46. Chapter 46
AMARIA
They held the ceremony in the village square.
The King wanted witnesses—real ones. Common fae who'd watched their crops wither and their children sicken. People who needed to believe in miracles, needed to believe the Veil fracture and now the Veil void could be healed.
The square was packed.
Thousands of them, pressing against wooden barricades, craning for a view of the raised dais where the royal family stood in shining splendor.
They'd come from every corner of Velmyra—farmers with calloused hands, merchants in threadbare coats, mothers clutching weary-eyed children.
The desperate and the dying, clutching what little hope they had left.
Carts lined the edges of the square, piled high with the evidence of the Veil's corruption.
Rotted grain, black and fuzzy with mold.
Malformed vegetables—carrots twisted into spirals, potatoes covered in eyes that seemed to watch.
Flowers that had bloomed grey, their petals papery and brittle.
The harvest of a fractured veil, displayed for all to see.
I stood at the back of the crowd in my grey wool, my Suppressor ten feet behind me.
I'd already seen it work. The garden. The harmony that hummed between them like they'd been made for each other.
Maybe they had been.
The King raised his hands and the crowd went silent.
"My people." His voice carried across the square, amplified by magic, warm and resonant. "You have suffered. You have watched your lands wither, your children weaken, your futures crumble to ash. The Rupture tore our world apart, and for too long, I could offer you nothing but promises."
He paused.
"Today, I offer you a solution."
He gestured toward the dais, where Eryndor and Vivienne stood side by side. She was impeccable in white and gold, her dark hair threaded with flowers. He matched her—polished, regal, and perfectly composed.
"My son's Soulbinder Mark," the King continued, "and Princess Vivienne's Absolution Mark. Apart, they are powerful. Together..." He smiled. "Together, they are salvation."
The crowd murmured. Hopeful. Hungry.
I squeezed my hand into a fist until my nails drew blood.
A priest stepped forward. He carried a length of gold cord on a velvet cushion—the binding rope for the healing ceremony. The symbol that would tie their marks together, their futures together.
Eryndor took the cord.
Through the muted tether, I felt... nothing. He'd walled himself off so completely that I might as well have been watching a stranger. Just a prince doing his duty. Just a male binding himself to the female he was supposed to love.
He wrapped the cord around Vivienne's wrists. Once. Twice. Three times.
And then—
I stopped breathing.
The knot.
He was tying the knot. The specific, intricate pattern that rebel soldiers used to identify each other. The one I'd taught him in the Uncrowned stronghold a lifetime ago.
The rebel knot.
No one else would recognize it. To the crowd, to the priest, to Vivienne herself, it was just a decorative flourish. But I knew. Tears pricked my eyes for what I was losing, what I could never be.
Their hands joined.
Light exploded from the dais.
Golden. Blinding. It poured from their clasped fingers spreading outward in ripples that made the air shimmer and sing. The crowd gasped. Some fell to their knees. Children pointed at the sky, where the light seemed to reach toward the wounded Veil itself.
My gaze snagged on something behind them. Void-iron rods. Four of them, planted in a square around where Eryndor and Vivienne stood. Dark metal that drank the golden light instead of reflecting it.
I knew those rods. Kaelen had used the same ones to chain me during the ritual.
Grounding anchors, he'd called them. To keep the magic from tearing loose.
The carts of rotted food began to change.
The blackened grain flushed gold. The twisted vegetables straightened, plumped, turned vibrant with color. The grey flowers burst into bloom—red and pink and yellow, petals unfurling like their death had been nothing but a rumor.
The crowd roared.
All around me, people wept. Embraced each other. Lifted their faces toward the light like flowers toward the sun. A mother nearby clutched her child and sobbed with relief. A farmer fell to his knees, hands raised in prayer.
They're healing everything.
Awe and dread crept up my spine.
They're actually doing it.
The crowd surged forward.
Everyone wanted to be closer to the miracle. To touch the healed grain, to smell the restored flowers, to bask in the golden light that was spreading across the square.
Someone shoved past me. Then another. The mass of bodies pressed and churned, excitement overcoming caution, everyone desperate to witness salvation up close.
My Suppressor stumbled.
The crowd had pushed them back—fifteen feet, twenty feet, too far. Their dampening field flickered.
