Chapter 16 Aurelia #2
For a flicker, fear pressed tight against my ribs—every moment here was another piece of Aeryn slipping further from my reach. But Hayat’s lessons surfaced: play the game, use the mask, survive. If Etherblooms were my goal, then Kaelith was the obstacle I had to outmaneuver.
Kaelith reached for the decanter, filling my glass with a generous pour of dark red wine as he carried on his easy conversation with the woman beside him.
I didn’t wait. My nerves were already strung too tight, my thoughts looping back to Aeryn, to the Etherblooms I still hadn’t found.
I needed something—anything—to take the edge off, to steady myself before I shattered. I lifted the glass and drank deep.
The wine was rich and warm, but strange—tinged with something floral and sharp beneath the berry and oak. A tingling spread across my tongue, curling into the back of my throat.
Kaelith watched me drink as if he’d been waiting for it.
Malachi leaned toward me, voice low. “That wine isn’t what you’re used to in Synnex,” he said, almost lazily. “It’s laced with bone dust. Mildly hallucinogenic.” My brow lifted, but before I could respond, the shift began.
It started subtly. Kaelith’s already striking features took on a luminous glow, his skin gleaming, eyes burning faintly with starlight.
The candlelight thickened, bending around him until even the air seemed to pulse in time with my heartbeat.
The room shimmered. The Keepers glowed more vividly, their movements leaving trails of soft light that lingered a second too long, while the nobles of Kaelith’s court gleamed beneath the illusion of refinement, their laughter thinning into echoes that rippled through the hall.
Even the food gleamed on the platters, colors deepening at the edges of my vision until gold tasted like honey and the sound of glass rang sweet as music.
I blinked. Everyone around the table looked… unreal. More beautiful. More elegant.
Malachi, too—his features had sharpened and darkened. His eyes glowed brighter than firelight, and every shadow on his face seeming to deepen into some forbidden sculpted mystery. And yet his smile remained grounded in something human—almost mocking as he watched me take in the shift.
“You’re staring, little dove.”
“You didn’t warn me before I drank it,” I muttered, the words slipping out before I could catch them.
Malachi turned his head, brows lifting as though I’d grown a second scar. “Why would I warn you?” he asked, tone flat with genuine confusion.
Heat crept up my neck.
“I thought it would be more fun to watch,” he added after a beat, lips twitching in faint amusement.
A slow, incredulous breath left me. “Ah,” I said, turning my head just enough to look at him, “so you did think about it.”
His lips twitched—just once, reluctant amusement flashing across his face.
I looked down at the wine again. It was no longer just dark red. Threads of gold shimmered through the liquid, curling like veins of starlight. I was certain they hadn’t been there a moment ago.
“Wonderful,” I muttered dryly. “Dinner and delusions.”
“Don’t worry,” he murmured. “It won’t last long. Just heightens perception. Makes things feel more… vivid.”
I wasn’t sure if I liked vivid.
Kaelith turned to me then, his eyes locking on mine. “So, tell me, Aurelia… what brings you to Nyxarra?”
“I came for the Etherblooms,” I said at last, careful but direct. If I wanted to leave, I couldn’t waste time circling him with pleasantries.
His brows lifted, interest sparking. “Etherblooms? How curious.”
I held his gaze, forcing my voice to stay steady. “My brother needs them. Without them, he’ll die.”
Kaelith swirled the wine in his glass, the corner of his mouth lifting.
“Ah… family. Always the most dangerous weakness.”
His gaze traced me, too perceptive. “You have the look of someone who heals others—or perhaps someone who has been wounded one too many times and is in need of healing herself.”
I stiffened but held his gaze.
“Hm.” He savored the pause like a sip of wine. “Yes. Etherblooms.” He leaned back slightly, voice softening into something almost reverent. “Such delicate, stubborn little things… born, they say, from Kaerani’s grief. Do you know that story?”
My breath hitched. “I’ve heard versions.”
“Most have,” he murmured, amused. “But they forget the heart of it. When she and her sisters cast Eryndis out—when the goddess of thresholds vanished into the Veil—it was Kaerani who wept. Not from victory, but from guilt. Her tears struck barren stone and bled into petals silvered at the edges… ready to be painted red by anyone desperate enough to seek them.”
His eyes gleamed, sharp and hungry. “Shadow and moonlight kissed. Grief answered. And the first Etherblooms grew.”
A prickle crawled down my spine.
Kaelith angled his head. “Tell me, Aurelia—what will you offer in return for something so rare?”
Beside me, Malachi went utterly still. His fingers curled slightly against the edge of his plate, the only sign that something in Kaelith’s question had landed harder than it should have.
Kaelith’s smile didn’t falter, but his eyes gleamed with something sharper now—interest, maybe. Calculation.
“Perhaps you’re meant to find something else first,” he mused, as if my answer wasn’t what he wanted yet. “Answers. Power. Purpose.”
My shoulders tightened. “I didn’t come looking for purpose.”
“That’s the thing about purpose,” he said smoothly, tilting his glass. “It rarely waits for us to seek it. It arrives. It demands. And it will shape you, Aurelia. Whether you accept it… or I do it for you.”
Something in his gaze sharpened just slightly, and I didn’t like the way it settled on me.
Dinner began. I ate carefully, cautiously, trying not to stare too long at Kaelith and trying not to let Malachi’s silent brooding presence crawl under my skin.
This was a game. I knew it the moment I stepped into the hall. And I wasn’t sure what role I was supposed to play.
