Chapter Fifty
The cruelest wars are fought within
Where monsters wear familiar skin
Marin leaves Saana behind.
The choice settles into her bones long before the distance does, long before The Perils disappear behind her as Seren’s Gateway of Threads snaps shut, and the world sharpens back into strategy and games and lines drawn in blood.
Saana did not argue. Did not beg. She simply looked at Marin like she understood exactly what this war would cost, and what it would take for Marin to see it through.
That look follows her all the way back to Azhareth.
By the time she crosses its gates, it is buried beneath steel and expectation, beneath the rigid posture of a daughter returning to her throne. But it does not disappear.
It waits. And so does the war.
Maireth strides toward her across the courtyard, her face trained into neutrality, but Marin knows her. Sees the way her muscles are tensed and rigid.
She wears fighting leathers, armor of burnished bronze, a curved blade hanging from the belt at her waist. She won’t use it, of course.
Shadowweave magic is always her preference—not that she lowers herself to use it save for the spectacle of war.
She doesn’t need to—her word is war enough.
Her hair is pulled back, taut and slick, pulling at the corners of her eyes.
“Where have you been?” she snaps at Marin, voice tight and restrained.
Marin doesn’t miss a beat.
“Patrolling the Outside, quelling their plans. Word of war has reached them, and you know how the uprisings swell with talk of freedom,” she scoffs, imbuing her words with feigned outrage.
Maireth fixes her with a glare, waiting for a crack to appear.
But Marin was taught by the best, and holds her gaze, unflinching.
Maireth nods tightly, not entirely convinced.
“Skyfire and weaponry have been loaded onto the ships as per your instructions. The only thing left to load is him,” Maireth says stiffly.
Him. Kael. King Kael Thorne of Zerynthia.
Marin shoves down her disgust.
“I’ll handle it,” Marin confirms with a tight nod.
She moves to walk away, but curiosity keeps her rooted.
“What exactly do you plan to do with him, mother?”
Maireth smiles, smug and cold and calculating.
“Focus on your weapons, Marin. And I’ll focus on mine,” she says, voice loaded with the promise of cruelty. “We leave from the docks on the hour.”
And then she’s gone.
Fuck.
Marin’s legs start moving before her mind has registered it. She needs to get to Kael. Needs to make sure he’s still in there. Because if he’s not? She’ll kill him herself.
She will not let her mother wield him like a godsdamned weapon. Because if the Decay consumes him fully, Marin does not think there will be enough left of the world to stop what comes next.
To balance the world or shatter the frame.
Silence and shadow will reign forever.
The prophecy had never sounded like poetry to her. Only warning. Marin had once dismissed the prophecy as dramatics dressed in mythology. Now, watching the Decay hollow Kael out from the inside, it feels terrifyingly literal.
Marin pushes through the bustle of the courtyard, soldiers receiving orders, weapons being sharpened on whetstone. She ignores it all, sucking breaths in and out too fast.
She rounds Azhareth Castle, shoves past guards who shout questions of where she’s going.
She can’t stop. Won’t stop.
Her hands fumble over her leathers, searching for the vial of Shadelock Saana forces her to carry. An out. An herb to stop her heart from beating if she were ever taken captive. Or worse, caught by her mother for feeding intelligence to the resistance. Or for marrying a woman from the Outside.
She shoves her hand deep into her pocket, and her fingernails tink against the glass vial. It’s there. She draws it into her palm, wraps it there for safekeeping, but never does she stop walking.
The smell of brine and fish assaults her senses, and she knows she’s close.
Meraset Harbor sprawls before her in glittering blues and golds, beautiful enough that most people forget how many wars Caeloria has launched from its shores.
Azhareth’s sun beats down on her, oppressive and suffocating like the grip of her own mother.
Dockhands shout orders, soldiers congregate in the streets, then she sees it. The ships. Vibrant blue with strips of Aether. Aether that carries them across seas at a speed bested only by Gateway. Loaded with weaponry, crates of Skyfire, thousands of soldiers.
Panic sets in, deep and immovable, gripping her lungs like she’s trapped underwater.
