Chapter Six
KAEL
Council Hollow crackles with hot tension, like the living hum in the air after a storm.
Seren and Ronyn eye me with urgent intensity—the kind that demands action now.
Answers, bloodshed, strategy. Something.
Anything. Eldric, Lady Sylvaine, Varian—they’re all ready to play political chess.
Waiting for orders, calculating plans, sharpening their mental fortitude.
I know it’s needed—people who can wage wars with their words. Because it can’t be me. I am no politician. I am a war hammer. A honed blade. A disciple of bloodshed.
“Lady Sylvaine,” I say while fixing her with my stare, “prepare for travel and secure passage to Nymeris. We need Queen Ilyra’s army—if we’re successful in taking back the throne of The Wastes, we’ll have Dravara rattling the gates for threvenar before we can even take a fucking bath in Kryntar Castle.
We need Nymeris holding the line at The Joining while we replenish, gather allies. ” We fucking need them.
“Understood, my prince,” she bobs her head courteously. “I’ll send a missive with news as soon as I have it.”
I nod curtly, and swing my attention to Eldric. “Queen Maireth is elusive, Eldric. She knows a political maneuver when she sees one, and won’t be played—she needs to know we’re a strong ally. She’s a kingmaker, and we need to make fucking sure that she makes the right one.”
Eldric straightens in his chair and clears his throat—a sign that he’s about to tell me something he’d rather not.
“Kael, I will do my best—you know I will. But it is worth noting that if she were to look at Zerynthia and Dravara as potential allies based on resources alone, she would be stupid to side with us. We have a small unit of warriors, meager provisions, next to no additional weaponry, and at present, no castle or kingdom to speak of.” Eldric holds my stare, but there’s only pity in his eyes.
He’s not trying to be conceited, he’s just stating the very raw truth.
I pause for a moment, weighing my options. “You know her better than anyone on the war council, Eldric. What would sway her?”
I’m willing to give her my firstborn child at this point.
“Maireth has long put her faith in the prophecy, Kael—it's the only god she believes in. But… there is one thing she believes in more than anything.”
I know what he’s going to say before the words have even formed in his throat.
“She believes The Lightborne will bring the realms back into harmony—topple illegitimate kings and queens, take down The Decay, and give her what she’s always wanted: resources and dominion over the continents,” Eldric says matter-of-factly.
“So, what you’re saying is…”
“Maireth will want access to Elyssara, yes.”
Fuck.
“No!” Seren cries. “You have used her enough!”
Therion looks pained watching Seren break. “We’re already rescuing her, returning her to you,” he soothes quietly. “We just need her in our possession to get Maireth’s alliance.”
“Your… possession?” Seren hisses through brimming tears.
Therion winces, and I can see that he’s struggling.
“Seren, we need her. We need her safe. We need her away from Maldrak. We need her with people she loves. Having her with us means Caeloria—the biggest army in the known realms—will offer aid to take down both Maldrak and Thalmyr to put Elyssara on her rightful throne,” I try to explain without emotion.
Seren scoffs, but I can see her acquiesce just slightly under my logic.
So, I push. “You heard Eldric—we do not have the numbers or resources to take on both Maldrak’s Marked army, and Thalmyr’s Royal Guard full of Starborn. We need help, Seren.”
She thinks for a moment, dropping her head, and I can see the way she searches for a shred of calm. Another option. She slowly lifts her face, teeth bared, before spitting, “She would’ve helped willingly, you know. We all would have! But you betrayed her!”
I snap.
“Who would you have picked, Seren? If Ronyn and Elyssara were in that situation and you had to choose who lives or dies in an instant? Huh? What would you do?”
She goes to speak, the words forming in her mouth, but I can’t stop—I’ve had enough. I can’t contain the fury that spreads like wildfire through my veins. The dark of my shadows blooms outwards, quiet and certain. Everyone stills, but I can’t stop. I won’t.
“You wouldn’t pick, Seren. You just wouldn’t make a choice—too much of a coward to make impossible choices for those you love.
You’re a sheltered little girl, with na?ve views on what it takes to fight for a kingdom—it takes sacrifice, pain, loss, grief, and making choices that may as well be a blade through the heart.
I’ve lost everything to this war, little girl!
So, don’t for a fucking second think you’re the only one who knows loss! ”
Seren’s breaths come in shallow pants, raw emotion bubbling under her skin.
But the dams of my restraint have burst.
“I fucking love her, Seren,” I breathe, the words a whisper on my lips.
“We’re Starbound. I will love her until the Stars claim me.
