51. Chapter 51
Owain
At first, I thought Berian was alive. He sat upright in the chair before the hearth, the last embers painting his face in unsteady gold.
Then I stepped closer.
The grayish tint of my brother’s skin wasn’t the pallor of death. I was familiar with that shade. This was the emptiness of a body that had been scraped clean of every thread of magic until there was nothing left but a husk.
Whatever they’d promised him, whatever bargain had brought him into this room…it had cost him everything.
I rested one hand against the chair and sank to one knee before him. My armor dragged at my shoulders. A broken rib protested each breath. Yet none of it mattered.
I'd spent years preparing myself for Berian’s death. I'd imagined grief. Rage. But back then I hadn’t accounted for the possibility that the small voice in the back of my head had been right about him all along.
I hadn’t prepared for this. I hadn’t had time to decide what separating from him meant for us. But he’d taken that from me too. Anger rose in me, but it had nowhere to go.
Berian had been mine to fight, to fail, to reach for on the rare days when I still believed it might matter. He’d been mine to hate.
I reached instinctively for the old ache of wanting his approval—for the childish hope that he might someday see me as more than a burden he’d inherited. But there was no one left to give it.
All my life, I’d built discipline and restraint to keep me upright against the pressure of his judgment. With him gone, I could no longer tell where the bracing ended and I began. The sudden, naked exposure of not knowing who I was without the weight that had always defined me was terrifying.
Berian had spent a lifetime making me smaller. In the end, he had chosen men who tried to do the same to Lunette.
Yet when I searched inside for grief, I found that it had made itself small.
It could stay that way.
I reached up and closed my brother’s eyes. The device on the mantel caught my eye as I straightened. I took it before anyone else could. Whatever it was capable of, it would not remain within reach of another enemy.
It was such a small thing to have caused so much pain and suffering. Vaustin had tried to grab it during the fight. Surely that meant it could be used to siphon again. I certainly didn’t want it getting into the wrong hands. Yet there was a potential use for it that might heal instead of harm.
Perhaps someone like Mirelle could figure out how it worked and engineer something that might help Emrys. His curse had resisted every attempt to remove it. This might be the one thing that could give him back a normal life.
At some point, Lunette came over to stand beside me and take my hand.
Faint waves of her healing magic poured into me, healing my head and ribs.
I closed my eyes for a single moment and allowed myself to feel the overwhelming gratitude that she was still alive, still here, and still holding my hand.
Then the weight of change settled over me, and for once, it didn’t feel like duty was weighing me down. Living as a fraction of who I was supposed to be that had done that.
I’d spent years serving Larethia without the title, the authority, or the right to call it mine. Without gratitude, without hesitation, I’d surrendered my sleep, my peace, and my pride for it. Sacrifice was simply a part of who and what I was: Nocthel.
I was done pretending that didn’t mean something.
I was going to take the throne.
Not because I’d always wanted it. Because Larethia deserved someone who would lay himself down for her, and I’d been doing exactly that my entire life.
And I wasn’t standing alone. Behind me stood Camrick.
He’d believed in my strength. Had always had my back, no matter how foolhardy I seemed, no matter his own suffering.
Beside him was the woman who’d stepped up to run a kingdom in the shadows, who’d been a mother to me, who’d taught me that duty could be quiet, tender, and unbreakable.
And around me, soldiers who’d watched me hold this kingdom together with my blood and sweat—men who’d long since chosen where their loyalty lay.
And next to me, her hand still in mine, was my person. Fate had brought us together. Magic and biology tied us to one another. Yet she was still choosing to want me back.
She was the other half of my heart and soul. The guiding moonlight to my darkness. She’d anticipated none of what was landing squarely on her shoulders: A complicated man, a heavy crown, and the threat of war on the horizon.
Lunette had seen all of it—the darkness and the powerlessness and the borrowed sword—and she was still standing steady in the wreckage after killing a man to save me. I didn’t know how to deserve that. But I would spend the rest of my life trying.
Camrick was the first to move. He crossed the room in three strides and bent down on one knee, sword still in his hand. He laid it flat across his palms and held it out in presentation. His face was perfectly still, but his eyes gave him away.
His faith in me felt settled across my shoulders like armor being buckled on—necessary, heavy, and only coming off when I was dead or done with the fight. I would not disappoint him.
