Chapter Fifty-One #2
“I’m trying, you know,” she says, all playfulness stripped from her tone.
“I’m trying not to let the past own my present.
” Her voice is raw, vulnerable—and it offers me a rare glimpse into her.
I knew the past would not be so easily discarded.
No, the past has a way of growing teeth, clawing us back when our guard is down.
Joy seems to be an invitation for the past to revisit.
A reminder that we are never truly free of it.
Her eyes are glassy and pained, as if the hurt lingers just a heartbeat away.
“I know,” I breathe. “We’re making new memories,” I promise.
“New memories,” she agrees.
Ronyn’s shaggy mop of chocolate-brown hair splits between us.
His stupid grin wide with cheek and the promise of foolishness.
“These trousers are a bloody prison for my balls—they may never recover,” he starts, breath ragged from dancing.
“But the women here are calling me a Dravari warrior and I’m not letting that go to waste, balls be damned. ”
He claps us both on the shoulders in camaraderie.
“It’s gonna be a good night—I can feel it,” he bellows, the stench of liquor heavy on his breath.
“You say that every night,” I throw back, incredulous.
He flings his hands out in dramatic flare. “Exactly—and every night is a good night,” he exclaims, as if it’s all so obvious and simple.
“What of Jax?” Elyssara demands, voice giddy with laughter again, all woes forgotten. Ronyn always has a way of bringing this out in her. I see why he does it—why this is who he believes he has to be for her. It’s how he protects her. Saves her—even from herself.
“Well, she can join in, obviously. It would be a true shame to withhold myself from the masses. The more the merrier, as they say,” he croons with a wink.
Fucking Ronyn.
He spins off toward the nearest cluster of noblewomen, hips moving with a reckless swagger that would embarrass most men but somehow only makes him more magnetic.
Elyssara shakes against me, trying to bury her laughter in my chest, and the sound warms something sharp in me I didn’t know needed softening.
The music swells, the hall alive now—voices rising, wine spilling, feet pounding in time to the strings. Nobles are leaning too close, whispering, watching us. For a moment, I almost let it be what it is: a night of light and laughter before the storm breaks.
But instinct gnaws at me, despite Elyssara’s body resting into me in the way I’ve craved.
A wrongness in the room.
A missing note in the music.
I scan the edges of the hall, the balcony above, the arched doorway near the stair.
Ronyn, Teddy, Rubi, Jax—they’re all still here, loud and laughing, and filling the room like fire.
Teddy and Jax are in a squabble over something—they always are.
Siblings, of a sort. Rubi and Ronyn command the dance floor—both just as alluring and charismatic as the other.
Elyssara melts into my arms.
But two shadows are missing.
Mavyrn. Seren.
A muscle ticks in my jaw. Elyssara tilts her head, frowning up at me, but I only press her hand tighter against my chest, anchoring her as my eyes rake the hall again—and holding onto the way she yields to me.
“Each time I think I’ve figured that old woman out,” I murmur under my breath, “she contradicts me. Beyond her own agendas… where her allegiances lie, I have no fucking idea.”
Elyssara stiffens slightly, following my gaze, realization dawning. “I don’t trust her,” she snarls, vulnerability protected behind the fortress of her fury in a heartbeat.
“I’ve fought men, beasts, kings. But that woman? I can’t read her. And that terrifies me,” I admit, shaking my head in confusion.
I force my expression back into the practiced mask of a king as another noble bows low before us, offering a toast to our health. But inside, the war drums are already beating.
I pull Elyssara in close, brushing her hair from her ear, and whisper, “Do not show any signs of concern. Smile politely. I’ll lead you from the floor, we’ll raise a glass with our friends, and make it look like we’re retiring for the evening.
” She adorns her face with a playful smile, as if I’m whispering sweet nothings.
“Whatever is happening, I don’t like it. ”
Elyssara giggles theatrically, and as the music ends on a sharp, buoyant note, she nods graciously, hooking her arm under mine.
Ronyn, even through his haze of drink and women, notices the shift in the air. “My balls need a reprieve,” he announces to the flock of women surrounding him, and without waiting for a reply, loops his arm around Rubi’s shoulder and pulls her toward us.
We approach the others, expressions tight despite the mask I try to keep in place.
Teddy’s eyes flare wide at my tension, instantly recognizing something is amiss.
He drags his gaze across the room, jolted out of celebration, and honed into a sharpened blade.
