Chapter Thirty-Six
ELYSSARA
Dark deals are made and secrets whispered in every shadowed alcove.
States altered. Blades sharpened. The grimy steps drag us deeper into The Underbelly’s maw.
I look back to check on Seren, but her eyes aren’t wide with shock in the way I expect them to be—they’re focused.
Narrowed. As if her na?vety has been stripped and replaced with earned maturity.
I keep going, hand hovering over the Starforged Blade at my side. The Underbelly operates in a precarious balance of averted gazes, selective hearing, and promises upheld, but one wrong step, one lingering gaze, and the balance turns to shit.
The narrow tunnels press bodies closer than is comfortable, and the air thickens with humidity.
“I need Obsidian Shards,” I murmur to Harsh Face, keeping my voice low.
Even admitting to needing something for magical suppression is enough to get you hanged on the castle gates if you tell the wrong person.
But if there’s anything I’ve learned about The Underbelly, it’s that rebellion runs in their blood, and they look after their own.
“Keep your voice down,” he says sharply through gritted teeth, eyeing me warily.
But I can’t stop there, so I press further. “One more thing,” I say, and I wait for him to give me his full attention.
“Spit it out,” he snaps.
Then, I flash him the inverted triangle symbol.
“Put your Starsdamned hands down, girl,” he bites, looking around to see if anyone noticed. He puts his head down, increasing his pace as he pushes through customers who are high as the Stars themselves. But I don’t judge them. Instead, I wonder what they’re escaping.
“Can you take us to them or not?” I bite.
He grunts, but swivels his head in my direction. “What business do you have with The Shield?” he asks skeptically.
And I know I’ve found my mark.
“He has business with me,” I say, my voice cold as steel.
He scoffs a disbelieving laugh. “Apart from being a mouthy street thief who cuts deals with shady merchants, who the fuck are you?”
An arrogant smirk lifts the corner of my mouth. “I’m Elyssara the fucking Lightborne, and this is King Kael Thorne of Zerynthia. Who the fuck are you?”
I feel Kael’s amusement trickle down the tether.
Harsh Face stills, his back stiffening in realization. He spins around, blood draining from his face. “Princess,” he breathes, darting his eyes around to check if we’ve been noticed.
He remembers.
Then, he looks past Kael, Therion and Ronyn to the rest of the group, inspecting us more closely. “Correk?” he asks, stunned.
“Jarin,” Correk returns easily, a sly smile crossing his face.
Jarin? They know each other?
I shove down the confusion, needing to keep my confident mask in place.
Jarin drops his voice low. “I can’t bow, Princess. Not here. Hurry,” he spins, increasing his pace, taking us through labyrinths I’ve never seen in all my trips to The Underbelly. “I’ll take you to The Shield and bring the Shards to you. It’s too dangerous to linger,” he explains, voice clipped.
The tunnels we walk have thinned to empty. Too far from the merchants to be lined with customers, and the air too dense to be comfortable for anyone.
But we keep walking.
And walking.
And walking.
A thick, steel door, vaulted closed, save for a small opening, appears before us.
“Welcome to The Bowels,” Jarin announces with a small bend at the waist and a flourish of his hand.
Narrowed eyes appear through an opening at the top of the door.
Pretty eyes.
Female eyes.
Familiar eyes.
“Why do you come to The Bowels?” the female says, though her voice lacks the depth of womanhood. No, it’s too timid, imbued with a fierceness that isn’t embodied.
Hazel eyes stare back at me.
Tender eyes.
And I know I’ve seen them before.
“Tess?” I ask.
Her eyes blow wide. “Iskara?” she asks in return.
And the door sweeps open.
The Bowels breathe damp and hot, the air heavy with mildew and iron.
Torches sputter instead of burning clean, and coughing smoke curls into the ceilings that drip like wounds.
Rot clings to every surface, undercut with the acrid tang of blood, and herbs set smouldering in braziers.
This is no marketplace—it is a heart, a war chamber, steeped in mythic weight, where every whisper seems to reverberate against the bones of history.
The rebels who gather here are not merchants or beggars but scarred, hardened survivors, eyes lit with purpose.
Their sanctum is raw and makeshift: a throne hacked from the cavern wall, inverted triangles smeared in charcoal and blood across stone, rough tables laden with scraps of stolen maps, charred pages saved from burnings, and broken blades remade into tools.
Desperation built this place, but it thrums with defiance, with the promise of war.