Reina’s heels clacked on the flagstone, filling the following silence as she came to stand beside him, still disheveled and tear-streaked from her own fight. She dropped into a low curtsy.
One by one, the soldiers sank to their knees in a slow tide.
The room felt like it was holding its breath.
Under normal circumstances, this would’ve meant a somber celebration.
But not here, not now. These men understood exactly what this moment would cost our kingdom, but they’d chosen to kneel anyway.
Lunette stiffened, caught in the agonizing uncertainty of the moment. Neither of us was ready for this, but I’d be damned if I ever expected moonlight to bow to shadow.
Before she could follow the soldiers down, I reached out and seized her hand, locking my arm to keep her standing. I didn’t move or say a word; I simply held her there, refusing to let the gap between us widen by even a fraction of a gesture.
For one beat, she looked at me. Then she straightened fully on her own, her fingers tightening around mine.
Still kneeling, Camrick looked at me with an expression that was deadly serious.
Reina’s look said the same. It told me she was already working through scenarios and calculating for everything we might need next.
She’d always known how to survive. I was grateful for it even as I grieved that she’d learned it the hard way.
I’d make certain she got the rest she deserved after all of this was over.
If we survived.
The Assembly had been caught red-handed in a coup and slain the king of a sovereign nation. I’d just done the same to the Mage Chancellor’s son—the man on whom they’d pinned every ambition they’d spent an entire generation building.
Only Maeron would grieve him. The rest would be coldly furious that their plans had been disrupted. That the magic they’d been stealing was now wasted. One thing was certain: They would reorganize.
Declarations hadn’t been made yet. But we would be at war—silent or overt—before nightfall. The crown I’d just informally accepted was already a weapon pointed back at me.
Good thing I had practice at being a target.
***
The solemnity of the moment was shattered by the sound of boots thundering toward the chamber. My heart rate spiked, and my hand tightened on Lunette’s.
What now?
Camrick rose at once, sword back in his grip. Every soldier turned toward the doorway as a young man stumbled inside, mud-spattered to his knees and breathing hard from the race to get here.
His eyes darted over the scene—the bodies, the kneeling soldiers, the smoldering ruin of the ward on the wall—and landed on me.
“My Prin—” He stopped. He seemed to come to an understanding that change had arrived before him. “Your Majesty.”
The title hung in the air as the room quietly ratified what had not yet been spoken aloud.
He paused for a breath, and his gaze darted to Lunette—who still stood beside me, chin held high—to her unique ears, and finally to her fingers intertwined with mine. The news of our relationship, and just how special she was, would travel faster than the official announcement of Berian’s passing.
“King Jonik of Gelida is dead.” His voice carried the rehearsed cadence of a man who’d repeated his message for miles yet still wrestled with its implications.
The sound of steel on leather coming from behind me marked more than one hand reflexively grasping a sword hilt. The near-simultaneous deaths of two kings would usher in an era of unrest, regardless of the Assembly’s interference.
The news settled in my mind as a cold adjustment rather than shock. Jonik’s death had been expected. But its timing was a disaster.
Nisien and Anwen weren’t yet wed. Gelida’s war of succession had probably already begun. And Maeron wouldn’t waste the opening to cause further chaos.
Vaustin’s death had already brought us to the edge of war, this almost certainly guaranteed it.
The pressure in my chest tightened. Lunette’s hand squeezed mine.
Breathe, Owain, it said. Keep standing with me.
That was all I needed. Everything would be okay with her by my side.
There would be time for grief and ceremony. The news would change everything, but we had more immediate problems. Two mages were still in custody. The rest, including Thibault, were dead.
I found the nearest officer. “Put the mages in separate cells. Bound. No contact between them. Only guards with family-wing clearance enter the dungeon.” I held the man’s gaze for a moment longer, a silent meaning passing beneath my words.
“And find out which one is the most afraid. I want to have that conversation first.”
He saluted and set to work immediately, smiling in a way that told me he was enthusiastic about paying them back for every broken stone in this castle. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
I turned to Camrick. “Senior officers in General Allard’s office within the hour.”
My eyes moved to the messenger. “You’ll be fed, watered, and debriefed before you sleep. Not after.”
He straightened. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Now move!”
The room began to empty. Everyone had somewhere to be and now, something to fight for.
Outside these walls, Gelida was on the verge of breaking. The Assembly would demand answers for what had happened here. Maeron would come. And before anyone had placed a crown on my head, my reign had already started with war.