“Seren,” he snaps, bronze eyes watchful and vigilant.
“And Mavyrn,” I add, lips pressed into a thin line, and despite our act, our breaths still.
“Ilyra’s doing?” Jax snaps, though she says it curiously, lifting a goblet to her lips in feigned celebration. “It’s the perfect cover to stage something like this—a banquet, festivities, the noise. But what would she want with a witch and an old bat?”
“Witches were thought extinct,” Teddy muses tightly, chest rising and falling too fast to be natural. “Nymeris favors knowledge and information above all. She could be using Seren for research.” His brows pinch together, hating the words that escape his lips.
But I know better. Nymeris are covert, but they don’t stab their allies in their backs—they value the truth, integrity, honor, far too much for an act like this. I take a deep pull from my glass, sucking the amber liquor down my throat until it burns.
“Mavyrn,” I growl. “It’s Mavyrn.”
“Regardless, I’d like it to be known,” Ronyn declares, voice low but clear, “that I’m leaving a flock of women in heat to hunt down an old bat and my baby sister. I expect recompense. Preferably in the form of another god metal weapon.”
Teddy snorts, though his tension doesn’t leave. Rubi smacks him on the back of the head. Elyssara hides her laugh behind her hand, but her eyes are tight.
“Announce our retirement for the evening,” I command. “And I don’t care what it takes—fucking find them.”
Teddy does as I bid, and we take our leave for the evening. Queen Ilyra, ever the gracious host, neither resists nor distracts. She simply bids us goodnight and returns to the festivities and cheer.
I knew it was Mavyrn before, but now it’s fucking undeniable.
A sliver of moonlight cuts through heavy drapes, and the golden glow of candlelight casts long shadows across the pale limestone walls as we exit the banquet hall and spill into the castle’s halls.
No guards are on duty—Nymerian halls haven’t known violence in centuries.
They’ve played a safe game. A clever game of protection and preservation, all while fuelling their own agendas with secret knowledge, hidden missives, and covert missions.
They offer just enough support to the other continents to stay out of their cross-hairs, but not enough to truly tip the scales of the realms.
Teddy bounds ahead, desperation palpable. “She’s near,” he grits out between clenched teeth, Aetherstride senses humming on the air. “The old woman, too.”
I nod tightly. “Move quietly. Weapons drawn. If it comes to it, eliminate the Arcanist,” I command with venom, and no one questions my orders.
We split off, stalking the Nymerian halls like we haven’t just allied with them.
Elyssara unsheathes the Starforged Blade from her thigh—the split in her dress revealing her long, honed legs and my mouth goes fucking dry and my eyes linger a beat too long.
“Focus, Your Highness,” she teases wryly, palming the blade like a trained assassin going in for the kill.
“You’re fucking extraordinary,” I breathe, as the moonlight glints off her thigh, catching the curved silhouette of her hips.
I want to go to her, undeniably pulled in by her—like her body alone could command armies.
The mind of a queen, the heart of a warrior, and the body of a godsdamned seductress.
She bites her lip, a coy smile breaking out across her face, but she crouches low, eyes trained on the long hallway of shadows and secrets.
I draw a dagger from my boot, prepared for close-quarters fighting, and take the front, forever her shield.
My boots press against the ancient floors, every step an intrusion on the only thing Nymeris knows: peace. These halls know the hush and debate of scholars, not the thunder of boots or the rasp of steel, and it feels sacrilegious to be bringing both.
But it won’t stop me.
Elyssara’s breath hums rhythmically at my back, and the sound steadies me. I can feel her through the tether—focused, alert, but her fear slices through the fragile hold she keeps on her attention.
Beyond the hum of her breath, I can hear something else—soft, faint, almost imperceptible.
Do you hear that? I ask down the tether. That humming?
Elyssara’s breath ceases, her body stilling instantly. Closing her eyes, she strains to hear.
Crackling, almost. Her voice floats on the tether, and I hear the soft clatter of her shoes hitting the stone floors, her bare feet more practical.
We step with practiced silence, the kind of movement reserved for predators, stalking past tapestries the hue of crimson blood, and paintings of renowned scholars.
Light flares through the sky, visible only through a slit in the curtains, the crackling growing louder, more prominent.
“Seren,” Elyssara breathes, her footfalls growing heavier, clumsier, desperate to reach her.
“Breathe, Duskae. We’re almost there. We need to be strategic. Panic will make us reckless,” I try to soothe, though I can’t strip the command from my tone.