Chapter 64 Stop a King’s Madness
(While Your Husband Embraces His Own)
Arabella
The tunnel smelled like death and old magic, a combination that made my nose wrinkle as we descended into darkness.
“I’m starting to think Auremar has a thing for underground chambers,” I muttered, conjuring a ball of light to hover above my palm. “First the wine cellar, now this. What’s wrong with a nice, well-ventilated throne room?”
Thorne’s gravelly chuckle echoed off the stone walls. “Easier to hide the screams underground, my lady.”
I sent the light ahead, illuminating rough-hewn walls that glistened with moisture. The stairs seemed to go on forever, spiraling down into the earth like a stone throat ready to swallow us whole.
Through my bond with Kazimir, I felt another surge of triumph, fierce and wild. Whatever he was doing up there, it was working. But there was also darkness threading through our connection, more than usual. I pushed the worry aside. One crisis at a time.
The tunnel curved sharply, and Thorne raised a fist. I extinguished my light, plunging us into darkness. Ahead, I could hear voices—guards, from the sound of it.
“—that chanting is just fuckin’ eerie,” one was saying.
“Shut up and do your job,” another snapped. “We can’t afford for the ritual to be interrupted, or Amaryska will have our heads.”
I felt cold at the mention of Kaz’s mother, wishing she were here for me to confront her. But the way the guards continued talking suggested she wasn’t present. That would make our mission easier, but I wondered why she wasn’t overseeing the ritual herself.
Then I felt a surge of anger and complex emotional pain from Kaz, and knew. She was on the battlefield. His distraction had drawn her away from the Chamber of Petals. I hoped he killed her even as I wished I was there to help him.
But the ritual had already started, and that left no time for further distraction. I touched Thorne’s shoulder in a silent question. How many?
He held up four fingers. I nodded, shadows already gathering around my hands.
Thorne moved first, melting into the darkness. I heard a soft gurgle, then the sound of a body hitting stone. The second guard had just enough time to turn before my shadow blade took him in the throat.
We rounded the corner to find the other two guards already reaching for their weapons. Sebastian reacted faster than I’d ever seen him move, vines erupting from cracks in the floor to wrap around their legs. They toppled forward, and Thorne was on them before they could cry out.
“Getting good at this,” I said to Sebastian as we stepped over the bodies.
He grimaced. “Not sure that’s something to be proud of.”
“It is when it keeps us alive.”
We reached the bottom of the stairs, emerging into a narrow corridor lit by torches that burned with an unnatural blue flame. The air was thick with magic, making my skin prickle and the Heirloom grow warm against my scalp.
The chanting hit us before we even saw the chamber—dozens of voices speaking in perfect unison, the sound reverberating through stone and bone alike.
“That’s a lot of mages,” Sebastian whispered.
We crept forward until we could see into the Chamber of Petals, and for a moment, I forgot how to breathe.
The room was massive, carved from the rock in a perfect circle. Ancient murals depicting the First Hero’s victory over the Shadow King covered the walls, though age and moisture had faded them to ghostly impressions. But it wasn’t the architecture that stole my breath.
It was the scene before us.
At least sixty prisoners were arranged in concentric circles around a raised dais, each one bound and gagged, with glowing runes carved into the stone beneath them. Men, women, even children.
But worse were the mages. Two dozen of them stood in ritual positions, wearing masks of beaten gold that hid their faces. They chanted in perfect synchronization, their hands weaving complex patterns that left trails of purple light in the air. The magic they were building made my teeth ache.
And defending them were at least six battle mages in crimson robes, their hands already crackling with offensive spells. A dozen guards stood at strategic points, weapons drawn.
“Shit,” I breathed.
Through my bond with Kazimir, I felt his rage spike suddenly, followed by something ancient stirring. The Heirloom pulsed hot.
“We need that portal open,” I whispered to Thorne. “Now.”
He pulled out the crystal Griffin had prepared. “I need thirty seconds and clear space.”
“Sebastian, can you handle the guards and start freeing prisoners?”
He nodded, jaw set.
“Good. Because I’m about to make a lot of noise.” I stood, shadows coiling around me. “When I move, you move.”
I didn’t wait for confirmation. I burst into the chamber like an avenging storm, heading straight for the battle mages.
The first one spun toward me, fire already forming between his hands. I didn’t give him the chance to release it. My shadow blade took his hand off at the wrist, and his scream disrupted the perfect harmony of the chanting for just a moment.
