Chapter Fifty-Seven
CHAPTER
FIFTY-SEVEN
There was something strange about the prince that Aurelie couldn’t place.
She saw no miasma circling him, yet his presence brought an itch to her skin that she couldn’t shake. It was made worse when his gaze cut clean across the room, locking with hers. He smiled, and a chill swept through her before she could look away.
If not for the servant drifting past to fill every empty chalice with Severin’s finest, Aurelie might never have been able to break his hold on her.
And yet, by the time the woman finished pouring, the prince was no longer watching.
His attention had shifted to his bride, his grin stretching as he leaned in to murmur something that drew a laugh from Ilaria.
Not a measured, courtly laugh, but one so genuine that her eyes squinted.
Caught off guard, Aurelie felt irritation prickle beneath her ribs.
What on earth was going on?
She gripped her chalice tight in one hand, the other worrying at the table’s edge, nails digging crescents into the wood.
Severin was watching the king. Their bond was a mess of emotion, though the tension stirring within him reminded her of the night they’d found the wings of the Fallen. His hand brushed his chest for what had to be the tenth time that hour, checking that the cure was still there.
She wished she could do the same. Instead, she sat restless, waiting for the toasts to begin.
That was when Severin planned to confront the king and present the cure.
The plan had been to use her father as proof of its legitimacy, but they’d have to improvise.
Wherever Varen was, she prayed he was safe and far from any who might harm him.
For what it was worth, Azriel didn’t seem panicked, which gave her at least some peace.
Servants emerged like ghosts, balancing trays of steaming dishes: Roasted duck glazed in plum, sugared walnuts and baked pears, bowls of root vegetables laced with clove and orange peel. Loaves of steaming honey bread with butter already sinking into their crusts.
It was one of the finest feasts she’d ever seen.
“Aurelie,” Severin whispered as the crowd murmured their eagerness. “There’s something you should know—”
She barely heard him. Her focus had once again snagged on Ilaria’s soft laughter. The sound was warm and buttery, but surely it couldn’t be real. Not with all she was giving up to be here.
Was this a lie, too? Could she really be so skilled at deceit?
By the Light, it was like she’d never known Ilaria at all.
It was a breach of etiquette to drink before the king, yet Aurelie raised her chalice to her lips all the same only for Severin’s hand to stop her. His eyes were dark, pinched at the corners. Thinking him nervous, she set the cup down and laced her fingers through his.
“Breathe,” she said. “We’ll see this done.”
He squeezed back, more tense than she’d ever seen him. Fortunately, this would all be over soon.
“I’d like to raise a toast,” the king announced, lifting from his chair and raising his chalice high. “To my daughter, Ilaria, to Prince Asterion, and to the union of our kingdoms. May we be stronger as one, and may the Light shine upon us as we rid our world of the demons plaguing it.”
Severin’s jaw ticked. He, like everyone else, raised his chalice, though when Aurelie smiled at him, his body seemed to wilt.
“Don’t drink it.”
There was a darkness in his words, and though he showed no outward sign of it, guilt curled through their bond.
Nerves seized her, coiling tight. “Severin?” Fear blurred her vision, thinning the revelry into a distant hum. “What’s happening?”
“I’m sorry.” The guests cheered on the newlyweds, drinks sloshing as they drank heartily. “I truly am.”
The doors to the grand hall slammed open with a crack that silenced the room.
“Spit it out!”
Aurelie jolted upright on instinct. Yuri strode into the hall, and her heart lurched when light from the corridor spilled over the figure just behind him—her father.
For a heartbeat, the entire hall held its breath. Then the Rhovarian knights surged into action, their steel flashing beneath the glow of chandeliers. Across the room, Frienen soldiers formed a tight circle around their royals, spears held at the ready.
King Edric’s gaze cut clean through the tension, landing upon Yuri. His voice carried over the chaos, cold and commanding.
“What is the meaning of this?”
Before them, Yuri was a sight to behold. His wings were spread to their full length, shielding as much of Varen as possible. Even so, there was no mistaking the demon behind him, his body hunched, a low growl rumbling in his throat as he scanned the room.
