37. Chapter 37 #3
Maxx was shaking. He didn't try to hide it.
He just held her—one arm around her shoulders, the other cradling the back of her head like she was something that could still shatter.
Over her hair, his eyes found Dreadscale's.
Whatever passed between them wasn't gratitude and it wasn't permission.
It was the silent acknowledgment of two people who'd just learned exactly what they'd do if they lost her.
Dreadscale looked away first. His hand opened and closed at his side, involuntary and yielding, as he surrendered a phantom hold.
"Here's what's going to happen."
The King's voice shifted. No longer curious. No longer testing. This was the voice of a male who had identified a problem and was already calculating solutions.
"You're going to stay."
"You can't—"
"My son will be announced to the realm—as I planned. You will be presented as a... complication. An entanglement to be dealt with." His lip curled. "The court loves a good scandal. They'll eat it up."
He began to pace. Thinking aloud now, more to himself than to us.
"The tether is the problem. Whatever my son's Mark has done to you, it's bound you together in ways that can't simply be severed.
Not without damaging him." His eyes flicked to Eryndor, still prone on the floor, still breathing too hard.
"And I won't damage my heir. Not when I've spent all these years keeping him alive. "
He stopped. Faced me.
"So you will stay. You will behave. And we will find a way to undo this bond without breaking my son in the process."
“And if I refuse?”
"Refuse?" He scoffed. "You seem to be confused about the nature of this conversation."
He gestured at the guards still surrounding us. At Serenya trembling in Maxx's arms. At Eryndor prone on the floor, finally stirring, his face pale with pain.
"This isn't a negotiation. This is me explaining what happens next." He stepped closer. "The only choice you have is whether your friends die quickly or slowly. Whether you spend the next months in comfortable captivity or chained just far enough from my son to feel the tether scream."
His voice dropped. "I've been patient with you, girl. Don't mistake that for weakness."
I looked at Eryndor heaving on the floor, at Maxx and Serenya behind me, at the court full of witnesses who would believe whatever story their King chose to tell.
No leverage. No secrets. No way out.
His gaze drifted past me to Maxx and Serenya, and he gestured at them casually, like clearing dead pieces from a game board. "The others we don't need. Dispose of them."
"No."
Eryndor's voice cut through the throne room. I twisted and he was rising, stepping forward, blood dripping from a split lip, shrugging off the guards who tried to hold him back.
"If you want any chance of keeping her in line, you keep them too."
The King's eyes narrowed.
"She'll burn this palace to the ground," Eryndor continued. His voice was steady now. "Every day. Every hour. She'll create chaos you can't contain. But her people—they're leverage. Keep them comfortable, and she'll have a reason to behave."
I snarled, anger ripping through my body unchecked. Her people. Like he wasn't one of us. Like the last weeks had been a performance. The tether pulsed between us—confused, reaching for him even now. My chest wanted to believe there was a reason. My chest was an idiot.
The prince had come home.
I stared daggers at Eryndor but he pointedly ignored me.
"Interesting." The King studied his son. "You've grown fangs, boy."
"I learned from the best."
A long pause. Then the King nodded.
"The companions stay. House arrest in the guest wing. But if the Rupture causes trouble—" His eyes found mine again. "—they pay the price."
Dreadscale hadn't spoken since the Suppressors fell. He spoke now. Turning to Serenya and Maxx, in a voice meant to carry no further than the three of them.
"Stay close. Both of you," he commanded.
Guards hauled me to my feet. I caught one last glimpse of the throne room as they dragged me toward a side door—the glittering courtiers, the blood on the marble, the ruined doors still smoking at the far end.
And in an alcove, half-hidden by a pillar, two figures I hadn't seen in months.
The Seer Twins. Veiled. Motionless except for their hands.
My heart skipped a beat. Then stopped entirely.
They held a length of red twine between them. Looping. Pulling. Looping. Pulling. Their veiled faces weren't turned toward the King or the chaos or the blood. They were staring at the empty air in front of my chest. Right where the tether connected me to Eryndor.
Behind me, the King's footsteps echoed on the marble runner. Measured and indifferent. Each one echoing through the throne room like a death knell.
Step.
The twins knotted the string.
Step.
Another knot.
Step.
Another.
One thread pulled. Two Marks flicker. Bind or bleed, little twin-star.
Their warning from months ago echoed through my skull.
The guards yanked me around a corner, and the twins vanished from sight—but I could still feel them. Still sense those veiled eyes tracking something I couldn't see.
Counting down to detonation.