14. Chapter 14
AMARIA
The corridors were quieter now. Torchlight flickered off the stone walls, casting long shadows that danced as we passed.
Serenya's arm looped through mine, her weight warm against my side. She still had a smear of something on her cheek—I hadn't told her.
"I can't believe you demolished an entire feast," she said. "With your body. Like a fae catapult."
"It wasn't on purpose."
"The gravy in your hair suggests otherwise."
Maxx walked ahead of us, hands shoved in his pockets. Dreadscale moved beside him—silent as always, but his shoulders had relaxed and his step seemed lighter.
"For the record," Maxx said over his shoulder, "I think the Dragonborn respect you more now. Nothing says 'worthy ally' like destroying their dinner table."
"They were laughing."
"Exactly. You gave them a story. In a hundred years, they'll still be talking about the night the Rupture and the False Prince turned the feast into a battlefield."
"Lovely. That's the legacy I wanted."
A skittering sound behind us. I glanced back.
The dog trotted in our wake, chicken leg long gone, cape askew. And beside it—wings folded tight, copper scales glinting in the torchlight—the hatchling. They moved in tandem now. Co-conspirators. Partners in chaos. Menace one and menace two.
"You've been adopted," Serenya murmured to Maxx.
"I have not."
"She's following you."
"She's following the dog. The dog is following me. It's coincidental proximity."
The hatchling chirped and scurried forward to bump against Maxx's ankle.
"Coincidental," he repeated, louder. "Proximity."
Dreadscale made that low rumbling sound again. Definitely a laugh.
I glanced behind me again.
Caden and Eryndor walked a few paces behind, heads bent together, voices too low to hear. Caden's hands weren't clenched anymore. And Eryndor was listening. Really listening. That focused attention he usually reserved for threats, turned instead toward my brother.
A knot in my chest loosened.
This. This was what I'd been fighting for. Not just survival. Not just revenge. This—my people, together, safe, walking through warm corridors with full bellies and stupid jokes and a future that felt possible for the first time in—
The mountain shook.
I staggered. Serenya grabbed my arm. The torches guttered wildly, shadows lurching.
A sound from above—massive, thundering. The beat of wings. But wrong. Uneven. Desperate.
Then a crash that rattled my teeth.
"Landing platform." Dreadscale was already moving. "Emergency descent."
We ran.
The landing platform was chaos.
A dragon lay sprawled across the stone—massive, dark-scaled, one wing bent at an angle that made my stomach turn. Blood smeared the ground beneath it. Its breath came in ragged bursts, steam rising into the cold night air.
The rider was already off. Stumbling toward us, armor scorched, face streaked with dirt and blood. He was young and his eyes held the kind of gutted shock that came from seeing things that couldn't be unseen.
Dreadscale caught him before he collapsed.
"Report."
"News." The word came out cracked. "The King. The void. I need—" He grabbed Dreadscale's arm. "Council. Now. It can't wait."
Dreadscale's jaw tightened. He looked over the rider's head to Umbra, perched on a nearby platform. Some silent communication passed between them.
Umbra raised her head and roared.
A sound that resonated through the stone itself, vibrating up through my boots and into my chest. It echoed off the peaks, bouncing between the towers, rolling down into the mountain's heart.
An answer came. Then another. Dragons across Skal'Varin lifting their voices, passing the signal from perch to perch.
"The summons," Serenya breathed. "They're calling the council."
Warriors emerged from doorways. Elders. Riders pulling on armor. All of them moving in the same direction—toward the mountain's core, toward the chamber with the massive double doors.
Dreadscale hauled the young rider's arm over his shoulder. "With me. All of you."
We ran.
The corridors blurred past. More people joined the stream—grim-faced, silent, responding to the dragon-call with the efficiency of a culture built on war. No questions. No hesitation. Just movement.
The double doors loomed ahead. Blackwood banded with iron, tall enough for dragons.
They stood open.
The chamber beyond was already filling. Warriors lining the walls. Elders taking positions around a massive stone table carved with maps and markers. Truth-stones glowed at every throat, casting the room in shifting amber light.
We pushed through the crowd. Dreadscale deposited the rider in a chair near the table's head. The young man's hands were shaking, but his eyes had hardened in resolution.
