Law of beasts, p.41
Law of Beasts, page 41
"No, no, no, please—" The words came out garbled, broken by sobs that wracked her borrowed body. "Zarek, please, you can't—"
She pulled at his arms, trying to make them respond, trying to make him sit up and smile at her the way he always did. But they were limp, heavy, wrong. Dead weight in hands that weren't even hers.
"Wake up!" she screamed at him, shaking his shoulders. "Wake up, wake up, WAKE UP!"
Nothing.
The grief hit her again, harder this time. Her stomach clenched violently and she retched, bile burning her throat as her body tried to expel the pain that had nowhere else to go. She gagged, heaved, doubled over until her forehead touched the cold stone beside Zarek's head.
"I'm sorry," she whispered against his ear, her voice hoarse and broken. "I'm so sorry. This is my fault. All of it." Rahn was her responsibility, her father had warned her over and over again and still—
"Please don't leave me," she begged, how would she do any of this without him? He promised her he'd see her through to Emeris. "You promised…" she hiccuped, her voice dwindling.
But he was already gone.
She collapsed fully onto his chest, her sobs coming in great, shuddering waves.
Through it all, Rahn watched.
"Are you finished?" he asked eventually, his voice carrying no warmth at all.
She looked up at him through streaming eyes, and for a moment couldn't speak. Eventually, the life in her eyes drained, all that was left were dull lifeless orbs of nothing.
"How can you be so calm?" she finally managed.
"Because I know you," he said simply. "We share a soul, Hadassah. I know that no matter how much this hurts right now, we'll be alright. It's better not to have anyone in our way."
"We won't."
"We will." His certainty was absolute, unshakeable. "Because I am your soul."
She stared at him—at herself—and it seemed something died in that moment.
"You don't know me at all," she whispered.
For the first time, something flickered across his stolen features. Doubt, maybe. Or fear.
No, he had no reason to fear, she knew he adored her more than anyone.
She stopped crying.
She would forgive him.
She knew she was his soul.
She knew he adored her more than anyone, that he was the only one who could ever ever truly understand her.
She looked up, her eyes filled with rage, her voice choked with sadness.
She knew he meant well, right? There was no way she didn't.
She understood him, didn't she? Like he understood her.
She loved him, didn't she? She promised.
"I—"
She seemed to stall, as though remembering something, but Rahn couldn't tell—her eyes were vacant.
Rahn let his heart relax.
She wouldn't do that; she wouldn't break their bond. She did love him.
After all, it was the both of them—
"I won't break our bond," she said with a quiet voice. "But from this moment onwards, I have no Harbinger."
—until the ends of time.
'…Ah.'
"Hah." A laugh from the depths of despair.
How ridiculous.
He was truly a fool to trust her.
Epilogue
Hadassah opened her eyes, her heart thundering against her ribs like a caged bird desperate for escape. Yet she didn’t move. She remained deadly still, her gaze fixed on the pale blue ceiling of the underwater chamber, the protective bubble around her keeping the crushing depths at bay.
Though her body showed no outward reaction, her heart couldn’t bear the weight of what she’d seen.
One dream. All it took was one dream to shatter the fragile peace she’d built around her grief.
He had been right there by the campfire, tending to their evening meal with the same careful attention he brought to everything. She should have known it was false—Zarek couldn’t cook to save his life. But in the dream, he’d been trying anyway, nervous as always but determined to care for her.
The memory played with cruel clarity: how he’d looked up from the pot as firewood crackled and sparked, the way the night breeze had made her pull his cloak tighter around her shoulders. Her cheeks had flushed as she’d looked away from his gentle gaze.
“Sorry, I know it’s cold. Just give me some time,” he’d said, apologising whilst she selfishly hoarded his warmth. Between the two of them, he had always been the selfless one. She was not.
Even now, even after everything, she selfishly wanted him back.
Hadassah stumbled from the bed, her feet tangling in silk sheets as she fell to her knees. She crawled to the edge of the protective bubble, and as if sensing her desperation, a path opened through the dark water beyond. She gathered her nightgown and ran.
She ran through endless darkness with nothing before her and soon nothing behind her. She ran until her lungs burned and her chest felt ready to burst, until she collapsed at the bottom of a grand staircase that materialised from the void.