He was looking for her.
“Varen didn’t change because he succumbed,” Yuri said, locking eyes with King Edric. “He changed because he was poisoned by the very wine you hold. Wine that will turn any mortal into hybrid filth.”
Gasps rippled through the hall, followed by the sharp scrape of chairs against the floor as people searched for an exit.
Aurelie barely registered it. A chill spread through her as she turned to the demon at her side.
Severin still held his wine so tightly that his knuckles paled, a fire in his eyes.
It couldn’t be true. They’d hunted down the cure together. She’d seen it work with her own eyes.
So why didn’t he deny it?
“Severin?” Her hands trembled. Beside her, someone dropped their chalice, plum wine blooming across the white cloth.
Yuri’s head snapped toward her, recognition flashing even through her disguise. And that was when she saw what she’d missed before.
He was disheveled, his wings ruffled and streaked with gray blood and his eyes wide with fear. In that instant, Aurelie understood with a sick twist of realization that Yuri had not left her behind.
She had left him.
“Tell me this isn’t true.” Her fingers curled around the dagger hidden beneath her cloak. “Tell me you’re not the reason my father’s a demon, Severin.”
“I wasn’t the one who poisoned your father.” The look he gave her was cold, stripped of all emotion. “The wine he drank was meant for the king.”
If not him, then who?
Her gaze swept past him to where Azriel leaned heavily against the table, struggling to keep his footing.
Who did this to them?
And then she saw Ilaria.
Ilaria, whose guilt was plain upon her face.
Ilaria, who still clutched her chalice with shaking hands, looking sick.
And Aurelie feared she knew the answer.
“The wine is creating a new kind of demon.” Yuri’s voice carried through the grand hall. “The hybrids are being made. That’s what happened to Varen! He was poisoned.”
Poisoned.
Aurelie’s eyes sharpened on Ilaria, a wrath dark and cool coiling through her at the sight of the princess’s tears.
“I’m to believe that a glass of wine is enough to change us?” The king’s voice wavered, fear threading through the words.
Yuri spoke softly, voice heavy with regret. “I’m afraid one single sip is all it takes.”
“But the good news,” Severin cut in, stepping forward with a voice that carried over the restless crowd, “is that we have a cure.”
The low hum of conversation died at once. Every eye slid to the demon as he drew a vial from his pocket, its silver liquid catching the light.
Aurelie’s first instinct was to stop him—to grab his arm, to demand the truth before anything more happened—but the cure gleamed in his hand, and his eyes were on Varen.
She let him go.
“Here.” Severin held the vial out to Yuri. “Varen was always going to be the first.”
Yuri’s wings flared. “Why should I trust you, demon?” The words left his mouth like a curse, each syllable clipped with a quiet fury.
Severin, damn him, smiled. “Because you’ve seen it work.”
Still, the angel hesitated. Varen, however, shared none of his patience. He reached past Yuri, plucking the vial and uncorking it before anyone could stop him. The only one he looked to was Azriel, who gave the smallest nod.
Then he drank.
Aurelie’s grip on the tablecloth tightened until her nails bit through the fabric. Please let it work. Please.
The entire hall held a collective breath. At first, nothing changed. Varen remained hunched, wings crooked, his barbed tail thrashing. Then, just as Yuri seized Severin by the collar, he collapsed to his knees.
Aurelie lunged from her seat, catching her father just before he hit the floor. He clawed at his throat, choking for breath. His eyes were blown wide, skin turning ashen. He thrashed, desperate for air he couldn’t find.
Aurelie tightened her hold around his shoulders, and she knew in that moment that if her father died, she would kill Severin even if she had to drive a knife through her own chest to do it.
But then Varen’s wings tipped back, peeling from his body until they turned to ash. His fangs, too, retracted, and his hulking frame shrank into something closer to a man.
Hide gave way to suntanned skin, and as he choked on desperate breaths, Aurelie saw the red draining from his eyes, silver bleeding back in.