Piercing my thoughts, the young girl I saved from the Flesh Circuit steps through the haze, staring back at me. Body fuller, hair thicker with a sheen that only comes from enough food. Gellesk has looked after her. The old bastard came through.
But the moment doesn’t last. It gets drowned out by a crowd of voices and faces.
Men and women. Young and old.
People I’ve known in the slums.
People I’ve stolen from.
People who’ve stolen from me.
The rebellion.
This is who fights for us, Duskae. Kael whispers through the tether, his grounded presence standing behind me in support.
But before I can speak, Tess smiles, and gestures her hand through the crowd that begins to part at her instruction. “Make your way to The Shield,” she says, and the rebels’ murmurs fill the space.
They disperse with each step I take.
Kael and Therion flank me, and I take measured, practiced steps that contrast my trepidation.
I make my way forward, steadying my breath and inviting my magic to pool at my fingertips, ready to use. A safety measure.
No magic. Kael warns into my mind.
Shit. I forgot I can be detected here. I reply, and force my magic back into my chest.
The sconces that line the walls flicker, casting eerie shadows across the room. All murmurs stop, and silence falls instead, the only sound our boots on the stone floor.
The final rebels part, revealing a platform. A throne carved from the very bones of The Underbelly walls rises above the crowd, its presence heavy, mythic. For a moment, I almost believe I’m about to meet a legend.
I brace for a god, a myth, a monster forged in war—and instead.
“Fucking Gellesk?” I blurt, because sitting on that throne, looking smug as a cat in cream, is the same man who once tried to short me three silvers on a weapons run. The Shield of Kael’s rebellion is a swindling street merchant with greasy fingers and a penchant for tin trinkets.
My jaw drops. The room spins. This can’t be real.
“Princess Elyssara Dawnmere of Dravara,” he crows, pushing himself off the throne with a squeak of leather and bowing low like he’s some court-trained noble.
The rebels gasp, dropping to their knees in reverence. To me. To this. To him.
“You?” I sputter, incredulous. “You’re The Shield?”
He winks. He actually winks. “And you’re the Princess of Dravara. Guess we both had secrets, love.”
Boots scrape behind me. I turn—Correk is striding forward, eyes locked on Gellesk. He doesn’t look shocked. He looks… relieved.
“Brother,” Correk says softly, and the two men clasp forearms, pulling each other into a rough embrace.
I forget how to breathe. “Brother? As in, friends? Or… blood?”
And when I look—really look—the resemblance is obvious. The same ice-blue eyes, the same rich hue of umber skin, the same hulking frames, the same dark curls just beginning to silver at the temples. How had I never seen it?
The Shield of the rebellion is Gellesk. And he’s Correk’s brother.
Kael’s smooth timbre drifts down the tether, I didn’t know, Duskae. We’ve only ever spoken by missive. Too risky.
I can feel his tension—the way he stiffens in fear that I’ll think he’s kept this from me. But I can also feel his shock. He didn’t know.
My vision swims. I can barely reconcile it.
They’re brothers.
They’re rebel leaders.
And I’m their Princess.
“How?” I breathe, desperately trying to cling to reality, to sift through the words to discern the facts.
“Your mother,” he breathes, and my stomach clenches. Aching for her. “An old friend. We trusted one another.”
He was friends with my mother.
“And your so-called business?” I scoff.
“A cover,” he admits. “A way to shield myself from the guards while we built our ranks.”
I expel a sharp breath. “Well, you were always rather shitty at it,” I choke out, forcing myself to laugh.
“The most sought after businessman in The Underbelly, thank you very much,” Gellesk jokes with a wink.
Air deserts my lungs.
My chest tightens.
But a comforting arm wraps around me. “Well, I did not see that coming,” Ronyn says lightly, as if he’s speaking about the weather, and the casual joke disarms me entirely.
Tears prick at my eyes—the truth fracturing my fragile hold on reality.
“You’re a fucking dragon, and Gellesk is a Starsdamned rebel leader?” I scoff, laughing through the thickness in my throat.
“A standard day for us, I’d say,” he quips nonchalantly, but he presses a kiss to the top of my head in deeper understanding.
Gellesk’s voice booms through the space, ricocheting off the stone walls and reverberating through my bones. “Everyone out! We have kingdoms to reclaim!”
As the steel door seals behind them, silence swells—thick, holy, unshakable. It is us now. The ones who will set the world alight.