34. Chapter 34 #2
They saw Eryndor on the floor. They saw me standing over him, my chest heaving, my body vibrating with violence.
"Amaria?" Serenya's voice was small. Scared. "What's happening? What did he—"
She stopped when she saw my eyes. She didn't have to say it—I could feel the Fury glowing in them.
“Oh,” she whispered.
I held each of their gazes in turn. “It’s time to bring the princeling home to Daddy.”
The others exchanged nervous glances and didn’t move. “NOW,” I said. I pinned Dreadscale with my gaze.
Are you with me?
He nodded and went to Eryndor, gripping his arm and hauling him up. “Dreadscale will watch him while you pack. Let’s go. Five minutes.”
I looked down at Eryndor. He met my eyes. Held them.
And he nodded.
Just once. Small. Like he believed he deserved whatever was coming.
The lullaby guttered out. The silence it left was worse—a ringing, hollow thing, the exact shape of every soft moment I'd handed him like a fool. The fever. The braid. My head on his shoulder while the tether purred between us like it knew something I didn't.
It had. It had known what he was the whole time.
And he'd had access. That was the part that dug in like a vice and kept tightening.
He'd stood in the same room as the King.
Eaten at his table. Slept under his roof.
Those hands—the ones that had braided my hair, that had pressed life back into my chest on the mountain—those hands had been close enough to wrap around the King's throat every single night. And they didn't.
I'd crawled through mine shafts on my belly in the dark. I'd carried children out on my back who couldn't walk anymore because their legs had been broken to keep them from running. I did it with nothing. No army. No title. No access. Just my body and whatever time I had before the guards came back.
He had a seat at the table. He had a blade at his hip. He had the one thing I would have sold my soul for—proximity—and he used it to follow orders.
Every child who went into those mines after Eryndor was old enough to hold a sword was a child he chose not to save.
Not couldn't. Choose not to.
Voidbringer and Dawnrender sang free of their sheaths.
"The King wants his son back?" I spun them—lazy, patient circles that caught the sconce lights and threw it back.
"Let's see what he's willing to trade."
I didn't give them time to think.
Horses. Supplies. Weapons. I barked orders and the Liraethians scrambled to obey—four mountain breeds clattering in the courtyard, saddlebags already half-packed, waterskins pushed into hands that were still shaking from what they'd witnessed in the hallway.
Dawn laid a faint pink sheen across the canyon as I cinched the final strap on my saddle. Dreadscale had Eryndor against the stable wall, binding his wrists with runed rope that wouldn't give. The prince—the prince—stood still for it, his eyes tracked my every movement, but he didn't speak.
Good.
The rope bit into the same wrists that had held me on the mountain. Let him feel what binding was. The children in the mines never got runed rope. They got iron. They got chains bolted to the shaft walls so they couldn't crawl out when the tunnels flooded.
"Okay." Maxx yanked a strap tight on his saddle, his movements jerky with suppressed panic. "I'll bite. What's the actual plan, your majesty? Announce ourselves at the front gate and ask for tea?"
I swung up onto my horse. "Something like that."
"That's not a plan." He mounted his own, still fumbling with the reins. "That's a death wish with extra steps."
Dreadscale hauled Eryndor onto the fourth horse, binding his wrists to the saddle horn in one efficient motion. Serenya climbed up last. She took one measured breath, then swung up without breaking stride.
Dreadscale's hand lingered on the bridle of Serenya's horse, a small adjustment to the bit, unnecessary, already secure. She glanced down at him. He let go without a word, and moved to his own mount.
"Amaria." Her voice firm. "We just escaped. The King is not a fool. The moment you set foot in that city, every weapon in the kingdom will be aimed at you. He'll kill us all just to get to you."
"No." I urged my horse through the stable doors and out into the cold morning air. "He won't."
The others followed. They had no choice.
I glanced back at Eryndor—bound, silent, watching me. Let him hear this.
"He won't kill his own son. The tether that chains me to him is now my shield. We have the element of surprise—no one would be insane enough to do this."
"Exactly!" Maxx threw up his hands. "No one would be insane enough! That's the point!"
"And," I continued, ignoring him, "we have power the King has never seen."
Maxx laughed a bit manically.
"Power? Amaria, we are barely holding it together. We're refugees running on rage and bad decisions. The King has armies. He has—"
"Maxx. Stop."
I dismounted and turned to the clearing before us, then raised my hand and pulled.
The world drained.
Color died first—seeping out of the grass, the trees, and the sky itself. Green submitted to grey to white to translucent. Then I stole sound. The trickle of water died, the rustle of leaves. A void sphere expanding twenty feet in every direction around us.
Maxx's glamour died on his fingertips. Serenya was gulping for air.
Dreadscale had turned a dull grey. The horses thrashed in silent panic.
But even choking, and diminished, Dreadscale shifted his horse closer to Serenya's.
His hand was on her reins, steadying her mount while his own bucked beneath him.
Eryndor watched. The tether kept him breathing—barely—while everyone else suffocated. His eyes never left my face.
I held it for five heartbeats.
Then I released.
Air rushed back with a violent crack. The others doubled over, sucking in desperate breaths.
The grass beneath my feet stayed grey. Dead. A perfect circle of nothing where life used to be.
I pinned them with my gaze.
"I am the Rupture. And I do not bow to the King."
No one spoke.
I mounted in one fluid motion and waited for them to meet my eyes.
"We are not running anymore. We are hunting."
I didn’t look away. This wasn’t a moment for half-measures, it was their choice, but they must decide.
"Now." I gathered my reins. "Are you with me?"
Then Dreadscale dipped his chin. Once. Certain.
Maxx let out a long, shaky breath. "I'm going to die following a madwoman into the heart of enemy territory." He laughed. "At least it won't be boring."
"I was with you before you asked." Serenya gathered her reins. "Let's not make a speech of it."
I nodded.
"Then let's move."
I kicked my horse forward. The others fell in behind me.
We had a king to visit.
As the horses broke into a gallop, something flickered through the tether. Eryndor. His awe cascaded through me.
And underneath it, a thought he couldn't contain:
She was born to be a Queen. The world would kneel or break before her.
I rode harder.