Chapter Five
The farther fate pulls love apart
The deeper ruin roots its heart
Kael feels the moment fracture before anyone speaks, moves, notices. Because while the others get reacquainted, Kael knows the truth: this is the part they will remember.
The moment the group breaks apart.
The moment the Stars demand a sacrifice.
The moment everything changes.
Not because they chose it, but because the Stars already have. Because the prophecy doesn’t hand new destinies out like a cosmic street merchant—it demands recompense for its generosity.
And it’s time to collect.
It always does. Just never when they’re ready for it.
“Enough,” Kael growls, voice low and grave. “We’re here for information to reclaim Elyssara’s throne, not for court gossip.”
The others startle, but no one corrects him. They only stare, unmoving. They’ve been doing that more and more. But then again, he’s been snapping more and more, too.
Tendrils of whisper-soft light brush against his mind, inquisitive, reaching. Elyssara. But this fragment of Decay living inside of him needs to be contained. Held close. Imprisoned within him. For Kael will be no infestation. No burden on his Starbound. His family.
He pushes her away, eyes darting to Elyssara’s. She pulls back—just slightly, but real. Hurt. And he feels it, sharp and immediate. Another thing slipping beyond his control.
His chest tightens.
Fuck. Get it together.
Before they start to see what lurks beneath his grief.
He clears his throat, rolling his neck.
“Elandor, we need information—”
But Elandor is already moving, rifling through papers on his desk.
“I have prepared a file for you, Your Highness. Just… one… moment,” he mumbles under his breath, hands plucking at parchment.
But Seren doesn’t wait. “Lara,” she shouts uncharacteristically. “Do you know of her?”
She schools her features into a look of neutrality, but her pulse races at her neck, her chest rises and falls too fast.
Elandor’s head lifts from the mountain of tomes and scrolls stacked high and precarious on his desk.
“Lara, Lara, Lara,” he repeats, testing the words on his tongue.
“No, dear. I don’t believe I do. Which means there is no record of her that exists in Nymeris—I’m privy to every tome, scroll, and ledger here. May I ask why?”
Kael swallows frustration at the derailment. It rises hot and sharp in his chest. His hand balls into a fist under the table. He’s not sure why, but it happens anyway.
Teddy’s eyes clock the movement.
Fuck. They’re noticing.
Seren pushes up from her chair, leaning on the table, her posture measured and precise. “Because I believe she’s also a witch.”
The room stills.
No one breathes.
The words hover in the air.
“You’re a dreamer,” Jax mumbles, condescending and aggrieved.
Rubi lets out a puff of air, but brask is never far from her lips.
Elandor stands a little straighter, his eyes never moving from Seren.
“It doesn’t mean she doesn’t exist… it means we have no records of it. However, we have Shades on every continent of the Known Realms, and there have been no reports of witches in years. Decades, even.”
But Seren doesn’t falter. “And yet I walk among you.”
A challenge.
And worse—a truth no one in the room can deny.
No one says anything to that.
She steps out from her chair, pacing around Elandor’s table with conviction rarely seen.
“And we know that witches exist—I am proof. The Melders stuck in human form are proof. And Thalmyr exiled the gods to an echo-plane with the help of one. Proof.” Seren’s words hang in the air, biting and forthright and true.
“Yes,” Elyssara breathes, recalling that familiar name. “The woman from the Obsidian Crown vision. She was there with Thalmyr. I assumed her an Arcanist at the time…” she trails off.
The memory lodges in Kael’s mind. The woman from the vision.
The room is dense with thought.
“And how do you propose we find Lara, Seren?” he snaps.
Seren’s tolerance for Kael’s brusque tone is slipping… he can see it. So she strides around to his seat at the table, staring at him long and hard.
“I’m so glad you asked,” she croons sarcastically. “Because some of us don’t have a council of people to consult on every decision, I used my brain to prepare a plan ahead of time.” She pauses, and the group lean in, hanging on her every word. “I’ll use my blood.”
She spins on her heel, triumphant.
Victory suits her.
“Explain that for those less clever among us… for Teddy, that is. Not me, of course,” Ronyn jokes, cutting through the tension like a hot knife through butter.
A smile returns to Seren’s face. “Gateways take us to the origin point of the object I bind it to. If I use my blood, it’ll take me to its origin.” She shrugs nonchalantly, as if her plan isn’t fucking brilliant. Reckless. Effective.
“Seren, what if it takes you somewhere… else? An echo-plane? The Stars themselves?” Elyssara objects. “You’re too close to this. It’s too personal.”
Like that has ever stopped any of them before.
Seren slows her breath, letting it flow in and out in measured counts.
“I am tired,” she counters, a foreign fierceness in her voice. “So fucking tired of being treated like I’m breakable. So you’re all allowed to pursue what is personal? Vengeance, rescues, betrayal. But what? I’m too demure for my own personal motives?”
He hears it now. Not desperation—conviction.
Elyssara’s mouth moves like she’s trying to speak, but nothing comes out.
“Would you ask me to abandon what runs in my blood?” Seren pushes.
The question lands harder than anything else she’s said, because he knows that only death could stop him from abandoning his duty. His people.
She wheels around, fixing her gaze on Elyssara. “Would you lie down and take it if I told you not to draw your blade? Not to claim your throne?”
She charges toward Teddy. “Or if I told you not to guard Kael while he fucking breaks before our eyes?”
The room sucks in a collective gasp.
Because the words cannot be unsaid. And neither can what they reveal.
Kael doesn’t flinch, his expression unreadable.
Ronyn is her next victim. “Or that you were not able to bring joy to the people you love?”
“Or that you were restrained from making elixirs to save your loved ones?” She stabs a finger at Rubi. “Or gods forbid, unable to drown in drink.”
Fucking gods.
“Or that you were not allowed to process your grief through violence and just generally being a fucking asshole?” she waves a dismissive hand in Jax’s face.
But her gaze pins Kael like a target. “Or that you were not allowed to shoulder the burden of a broken realm? That you were not allowed to protect that which you hold most dear?”
Her words suspend mid-air, as if the room needs more time to absorb them.
“I broke a man’s neck with a noose of Threads.
I united our people to bring down the Decay.
I called on the tribes for support. I am not delicate, or brittle.
I will not break under pressure. That is where I will be forged!
Can you all honestly look me in the eye and tell me you have not become yourselves through hardship? ”
Her chest heaves.
Her heart beats with power.
But no one says a word, because the truth looks down on them with disdain, stripping away every excuse they’ve ever used.
“I didn’t think so,” she says victoriously, but her hand trembles with the weight of what she’s fighting for.
“Ah yes, I did hear about the… neck incident. Quite creative means, I will concede,” Elandor says, trying to cut through the tension.
But the room ignores him.
Teddy stands, eyes pinning Seren in place.
“I’ll accompany you,” he declares boldly.
Of course he will—loyalty, even when it costs him. Before anyone argues, he adds, “If the witches are real, we need them to remove the spell on the Melders. We need them to restore the gods. It’s a worthy mission. We’ll find Lara. Or the witches. Or perhaps both at the same time.”
The sconces gutter, the only movement in the room.
One heartbeat passes.
Two.
Three.
Then… Kael nods, conceding.
Because if there’s one thing he’s starting to understand, it’s that protection shatters the moment love demands distance.
And sometimes, the only way to love someone is to let them go, and live with what that does to you.