Chapter 64
Ashley
but He has sworn He will not leave,
He’ll help us bear the strain.
“You must strip to your undergarments.”
The windowless room looks like the inside of a cathedral, built from dark blue stone.
The whole interior is smooth and seamless with no furniture or art.
I can’t even see where the door has gone.
Magic prickles against my skin like the static of a balloon and the air is thick enough to gulp down.
For once, my magic cowers, like it climbed back into its cage of its own accord and slammed the door shut.
“I am no criminal,” Aiden snaps. “Nor a commoner. I am your King and I am not to be instructed to strip for your entertainment.”
Kaed rolls his shoulders, his expression turning into something violent. Summer, Mari and the twins exchange glances.
“I told you,” Mari murmurs, crossing her arms. “It isn’t the right time.”
Summer tips her head back with a groan. “So, what do you suggest, Mari? She already said she would tell the King anyway. And where would that leave us?”
“She is Princess Agnimitra. And the answer is no,” Aiden says firmly. “You will simply tell us what you think you know or release us. That is an order.”
Hunah steps between them, hands raised. “Prince, if we are wrong, then you will be offended and you can exact your punishment. But if we are right, you will understand. Please, humor us.”
Eira grabs Aiden’s hand and kicks off her boots, a strange look on her face. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Shoes and layers of fabric pool at our feet. I fold my arms across myself even though I’m still covered by my underwear, suddenly aware of every inch of skin. It takes all the strength I have not to glance at Kaed standing half naked next to me. Vanilla and orange radiating off his bare skin.
“Jewellery too.” Summer adds. And though more protests rise, Eira leads the group as rings come off.
Chains, earrings, bracelets, weapons. We stand there stripped of armor and dignity.
Mari’s eyes roam our bodies before they turn completely black.
Veins darken and spread beneath her skin like eels darting through water.
“Oh, great Feye, hear our cry for protection,” she chants. The blue stone walls almost breathe with her, pulsing like a giant heartbeat. White light erupts from her hands and shimmering orbs snap into place around the four of them.
“Remove your crown, Prince.” Summer says steadily.
“No,” he snarls, teeth clenched, the muscles across his back tensing.
“Aiden,” Eira whispers. He looks at her, bewildered.
“I—I cannot.”
Summer’s voice tightens. “Your tag, Captain. Your ring, Chef. The chain at your waist, Ironwright. And your bracelet, Princess.”
I stare at my wrist, at the delicate band I don’t even remember putting on.
As my fingers close around the clasp, they plead with us urgently, voices layered with chants and certainty, promising that this is the only way.
But I can’t get it off, none of us can, even though there’s no physical resistance at all.
The struggle is in our minds. It’s like trying to rip something out of your own chest.
“Just take it off me!” Eira shrieks, clawing uselessly at the thin chain around her waist. Summer draws a thin blade and slashes clean through the metal.
The moment it breaks, Eira collapses to the floor, screaming, clutching her head as if something inside it is tearing itself apart. Aiden drops to his knees beside her.
“Eira—?”
“Take it off,” she gasps. “Take it off, Aiden. Please. Do it for me.” He freezes, eyes wide, caught between two halves of himself.
“No,” he forces out.
“Then let me,” she says hoarsely, reaching up with trembling hands. He doesn’t take his eyes off hers when he dips his head slowly. She rips it from his head and he folds forward, clutching her as she clings to him.
Kaed, Cook, and I stare at each other with wide eyes.
Cook swallows and holds out his shaking hand to me.
I grab his ring and pull. When it slides free he staggers backward like he’s been struck, sliding down the wall, breathing in sharp, broken gasps.
My heart hammers. I drop the ring like it’s made of acid as the sudden urge to march straight to the kitchen stores stamps its way through my mind.
Kaed grips my bracelet, I grab his tag, and we pull at the same time.
I throw his tag away, along with the pulsing thoughts of duty, restraint, and loyalty.
Kaed stifles a grunt and drops to one knee.
I pull him against me as he falls, his body heavy and trembling in my arms. He’s so warm it feels impossible; his bare skin pressed everywhere against mine while he clings to me like I’m the only thing that’s real.
His arms wrap around me so tight; it almost knocks the breath out of me.
The raging inferno of his wings breaks into spluttering, fading bursts.
My teeth chatter and my throat tightens as something small and spiky scurries out of my mind.
It hurts like hell, but I’m nowhere near as undone as the others.
Mari and Summer mutter spells over the discarded metals that leap up into the air, smashing against the protection orbs around them, before skittering across the stone as if running from them.
Faint whispers and hoarse screams come from the items with each blast of magic.
Summer hisses in pain and rubs her temple.
“It fights. The crown is strong. So terribly strong.”
“What’s happening?” I ask, looking around in panic at the crumpled forms of my friends.
“King Aeron’s mind magic is not foresight,” Summer says. “He plants thoughts. Which can be manipulated to look like foresight.” The room is silent. Not even a breath.
