Chapter 39
Ellaryn walked beside Xander through the tunnels, Arielle and the baby following close behind. The passage was lit only by the soft blue glow of Xander’s magic, its light flickering across the damp stone walls.
When they reached the shadow wall, they stopped.
Black smoke seeped through the cracks in the stone, suffocating even this far underground. Ellaryn held her breath instinctively. The tendrils of darkness seemed alive somehow, curling and twisting as if they wanted to choke the air from her lungs.
“You ready?” Xander’s stare trained in on Arielle. She nodded, clutching the baby tighter against her chest.
“Once you get through, keep walking,” he instructed. “About a mile out there’s a turning. Follow it, and it will bring you to a staircase. Go up, and you’ll find a road. Follow that to Relenthia. It’s about a day’s walk.”
He pressed a handful of coins into her palm.
Arielle stared down at them. “This is too much,” she said quietly, but Xander shook his head.
“You’ll need it.” He insisted.
Ellaryn stepped forward and handed Arielle the satchel filled with the milk and food she had smuggled earlier. Arielle accepted it with a grateful smile.
Then her eyes met Ellaryn’s.
“Thank you,” she said.
Ellaryn simply nodded.
“The Gods will take mercy on you.”
Ellaryn didn’t know what to say to that. No matter how many times she insisted she deserved whatever fate awaited her, Arielle clearly didn’t believe it.
But there was no time to argue.
Xander murmured an incantation, and the darkness in the wall folded inward like smoke caught in a sudden wind.
“Go,” he ordered, pointing towards it.
Arielle didn’t hesitate.
She ran through the wall, the darkness recoiling from her as if it couldn’t touch her.
And then she was gone.
When they returned to the office, Ellaryn took a seat at the desk opposite Xander.
“I saw something last night,” She said, willing herself to focus. Xander’s attention snapped fully to her. “Well, I found something.”
“The King’s wine…”
Xander held his breath, eyes sharp, waiting.
“Well, I thought it was wine.” She leaned forward. “It was blood. He has bottles and bottles of blood that he drinks,” she continued. “He drinks it all the time.”
Xander’s expression changed. His eyes widened just a fraction. Lungs exhaling shakily. “So that’s how the King still has power,” he murmured, a dark admiration threading his voice. “Of course… I should’ve known.”
Ellaryn furrowed her brows, trying to absorb the weight of his words.
“The power is in our blood,” he continued. “Every Potential he has taken, every one he has murdered… he’s drained their blood, saving it.”
For a moment, Xander’s expression betrayed something like awe.
“But it doesn’t shimmer,” Ellaryn said. “It never shimmers.”
Xander paused in thought for a moment before he spoke again. “Glamouring spell.” He said as if a lantern light had been set ablaze in his mind. “It’s Clever… very clever.”
“I hate how clever he is,” Ellaryn muttered, lifting her eyes to meet his.
“It won’t matter how clever he is when he falls,” Xander said, his words static in the air between them.
They were close. They had to be.
“So,” she said, leaning back slightly, “how were your travels? Did you find what we needed?”
“Kind of,” he replied.
Ellaryn raised an eyebrow, silently asking him to elaborate.
Xander clicked his fingers, and two heavy piles of books appeared beside him—at least fifteen in total.
Ellaryn blinked at them. “The answer’s in one of those?”
Xander nodded.
“Then we’d better start reading,” she said with a small smile, knowing that they only had two days until the King had planned to move on Veleviere.
She opened the first book and began flicking through the pages, scanning the dense lines of text. After a while, she felt Xander’s gaze lingering on her.
Her cheeks flushed, and she kept her eyes on the page, pretending not to notice.
“You know what disarmed me so much about you… the first day I saw you?” he breathed, almost caught off guard. Ellaryn just stared at him, a puzzled expression on her face.
“Your beauty.” His lips barely moved when he spoke. “I thought, how could a so-called villain be so beautiful?”
“Beautiful?” She let out a hollow scoff, staring at him in disbelief. “I’m far too damaged to be beautiful.”
He didn’t laugh. He didn’t rush to argue.
Instead, he simply looked at her—deeply, quietly—as if she were something sacred he had stumbled upon and wasn’t sure he deserved to touch.
Then he closed the distance between them, quick and sure.
He moved around the desk and leaned against it in front of her, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him.
“If you believe that,” he said softly, “then you’ve been lied to.”
His hand rose, fingers brushing the curve of her cheek with unbearable gentleness.
