15. Captured in Shadow
Chapter fifteen
Captured in Shadow
Scarlett
The corridors of the Spade fortress were colder than any winter night, the stone slick beneath Scarlett’s hands, as soldiers dragged her forward.
Dark iron chains carved into her wrists, each step sending pain lancing through her body, she forced herself upright every time she stumbled; she would not crawl for them.
Ace staggered beside her, bruised and bound, shadowsteel dimmed from exhaustion. His shoulders brushed hers once, deliberate despite the guards between them. His face gave nothing away, but tension radiated from him.
“We can't fight like this.” He rasped under the scrape of boots and rattle of chains. “Not yet.”
Scarlett kept her gaze ahead, toward the endless torchlit corridors. Her chest ached worse than the binding ever could. Maddox and Arley haunted her every thought. The memory of them, broken and unmoving, hollowed her out from the inside.
“I know,” she whispered. A weak crimson flicker crawled over her fingertips before fading again. “But I'm not dying here.” A guard laughed at that, startling her out of her focus.
They hauled them past rows of barred cells, where pale faces watched through the dark, hollow-eyed and silent. Fear clung to the fortress walls like frost.
“You're burning yourself out,” Ace muttered, glancing at the faint glow around her hands. “Stop, before it kills you.”
“Rest is for people who still have choices.”
The deep stirred anyway, sluggish but alive, beneath her skin. It pulsed with her rage, her grief, and terror. Somewhere in the fortress, Cyrus would feel it waking.
At last, the soldiers dragged them into a massive chamber carved from black stone.
Shadowflame writhed across the walls, breathing like something ready to strike.
The air itself felt heavy, and thick enough to choke on.
Ace was forced to his knees beside her. “Scarlett,” he said tightly, “if you lose control—even if you could summon up enough power to fight.” Fear laced his tone.
“I won’t,” she hissed, cutting him off. The answer came too fast; she wasn't sure if she even believed it.
The chamber doors groaned open. Shadows bent toward the figure entering as if they answered to him alone.
Cyrus Spade stepped through them like a king returning to his throne.
His crown of blackened shards and sapphires gleamed beneath the torchlight, while darkness curled from his boots in a low, living stream.
Scarlett’s pulse kicked hard against her ribs.
Ace was rigid beside her; he knew exactly how cruel his father could be.
Cyrus studied them for a long moment, before smiling. “Tisk, Tisk,” he murmured. “Look what desperation has made of you,” he stopped in front of Scarlett, eyes dragging slowly over the chains biting into her skin. “You feel it, don't you?” He asked softly.
Scarlett’s wrist burned. Every pulse of fire she summoned died almost instantly beneath the iron wrapped around her arms. Cyrus' smile widened at her realization.
“Null Veil ash,” he said smoothly. “Forged directly into the chains,” he lifted one of the restraints with mock curiosity.
“Ancient metalwork, rare but brutal.” His eyes flicked to the weak crimson glow struggling beneath her skin.
“Your little fire cannot survive against something designed to devour magic itself.”
Scarlett’s stomach twisted. Beside her, Ace went perfectly still. Cyrus noticed immediately. “Oh,” he purred, turning toward him, “you recognize it.” Ace strained violently against the restraints, fury flashing across his bruised face. Cyrus laughed; it echoed through the chamber.
“You truly believed you were the only one who knew the Null Veil still existed?” His voice dripped with amusement.
“How painfully arrogant, you stupid boy.
You should never have played with old magics you knew nothing about.
And you were stupid enough to think we didn't still hold weapons, just in case the crimson bloodline ever reared its head back in Underland.”
“You may have thought you knew what to do with the Null Veil and that you could hide it,” Cyrus said with a huff. “But Null Veil can also be tailored and targeted to Spade magic and directed to an individual.” Ace's shadowsteel flickered weakly around his hands, before fading out again.
“You hid pieces of it away in the mountains, as a frightened child protecting treasure no one else could touch.” Cyrus tilted his head. “Did you really think I wouldn't search for them after you vanished?” He extended a hand lazily toward the guards. “Bring it forward.”
Heavy footsteps echoed through the chamber.
A guard emerged carrying a black iron chest wrapped tightly in chains.
Even from across the room, Scarlett felt the wrongness inside it—cold, empty.
The guard dropped to one knee before Cyrus opened the case.
Scarlett's breath caught. The crystal prism rested inside it like a fractured heart, dark shadowflame flicking at the edges.
Ace went pale. Cyrus lifted the prism carefully, almost reverently. “We recovered it from the mountainside where you hid it,” he said, eyes fixed on Ace. “Buried beneath stone and ice as though secrecy alone could keep it from me.”
The shadows around the chamber deepened instantly.
Scarlett felt the Deep recoil inside her.
Cyrus noticed the reaction and smiled. “Beautiful, isn’t it?
