Epilogue 2 Kael
The council chamber hums with tension.
Alaric paces, wings rustling restlessly, while Dagan leans forward, broad hands pressed into the stone table as if he could shape the earth itself by force of will.
Thorne sits slouched but restless, sparks dancing across his knuckles with every sharp word.
The crown first.
Then Idris. Always Idris.
“He grows bolder,” Alaric says, his voice like a blade drawn across stone. “First the SoulTakers at the eastern tide, now whispers of enthralled villagers deeper inland.”
“The Prime crown cannot be empty forever,” Thorne mutters. “If it has not chosen one of us yet, perhaps it never will.”
Dagan shakes his head. “It will. The Fates are slow, not blind.”
I sit silent, listening, weighing, my trident resting against the table’s edge.
Every word is true, yet none of it feels like an answer.
“Idris twists everything he touches, and if we cannot stop him soon, there may not be a Nightfall left to rule,” Thorne mutters.
He’s not wrong. But he’s also not helpful.
Typical fucking Thorne.
“The crown cannot stay here. The SoulTakers know,” I say what we’re all thinking.
“Yes, but where to next?” Alaric intones.
“Ashfell can hold the crown for a turn,” Thorne offers, and we all nod in agreement.
And then—a crash.
The sound shatters through stone and sea, sharp enough to split my skull. The bond burns like fire across my chest, searing from heart to bone.
Phoebe.
I am on my feet before the others even look up.
“Stay here!” I bark, already pulling power into my veins.
The tide answers with a roar.
I tear through the halls, each stride a vow.
Nothing will take her from me.
I reach the front hall, and the world narrows to nightmare.
Phoebe is on the floor, her hair fanned out like golden seaweed, eyes wide with fear but blazing defiance.
Above her looms a ragged woman, more wraith than flesh—skin like old kelp, hair dripping brine, eyes black with rot.
One hand grips a jagged fisherman’s knife, the other a wand carved of driftwood and bone.
“I have your mate now, Kael,” she croaks, her voice like the scrape of shells on stone. “And she will meet Maureen’s end.”
Rage explodes in me, tidal and absolute.
“Never!” I howl, and the sea rises with me.
The tide crashes through the keep, answering my fury. My skin shimmers, scales breaking free. Limbs lengthen. Power surges.
I shift in an instant, my Titan form bursting forth—tentacles lashing, trident sparking like lightning drawn from the abyss.
I throw myself between Phoebe and the Sea Witch, my body a shield, my magic a wall of water and storm.
The knife slams against a barrier of salt-crusted current, sparks flying.
She shrieks, flinging curses from her wand, but every spell is drowned beneath the weight of the ocean I command.
Tentacles whip forward, coiling around her limbs, wrenching the wand free.
My trident glows with storm light as I slam its prongs into the stones at her feet, calling the sea to bind her.
Ropes of kelp and chains of brine rise, snapping shut around her thrashing form.
The Witch screeches, curses spilling, but it is too late. She is caught.
I turn, scooping Phoebe into my arms, pressing her tight to my chest.
She is trembling but alive, the bond singing with her heartbeat.
Relief nearly drops me to my knees.
And yet—this woman, this Sea Witch wretch—she is the first living thread that might lead us straight to Idris.
I bare my teeth, fury boiling over.
“You thought to take my mate,” I snarl at her struggling form, “but instead you’ve delivered yourself into my hands. And through you, I will drag Idris into the light and make him answer for every soul he’s stolen.”
The sea surges agreement, the hall dripping with brine and thunder.
“We’ve got her, Kael. She will be imprisoned, and we will make her talk,” Alaric’s voice booms.
Thorne and Dagan enter the hall and add their elemental powers to the binds tightening around my enemy.
Phoebe’s arms tighten around my neck, her voice a whisper in the storm.
“Kael. I thought that was it,” she whimpers.
“No, my love. You’re not getting rid of me so easily.”
I press my brow to hers, and she chuckles and then sobs.
“What about them?” she asks, turning and moving out of my embrace to the injured sea tiger pups.
“Here now, I got this,” I say and place my hand over their injured forms.
Magic wells, bursting forth from me, and a moment later, the creatures are whole and crying for their mother who calls to them from the docks.
“Go on, you’re okay now.” Phoebe whispers, petting them lightly as they scamper away to the open dock to find their kin.
“Sweet, softhearted mate,” I whisper, kissing her brow, and I close my eyes as I come back to myself, the Titan’s roar quieting in my chest.
“Thank you for coming for me,” she says.
“You never have to thank me for that, my viyella. I swear by the crown—this all ends when we have Idris, and we will defeat him. Until then, it is my honor to keep you safe.”
Hours later.
The battle is over.
The Witch is bound in chains of tide-forged iron, screaming curses that dissolve into foam when they leave her lips.
She will live long enough to lead us to Idris. That much I have sworn.
But it is not victory that fills my chest—it is Phoebe.
She sits on the top stair of a large round pool that opens up into the sea beyond Castletide.
Magic keeps the entryway safe from anything that might harm her, as well as a handful of mer-wardens to guard her.
A sea tiger pup is sprawled across her lap, the other nosing at her hand for comfort or, likely, more treats.
They found their way back to her after nursing from their mother.
So, I now find myself in the position of Demon Lord and proud owner of a personal aquarium and rehabilitation center for sea creatures.
She soothes them both with quiet whispers. Her hair is mussed, her cheeks flushed, and her body is still trembling from what she endured.
Yet she meets my gaze when I enter, and the bond between us thrums so bright I feel it in my bones.
My viyella. My heart. My future.
For too long, I believed my greatest duty was to Nightfall. To the Tidal Lands, to the laws my father carved into stone, to make up for my past sins, to the weight of a crown I never asked for but could not refuse.
I thought love was something I would never find.
And women? Just a distraction.
I thought mates were luxuries or fiction.
But when I saw her on that floor, wand-light flashing off a knife aimed at her throat, something inside me broke—and something greater rose to take its place.
Phoebe is not my distraction.
She is not my weakness.
She is the axis my world spins upon.
I cross the chamber to her, dropping to one knee at her side.
The pups blink at me warily, then huff and settle back into her lap as if they too know she is safest with me.
I take her hands in mine, kiss her knuckles one by one.
She smells of citrus and sea-salt and stubborn courage.
“I will not fail you again,” I whisper, too low for any but her to hear. “Not by silence. Not by pride. Not by duty twisted into chains. From this day, Phoebe, my duty is you. First and always. Even before Nightfall. Even before crown and throne.”
“Fail me? What are you talking about? The day you took me, you saved me. And you’ve been saving me ever since.”
Her eyes soften, luminous as the tide at dawn.
She leans forward, presses her forehead to mine, and through the bond her love floods me like the sea.
“Agree to disagree then, my viyella. You’re the one who keeps saving me with your love, your bravery, your sweet, unstoppable light. I love you.”
“Kael,” she whimpers, and the pups slide into the water as she spins and wraps her arms around me.
I lift her in my arms, using magic to whisk us to our chambers, where I shed our clothes and clean our skin, knowing full well I am one lucky Demon Lord as I lower my viyella to our bed.
The weight I have carried for centuries—of guilt, of grief, of failure—finally sinks away.
Not because I cast it off, but because she shares it now.
Because she is mine, and I am hers, and that is the only truth that matters.
Let Idris plot. Let the Fates delay. Let the world drown if it must.
So long as I have Phoebe safe in my arms, I will weather it all.
And not even the gods can help the one who dares try to take her from me again.
“Stay here with me,” she says, cupping my cheeks, and I nod as I bend my head to hers.
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”