Morrah lifted her hand.
"Speak," she said. "What news from the lowlands?"
The rider looked up, swallowed hard, and began to speak.
"Three villages." The rider's voice steadied as he spoke, training overriding trauma. "Three more since the last report. Thornwick. Madden's Crossing. Belhollow. All gone. Taken by the void."
Murmurs rippled through the chamber. Morrah raised her hand again. Silence.
"The spread is accelerating," someone said. "We knew this."
"That's not—" The rider shook his head. "That's not what I came to report. It's not just spreading. It's being fed."
"Explain," Morrha demanded.
He gripped the arms of his chair. "The King's soldiers. They were at Belhollow before the collapse. I thought—we all thought they were there to evacuate. To help." He grimaced. "They weren't."
"What were they doing?" Dreadscale's voice was low. Controlled.
"Blocking the roads." The words came out bitter. "Herding people back into the village center. Families trying to flee with their children, and the soldiers—" He stopped. Breathed. "They forced them back. Every single one."
The chamber had gone very still.
"I watched from the ridge. Couldn't get close enough to help, there were too many of them. I watched the void roll in from the east. Watched it swallow the first houses." His hands were shaking again. "And the commander. He just stood there at the edge. Watching. Smiling. Like he was—"
"Admiring his work," Serenya finished quietly.
The rider nodded.
A councilor near the back stepped forward. "You're suggesting the Crown is deliberately preventing evacuation? To what end? Why would the King want his own people consumed?"
"Because it feeds him."
Every head turned toward Dreadscale. He stood with his arms crossed, his features set in a hard, unforgiving line.
"The false miracles," he continued. "The pain sinks. We thought they were cruelty. Vanity. They weren't. They were practice. The King has been learning to harvest suffering, to displace it, to absorb it. The void is just a larger version of the same mechanism."
"You're saying he's consuming his own subjects for power?" The councilor’s truth-stone flickered. "That's—"
"Monstrous," I said. "Yes. That's exactly what we're saying."
The rider spoke again. "There's more. The King himself—he's traveling. Moving toward the largest active rupture. The one near the Greymarch border."
"Why would he expose himself?" A warrior near the door. Skeptical. "He has soldiers. He has mages. Why travel personally?"
"Because it's not enough anymore." The rider looked up, his eyes haunted. "I have contacts in the capital. Palace servants. They say he's changed. Stronger. Last week he killed a dozen men from across the throne room. Didn't lift a hand. Didn't speak. The fae just... dropped. Hearts stopped."
Silence.
"He's growing more powerful," Dreadscale said. "Every village that falls feeds him. But the largest ruptures—the ones consuming the most—he needs to be present for those. To harvest directly."
The councilor leaned forward. "How long until the void reaches Skal'Varin?"
The rider hesitated. "At the current rate? Weeks. Maybe less."
"And if the King continues feeding on it?"
"Then he gets stronger. And faster. And eventually—" The rider spread his hands. "Eventually there's nothing left but him. A king with no kingdom. A god feeding on the corpse of the world."
The chamber erupted. Voices overlapping, arguments breaking out, warriors shouting over councilors. The noise built like a wave.
I caught Eryndor's eye across the room.
He looked pale. His hand had drifted to his chest—to the place where the King's binding sat like a parasite beneath his skin.
Every day we wait, more people die. Every day we wait, he gets stronger. Every day we wait, the window closes.
Morrah slammed her palm against the stone table. The crack echoed like thunder.
Silence fell.
"There's one more thing." The rider reached into his scorched armor, pulled out a folded paper. "Our spies in the palace. They got his schedule."
He handed it to Morrah. She unfolded it, scanned the contents. Her eyes narrowed.
"The King departs for the Greymarch rupture in four days. A full day's journey each way. He'll be on the open road with a standard escort—not his full garrison."
She set the paper on the table. Looked at Dreadscale. At me. At Eryndor.
"Four days to prepare. Then he's outside his palace. Outside his wards. In the open."
Her truth-stone pulsed steady amber.
"That's our window."
Dreadscale’s mouth curved faintly. Eryndor’s eyes met mine across the table, and the same savage certainty passed between us.
Four days. And the King would be outside his walls.
Finally.
