CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Ronan
BOOTS HAMMERED DOWN ON MARBLE, each strike reverberating through the corridor, heavy enough that the guards lining the walls stiffened in a single, terrified motion.
Armor meant nothing against what walked toward them; metal couldn’t shield a man from a dragon in a killing mood.
The hall lowered to whispers behind him, spines locking rigid as no one dared step in his path. Not when he came for what was his.
Throne room doors rose ahead, great slabs of pallid ivory, gleaming as restless smoke churned beneath his skin, urging to break them clean off their hinges.
Word had reached him, poison poured in his ear, that the Viper was taken, dragged below ground, chained and broken then thrown into a pit. How they planned to strip her scales one by one, watch her bleed.
Two guards crossed their blades as he approached, barring his entry. A flare caught in Ronan’s eyes; he had not come to parley. There was no facade.
Not today.
One guard braced, planting the tip of his sword against Ronan’s chest, voice shaking despite the steel. “You are not permitted to enter without the king’s word.”
Ronan raised his hands, palms open in fake surrender. Fingers wiggled lazily, just for show, confusion wavering across the guards’ faces.
Then the smoke struck. Black and writhing, pouring from his fingers and wrapping the first guard’s throat. A strangled gag, a scrape of armor against ivory, and the man collapsed, lifeless and grey on the polished floor.
The second guard shook, knuckles white around his hilt. But he held the line. Steel scraped behind Ronan, more soldiers flooding the corridor, armor clanking, blades unsheathed, the stench of fear floating across his nose.
A thumb dragged along his lower lip, while dark vapor curled from his jaw and he rasped, “Permission is not what I came for.”
The soldiers hesitated, just a hint, and Ronan smiled.
Sage fused into flame as his eyes burned, wings erupting from his back, vast enough to shake dust from the ceiling. Marble trembled beneath the impact, blades clattering to the floor.
A sting bit into the leather near the ridge of his wing, shallow, an insult more than an injury. The guard who dared it barely managed to draw breath before Ronan closed his palm.
Mist spilled, the air becoming stagnant in dark wraith and the man dropped, gasping once before his breath turned to ash. The remaining guard lowered his weapon, hands lifted as he shifted aside in surrender.
Smoke loomed around Ronan’s shoulders as he clasped his cuffs, adjusting them with a slow precision that made the guard tremble harder.
The cut along his wing had already sealed shut, the flesh stitching itself together without a scar.
He dragged in one breath, tightening the rising break inside him into purpose. Shadow lashed out, a spiral of smoke wrapping around the guard’s throat like a leash, dragging the man forward as Ronan shoved the doors open with both hands.
The body hit the floor with a dull thud when Ronan flung him aside, discarded like scrap cloth as the throne room fell silent.
Obrann lounged on his reforged throne, ivory and iron twisted into a ridicule of power. A goblet shone in his palm, wine dripping from his fingers in a crimson trail.
A stocky advisor hissed in his ear, voice frantic, until Obrann dismissed him with a flick. The man swallowed his scowl, bowing and retreating into the shadows.
Ronan’s stare didn’t hover long on Obrann. Not when another figure sat beside him on a second throne, mirroring the king’s. His skin was pallid, eyes rimmed in grey, black dulled to a lifeless matte. Not alive, but not quite dead.
Prince Perseus. Resurrected.
But even that wasn’t what turned the ground beneath Ronan to ice. Two steps behind Obrann’s right hand stood a man Ronan knew. After all these years, it was a face he would remember, even in the pitch.
The man swallowed as he met Ronan’s eyes, a tiny motion, almost nothing. But Ronan’s stare promised everything.
I remember you. And I’m coming.
Obrann’s voice droned somewhere behind it all, false welcomes, talk of alliances, feigned civility, but the sound hardly registered.
Not when Perseus lifted his goblet, grin splitting across his bloodless lips. “Prince Ronan,” he crooned. He drank deep, only to choke, once, twice, dark liquid dribbling down his chin like oil.
Murmurs rose, whispers rising and dying.
Obrann leaned forward, peering past the span of Ronan’s wings still unfurled in the doorway. “Might I ask,” he drawled. “What possessed you to turn my guards into grit?”
Every eye in the chamber glared with expectation, waiting for the dragon prince to bend. To bow.
Ronan stepped fully into the room, hauling the guard forward as he kicked and thrashed uselessly. “Because ash,” he said, “is all your kingdom deserves.” He tossed the man forward in offering. “My sword, for your guard.”
Obrann snorted, sinking back into the cushioned throne. “That one has proved useless. Eat him, for all I care.”
Black surged down Ronan’s arm, tendrils sinking into the guard’s skin. The scream tore desperately through the chamber before it collapsed into silence. A heartbeat later, the body disintegrated, scattering through his grip.