Shouts fill the air. Men placing bets, holding coins in the air, stretching over a crowd to land their bet.
What in the fucking Stars?
Marin pushes through, forcing her way to the front, and bile rises in her throat.
The men notice her immediately. The crowd goes quiet in her presence, and the silence is immediate and absolute.
Save for the rattling wheeze that Kael sucks in.
She can’t react. Not yet.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Marin demands, imbuing her voice with haughty arrogance.
“Princess Marin,” one man says—the man taking bets—dipping his head in acknowledgement. “Just getting the camaraderie up before we go to war. You know how men are—must get their blood pumping before we charge into battle.”
She does know how men are. Too well. Men have always found elegant ways to rename their worst impulses into something socially acceptable. As though bloodlust becomes noble the moment enough men participate in it together.
But she swallows down every retort, reaching for the only one that will work.
“Your Queen wants this prisoner for use in war, and you wish to take bets on who can, what? Render him unconscious?” she snaps, forcing herself to sound disgusted at them taking the opportunity away.
She chances a quick glance at Kael—on his knees, blood running in rivulets from deep slices in his arms from the barbed Aether, from the gash in his brow, the cleave through his lip.
His eyes are pools of darkness.
And from here, she cannot see a man. Only a beast.
Fuck.
She rolls the vial between her fingers in her pocket. She needs to give it to him. Needs him to drink it. But to do that, she needs to get him below deck. Alone.
She snaps her gaze back to the man.
“He is Caeloria’s greatest advantage in this war and you wish to take it away? Have you no intellect, sir? Have you no strategic awareness?”
He rubs the back of his neck under her attention. “Ah yes, Princess. We simply thought it would be a good chance to get the men… ready.”
Marin scoffs again. “You are no soldier of the Queen’s army if this is what you require to be ready for war. You have been trained for this exact moment for years—to execute without warning. Or are you questioning your training?” she presses.
The men shift on their feet. Cast their eyes to the ground. Because everyone knows what this is: a challenge.
“No, Princess Marin. I apologize. You are quite correct. This was misguided,” he pleads, and his words sound feeble.
For a heartbeat, she relishes it. Finds herself basking in the joy of forcing a man to come to heel.
“Get out of my sight. I will transport the prisoner to the ship’s cells myself,” she snaps, and dismisses the men with the flick of her wrist.
The men spin on their heels, grumbling about lost coin, but Marin doesn’t flinch. Lets them leave without a crack in her composure.
The docks buzz with movement again, workers returning to labor, people settling back into the slow procession of shopping for market goods.
And Marin? She reels.
Kael can barely stand, shredded skin, and exposed bone that juts out from wounds marring the entirety of his body. She keeps her mask in place, disgusted scowl twisting her features. She kneels beside him, lowers her voice so it’s barely discernible.
“Kael. Please,” she pleads. “If you’re in there, I need to see it. I need to know you’re there.”
He growls, all animal and aggression, no sign of the man.
He tries to gnash his teeth, but the blood loss has him weak, barely able to lunge. They’ve bled him so thoroughly he can barely move. She releases the Shadelock in her pocket.
And Marin reaches for the chains, yanking them hard, forcing him to stand.
He drags one bare, bloody foot to the ground.
It takes every ounce of her strength, but she drags the other to join it.
His knees buckle, but she catches him, just enough to shove him upright.
He sways. With every movement, the barbed Aether cuts deeper into his skin, but at this point, she just keeps pulling.
She needs to get him alone. Out of sight.
“Let us through!” she commands, and the dockhands clear the gangway immediately.
Kael stumbles again.
Not now. Just keep going.
The ship’s crew step out of the way—no one wanting to get close to the monster the King of Zerynthia has become. Not even if he’s chained and bleeding. Kael inspires fear the way storms do—something vast and uncontrollable that’s been briefly contained.
She forces him below deck, fingers digging into unavoidable wounds, blood spattering onto the floor like this is a godsdamned blood letting.
The door slams shut behind them, sending the noise of the docks above into a distant muffle. What remains is the sound of Kael’s breathing—ragged, uneven, each inhale dragging through him like it costs something.