“The Dark Lady!” someone shouted. “Stop her!”
The battle mages converged on me, and suddenly I was dodging fire, lightning, and shards of ice. I wove between the attacks, my shadows forming shields when I couldn’t dodge. Behind me, I heard Sebastian’s vines erupting from the floor, the shouts of guards being entangled.
A bolt of lightning grazed my shoulder, sending me spinning. I used the momentum to launch myself at another battle mage, driving both shadow blades through his chest. He fell, blood pooling beneath him.
The masked mages never stopped chanting. Their voices rose higher, more urgent, as if they were racing to complete the ritual before we could stop them.
Through our bond, I felt Kazimir’s consciousness flicker, something vast and dark pressing against his mind. My worry spiked even higher, and I used it to drive me forward.
Two battle mages attacked in tandem, one high, one low. I jumped, using shadows to propel myself over their attacks, then came down hard on the first one’s shoulders. The crack of his neck breaking was audible even over the chanting.
“Ready, my lady!” Thorne called.
“Sebastian, start moving them through!”
I could see him cutting prisoners free, Thorne helping guide them toward the shimmering doorway that led directly onto the deck of the Sky Serpent. But we’d only freed a handful. The ritual was building to crescendo. Any second, the killings would begin.
I needed to disrupt those masked mages.
Drawing on the Heirloom’s power, I sent tendrils of shadow toward the nearest group of chanters. The shadows wrapped around their throats, cutting off their voices. Three of them fell, clawing at the darkness.
The remaining battle mages pressed their attack, forcing me back. One of them, a woman with silver hair, was particularly skilled. Her spells came faster than I could fully deflect, each one designed to kill.
“You cannot stop this,” she hissed.
I snarled back something unintelligible because at the same time, I felt Kazimir’s mind fracture. Something terrible was happening to him, and for the first time that day, I was truly afraid.
The Heirloom burned against my scalp, sending visions flashing through my mind—darkness spreading across a battlefield, shadows rising from the earth, and Kazimir at the center of it all, but not Kazimir. Something wearing his face.
The distraction nearly killed me. The silver-haired mage’s spell caught me in the chest, sending me flying into the wall. I hit hard, tasting blood.
“Arabella!” Sebastian called out, starting toward me.
“No!” I forced out, pushing myself up. Every captive saved weakened the ritual.
The chanting reached a fever pitch. Purple light began to emanate from the runes beneath the prisoners, and I realized with horror that the ritual was about to complete.
That’s when Auremar arrived.
He didn’t enter through the doorway. He simply appeared, materializing from shadow itself in the center of the dais. And he was wrong. Oh so wrong.
His golden hair had streaks of black running through it, his skin had taken on a grayish pallor shot through with veins of darkness. But it was his eyes that made my blood run cold—they glowed with sickly yellow light, and when he smiled, his teeth had grown sharp.
“Lady Arabella,” he said, his voice carrying harmonics that shouldn’t exist in a human throat. “How good of you to join us. And Lord Sebastian, too. Perfect. Two more bloodlines for the harvest.”
“The only thing being harvested here is your head from your shoulders,” I spat, shadows coiling around me despite my exhaustion.
Auremar laughed, the sound echoing strangely. “Such fire. I can see why Blackrose wanted you. But you’re too late. The ritual is nearly complete. In minutes, the prison will crack, and I will claim the Shadow King’s power for myself.”
“You’re insane,” Sebastian said, horror clear in his voice. “You can’t control something like that!”
Auremar gestured, and Sebastian suddenly convulsed, purple energy crackling over his skin. “I’ve been feeding on his power for years, learning his secrets, his techniques. I am no longer merely human.”
Sebastian dropped to one knee, face contorted in pain. Without thinking, I sent a wave of shadow toward Auremar. He deflected it with ease, but it forced him to release Sebastian.
“Continue the ritual!” Auremar commanded the masked mages. “I’ll deal with our guests.”
He moved faster than any human should be able to, suddenly right in front of me. His hand closed around my throat, lifting me off the ground. His corrupted face was inches from mine.
“You were always meant to be mine, Arabella. Your bloodline, your power—wasted on that upstart Blackrose.”
“I was never meant to be anyone’s,” I croaked. My hands were wrapped around his, holding on. I forced golden magic into his fingers, but his grip only tightened. Every breath and word was a struggle. “I… chose Kaz. I choose him every day.”