And my Marks roared to life.
Pain hit first through Griefweaver. Distant but focused—a concentrated agony radiating from somewhere beyond the square.
Toward the castle. Toward the palace that loomed over the celebration like a shadow.
Something or someone there was shattering, and my Griefweaver caught the edge of it before I could shield myself.
Then the Unravel.
My truth Mark tore through the golden light and found—
LIE.
The word blazed through my skull. Not a whisper. A shriek. A warning so loud it drowned out the cheering crowd.
LIE. LIE. LIE.
The Suppressor regained their footing. Pushed back through the crowd. Their dampening field slammed down on my marks snuffing out their power.
Darkness.
I gasped. Staggered. Caught myself on a stranger's shoulder and shoved away before they could notice.
What was that?
The ceremony was ending.
Eryndor and Vivienne released their joined hands. The golden light faded, leaving behind a square transformed. Where there had been death, there was now life. Where there had been despair, there was now celebration.
The King stepped forward, arms spread wide.
"This is only the beginning," he announced. "The wedding will follow in three days' time. And when their union is complete, when their Marks are bound forever, we will heal not just this square—but the entire Veil."
The crowd exploded into cheers.
I stood frozen in the chaos, grey and invisible, watching Eryndor bow to the roaring masses with his unreadable face and his rebel knot and his secrets I couldn't reach.
I thought they were monsters.
The doubt took root before I could tear it out.
But look at them. They're saving everyone.
The healed grain. The blooming flowers. The weeping crowds, finally given something to believe in.
The King found me as the crowds dispersed. I hadn't moved. My feet had rooted to the cobblestones while the celebration eddied around me.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" He surveyed the transformed square with satisfaction. "What the right partnership can accomplish."
I didn't answer.
"You know the story of the Mirrored Pair, I assume."
I ground my teeth together. Lyra and Malakor. The lovers whose bond had torn the world apart.
"I know it."
"Then you understand why I do what I do.
" He turned to face me, and for once, his expression held something other than cruelty.
Something that looked almost like sincerity.
"I am not trying to control you, Amaria.
I am trying to prevent you from becoming a ghost story they tell to frighten children. "
I stared at him.
"You and my son—your bond is chaos. Destruction.
You've felt it yourself. The way reality warps when you're together.
The way your power feeds on each other until you become something monstrous.
" He gestured at the blooming square. "This is the alternative.
Order. Healing. A future that doesn't end in destruction. "
He's not wrong.
The crystallized bodies. The impossible flowers. Every time Eryndor and I touched, we left destruction in our wake.
"I am the dam holding back the flood," the King continued. "If I let you love, the world drowns. I do not hate you, Amaria. I fear what you become together."
He let that settle. Then he smiled.
"Enjoy the celebration. The wedding is in three days."
He walked away, leaving me alone in the transformed square, surrounded by miracles I hadn't made and lies I couldn’t name.
The rebel knot burned in my memory.
But it wasn't enough to silence the voice whispering that maybe—just maybe—the King was right.
I sat in the dark of my room for hours, counting my failures, my hands gripping the velvet armrests until they ached.
They're saving everyone.
The thoughts kept circling like vultures.
And you're the monster they're saving them from.
The rebel knot pushed to the surface of my thoughts again.
He's still fighting, some desperate part of me whispered.
He's still leaving, the rest of me answered.
I shook my head and gritted my teeth. I couldn’t stop them.
I couldn’t stop the useless thoughts and images and feelings repeating over and over and over.
It was like mistiming a block in the sparring ring.
They threw the same punch. I didn’t block in time.
Over and over until the strike wasn't the enemy's anymore—it was mine.
The connecting door clicked.
I went still.
The sound was small, nearly swallowed by the distant music from the streets. But I knew that door. Knew it was supposed to be locked from the outside. Knew no one should be able to—
It swung open.
Eryndor stood in the doorway. He looked like a god.
The gold ceremonial tunics were perfectly pressed.
His hair was slicked back, every strand obedient.
He looked like the savior the world wanted him to be—radiant and untouchable.
But then he stepped into the light. His shoulders were braced as if he were carrying a physical weight.
His eyes were bloodshot. The golden collar sat tight against his throat, less like jewelry and more like a garrote. And his eyes—