As if responding to her presence, the temple around her blazed to life in brilliant blue light. The bubble that had surrounded her expanded until it encompassed the entire hall—chandeliers of sea glass casting rainbow fragments across marble walls, rows of empty pews stretching toward an altar she couldn’t bear to look at.
She was utterly alone.
Hadassah crawled up the stairs one agonising step at a time, her mind fixed on only one thing, one person. And there he was, lying in a casket of polished driftwood, his face peaceful as though he were merely sleeping.
“Ah—” A wordless sound escaped her lips before her throat sealed shut. Her eyes burned with tears that wouldn’t fall, everything hurt, it was all too much. She couldn’t breathe around the weight of it.
Why? Why had it happened this way?
‘I know the kind of woman you are,’ his words echoed in her memory, accompanied by that gentle smile that had always seen through her masks. He had known what she was—the destruction that lived beneath her skin, the capacity for cruelty and manipulation that made her what she was. And still he had stayed.
Hadassah’s pale hands reached out, trembling like leaves.
‘I will serve you, Hadassah.’
What good had serving her done him? Why had he thrown away his life for someone so utterly worthless? She wanted to ask him, wanted to demand an answer from his still form. Why had he chosen to die for her when she had never deserved such devotion?
Her fingers brushed against his cold cheek, and for one impossible moment, she could almost feel him there—warm and alive, pulling her into one of his fierce, protective embraces.
But she couldn’t even cry properly in the face of such devastating loss. Hadassah choked on her own sorrow, the grief growing inside her like a living thing, suffocating her, threatening to bury her alive. Her shoulders trembled as her soul cracked along fault lines that would never fully heal. The power within her bubbled and writhed, responding to her anguish, and she teetered on the edge of losing control entirely.
Again. How many times had she awakened hoping that somehow, impossibly, something would have changed? How many mornings had she opened her eyes expecting to find this was all some horrible nightmare?
Nothing would change. Nothing could change.
He was gone.
Her General of Solace.
Sudden warmth enveloped her from behind, and she looked up to find Caelestis kneeling beside her. Even his otherworldly beauty couldn’t hide the toll the war had taken—his black and silver armour was battle-scarred, his pale hair dishevelled, his usually bright eyes dulled with exhaustion and loss.
She knew the continent had been plunged into chaos after the eclipse, but she couldn’t bring herself to care about anything beyond this room, this casket, this crushing weight of failure.
He must have seen the guilt written across her face, the shame that ate at her mercilessly, because he knelt before her with the same reverence Zarek had always shown.
In that moment, she envisioned Zarek’s voice, but the words came from Caelestis’s lips:
“You can cry all you want. No one will see you here.”
The permission broke something fundamental inside her. Laughter bubbled up from her chest—not joy, but the kind of hysterical sound that comes when grief becomes too large for tears alone. It echoed through the empty temple, a sound of eternal self-loathing and loss.
She laughed until her throat was raw, until the sound transformed into sobs that finally, let her tears fall.
Hadassah had cried many times before. But for her General, she would cry one last time, and never again.
Excerpt from the Annals of the Continental Archives, Vol. XXI-XXXIV – The Subjugation of Atlas.
Year of the Withered Moon, 538 AE (After Emergence), 001 Reign of Neveah of Orlaith.
The events that transpired in the harbour city of Atlas during the solar eclipse would forever alter the balance of power across the known world. What began as a ceremonial execution became the catalyst for continental upheaval, marking the end of an age and the violent birth of another.
Contemporary accounts describe the scene thus: upon the public incapacitation of Her Imperial Highness, Princess Drucilla of Nephel, and the grievous wounding of Princess Vortigern, panic spread through the assembled crowds like wildfire. The image of the dragon heir, pinned and motionless beneath a blade of foreign make, shattered centuries of assumed draconic supremacy in a single, devastating moment.
The immediate aftermath saw unprecedented civil unrest. From the merchant quarters of Babylon to the tribal councils of the northern reaches, the same question echoed: if the dragons could fall, who truly held dominion? The Law of Beasts, that most fundamental principle governing mythic society, had been challenged in the most public manner possible.
