Chapter 39 #3
“Korithax, wait,” she pleads, scrambling to the edge of the bed to reach me.
I jerk back before her fingers can touch me, recoiling like I’m poison.
“I should’ve never have stayed,” I choke out, shaking my head. “I’m sorry.”
Sorry for touching you. Sorry for wanting you. Sorry for every part of me that still reaches for you while something so monstrous lives inside my bones.
She says my name again, softer this time, and it nearly breaks me where I stand. I don’t let her say another word. I tear the door open and flee, slamming it shut behind me hard enough the walls tremble. Still, even halfway down the corridor, I can hear the silence and pain I left her in.
The corridors of the castle are nearly empty at this hour.
Torches burn low, casting long shadows that stretch and warp as I pass, the stone beneath my boots echoing too loudly in the quiet. Every step away from Daisy feels wrong. But every step away also feels like survival.
The Void simmers beneath my skin, restless and irritated because it didn’t get what it wanted.
But it’s no longer screaming now: it’s just sitting, waiting for its next opportunity to strike.
Why then? Why did it wait until after she trusted me enough to climb into my lap and place herself in my hands?
Why let me push it back long enough to give comfort to both her and I, only to poison it at the very last second?
The answer slithers through my brain. It wanted me to enjoy it first. It wanted me soft, vulnerable, wanting her so desperately I forgot all reason.
It wanted me to remember exactly what I stood to lose before it showed me how easily it could be taken.
My stomach turns violently. Because it is learning me.
Studying where to cut deepest. Not with claws or fire, but with timing and patience.
I don’t know where I’m going. I just know I cannot be anywhere near her.
So I carry on walking when I see a thin line of light spilling out beneath the war room door.
One torch still burning inside when it should have been extinguished hours ago.
The door itself sits slightly ajar, as if whoever is inside didn’t bother closing it properly. Or didn’t care enough to.
I slow without meaning to, curiosity getting the better of me. I shouldn’t go in there. I know that instinctively. It’s not my kingdom anymore, which means it’s not my war room. But something in my chest twists, familiar and heavy, and before I can talk myself out of it, I push the door open.
Aran is seated at the table, hunched over what I assume is the grimoire everyone keeps muttering about, shoulders rounded, forearms braced against ancient pages as if he’s holding himself upright by sheer force alone.
His black hair hangs loose around his forehead, uncombed, with dark circles bruising the skin beneath his eyes.
He looks… ruined. Like a man who hasn’t slept since the world practically ended, and doesn’t plan to start now.
He doesn’t look up at first, just continuing to stare at the pages like they might finally give him the answers he’s been seeking if he glares hard enough.
I clear my throat, the sound echoing softly through the room. Aran stiffens, fingers curling into the parchment. A little too slowly, he lifts his head and our eyes meet.
For a moment, neither of us speaks. The air between us is dense with everything unsaid. With Velentha. With Daisy. With months we spent helpless—him trapped in grief and helping a queen rise to power, and me trapped in death.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Aran says finally. His voice is rough, stripped bare in a way I’ve never heard from him before.
“Neither should you,” I reply quietly.
He scoffs and drags a hand down his face, fingers pressing hard over tired eyes. “Someone has to figure this out.”
I glance at the grimoire spread open in front of him. The runes inked across the yellowed pages shimmer faintly, shifting as though sentient. Old magic that’s hungry, and the kind that always demands more than it gives.
“She would’ve told you to stop,” I say.
His jaw locks instantly, a pulse of resentment rolling from him sharp enough to taste. “She’s not here to tell me anything.”
The words hit just as he had intended. Though I can’t tell whether the bitterness is aimed at me, or her, or at the cruel fact of her absence. Maybe all three. It hurts, regardless.
I step further into the room, the door closing softly behind me. “She wouldn’t want you destroying yourself.”
He lets out a hollow laugh. “Funny. Because that’s exactly what she did to me.” His eyes lift, glass bright and furious. “She fucking destroyed me.”
