CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO #2
The guard only chuckled, taking in the room before shifting one step away from her, leaving his sword unsheathed.
Still locked in a grapple, the guard Callum held clawed at the iron links cutting deeper with every breath he couldn’t take.
His face darkened, his knees bowed.
Callum held, muttering low into his ear as life left his body.
Callum, sworn protector of the voiceless, was strangling a man in his guard, in the throne room where he’d once pledged his oath.
This was very bad. It couldn’t be about last night.
Maybe they had found out what Callum did with Rook? But even Gemma wasn’t a part of that.
“Enough.”
The word clipped through the guard’s choking gurgle, moving through the chamber as doors banged open, the King of Luamis striding into the room.
Callum’s grip slackened and the chains slipped loose as the guard collapsed, gasping. Lifting two fingers, he crouched, placing them against his throat. “He’s fine.”
The crown tilted on Obrann’s head as he sauntered through the parting bodies, not even bothering to glance down.
Guards bowed, suitors swept aside.
“How gracious of you, commander.” Obrann’s voice carried, stretched too thin, as he stopped before his throne.
And there, sitting beside it, was Elva.
She was still, a butterfly trapped in cocooned silence as Obrann bowed, his lips grazing the back of her hand like relief.
I gagged.
Elva didn’t stir. Her chin stayed lowered, her stare buried somewhere beyond us, hidden beneath that beaded veil.
“My princess,” he whispered, soft enough to rot. “You must watch your friends. Pray for them, yes?”
She gave nothing back. Her body was here, her arms inked with new bruises, deep violet staining pale skin. But Elva, she was lost.
Callum saw her then too. The sound that tore out of him was not a word; it was only a feral snarl, raw and animal as he lunged, his chains rattling.
And Obrann, he saw it all. And he smiled.
Callum’s eyes blazed, fire roaring but trapped, barely contained. “What have you done to her?”
A snap split the air, a whip lashing his legs. He stumbled, crashing at my side. I sucked in a breath, but his eyes never left Elva. Not once.
All his life he had sworn to protect three women: his mother, the sister he’d found in the woods, and the princess who had turned his heart to gold.
Now all three stood before him, shackled, bruised, broken.
Obrann knew exactly what he was doing. This wasn’t punishment, it was bait. And Callum had stepped right into it.
My focus left Callum, catching on Fritz, standing just behind Elva’s shoulder, his posture rigid, hands clasped too tightly to be steady. He wouldn’t look at me, wouldn’t even lift his lashes.
As if my eyes were a noose and he’d already stepped off the ledge.
Obrann waved a languid hand, dismissing Callum. Then that same hand drifted, pointing lazily at me. “What is this?”
“Your Majesty,” the guard croaked, still pressing his boot to my skull, bowing as far as the motion would allow. “I was merely preparing her for you.”
“Preparing her for what, exactly?” Obrann’s sigh slinked through the room as he fell back into the throne.
A servant slipped a goblet into his palm.
Another laid out a tray of cheeses and fruit at his elbow.
“She’s no good to me with a broken jaw, you imbecile.
” He plucked a strawberry by the stem, dangling it between his fingers as he sipped.
My eyes flicked to the empty seat beside him. His heir’s chair. Vacant.
“Let her up,” he ordered.
The boot lifted, air at last flooding my lungs. I forced myself upright, limbs unsteady, jaw aching. Not dislocated. Not shattered. But something was wrong. The ache stayed. My body wasn’t knitting itself back together.
My spine knotted as my fangs tried to press free. Let me out, the whisper coaxed.
No, I begged. Not yet.
When I lifted my head, Obrann was watching, his lips curved, a brow arched. Like he’d peeled back the skin of my thoughts and was admiring exactly what raged inside me.
But all I could see was Elva. Her trembling. The bruises shaped like fingers along her arms. He wanted us to see.
She was a living exhibit of his power, and we were the audience.
“Do you three know why I’ve summoned you?” Obrann asked at last, but his glare stayed on me as though the others didn’t exist.
I swallowed the urge to bare my teeth; he’d only relish in that. “To beg for Gemma’s secret lamb soup recipe?” I asked, with only a knife-tip of sarcasm.
He chuckled, almost delighted. “That’s what I admire about you, Verena, is it?”
“If you admire me so,” I said, “I’d assume you already know my name.”
The incline of his head was faint, acknowledging a rival rather than a captive. He continued. “You pretend ignorance. You hide behind your rebel friends as a lamb. But really…” The black in his eyes glinted, catching some secret light. “You’re the wolf.”
