Chapter Sixty
KAEL
The world reforms around me in threads of Starlight.
The smell hits me first—petrichor of the Riverian Jungle. Home.
The ground hits next—earthy grit slick with rain, and the crunch of gravel under my boots.
We’ve stepped straight into silence. Not the kind that follows peace, but the kind that follows slaughter.
The air seems to wait for us.
“No sound,” Teddy murmurs low and commanding. “But I can sense heartbeats. Several. Waiting.”
“Ours?” I clarify.
“No. They smell of brine and ocean winds. It’s Caeloria,” Teddy growls, his axe raised over his shoulder, Aetherstride magic in full force. “And I smell death.”
I don’t need to say anything. All weapons are drawn and eyes are trained on the jungle around us—watching with keen attention.
I account for our group, ready to delegate roles. But that’s when I notice—
Fucking Mavyrn is gone again.
I never saw her step through the Gateway.
“Something is very wrong,” Jax breathes, as we approach the township, and I shut down thoughts of Mavyrn for this.
Homes in trees are empty, though the flicker of candlelight still lingers, meals left to go cold on tables. Abandoned during the dusk meal.
The hairs on my neck stand on end, and the hum of violence crackles on the air like an invitation for blood.
The iron gates to Thornewood are open, hinges groaning in the night breeze.
We stalk through the dark like the night made flesh, and I can taste battle on the winds.
But the sound of taut, creaking ropes charges through my ears like a war drum.
And I already know.
My boots step steadily into Thornewood’s heart, and the moon catches the shape of hanging bodies in the snare of her light.
A banner hangs torn from the town square.
And below it—
Rope.
Two of them.
Swaying.
And I know before I look.
Daelen’s chestnut hair.
Merrik’s gray beard.
My vision tunnels.
For a breath, for a heartbeat, I’m not the rightful King of Zerynthia.
I’m just a son of these lands staring at the bodies of the men who raised me into someone worthy of leading.
Daelen, who taught me how to forge my first blade.
Merrik, who called me “son” long before I earned his love.
Seeing them like this—bound, displayed, dishonored—it hits like a blade to the gut, sharp enough to cleave bone.
This isn’t death.
This is desecration.
This is a message carved in rope and ruin.
My throat burns with something violent, something primal, something grief-shaped that has no place in a warrior—but it’s there, splitting me open anyway.
They were my family.
My anchor.
My proof that goodness could survive in a world carved by cruelty.
And now they hang like trophies.
Something in me fractures.
A cold, lethal sickness punches through me.
Not fear.
Not shock.
Something worse.
Something fucking lawless.
And the part of me that stayed human all these years dies.
The wind nudges them like a cruel hand.
No sound. Only the slow creak of the ropes and the hum of Elyssara’s breath beside me.
THUD.
Jax’s knees hit the dirt, a silent scream twisting her face.
No.
NO!
Her fingers claw into the dirt like she’s trying to anchor herself to something that isn’t loss.
I promised Merrik he’d have a warrior’s death—on the battlefield, sword in hand.
And this feels like the Stars laughing in the face of a warrior.
Our quivering breaths fill the air, trembling hands of shock chatter in the wind.
Steel rasps free, cutting through my grief.
Because I realize what this is: an ambush.
It’s a fucking ambush.
But beneath the sound of steel, I can feel something else.
Something distant.
Something that calls to me.
Something that feels like mine.
Shadows.
The electric, charged zing of lashing shadows.
And behind me, Teddy’s voice cuts me to the bone. “Morrathys is fighting for our people. They’re in the underground bunkers.”
And then, the first blade glints under moonlight.