22. Flames #2
Cyrus turned, caught the attack, and flung him aside with a blast of dark energy that shook the stone. The glamor flickered over Arley’s skin, and he slammed into the wall, coughing blood.
Scarlett screamed his name, but Maddox pulled her back just as Cyrus came at them again. Their blades met with a crack that rattled the chains hanging from the ceiling.
Scarlett’s temper flared, but before she could speak, Cyrus turned his blade toward Ace. “And you, my son—always chasing the one thing you’ll never have. Power that isn’t borrowed. Love that isn’t broken.”
Ace’s snarl was pure venom. “You don’t get to speak of love.”
“Oh, but I made you from it,” Cyrus hissed, lunging. The two collided with a crash that shook the dungeon’s walls, sparks raining down like fireflies. “I made you both.”
“Tell me,” Cyrus growled, eyes locked with Maddox’s. “Do you even know who you are?”
Maddox spat blood. “I’m the man who’s going to kill you.”
Cyrus smiled—cold, knowing. “My bastard son.”
Everything stopped.
The torches hissed. The air itself seemed to hold its breath. Ace froze mid-strike, his sword hovering inches from Cyrus’ throat.
“What?” Ace breathed.
Then Cyrus spoke a spell older than the Courts themselves. The dungeon trembled. The air fractured—time-bending, screaming—and all four of them were thrown back in a burst of Null light.
Scarlett hit the wall hard, her breath torn from her chest. She looked up through the haze—and saw Maddox fall to one knee, clutching his side, blood pooling in his hand.
Cyrus stalked toward him, sword raised. “Pathetic. I should have killed you in the womb.”
Maddox blinked, dazed. “What—”
Cyrus smiled, dark delight curdling in his eyes. “Did your precious queen never tell you? You’re mine, bastard—my blood. Your mother was a servant in my court—useful until she wasn’t. I slit her throat myself after she begged me to spare you.”
Maddox’s grip faltered. “You're full of shit.”
Scarlett’s breath caught, horror painting her features. “No…”
Then something inside Maddox snapped.
His magic flared—red lightning with black smoke crawling up his blade, his eyes gone feral. He charged, roaring, the ground cracking beneath his boots.
Their swords met, and the impact shattered the sigils carved into the floor. Energy screamed outward in a ring, blowing the torches from the walls. Cyrus stumbled, but his grin only widened.
“Good,” he coughed, blood spilling from his mouth. “Now, I see myself in you.”
Ace lunged from the side, slicing deep across his father’s back. “Then die seeing it.”
Cyrus turned, wild, impaling Ace through the shoulder. Scarlett screamed his name and threw her magic like a spear. A jagged bolt of rosefire slammed into Cyrus’ chest, sending him backward.
Maddox didn’t hesitate. He caught Cyrus by the throat and lifted him from the ground, muscles trembling, face carved in pure wrath.
Cyrus looked at Scarlett and laughed—blood, madness, cruelty all twisting together. “Your noble hound, the boy your mother called savior—he’s my mistake. My bastard. Born with Spades rage running through his veins.”
Maddox roared and drove his sword forward, the impact splitting the sound like thunder. Cyrus staggered, steel buried deep in his chest.
Ace’s sword joined Maddox’s—driving it deeper, together, as one final strike. Cyrus gasped, blood spilling between his teeth. Two blades, one heartbeat—blood and power colliding.
“Guess that’s the one lesson you finally learned from me,” he rasped. “Use what you have… and kill what you can’t.”
Ace twisted the blade. “I learned mercy, too. You won’t get any.”
Scarlett raised her hand, eyes blazing. Her magic wrapped around them both—around all three—and with a whisper, she turned Cyrus’ Dark energy inward.
The magic imploded, the blast ripped through the dungeon, blowing open the iron doors and splitting the stone. Cyrus screamed, his voice torn apart by his own power as it devoured him from the inside out—black veins spreading across his skin, his flesh turning to ash.
When the light finally died, he was gone. Nothing left but dust, and the faint echo of his laughter, fading into silence.
The four of them stood amidst ruin—breathing hard, bleeding, but alive—together.
Maddox’s sword clattered to the floor. Ace staggered beside him, clutching his shoulder. Scarlett stepped forward, trembling, her magic flickering around her like dying embers.
“It’s over,” she whispered.
Arley limped closer, smirking through the exhaustion. “Tell that to the castle. I think it’s about to fall.”
A distant rumble echoed through the tunnels. The Spade stronghold was breaking apart—cracks crawling through its foundation, centuries of cruelty crumbling at last.
Scarlett looked between Ace and Maddox, eyes fierce despite the tears streaking her bloodied face. “Then we leave it in ruins.”
Maddox’s voice was low, raw. “And what about what he said? About me—”
Scarlett’s hand found his. “He’s dead. You’re not him. None of it matters.”
Ace met Maddox’s gaze, pain and fury still burning there. But for once, he nodded. “No,” he said hoarsely. “You’re better than he ever was.”
The dungeon ceiling groaned, dust raining down. Arley tilted his head toward the tunnels. “Less talk, more running.”
Scarlett smirked faintly. “For once, we can all agree.”
They stepped away from the ash that had been Cyrus, away from the fallen guards around him, and moved into the fragile light of the breaking castle—together.
They didn’t stop until they reached the treeline. From there, they watched the fortress crumble, flames swallowing stone as if hungry for the last remnants of Cyrus’s reign. Smoke curled into the dawn like a dying curse.
Maddox lifted his head at last, meeting Scarlett’s gaze. For a single heartbeat, everything else—blood, ruin, fury—fell away. Only her voice, her presence, tethered him to the realm.
Ace stared back at the burning wreckage, expression unreadable. “He’s gone,” he said quietly. “But what he left behind…” His voice wavered, a thread of grief tightening around it. “He’s still poisoned everything here.”
Scarlett stepped closer, laying her hand on Ace’s shoulder, grounding all of them at once. “Then we cleanse it,” she murmured. “We start again.”
Arley wiped his blade on his torn sleeve, blood smudged across his cheek. Despite it all—despite the trembling in his hands—he managed a crooked smirk. “About damn time. If I had to crawl through one more hole in a wall this week, I’d start charging for the entertainment.”
A breath of laughter slipped through the tension—small, but honest. And there, beneath the ruin of the Spade throne, with no king left to chain them, the four of them stood in the smoking dawn. Bruised. Bloodied. Unbowed.
Just four souls breathing the same wild, dangerous freedom for the first time.