“We’ll be ready,” I said.
Morrah nodded once. “Then go prepare.”
We all stood as one and exited the council chambers.
The corridor was empty. Quiet. The weight of everything we'd just heard a heavy and suffocating weight.
Four days. Four days until we moved against the King.
Four days until—
"Stop."
Maxx's voice. Sharp.
I turned. He stood in the corridor behind us, Serenya and Caden at his side. His face was tight and closed off.
"Maxx—"
"No." He stepped closer. "The elders in there are talking about tactical strikes. Troop movements. Ambush points. But nobody is talking about the end game."
This close up I could see the grief and fury in his eyes.
"The prophecy," he continued. His voice cracked on the word. "Trembling sacrifice. Through death the world is rewoven. That's what Serenya translated. That's what the Veil needs."
I couldn't look at him. Couldn't look at any of them.
"You two aren't planning on coming back from this." Not a question. "Are you?"
Eryndor's hand settled on the hilt of his blade. Resting. Ready. The way it always did before battle.
"There has to be another way." Serenya pushed forward, hands balled into fists.
"Prophecies aren't always literal. The words came through me but that doesn't mean I understood them correctly.
Trembling sacrifice could mean—it could mean surrendering the bond itself, not your lives.
Giving up the connection. Letting it go. "
"Serenya." My voice came out gentle.
"Or maybe the sacrifice is something else entirely. Your power. Your Marks. There are old accounts of Veil-mending that required giving up magic, not life. We haven't explored every possibility. We haven't—"
"We've explored enough." Eryndor's voice was quiet. "The bond was already severed once. The Veil cracked further. The only way to heal it is to complete what we started."
"Complete it how?" Caden stepped forward. His face had gone pale. "By dying? Both of you?"
I made myself meet his eyes. My brother. The one I'd just gotten back. The one Eryndor had traded himself to save.
"The prophecy is clear," I said. "The bond has to be remade. Fully. And then we have to give it back to the Veil. The first Mirror Pair died creating the rupture. We will die healing it."
"That's not—" Caden's voice broke. "I was the one in chains. I was the one who was supposed to die. You saved me so that you could—so you could just—"
"I saved you because you're my brother." I reached for him, then stopped. The armor. The distance. Always the distance. "Because you deserved to live. That hasn't changed."
"But you don't? You don't deserve to live?"
"It's not about deserving."
"Then what is it about?"
"Our entire realm." Eryndor's voice cut through.
Resigned. "Billions of lives. Every realm the Veil protects.
If we don't do this, they all die. The void consumes everything.
The King feeds on the corpse of reality until there's nothing left.” He held Caden's gaze.
"I will not let that happen. Neither will she. "
Maxx grunted.
"So that's it." His voice had gone flat. "You've already decided. Both of you. You're just... waiting to die."
I looked at Eryndor. He looked at me.
We'd never said it out loud. Not to each other. Not to anyone. But we'd known. From the moment Serenya translated the final line of the prophecy, we'd known.
"Yes," I said. "We've accepted it."
Maxx stared at me. At Eryndor. His jaw worked.
"You know what the worst part is?" His voice was barely a whisper. "I believe you. I believe you'd do it. Both of you. Walk straight into death to save a world that's done nothing but hurt you."
He laughed. Bitter. Broken.
"That's the kind of fae you are. And I hate you for it."
"Good." Eryndor's voice was steady. "Hate me. That's easier than grief." A pause. "But don't waste your rage on us. Save it for the King. We're going to need it."
With a clenched jaw and a heavy silence, Maxx put his arm around Serenya’s shoulders and led her out of the dark corridor.
Caden remained.
He looked at me for a long moment. His face unreadable. The scars from the armor catching the torchlight.
"I'm not going to tell you it's okay," he said finally. "Because it's not. But I understand."
"Caden—"
"You would have done the same for me. You did do the same for me. Over and over." He pressed his lips together. "So I'm not going to waste whatever time we have left being angry."
He stepped forward. Wrapped his arms around me.
I held my brother for the first time in years and felt a horrible ache bloom in my chest.
"Just promise me something," he said into my shoulder.
"Anything."
"Make it count. Whatever happens at the end—make it count."
I held him tighter.
"I promise."