I flinch at his tone. This is a side to Aran I have never known. He’s always been measured, calm, the steady hand in the chaos. The reasonable brother with the kind heart. This Aran is grief in human form. Jagged, bleeding, and dangerous in ways swords never are.
Aran pushes back from the table abruptly, the chair scraping against the stone. “She believed in you,” he snaps. “She believed in us. And now you won’t even—”
“I know,” I cut in, my voice low but steady. “I know.”
“Daisy already told me what happened to you,” Aran says suddenly.
“She told me what you saw. What you endured. And I know I should have more compassion for that.” His face twists with self-disgust. “I know I should.” His hands curl into fists at his side.
“But every time I think of her dying alone so you could come back…” his voice splinters. “I can’t help being angry, anyway.”
The honesty of it knocks the breath from me. “You should be angry,” I murmur. “I am too.”
His expression falters for just a second, as though he hadn’t expected that answer. “I watched her die, Aran. I felt it too. I felt her soul burn itself apart to pull me back.”
My hands brace against the edge of the table because if I don’t anchor myself, I may splinter too. “And I have to live with that,” I continue, my voice barely audible as I try to hold on to the emotions warring within me. “With knowing I came back… wrong.”
Silence stretches between us. Aran’s anger doesn’t vanish, but something else creeps in beneath it. As though he’s understanding.
Hi shoulders sag, just a fraction. “I don’t know how to do this without her.”
The words are so small they nearly don’t sound like him. “I know. But you will.”
That breaks something in him. His breath shudders as he sinks back into the chair, rubbing at his eyes like he’s trying to keep himself together through sheer stubbornness.
“I’m angry,” he admits quietly. “At you. At her. At the gods. At myself.”
“I know,” I murmur. “You’re allowed to be.”
He looks up at me then, really looks at me. At the shadows coiled beneath my skin. At the fracture in my presence that wasn’t there before.
“And you?” he asks. “What are you allowed to be?”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “Terrified.”
The honesty hangs heavy in the air between us.
Aran exhales slowly, some of the fight leaving him with it. “She would’ve hated this.”
“Hated what?”
“Us being so distant. So broken,” he says quietly, gesturing between us. “When we’re all that’s left of her.”
I nod. “Then we stop.”
He looks at me reluctantly for a moment, almost as if he’s deciding his next move.
Resolve settles over his features before he stands and moves over to me.
The Void purrs at his closeness. Snap his neck, it whispers, almost seductively.
I push it away as much as I can, inhaling slowly through my nose to ground myself.
Aran reaches out and pulls me into a fierce embrace, his body softly shaking as he quietly sobs against my shoulder. “I missed you, you know? Watching you die was the hardest thing I had ever been through.”
I grip him back tightly, patting him on the back to try and offer him some comfort. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
He pulls back, shaking his head at me. “Just don’t fucking do it again. I had to be strong for Daisy, because she needed me. But I don’t think I could handle it if I lost Velentha and you.”
“Thank you,” I say seriously. “For being there for her despite your own hurt. For being there when I couldn’t. I don’t think she would have survived without you.”
And I do genuinely mean that more than I can put into words. I know first-hand how self-destructive Daisy can be when she is in pain. I had to pull her back from the edge of death with my own hands. I’m glad Aran didn’t have to do the same.
Tears shine in his emerald eyes as he offers me a tight-lipped smile. He quickly straightens himself, wiping at his eyes with his sleeve before acting like nothing happened. Typical. He sits back in the chair, then pushes the grimoire towards me.
“Sit,” he mutters. “If you’re going to be here, you might as well be useful and not just a brooding asshole.”
I raise a brow, a hint of a smirk tugging at my lips.
“What?” he says, sniffing. “You’re not my king anymore. I can call you an asshole if I want to.” He shrugs.
Laughter bubbles out of me, foreign and strange as I take a seat beside him. It’s not forgiveness from him, I know that. But it’s a start. And despite the war raging inside of me, for the first time since I returned from death, I don’t feel completely alone.