Oh, I’m something far scarier than a wolf.
My voice slipped from velvet into iron. “You think too small. I am none of those titles.”
We never called ourselves that. Rebels was a story the crown fed the masses, a name steeped in failure and fear.
We were not its aftermath, but its resurrection.
“Well.” He clapped once, the sound loud, theatrical. “We know at least one of those is a lie.”
All of them were lies.
“I suppose you’ve heard the news,” he went on. “The unfortunate and sudden death of my son.”
Not a question. Or a statement. Another snare. I gave him nothing. No gasp, no grief, not even a shift in breath.
Gemma did, her exhale bit against her gag, tears soaking the cloth. Relief? Grief? A twisted mix of both maybe?
Was she mourning Perseus, or mourning that I had been caught? Or maybe she cried for joy because Elva was no longer shackled to that bastard.
I looked at Callum, his glare on me heavier than that damn boot on my skull ever was.
Obrann only nodded, like we were performing exactly as he’d scripted. A snap of his fingers, and another servant approached, a tray balanced between their palms. Three goblets balanced within it, mockeries of his own.
“I’ve waited for this moment,” he leaned back, arms spreading wide, “long before today. But when I learned my son had been poisoned—” The server stopped before us; knelt like offerings. “I thought, what better time than now?”
“We didn’t kill the prince.” Callum’s voice tore from his throat, desperate in a way I’d never heard.
The man who usually pressed swords to spines, who never begged, sounded like he was pleading now. And he was right to. The air was drenched in verdict.
One of us, if not all, would die today. But who was he pleading for? Me? Elva? Gemma? Or himself?
Obrann’s jeweled fingers tapped the throne’s armrest—
One. Two. Three.
The rhythm was quick at first, impatient, like a heart pounding against its cage. Then it slowed into something measured, deliberate.
One. Two. Three.
He propped forward; chin perched on the back of his hand. “I know you did not kill him, commander.” His finger shifted up, brushing his cheek. Again—
One. Two. Three.
“But out of the three of you,” his hand sliced lazily through the air, dividing us like pieces on a board, “who do you think did?”
The stone bit into my knees as I shifted, trying to shake the weight pressing down. He was bluffing. He had no proof. We’d done everything right.
Callum’s throat moved, but he no longer stared at me, even as I reached through our bond to explain.
Callum...Not surprisingly, none of my words reached him.
Maybe I would’ve told him if he’d trusted me with the dragons. Maybe he would’ve helped if he’d known what Perseus was doing to Elva. Judging by the new bruises on her arms, the task had simply been passed along.
Obrann’s silence stretched, a predator’s pause.
When no one spoke, he said, “I’ve been watching your little cabal for some time.
The stunt with the dragons was impressive.
How did you get them to obey?” Before anyone could answer, he lifted a finger, a flash of revelation dancing across his gaze.
“Oh,” he murmured, pointing it directly toward us. “You stole from me, Callum Hale.”
The words landed like a trap snapping shut.
Double, triple—Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“I didn’t take you for their leader,” he snickered. “You were a fine commander. Loyal, predictable, but weak where it counted. And stealing from my trove?” An unimpressed click rolled off his tongue. “Let’s see if the dragons come to your aid now.”
My throat bobbed. Gods, don’t let him hear the gallop of my pulse, the sweat bleeding through my skin.
A snap of his fingers, and the servant knelt, placing the goblets before each of us, liquid glinting dark.
“We are no rebels,” Callum voiced. “I am your commander of the guard, Your Majesty. My loyalty is to the crown.”
Obrann’s smile curved. “Have you heard the story of the king beyond the mountain, and the downfall of his realm?” Not waiting for our answer, he settled back into his throne. “Shame. Let me share it with you.”
The sound of his throat clearing tugged the hall into silence as he began. “Long ago, when the skies still sang, before crowns and borders sculpted the land, there was another realm. One where light bowed to the Seraph Ascendant. The Angel ruler.”
My head jerked toward the oval window, reaching for the mountain.
“His queen fell ill, turning her wings gray, her heart dimming near death.” His pause lingered, stretching, letting the weight of the tale settle.
“The ruler, as proud and unbending as he was, had always refused to kneel before the Gods. He called their worship weakness, their mercy a chain. But the queen’s son could not bear to watch her fade.
Desperate, he sought out the Gods in secret, begging them to save her. ”