Marin releases the chains.
He drops to his knees with a heavy, unsteady thud, his body finally giving in where it has been forced to endure for too long. For a moment, she doesn’t move. She simply stands there, watching him, forcing herself to look—to take in what he has become, what they have done to him.
This is him.
Or what remains of him.
The Decay has not simply consumed him. It has hollowed him out and dressed itself in his skin.
Her gaze lowers, tracking the wreckage of his body, the blood pooling beneath him, the torn flesh where the barbed Aether has carved its way into him again and again. And then she sees it.
A strip of cloth, half-enmeshed with the flesh behind the waist of his pants.
Her breath catches.
She knows that cloth.
She moves slowly, crouching beside him with care, as though any sudden movement might provoke something she cannot control. Her fingers close around it, lifting it free from the blood. The fabric is stiff, saturated, darkened beyond recognition in places where it has soaked through.
Not all of that blood is from his wounds.
Her thumb shifts against the surface, turning it slightly, and her chest tightens as the marks come into view.
The letters are uneven, jagged, smeared into the fabric. They are not written cleanly. They are dragged.
Elyssara.
For a moment, Marin forgets to breathe.
He had held onto that.
Through whatever they have done to him, through whatever has been stripped away, something in him still reaches for her name. Not as a thought or a memory, but as something inevitable etched into his soul.
“Elyssara,” she whispers.
His breathing changes, subtle, but unmistakable. Like the name reaches somewhere deeper than the monster.
“He’s still in there,” she murmurs, the words slipping free before she can stop them.
Above her, something shifts. The air changes. She glances up, rising to her feet.
Too late.
His hand is at her throat in an instant, fingers locking around it with brutal force as he surges forward and slams her back into the wall.
The impact drives the breath from her lungs, her vision flashing as instinct takes over.
Her hands fly to his wrist, trying to tear him off, but even now—broken, bleeding, barely standing—he is stronger than her.
She reaches for the small blade tucked into her sleeve, but he swats her hand away like it’s nothing.
His face is inches from hers. There is nothing human there. No restraint or hesitation or confusion. Only violence, raw and unfiltered, something unbound clawing its way to the surface and devouring everything in its path.
“Kael—” she forces out, the name strangled beneath his grip.
There is no response.
The pressure tightens.
Her pulse roars in her ears, panic clawing its way up her spine as her fingers scramble for the vial in her pocket. This was always the contingency. If he is gone… if there is nothing left…
End it.
Her hand finds the glass. She wrenches it free, forcing it upward between them, pressing it toward his mouth with what little strength she has left.
“Drink it,” she gasps, her voice breaking now. “Please.”
And then something changes. It is not a dramatic shift—it is the smallest fracture. His grip falters, like he’s at war with the one that controls him. Barely enough to notice, but enough that she feels it.
His eyes whir, shift, change. They do not return to what they were, but something moves behind them. Something that is not the thing trying to kill her.
Marin stills, every instinct sharpening.
“You’re in there,” she says, her voice quieter now, steady in a way that does not match the chaos of the moment.
For a fraction of a heartbeat, his expression wavers.
“Blink twice if you hear me, Kael,” she begs, voice rasping from the pressure.
He stares.
One heartbeat.
Two.
Then he blinks.
She waits.
Desperate.
His grip loosens just a fraction.
Just enough.
She doesn’t hesitate. She presses the vial to his lips again, her hand steady now despite the tremor still running through her body.
“Come back,” she murmurs. “Another blink.”
He parts his lips like he wants the Shadelock. Like it can save him. Like he wants it to.
“Elyssara,” Marin grits out, saying the only thing she can think of to bring him back.
He stills. Not releasing the pressure, but pausing enough that…
He blinks, strained and forced like he’s fighting against a force that wants him submissive. But it’s real.
“Survive for her,” Marin begs, still clawing at his hands, and still shoving the Shadelock at his lips.
He growls, loud and pained.
But his hands let her go, and he drops to his knees once more.
And that is enough.