” He murmured. “A relic capable of silencing even ancient magic.” He turned the prism with the suspended crown of thorns slowly in his hand, before glancing back toward Ace.
“You spent so long trying to protect her from monsters.” His grin sharpened. “And all you truly did was hand me the perfect weapon.”
Ace lunged forward with a muffled snarl, chains rattling violently. The guards slammed him back to his knees. Cyrus barely reacted. “That look,” he said softly. “That is the face of a man realizing he was never in control of this game.”
Then his attention shifted back to Scarlett. “There it is,” he said quietly, studying the flicker of fury behind her fear. “The Crimson Deep.” His smile sharpened. “I wondered when it would finally awaken.”
Scarlett lifted her chin despite the terror clawing at her throat. Cyrus circled her slowly, predator and prey. “Do you know why you’re here?” Her silence only amused him.
“You mistake this for punishment,” he laughed quietly. “No, little Queen to be. This is conquest.” Cyrus smiled, sharp and cruel. “You’ll burn for defiance, Scarlett. You’ll see what it costs to oppose me. And I will enjoy every moment of it.”
“To put it simply,” Cyrus said, circling again, his shadow pooling like ink, “I will have you as my bride. And you will bear my heir.” He let the words hang in the air, each syllable cruel and deliberate.
“A child that will give me control over the Crimson Deep—and, by extension, two entire quadrants of Underland. And once I have that power, the rest will fall in line. Every throne, every court, every wretched city from the Verdant Wilds to the Guilded Spires will kneel—or burn. And that little hidden crimson castle of yours will crumble to ash.”
Ace stood straining violently against his chains again, fury blazing in his eyes. A guard slammed his fist into Ace's jaw, forcing him to the ground again. Cyrus barely glanced at him.
“You,” he said coldly, pointing toward Ace, “will stay alive long enough to understand exactly how badly you failed her.” Ace’s breathing turned ragged behind the gag. Cyrus stepped closer to Scarlett, until she could feel the chill radiating from him.
His gaze dragged over her possessively, cruel satisfaction twisting his mouth. “You’ll serve your purpose in every way I require, before I dispose of you.” Scarlett’s stomach turned violently.
“You should’ve accepted the leash when your mother still had the chance to offer it.” His fingers brushed beneath her chin, forcing her to look at him. “Instead, you inherited her defiance.”
Fire crackled weakly beneath Scarlett’s skin in response.
Cyrus smiled wider. “There it is.” The shadows around the chamber writhed faster now, reacting to the Deep’s pulse.
“You hate me,” he said almost fondly. “Good. Rage burns hotter than obedience ever could.” Scarlett jerked against the chains, but the guards tightened their grip hard enough to bruise.
Cyrus leaned close enough for her to feel his breath against her ear.
“I will strip everything from you, piece by piece,” he whispered.
Scarlett recoiled at the harshness of his words.
“Your pride. Your body. Your power. And when there is nothing left but ashes, I’ll toss what remains aside like waste.
” Ace made a muffled sound of fury beside her.
Cyrus straightened, utterly unmoved. Scarlett’s hands clenched, her nails digging crescent moons in her palms.
“No allies are coming,” he said. “No miracle. No last surge of fire.” His dark eyes locked onto Scarlett’s. “Only me.” The chamber seemed to close around her. Fear threatened to consume her whole, cold and suffocating, but beneath it, something else survived.
“You will be mine,” he whispered, voice silk over steel, leaning closer to her.
“And I will not be denied. Every heartbeat, every breath, every ember of power you carry… belongs to me now. And when I am done… You will wish you had never defied me. I am not weak like your mother was. My time spent waiting is over.” Cyrus' shadowed grin widened, savoring her helplessness, and the certainty of his absolute control.
Scarlett realized the most dangerous thing in the room was not the king standing before her. It was the fire of certainty in his eyes. The absolute monstrous belief that he had already won.
Her pulse thundered so violently she thought it might split her ribs apart.
Her mind keeps replaying the nightmare of Maddox on his knees, blood staining the stone beneath him, still trying to rise even as his body failed him.
Arley’s breathing had turned shallow and uneven, silver magic flickering weakly around his trembling fingers that could barely hold onto reality anymore.
Every sound they made carved into her like a blade as she was dragged away from them.
And she could do nothing, nothing but watch.
This is exactly what Cyrus wanted; he wanted her broken enough to surrender. Across the room, Ace was frozen in the wreckage of their reality, fury and horror trapped behind his eyes. This was no longer just strategy and politics, but pure controlled cruelty.
Scarlett looked between father and son, and her stomach twisted violently.
The resemblance between them was undeniable, with the same sharp features and commanding presence—but where Cyrus wore power like a blade, Ace looked sickened by it.
He was no longer the man she feared from across the ballroom—a stoic, commanding Prince of Spades.
He now stood helpless, as the monster that shaped him, would tear everything apart, piece by piece.
And somehow, she realized that it hurt just as much to watch.