Lifting his palm to his lips, Ronan exhaled a slow breath. Ash drifted free, onyx snow falling across the marble.
Perseus howled, an ugly, barking sound, slapping his knee as he hunched forward. “Father, that was very amusing.” He waved for his goblet to be refilled. “Bring in another! Perhaps he can roast one like a pig—”
The air snapped.
Black smoke coiled from the floor, rising like a living snare before anyone could blink. It wrapped Perseus mid-sentence, binding his torso, yanking him upright in one brutal jerk. His legs kicked, goblet bleeding wine as it toppled to the floor.
The laughter died, stillness falling absolute.
Ronan moved through it like wraith, wings spread behind him, eclipsing the stained-glass sun. “What did it cost you,” he rumbled, “to cheat death?”
Perseus gagged, the darkness forcing his jaw wide with no sound breaking free.
Obrann lurched from his throne, face blotched red, fist trembling in impotent rage. “How dare you threaten royalty. Release my son at once!”
None of his court moved. Not a single guard stepped forward.
Power flared, the smoke tightening around Perseus’s ribs until one cracked. “The life clinging to him now,” Ronan moved toward the dais, “it doesn’t come without a price. It stains. It corrupts. Someone always pays.”
Perseus thrashed harder, the dark sliding down his throat like a second, choking spine.
“Did you forget?” Ronan’s voice dropped. “I hold a crown of my own.”
Obrann’s fingers twitched, spinning his rings meticulously, one by one.
“My sword,” Ronan spoke again. “For your heir.” Phantom mist prowled the edges of the chamber, curling at the boots of courtiers, tasting their fear. “Or,” his stare narrowed, “shall I grant him a second death? I promise you my smoke doesn’t forgive. Nor does it return what it devours.”
Obrann’s deliberation etched into the lines of his face.
All he had to do was lie. Deny the blade’s existence. Play deaf to the bait. But Obrann, too tangled in his own web of deception, too enthralled by the game, took the wrong breath.
“Father—” Perseus wheezed through the smoke. “Plea—”
“Silence!” Obrann snapped.
Only Perseus flinched, his face now blanched. Not even the frames lining the walls trembled.
Obrann scrubbed a hand down his face, fury barely leashed, then barked toward his second. “Ira!”
The advisor practically launched himself forward, bowing so low his nose nearly brushed the floor. “Majesty?”
“Fetch the sword.”
The smoke around Perseus eased, just enough to let a thread of breath slip back in.
“Quickly,” Obrann snarled. “The dragon prince has overstayed his welcome.”
Ira stumbled from the room, white robes flaring behind him, desperate to be free of the rising fury.
Obrann slumped back into his throne, pinching the bridge of his nose as if all of this—his strangled son, the cowering court, the bodies cooling on the marble—was nothing more than a tedious inconvenience.
“Well?” he demanded, waving a dismissive hand toward Perseus. “Release my son.”
Ronan raised a brow, not even bothering to hide his disdain as he simply stared back at Obrann. A voiceless reminder. Not until I have what is mine.
So, the room waited.
Minutes dragged, until time itself seemed to choke in the smoke. Perseus twitched where he hung, numbness setting in slow, his curses tapering to broken gasps.
Still Ronan held him. Still Obrann feigned calm. Still the court dared not breathe.
Finally, the footsteps came as Ira burst through the doors, face blotched, robes askew. He skidded to a stop on one knee, chest heaving with each breath. “Your Majesty—” Words dragged up his throat, dying there. “It’s...” A swallow. “The sword—” A broken croak. “It’s missing.”
Obrann’s composure shattered at last.
Ronan’s wings unfurled behind him, shadows spilling from their tips. “Ah, that’s right.” A click of his tongue, relishing in it. “It’s already reclaimed.”
Obrann’s hands balled into fists, the veins writhing as though eager to burst. He whirled toward the nearest guard, seizing his wrist, magic sparking as it was ripped from the brute’s body. The man dropped, a drained husk, gasping once before going still.
Ronan let Perseus fall.
The prince’s body hit the floor with a sickening crack, limbs bending at a grotesque angle. He screamed as they snapped back into place, flesh knitting with agonized slowness.
Obrann spared him no glance. Not when the stolen magic throbbed beneath his skin, pulsing in feverish veins. Not when the chair he gripped shattered in his hands like brittle tinder.
Ronan’s wings beat once, twice. Air cracked outward, spiraling through the chamber, rattling goblets, toppling banners, scattering the last traces of ash.
Smirking, he said, “Along with a few other valuable items.”
Obrann fell still as his breath hitched.
Ronan dipped his head, a predator’s bow. “I’ll give them your best.”
He paired the words with a wink, vanishing into a sift of obsidian as the throne room buckled under the darkness.
His warning lingered—that this was not an end, nor a mercy. Merely that the fire he left behind had only just begun to burn.