A cry of relief broke from her. She ignored the gasps rippling through the hall as she drew off her cloak and swept it over his bare shoulders.
He was real.
Her father was truly here in the flesh, mortal again.
He pulled the cloak tight, shivering. His hands were still partially clawed, his frame angled as if his bones were still readjusting. He was trembling and ashen, but human.
So wonderfully human.
Across from him, Azriel exhaled like a man surfacing from a perilous battle. Color returned to his skin, the spark of life back in his eyes. He didn’t hesitate to push from the table and rush toward his bonded.
“Just who are you?” Azriel demanded of Severin, whose expression betrayed nothing.
“I’ve already told you,” he answered coolly. “I’m the one who’s going to change this world.”
A heavy crash pulled all attention to King Edric as he pitched forward into his table. Ilaria’s scream rang sharp as her father collapsed, his body seizing. She lunged for him, but Prince Asterion caught her by the arm and hauled her back.
Frienen soldiers closed ranks around their king and queen, ushering them out through the chaos. Nobles fled in terror, though some remained rooted in twisted fascination as their king’s body writhed and contorted, bones shifting beneath his skin.
One of the knights seized Queen Sybil as she shrieked for her husband, whose roar tore through the hall as black wings erupted from his back.
Varen tried to stand, tried to go to his king, but his knees gave out, body still acclimating to its human form.
Azriel stepped forward instead, the eyes along his wings darting in every direction. “Bind the king, we’ll get him the cure!”
“About that,” Severin said, and Aurelie’s blood boiled at the quiet pleasure in his tone. “You may want to hear what the main ingredient is first.”
Fool, she thought. I was a damned fool. She could see it now, so clearly—this was who Severin was.
It was never about peace. It was never about ending this war quietly or moving on with their lives.
She’d played right into his hand.
But why craft a cure at all, if his aim was to turn her people? And how had he managed it?
Aurelie thought back to his stories, remembering how he’d said that a demon must share some of its essence to form a willing bond. How the first demons had been different, their blood potent enough to create more of their kind.
If Severin had been the one to create the wine, then that meant …
By the Light.
She whirled to him, recalling the heat of his magic, the wrath that had taken hold of her and refused to let go. Even then it flared within her, begging to be unleashed.
She opened her mouth to warn the others of what she’d realized just as a rush of air kissed her cheek.
A gilded arrow streaked past her, and time seemed to slow. She wanted to snatch it from the air, to will it away, but the world offered no such mercy as the arrow struck King Edric between the brows.
Faces blurred and distorted around the edges as Aurelie stared, watching blood drip from the king’s face.
It was still red.
Light pulsed from the arrow and Glory took hold. The king’s eyes found his wife, then his daughter. Tears welled there, and Aurelie felt the weight of everything he had no time to say as silver light flared.
His body fell still a second later, and the king of Rhovar was dead.
For a moment the world stood silent, disbelieving.
Then the cry that tore from Ilaria’s throat wrenched the air apart.
Suddenly Aurelie was thirteen again, watching the light fade from her mother’s eyes.
Her fingers found the pendant hidden beneath the collar of her dress and gripped it hard, grounding herself as Ilaria lurched against Prince Asterion’s hold, nails raking down his arm, her voice breaking again and again as if the grief might tear her in two.
Even the guards faltered, as though the sound had pried the weapons from their hands.
Everything happened very fast after that.
The windows of the grand hall shattered violently, and to Aurelie’s surprise it was Severin who seized her arm, yanking her back from the rain of glass.
She ducked, shielding herself, and through the chaos she caught sight of Asterion dragging Ilaria to the back of the room, toward an exit hidden in the wall that no one outside a select few should have known.
He used the commotion to draw her away from even his own people, as if hoping none would notice.
Aurelie gritted her teeth, ready to follow until the air shifted. The heavy beat of wings swept through the hall, snapping banners against their beams and snuffing out the torches.
The sound rooted her where she stood, and she looked up to find what she’d never dreamed she would witness.
The angel army had arrived.