“Sometimes it’s the broken things that slip past the ordinary,” he said quietly. “The ones that refuse to stay buried in the dark. No matter how thick the shadows gather, jagged edges and sharp lines have a way of catching the light.”
His thumb traced the curve of her cheek as if proving the point, and Ellaryn didn’t flinch—didn’t look away.
“Smooth things fade,” he continued. “They blend in. They’re easy to overlook. But fractures—” his gaze held hers, steady and unflinching, “fractures make something unforgettable. They carve depth. They turn survival into strength.”
He leaned his forehead gently against hers.
“You don’t shine despite the damage, Ellaryn. You shine because of it.”
A tear escaped her before she could stop it. And then he did something that made her heart stop beating altogether.
He leaned in slowly, carefully, until his breaths mingled with hers, then kissed her where her tears had fallen, slow and deliberate—not desperate, not consuming—but certain. As though each touch was an anchor, tethering her to the present, to him, proving she was solid and real beneath his hands.
“And I would shatter myself a thousand times,” he murmured against her lips, “if it meant my broken pieces could fit with yours.”
“Xander,” Ellaryn breathed. She couldn’t listen to it. Couldn’t let the words exist between them—words he might regret once the moment passed.
“Ellaryn.” He exhaled, his eyes softening under the weight of her gaze.
She felt it in the way his breath had stilled, in the way his eyes lingered too long on her mouth, her throat, the bare skin of her shoulder. He wanted her. Not despite the world burning above them, or the threat of the King pressing in—but because of it.
Because time was slipping through their fingers faster than either of them had dared admit.
He knew they were close. Knew her end was drawing nearer than they had first believed. And he wanted to hold her while he still could. Wanted to feel her. To anchor her to something warm and real before she was gone.
His eyes burned with a reckless spark, and Ellaryn found herself staring back at him with a new, dangerous intensity. Her pulse betrayed her. She wanted him just as badly. Wanted the weight of him, the certainty of his touch, the reminder that she was still alive.
And yet—
She didn’t deserve this.
Didn’t deserve his want or his devotion. Didn’t deserve to feel good when her hands were already stained with so much pain. The desire curled in her chest anyway—unwanted, undeniable—because even knowing she would turn to dust, some part of her still ached to be held before the end.
His desire broke free, the air between them warming as his hot breath brushed against her skin, heavy with everything he hadn’t said aloud.
Ellaryn breathed him in and hated herself for how her body leaned toward him instead of away. For the way her pulse incriminated her, for the ache blooming low and insistent, for how his presence alone coaxed her closer as if she had been waiting for this without knowing it.
She didn’t resist when his magic lifted the hem of her top, gentle despite the urgency behind it. The fabric slipped away like a surrender she hadn’t meant to give. Her shame burned, sharp and bright, but it tangled hopelessly with desire.
Xander stilled.
He looked at her as though time itself had paused—eyes tracing every bruise the king had left behind, every scar earned in silence, every soft imperfection she’d never allowed herself to see as worthy of notice.
His gaze lingered, memorising her as if afraid that when she was gone, memory alone wouldn’t be enough to keep her real.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured again, his voice barely there.
His hand hovered near her skin, not quite touching, as if he were asking permission without words. Ellaryn swallowed hard. This moment—this fragile, stolen thing—felt like standing at the edge of something irreversible.
“I shouldn’t,” she whispered, though she didn’t move away.
“You deserve to feel good,” he murmured, the words brushing her skin before his breath did. “Let me touch you—without hurting you. Feel this before you go.”
His voice was a promise, low and reverent, as if he were offering something sacred rather than asking for anything at all.
The warmth of him lingered just shy of contact, restraint threaded through every breath, every pause.
It wasn’t hunger alone in his tone—it was care.
As though he were determined to prove that touch did not always have to mean pain.
“Xander—I…” Ellaryn tried, but the words died in her throat. Her body betrayed her; every fibre of her ached for him. She wanted to resist, to hold herself together, but the weight she carried—the pain she’d shouldered for so long—made her feel like she could crumble at his touch.
“Say the word, Ellaryn, and I won’t let my desires win,” he growled, his hands hovering near her, trembling with restraint. “Tell me to stop, and I will.” His bottom lip was caught between his teeth, eyes searching hers for consent.
Ellaryn stayed silent. She couldn’t speak; she could only watch him, could only let her hands move before her mind could catch up, reaching for him with a desperate, unspoken need.