“We suspected something for many years. How could foresight be a branch of Feye’s magic?
He is the great In-between. Foresight would have to be a gift from Future God.
” Hunah continues, “but we could never get close enough to prove it. After the Princess arrived, he came bearing gifts in a panic. Chalices, jewellery, armour.” Eira gasps softly.
As if it’s her fault. “We instructed a new recruit to place them in our chambers. She accidentally brought them here. To the room of Feye’s First Breath.
” Her eyes linger on the ceiling. “When they entered this space, they whispered.”
“Whispered what?” I ask through gritted teeth, trying to blink away the ache behind my eyes.
“The thoughts he imbued on the metal. How good he is. How wise. How kind and great.” Hunah continues.
“Telling us to destroy the evidence of the ritual.” Xalan shakes his head. “Goading us into peace and submission. Remaining here, imprisoned forever.”
Eira bites her nail, eyes darting, and Summer gives her a sad, knowing smile. “You already knew.”
“I—it’s complicated.” She glances at Kaed. “Nyk — he tried to tell me. Over and over.”
Hunah turns sharply to Summer. “This Nyk they speak of. Your friend, the priestess. Is it her boy?”
“Yes.” Kaed answers before Summer can. The grit in his voice does not match the way his body shakes as he drags himself upright. “Nykholas, son of Amun. What do you know?”
Summer’s jaw tightens as she adjusts the beads at her hips.
“Prince Aiden disclosed to the King that you had ignited the bond, Captain. Aeron was curious why Nykholas withheld the information. Just before the bonding ceremony, he used the cursed waters of our beloved Barkus to coerce Nykholas into revealing what he knew. Which was everything. When we arrived at the bonding ceremony, our soldiers scoured the palace for him. But he was nowhere to be seen.”
Kaed’s eyes narrow. “And how do you know all this?”
Summer’s voice trembles slightly. “I helped Nyk escape his family many years ago and enter the palace. Once we realised what Aeron was up to, I tried to warn him. So many times. He didn’t believe me at first, of course, his thoughts warped into trusting only in the King.
But eventually, he removed a piece of jewellery Aeron had gifted him.
A ring.” Her breath falters. “I cannot bear that I am the reason for his death.”
Eira’s composure shatters. “Nyk is not dead. The King promised he’d free him when we return.”
“Dear child,” Mari says softly, “Aeron is not counting on your return. Your boy, Jace, we removed his earring and heard the whispered commands. Not to leave without making sure you are all dead. And if he gets caught, he must blame Nykholas. Aeron may already have taken Nykholas’s life and set things in motion to blame us for your deaths.
A tidy end indeed. We will contact our spies to confirm. ”
Eira breaks and a tear slips down Summer’s cheek as she clicks her fingers, then attaches a scribbled note to a Pyreling.
“He poisoned me at the wedding?” I remember how he offered me the drink. So easily. So casually. Turning his back on me and expecting me to die. Tears sting my eyes, but I won’t cry for this. For him.
“Yes,” Xalan says. And though I already knew, my heart sinks a little more.
“Then used something similar in the arrows. We do not know what the poison contains, but now we have them in our possession, they shall be studied. We suspect this is why your wounds are not healing. We have already begun to brew you an elixir to help with them.” I instinctively touch my burn and glance over to Aiden.
His legs are crossed, hands slack in his lap. Summer clicks her fingers, the protective shield around them dissipating. She lowers herself beside him, resting a careful hand on his bare arm, murmuring something, but he just stares at the ground.
Mari sighs. “I suspect the poor soul has not had his own thoughts since he was a child.”
My chest aches at her words. I spent so long hating Aiden for the things he said, the things he did, the way he treated people.
How he wanted me dead. But was it all a reflection of the King’s desires?
All I can picture is a little boy with a crown on his head and someone else’s voice inside it.
Someone else’s thoughts. Someone else’s control.
How lonely that must be. To spend your whole life not knowing where you end and somebody else begins.
Summer places a hand on his head before her eyes turn an icy white.
“There is a great war within this mind.” Goosebumps race across my skin at her voice, now an entire choir, like her vocal cords have been sliced into a hundred different pieces.
“Two halves of a bond that cannot meet, a broken body, a King’s control and what little is left of his own self, trying to push through for freedom.
How it longs to be free. To love and be loved. But these fractions do not know how.”
I thought my uncle loved me. I trusted him. Believed him. The fraud wearing my father’s face tried to take my life. Take Aiden’s. And if he could deceive me so completely and hurt me so deeply, what must this be doing to my brother? I look at the broken shape of him on the floor.
“We have to go and get Nyk,” Eira says hoarsely, looking at Kaed, then Summer.
Normally, Aiden would flinch at that. Argue. Blink. Command. But he doesn’t.
His green eyes remain distant, fixed on nothing, as if no one is speaking at all.