CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Brother’s Blood
LUCIAN
The attack on Moon Court began with bells.
At the first strike, Nyra’s people seized the east tower.
At the second, Darius cut power to the temple wards.
At the third, rebel charges blew the locks from the lower prison doors.
By the fourth, Malrec knew we had come.
Seraphine and I moved through the crypt beneath the old queens’ chapel. Fighting thundered above us—steel, shouts, the deep roar of wolves shifting in confined corridors.
The palace I had lived in since birth sounded like a beast dying.
We reached the tribunal passage and found three temple guards waiting.
Their eyes were white.
Seraphine swore.
“Moonrot.”
They attacked without fear.
I met the first with my sword. He ignored a cut that should have dropped him. Seraphine hamstrung the second and drove a knife into the pressure point beneath his jaw—not killing, only stopping the muscles long enough for him to collapse.
The third shifted halfway and struck her.
I saw red.
My royal command voice tore from me before I could stop it.
“Kneel.”
The guard hit the floor so hard his knees cracked stone.
Seraphine froze.
So did I.
The crown magic had never felt so ugly.
A human body forced to obey because my blood carried an old spell.
The guard stared up at me in terror, still unable to move.
I sheathed my sword and knocked him unconscious instead.
Seraphine touched my arm.
“You used what you had to keep me alive.”
“I know.”
“That isn’t the same as wanting it forever.”
The bond carried her certainty.
I held onto it.
We reached the lower stair.
A figure stumbled around the corner.
Elias.
Blood soaked his side.
Seraphine rushed to him.
“What happened?”
“Cells open.” He grinned weakly. “You’re welcome.”
Then I saw the blood on his hands was not all his.
“Where is Darius?” I asked.
“Inner court. Severin has the moon gates sealed.”
A roar shook the ceiling.
Dust fell.
Elias’s grin vanished.
“Malrec started something below.”
“We’re going there,” Seraphine said.
“So am I.”
“No.”
“Sera.”
“You’re bleeding through your coat.”
“Fashion choice.”
She looked ready to stab him herself.
I understood the impulse.
Before she could argue, a door opened behind us.
Nyra ran through with Elowen at her side.
“Broadcast is live,” Nyra said. “Half the city heard the prophecy.”
An arrow came through the doorway.
Elias moved first.
He stepped in front of Nyra.
The arrow entered beneath his ribs.
He stared down at it.
Black veins spread instantly.
“No,” Seraphine breathed.
Temple archers flooded the corridor.
I shifted.
The world became teeth and sound.
I drove into them with Darius’s soldiers arriving from the opposite side. The corridor erupted into violence.
When the last attacker fell, I shifted back.
Seraphine was on the floor with Elias in her lap.
The arrow had broken inside him.
Black veins crawled toward his heart.
“Get Mira,” Seraphine said.
Nyra’s face was white. “She’s in the west ward.”
“Get her!”
Elowen ran.
Elias caught Seraphine’s wrist.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Sparrow.”
“Do not.”
His breath shook.
I had seen enough battlefield wounds to know.
So had he.
Seraphine refused to.
“You came back,” she said. “You don’t get to leave again.”
“I know.”
“You promised tomorrow.”
“I said I’d give you the journal tomorrow.”
“It is tomorrow.”
He smiled faintly. “Then I kept one promise.”
She made a sound I never wanted to hear again.
Nyra knelt beside him.
“You saved me.”
Elias looked at her. “Terrible boots and all.”
A broken laugh escaped her.
His gaze found me next.
I did not know what he wanted.
Maybe neither did he.
“You’re still a bastard,” he whispered.
“Frequently.”
His mouth twitched.
“Don’t make her smaller so she fits your crown.”
“I won’t.”
“If you do, I’ll haunt you.”
“I believe you.”
He swallowed hard.
“And don’t become your father.”
I looked at him.
“That one I promise.”
He nodded once.
Then he turned back to Seraphine.
“Plant the pear trees.”
“I will.”
“Not in straight lines. Father hated straight lines.”
“I remember.”
His hand lifted with effort and touched her cheek.
“Live, Sera.”
The same word her father had given her in the snow.
His hand fell.
Seraphine went still.
The bond filled with grief so complete it had no shape.
I knelt beside her.
She stared at her brother’s face.
There was no time.
The palace shook again.
A howl rose from beneath the throne.
Not wolf.
Something older.
Seraphine closed Elias’s eyes.
She bent and kissed his forehead.
Then she stood.
Her face was wet.
Her voice was steady.
“We finish this.”
I wanted to tell her she could stop.
I remembered my promise on the stairs.
“If you want to turn around—”
“No.”
She took my hand.
“Forward.”
So we left her brother in the care of my sister and went beneath the palace to kill the thing that had fed on our families for generations.