Chapter 13
By the starlight, I didn’t know why I’d asked her. Why I’d spoken the words aloud, binding us both to a course I wasn’t sure I wanted.
The truth? My mind had not changed. I still didn’t want to take her to the Council.
To the others. Every time I thought of them seeing her—of their blackened eyes turning toward her, measuring her, judging her—I was filled with a fury I could barely keep chained.
She was mine to guard, not theirs to dissect.
And yet… I wanted her—more than I had ever wanted anything in the long stretch of eons.
But I could not have her. Not until I was certain—truly certain—that I would not destroy her in the moment I claimed her.
The hunger burned like molten metal in my veins.
Every time she looked at me with those too-honest eyes, every time her scent wrapped around me, the black inside me prowled closer to the surface, daring me to slip.
I forced the anger down, locking it beneath the iron walls I had lived within for ages. The Council might hold answers. They had borne this curse as long as I had. Perhaps they would know a way to tether the black, to keep it back long enough for me to…
I cut the thought off, my jaw clenched.
I needed them. I hated that I needed them, hated that I would have to lay her existence before them as proof of what stirred inside me.
But if there were even a chance that they could show me how to master this—how to take her without fear of shattering her fragile body beneath the abyss—I would endure it.
The fury still smoldered under my skin when I sent the summons. I didn’t need words. The pulse of my aura, sharpened to a blade’s edge, carried the command. They would feel it. They always did.
A heartbeat later, the chamber folded around me, stone and void and starlight converging into the sanctum of the Council of Seven. Ella stood at my side, her eyes wide as she took in the stone table, the vaulted walls strung with galaxies like chains.
I muttered under my breath, “Why in all the stars did I call them?”
The answer came before I had time to regret it. Dravok materialized from the shadows first, his gaze sweeping the chamber like a knife. Then his eyes cut to me and narrowed.
“Zapharos.” His voice was silk hiding steel. “Your aura. It’s… lighter.” His gaze flicked to Ella, sharp and calculating.
Before I could snarl, another voice cut through. High, jagged, fever-bright.
“Aelyth!” Nythor’s cry rang like madness and prophecy all at once. He clutched his own arms, eyes wild with the Dark Abyss’ visions. “The bond is here, the balance returns!”
Ella startled and instinctively moved behind me.
Nothing had ever pleased me in my long life like this simple gesture.
Pride swelled my chest when I felt the tremor in her hand as it brushed my back, and without thought, I shifted, placing myself fully between her and my brothers.
My arm wrapped back, drawing her into the curve of my body.
Thyros stepped forward, his crimson and gold aura flaring hot, his expression torn between awe and suspicion. “Is it true?” he demanded. “Have you found her?”
Too close. My sword was in my hand before the thought finished.
The steel sang as it was about to level against his throat, the tip poised to pierce if he so much as breathed wrong.
But I had underestimated the Dark Abyss' executioner; he was faster than I expected.
His sword was up, clashing against mine, as our biceps strained to gain the upper hand.
My aura lashed, black and red intertwining in warning.
“Not. One. Step. Closer,” I growled.
The chamber stilled. Six sets of eyes fixed on us, on her.
Gods, they’d better heed my warning; she was mine to protect.
And I would. Against all costs. Even against my brothers.
The air thrummed with the clash of power, shadows, and starlight bent under the strain.
Thyros didn’t flinch, and neither did I as our swords pressed against one another.
His aura burned hotter, daring me to fold first. Before the fire in both of us could ignite, a voice cut through, steady and unyielding. “Enough.”
Vaelion’s tone held no heat, only command. It cracked through the tension like a shield wall slamming into place. “Lower the weapon, Zapharos. Step back, Thyros.”
For a long breath, no one moved. Then, slowly, I eased the blade away, though my body remained angled in front of Ella, my arm still tight around her waist. Dravok chuckled darkly from the shadows. “Our Praetor shows his teeth. Against his own brothers.”
“Dravok,” Vaelion’s voice sharpened, “stand down.”
The Warden of Shadows melted back, though his eyes never left Ella. Calculating, always calculating.
Satisfied, Vaelion turned his gaze to me, calm as ever, but there was iron beneath the surface. “Where did you find her?”
The question was simple. The weight behind it was not.
My jaw flexed. “Rotodex.”
A ripple went through the chamber, and suddenly, all of them were regretting not taking my spot.
“The Abyss already swallowed the world,” Selkaris said at last, his voice full of the burden he liked to remind us he always carried. “Memories there are fractured, fraying even as I hold them.” His dark eyes fixed on me. “You didn't fulfill your duty.”
He was right. I had not. I never finished taking on all of Rotodex's past and legacy. “I did what was necessary,” I ground out. “The Cryons had taken her. They left her among the ruins with others. I kept her alive. That is all you need to know.”
Dravok’s smile curved, thin and poisonous. “Not all. Not nearly.”
Thyros snorted, his crimson aura flared hot again. “The way you guard her, like a blade at our throats. Don’t insult us by pretending she is just another mortal you rescued.”
Before I could reply, Nythor laughed, a high, cracked sound that echoed off the walls like broken glass.
“She is your Aelyth! Our Aelyth have returned! Don’t you see it?
Don’t you taste it?” His eyes gleamed, fever-mad.
“Amber sparks in your black eyes! She is your anchor, Praetor. She is your balance.”
Ella tensed against me, and I felt her instinctively try to step back. My grip tightened, holding her in place.
“My anchor,” I echoed, my voice dropping low and dangerous. “Or my undoing.”