Kaelith raised his goblet and stood. “A toast,” he announced, voice resonant and smooth. “In honor of our guest—Aurelia Moirae.”
A low hum rolled through the room, curious glances cast my way.
“It has been some time since the Moirae line graced these halls. Tonight, we celebrate not only her survival—but her rightful return to Nyxarra.” He paused, letting the words hang. “A ball will be held in three nights’ time to mark the occasion—our long-lost lineage returned to its rightful place.”
Rightful place?
A murmur of excitement swept the room. Goblets lifted. Cheers erupted, echoing against the high-arched ceilings.
Lysara and Santiago entered just then, slipping through the doorway and positioning themselves along the far wall, calm and watchful as the cheers died down. I turned slowly to Kaelith, keeping my voice low. “I’m sorry, but I don’t intend to stay.”
He didn’t look surprised as he sat back down. He shifted in his seat, swirling the wine in his goblet. “I know,” he said simply. “But you will. Willingly.”
My pulse kicked hard against my ribs. “How very presumptuous of you.”
“Oh, I’m not being presumptuous.” His smile curved like a blade. “You will stay. Because I’ll allow you to return home—to fetch your brother.”
The words rooted me to the chair. Allow me. He was saying aloud what I’d already suspected since the moment I woke in this place: every hallway I’d walked had been chosen for me, every door one I’d been allowed to pass through. This castle was a cage.
The shadows here answered him. Every corridor breathed with his will. Even when I’d been well enough to walk, the air itself had watched me, waiting. And Santiago’s warning echoed in my skull: Malachi’s shadows don’t just bind—they tether.
Deep down, I knew I wouldn’t make it three steps before those shadows dragged me back.
Not when I still didn’t understand what this place was. Not when I didn’t even know where the gardens were. Not when Aeryn’s life depended on me staying alive long enough to find the Etherblooms.
I needed to play along. Bide my time. Survive.
“What did you say?”
“To bring him here,” he said, setting his goblet down gently. “So he may be cured.”
My throat went dry. “And if I refuse?”
“Then he dies.” His gaze held mine—too calm, too knowing.
His fingers brushed against my wrist before I could react—and the world blinked away. Suddenly I wasn’t at the table.
I stood in the town square of Synnex—the same square where my parents had burned. The air held the scent of ash and citrus blossoms. Aeryn sat on the steps of the library, flicking seeds to a circle of birds, his boyish smile tilting toward the sun.
I wasn’t myself. I was watching from eyes that weren’t mine, staring down at hands pale as the moon.
“Aeryn,” a voice said—my voice, but not.
He looked up, brow furrowed. “Yes? Do I know you?”
The hand that wasn’t mine extended toward him, gentle. Aeryn took it. And then—something shifted.
The second hand blurred past my vision, striking through his chest with terrible, perfect precision. Aeryn’s eyes widened, confusion flooding them, quickly overtaken by pain. His lips parted as blood spilled over them, and his body sagged forward.
The hand retracted slowly, still holding the thing it had ripped from him—his heart, still beating, glistening in crimson ruin.
I screamed. And the world snapped back.
I gasped, nearly knocking over my goblet as Kaelith’s fingers withdrew from my wrist.
“How did you—” My voice trembled. “If you hurt my brother, I swear—”
“Relax,” Kaelith said, as if we’d just spoken about the weather. “That will only happen if you fail to return with him… and fulfill my request.”
Relax. My pulse still thundered, the phantom of Aeryn’s blood on my hands.
But it wasn’t the horror of the vision that rooted me.
Kaelith had pulled me into it, made me live it.
If he could reach into me with a touch, then I was never beyond his grasp.
And now he held the key I couldn’t afford to lose.
My breath stuttered. “And what request would that be?”
His smile deepened. “To be my bride, of course.”
I stared at him, my mind racing to catch up with the words he’d just spoken. Bride. He’d said bride. Not prisoner. Bride.
Kaelith leaned in so that only I could hear him. “Nyxarra needs a queen with ancient blood,” he murmured. “But it is the court I must convince—not you,” he concluded, as if my consent were a formality he’d already dismissed.
My hands curled into fists beneath the tablecloth. The room blurred, but not from the wine. This was fury, sharp and hot and alive in my chest. He thought he could claim me.
No. I wasn’t something to be worn, to be paraded, to be used.
Time cracked. Next to me, Malachi’s head snapped toward him, shock breaking his otherwise glacial composure. I could only stare, heart pounding against my ribs.
Kaelith stood abruptly, raising his glass and tapping a knife gently against it.
“Attention, everyone, please.” The room quieted instantly.
“I am delighted to announce that Nyxarra’s future has been secured.
As your future king, I have chosen to unite our realms through legacy and blood.
” He turned toward me. “With Aurelia Moirae as my bride, the Moirae line returns to its rightful place—the child of shadow’s pulse restored to the throne she was carved from—strengthening our bloodline with future heirs—”
I didn’t hear the rest. My ears rang. My breath stuttered. The floor beneath me tilted sharply.
The candles flickered, then dimmed. The wine clawed through my veins, dragging me under.
Kaelith’s toast thundered over me, triumph in every syllable. Fury cut through the haze like a blade. I forced the words out, ragged but sharp. “I’ll never be your bride.” Then the world tilted, dragging me under.
The last thing I saw was Kaelith raising his glass in triumph, and Malachi rising beside me in a blur of movement.