Every second without her is like the air being stolen from my lungs.
I would rescue her for no other reason than loving her.
Not to gain. Not to win. Scorch my throne from existence for all I care. I love her.”
Tears track down her cheeks, a desperate, guttural sob tearing from her, and Ronyn throws his arm around her, nestling her into the crook of his shoulder.
Jax, with a softness I’ve never seen from the brash woman, speaks tenderly to Seren, “We’ve fought for ten summers to rescue Nalya.
Kael has mourned her, grieved her, missed her, longed for her—his little sister.
Ten summers. Imagine knowing your baby sister suffered for that long, and then finally having the chance to have her back.
Would you not make whatever choice you could to have her in your arms again? ”
Ronyn closes his eyes, and drops his head back, as if praying to the Stars themselves. Something akin to understanding dawns on his face as he looks back to Jax. A look that tells me he understands.
He doesn’t say anything—just squeezes Seren tighter and nods, as if agreeing to a truce.
Merrik cuts through the tension with observant diplomacy, “What do we need to do to get her back, son?”
“We need to know everything there is to know about Kryntar Castle and Maldrak’s Marked soldiers to build a strategy to get to her,” I say, my tone assertive and clear.
“Eldric, find passage to Caeloria immediately—we’ll have to gamble that we’ll have Elyssara back by the time you get to the capital to speak with Maireth. ”
“And if not?” Eldric questions.
“Bluff.”
Everyone sucks in a breath. The plan is forming, but it’s precarious, held together by thinly veiled truths.
They don’t like it, but I don’t care.
“So, we need to talk to Nalya, then?” Therion asks. “To understand the run of Kryntar Castle. Get any intel we can from her.” Ever the General of War.
“Exactly. Now.”
“You know she’s not herself, right? You know Maldrak planted her here just to fuck with us and send us on a wild hunt for answers she’ll never give us?” Therion calls from behind, jogging to catch up to me through the twisting boughs that line the paths of Thornewood.
“Yes, I fucking know,” I grunt. “I still need to try.”
“I know, brother,” he sighs, resigned to the fate that lies ahead.
We walk in silence towards the town square—the slow trickle of rain creating a beautiful echo of water dripping from leaves, vines and branches, but the beauty is undermined by what I must do: interrogate my baby sister.
Ask her to remember—relive—moments I’d sell my soul to burn from her memory. But I’ll do it. I’ll be a bastard for her. Elyssara.
Before we arrive at the town square, I take a sharp right down an overgrown path, covered in undergrowth, dead branches and overhanging foliage.
The Zerynthians are too scared to walk here—it’s cursed, they say.
A path to Morrathys himself. The canopy thickens, blotting out all sunlight and shrouding us in darkness. Lucky for me, darkness is my kin.
We approach the jagged rock face that Thornewood presses up against, when one of Daelen’s trusted men stands to attention, sword drawn, at the narrow mouth of the cave.
“Rubi’s with her, sir,” he announces. “It’s a bad day,” he adds quickly, trying to prepare me.
“Every fucking day is a bad day at the moment, Rufus,” I breathe, exasperated.
“I suppose so, sir,” he agrees hesitantly.
“So, no improvement?” I prompt, though I don’t think I’ll like the answer.
“Perhaps slightly less… episodes. The crying has been quite persistent, though,” Rufus winces.
Fuck.
I nod in acknowledgment, and Therion brushes past me, leading the way into the cave that serves as our dungeon. The walls are slick with moisture—the stench of mildew and rot assaults my senses on entry, and my eyes adjust to the pitch-black cave.
Therion charges ahead toward Rubi, her shoulders hunched over an elixir steeping in Nalya’s cell.
She looks up from the concoction, wiping sweat from her brow, a pained expression on her face.
Nalya lies motionless on the floor, arms and legs chained, anchored into the ground, though I can see the subtle rise and fall of her chest. “I fear she’s lost to us, Kael,” Rubi admits. “The Nalya I knew… she’s not in there.”
My breath stutters at her words—so resigned, defeated, heartbroken.
Nalya and Rubi were inseparable before Maldrak took the throne—they had every maid, cook, and servant in Kryntar Castle wrapped around their fingers when they were little.
Our fathers, too. And if I’m honest, Therion and me, as well.
Giggling, playing, teasing, tricking, dressing up, hiding—whatever they were doing, it was always together.
I knew this would hurt Rubi, but she insisted.
“She has to be, Rubes. We have no other choice,” I say. It’s all I can think to say.