As stars swam through my vision, I let go of Auremar’s hands and formed shadow blades. In the same motion, I drove those blades into his sides. He dropped me with a roar of pain, and I gasped for breath.
Through our bond, I felt Kazimir’s desperate struggle. He was losing, drowning in memories and power that threatened to erase everything he was.
Everything we were.
“No!” The word tore from my throat, and I attacked Auremar with everything I had left.
Shadow and light merged in my assault. It struck Auremar in the chest, sending him crashing onto the dais.
“My lady!” Thorne called. “We’ve got half of them through!”
Only half. The masked mages were still chanting, the ritual still building. I had to choose—stop the ritual or save the prisoners.
Through our bond, I felt the moment Kazimir’s defenses shattered completely.
Auremar rose, laughing despite the blood running from his mouth.
Through our bond, I felt Kazimir scream.
A cry of rage and pain and recognition? The Heirloom flared so hot I cried out, and for a moment I saw Kazimir on the battlefield above, shadow creatures rising from the earth.
“You did this,” I said to Auremar, my voice deadly quiet. “You awakened something that should have stayed buried.”
“I awakened power!” he roared. “Power that will be mine once the prison breaks!”
He attacked again, purple fire streaming from his hands. I deflected it, but barely. The fight with the battle mages had drained me, and Auremar was drawing on corrupted power I couldn’t match.
But I had something he didn’t.
Drawing on the Heirloom and the ley lines from the faraway God Spire, I shaped my magic into chains of shadow and light. They erupted from the floor around Auremar, binding his limbs.
He struggled against them, but they held.
The power flowing through me was intoxicating, addictive. I could feel the corrupted ley lines pulsing beneath my feet, could sense every thread of magic in the chamber. I felt like I could unravel it all with a thought.
“Sebastian! Thorne! Get everyone out now!”
The masked mages suddenly stopped chanting, turning toward me in perfect unison. As one, they reached up and removed their golden masks.
I recognized some of the faces—minor nobles, court mages, even members of the Hero’s Guild. All of them had been part of Auremar’s conspiracy.
“The king has fallen,” one of them said, voice hollow. “The ritual fails. The Shadow King rises anyway.”
They began to dissolve, their bodies crumbling to ash as whatever dark bargain they’d made claimed its price. Within seconds, nothing remained but golden masks clattering to the stone floor.
The walls shook violently, cracks spreading across the ancient murals. The ritual’s failure was destabilizing everything. Or something more was happening above.
“The last of them are through!” Sebastian called from the portal.
I looked at Auremar, still bound in my chains, then at the portal. The smart thing would be to leave him here, let the collapsing chamber deal with him.
But the Alchemist’s warning echoed in my mind. Auremar was tied to the prison somehow. His death might make things worse. But I didn’t dare bring him onto the Sky Serpent. His power was too unpredictable.
“Damn it,” I muttered, then knocked the king unconscious with a pulse of magic.
With a grunt of effort, I opened a small portal—not far, just outside the temple entrance—and unceremoniously shoved his limp body through. He landed in an ungraceful heap on the grass, still wrapped in my shadow chains.
“Someone else’s problem now,” I said. If he survived what was coming, we could retrieve him. If not… well, at least I’d tried.
“Arabella!” Sebastian shouted as larger chunks of ceiling began to fall.
“Go,” I told him. “Tell the Alchemist what happened. Tell them to begin the cleansing ritual immediately.”
“What about you?”
Through our bond, I felt Kazimir—or the thing wearing his face—turn its attention toward Sunspire Palace. Toward me. The ancient consciousness recognized the Heirloom, recognized the blood of its enemy.
It was coming.
“I have to save my husband,” I said, and threw myself through the portal, leaving Sebastian and Thorne to protect the prisoners as I ran to face whatever Kazimir had become.
I landed near the temple ruins to find hell itself had come to Solandris.
The sky was black with dark clouds and unnatural shadows. On the battlefield, chaos reigned. The Bone Behemoth was stomping madly through friend and foe alike. Shadow creatures tore through both armies with equal hunger, and at the center of it all—
My breath caught.
Darkness poured from Kazimir in waves, his eyes solid black, power beyond comprehension radiating from his form. When he smiled, it was the smile of something ancient and terrible finally free.
“Kaz,” I whispered, and started running again.
I had to reach him. Had to pull him back from whatever edge he was balanced on.
Had to save him, even if it meant damning myself in the process.
Even if I wasn’t sure there was anything left to save.