyes.
“Gods, I hope so,” he replied, his words heavy with longing.
He reached forward as if grasping an invisible tether and gave it a firm pull. At once, the cages shifted, gliding toward him in slow, deliberate motion.
They were soon surrounded—hemmed in by suspended prisons of indigo light. The glow bathed their faces in an otherworldly hue, shadows carving sharp lines along their features.
“How will I know if one of them is mine?” she asked, studying each suspended soul as she moved past, her brows drawn tight.
“I think you’d feel it,” Xander said quietly, his fingers hovering near a cage of iridescent light. “A pull. Like it’s trying to find its way back to you.”
The cages clinked softly as they waded through them, metal brushing metal in hollow protest. The sound echoed too loudly in the vast room.
The cages suspending the souls were forged from thick steel, each small door sealed with a heavy padlock. When Ellaryn reached out and brushed her fingers against one, she recoiled instantly.
It was searing—hot enough to blister skin.
“They’re enchanted,” Xander murmured, stepping closer. “A caging spell.” His gaze traced the metal framework, calculating. “I should be able to reverse it.”
Hope flickered in his eyes—bright and insistent. Ellaryn felt it like a fragile flame between them, one she was almost afraid to breathe on in case it went out.
“If your soul is here,” he continued, softer now, “we can return it to you. Break the binding. Unravel the King’s hold.”
Ellaryn held his gaze, steadying herself against the swell rising in her chest.
“You think that will work?” she asked carefully, as if keeping her voice level might keep her heart from betraying her.
“We have to try,” Xander said.
He walked toward the large window that wrapped around the spherical room with purpose, as though the space belonged to him. With a flick of his wrist, a book materialised from thin air—summoned from his office. He flipped through its pages quickly, muttering under his breath.
“Cages… containment… binding…”
When it failed to offer what he needed, the book vanished, and another appeared in its place. The discarded volumes thudded against the marble floor, scattering at his feet. His movements grew sharper, more urgent.
“Come on, Xander, we don’t have much time,” Ellaryn said, pacing uncomfortably in the tower.
“Just one more minute.”
“We don’t have another minute; you’ve already had two.”
But before her words could register, he stilled.
“Found it.” He breathed.