Brother took up arms against brother. Ancient alliances crumbled as lesser tribes sensed opportunity in chaos. The silence from Nephel's capital—whether born of shock, calculation, or simple inability to respond—only fuelled the growing flames of insurrection.
In this vacuum of authority, one name rose above the tumult: Abellona, the mysterious figure who had orchestrated the assault. Standing triumphant upon the fallen dragon's form, the woman known as Hadassah of Emeris did precisely what the world expected of its new sovereign—she declared war upon the Dragon Queen herself.
What followed defied all precedent. Queen Neveah of Orlaith, whose realm had remained neutral in continental affairs for generations, rose before the assembled mythic nobility and spoke words that would be carved into history: "The Heavens have spoken—humans cannot be left to live. But the silence of the Dragon Queen has put the world in chaos. It seems the dragons are indeed not fit to rule, and so, I will crown the woman who sits on top of the world."
The implications were staggering. For the first time since the Emergence, a Seer Queen had openly challenged Nephel's authority and declared intent to legitimise a rival claimant. Scholars debate whether this represented genuine divine mandate or shrewd political calculation, but the effect was immediate and absolute—the established order had collapsed.
The Dragon Queen's continued silence in the face of these provocations remains one of history's great mysteries. Some historians suggest this restraint demonstrated the weakened state of Nephel's forces following the Atlas defeat. Others propose a more sinister interpretation: that her retribution would come like a thief in the night, swift and absolute once her preparations were complete.
Through all these upheavals, one voice remained notably absent from the continental chorus of chaos and recrimination. The Eastern Seas of Nerissa, newly liberated under their returned King Caelestis, offered no comment, no alliance, no threat. Their silence spoke perhaps louder than any declaration of war.
Thus ended the old world, and the age began that would come to be known as the War of Three Queens.
"We're here."
Hadassah said nothing. She hadn't said anything in the past two months.
Caelestis looked at her with something that might have been concern if he still allowed himself such luxuries. She sat hunched in the wagon, hood pulled low over her face, pale hands folded in her lap, black wavy hair flowing around her.
The day was giving way to the cold. The air carried the bite of coming winter as they rolled to a stop at the base of the mountains of the forbidden lands.
"You dragged me all the way here," Caelestis said in a cold voice, meeting the man who approached them. "I hope you can fix her."
The man—Asier—smirked and gestured for them to follow. "Apologies for not staying for the showdown in Atlas," he said conversationally. "But once Elio descended, we couldn't have him knowing the truth."
Caelestis thought about how Elio had been there the entire time and yet had let Drucilla lose. Ruthless. It was fitting that the most violent tribe would treat their own children so brutally. But then something else occurred to him.
"Who were you referring to?" he asked. "When you said 'we'?"
Asier's smile widened. "You'll see."
The treehouse was smaller than Caelestis had expected, tucked into the mountainside like something from a children's tale. When they climbed the winding steps, he was surprised to see a familiar figure waiting for them.
Cain, the Great Kesmes of Atlas.
Caelestis was immediately on guard, shifting protectively in front of Hadassah. But Cain raised his hands peacefully.
"I've been waiting," he said simply. "With him."
Him?
Caelestis turned, and for the first time noticed the man standing in the shadows behind them. Average height, slender frame, purple hair and equally purple eyes. He was impossible to miss, but also impossible to sense.
The man moved past Caelestis before he could react, kneeling down in front of Hadassah's still form. Gently, he took her hands in his.
"Has it been hard?" he asked softly.
Hadassah seemed scared for a second, as though she didn't recognise who he was. Caelestis attempted to intervene, but in that moment, Hadassah suddenly spoke.
"Nicholas," she whispered.
The man squeezed her hands gently.
Caelestis stared, transfixed. In two months of travel, Hadassah had not spoken, barely eaten, barely acknowledged the world around her. She had been a ghost of herself, hollow and unreachable.
But this stranger—this nobody—had made her speak in seconds.
"Who are you?" Caelestis whispered.
The man looked up, and when he smiled, Caelestis felt something shift in the air around them.
"Nicholas," he said. "Amate."
The Mother of Ferals was not dead, just gone. So naturally, her Harbingers—those who survived the second war of Ferals—remained.
To be continued.
Book 3: Scroll of Wrath.
Aalis Blue, Law of Beasts
