Aether and ash, p.23
Aether & Ash, page 23
Another Elder, his fingers tapping against the armrest of his chair, added, “Atlassian cannot afford recklessness. The Heir is not expendable. If there are consequences, if the Crown exacts a toll, we cannot allow it to fall upon you. The Sovereign or one of the Elders of the old bloodlines will place it. You will be present, but you will not be the one to bear that weight.”
Haldric leaned forward, his sharp gaze fixed on me. “This is not a slight against your strength, Damien, nor a question of your ability to lead. But Atlassian has lost much already. We cannot risk losing its future as well.”
Their words carried a finality that left no room for argument. The decision had already been made. Now, it was my turn to make the right decision.
I called for Beatrice. She arrived swiftly, her expression unreadable, waiting for my command. “Take this to Mirabelle,” I instructed, nodding toward the untouched tray of food. “Do nothing else.” She nodded, taking the tray without question. She knew better than to ask.
I turned back to the Elders, to the men who had gathered here to shape the course of our war, of our future. My pulse was a violent drum against my ribs, my breath steady only because I forced it to be. The weight in my chest felt like a blade pressing inward, slow and cruel.
“I want to hear what she has to say,” I declared, my voice calm, though the storm inside me howled. “If there is an explanation, I want to hear it from her.”
Silence settled over the room, thick and suffocating, pressing down on my skin like a second layer of armor. No one argued, but neither did anyone approve. They had already passed their judgment. She was guilty in their eyes.
And the difference between us was simple. I needed her to be innocent.
The thought sent something raw splintering through my chest, something close to rage, at them, at this situation, at myself for even entertaining the possibility that they might be right.
I exhaled slowly, steadying the chaos inside me before I spoke again. “I will be the one to decide what happens to her.” The words burned like fire on my tongue, but I let them settle into the space between us. “If she is proven guilty, I will see to her punishment myself.”
I wanted to be strong enough to choose justice over her, and that terrified me more than anything. “But for now,” I continued, forcing my mind back into the war, into duty, into the thing that had always grounded me before her, “our focus must remain on one thing, getting back Atlassian. That is our only priority. I expect every one of you to obey me in this, and to be as honest as possible about what we are facing. No more half-truths. No more speculation.”
And yet, even as I spoke of priorities, my own mind betrayed me. Because the only thing I could think of, the only thing I had ever craved in this life, was her.
A murmur of agreement swept through the room, but before it could settle, another truth struck like a blade between my ribs.
“That may not be so simple, Young Sovereign.” I turned sharply to Nathan, his expression grim.
“The Majors have been compromised.” The words barely registered at first. But then the meaning bled through, slow and sharp like a wound taking its time to hurt.
“What do you mean?” My voice was dangerously low, as if by sheer force, I could turn this reality into something else. Haldric exhaled. “The Untameables have seized control of them. They are using the Majors against us, turning them into a defense force for the castle.”
The Majors, whose numbers made up more than half the Clan’s populace, stood as an undeniable force.
Nathan spoke again, careful. “We don’t know how. But they are no longer their own. We don’t know how many have been turned, and we have no way of distinguishing the controlled from the free. We cannot fight them without killing our own. And worse, we do not know which among them are truly still themselves.”
“They are seizing our warriors,” my mind running ahead of my own words, dissecting the consequences. “And soon, they will use them to attack the Clan from within.”
Haldric nodded gravely. “The longer we wait, the stronger they become. We cannot hold our own ground if we don’t know who is with us and who has already been lost.”
The walls were closing in, faster than we had anticipated. Every move had been planned, every strategy calculated, and yet, the enemy had still outmaneuvered us. “We can place the Crown,” I spoke aloud, meant as much for myself as for them. “But if we do not act first, if we do not move, the Royals, the Majors still loyal to us, the commoners, we risk losing them all before we even have a chance to reclaim the throne.”
I dragged a hand down my face, forcing my mind to sharpen, to push past the impossible weight pressing down on me.
“Where do we move them?” Nathan asked.
“Here, to the hunting Realm,” I said without hesitation. “It’s the only place left untouched by the war. It’s vast, and it can sustain them until we reclaim Atlassian. But someone must stay behind to ensure their safety until we return.”
I exhaled. “Nathan and I will lead the Royal Legion to reclaim as many of them as we can. The rest will remain here. Etheris has more than enough space to shelter the entire Realm. Izmer will oversee things in my absence, and I will call in favors from Nyxaria on his behalf.”
He was reckless, but he was also one of the few I trusted to protect them. The Elders murmured in agreement, and for the first time since the meeting began, a plan started to form. A direction, however uncertain.
But none of it mattered, not the Crown, not the war, not the fate of the Majors, until I confronted the one question clawing at the edges of my mind.
Mirabelle. I turned on my heel, already moving toward the door. I had never been one to hesitate. Never one to second-guess my own choices. But as I stepped into the dim corridor, the weight in my chest grew heavier.
The moment I stepped into the Cave, she broke into a run.
A blur of red hair, wild eyes, bare feet on cold stone. She crashed into me, arms locking around my waist, holding me like she needed to feel that I was real. That I was here. Her breathing was ragged, frantic. “I was so worried about you,” she whispered, shaking against me.
I didn’t move. My hands remained at my sides, rigid as stone, my body a fortress against her desperation. My mind was a storm, reeling, unraveling, caught between the war inside me.
Justice or yearning. The leader I was raised to be or the man I had become with her.
She must have felt the cold distance, the absence of my touch, because she hesitated, pulling back just enough to look up at me. Her brows knitted in confusion. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
My jaw tightened. I had to do this. “Did you lie to me?”
Her breath caught. “No,” she said immediately, shaking her head. “Why would I?”
I stared into her eyes, searching for something, anything that would tell me they were all wrong. But then I said the words that would decide everything. “Did Nathan ask you to come here?”
And that was when I saw it. The way her eyes changed. The way realization flickered behind them, followed by something else. Hesitation.
That was all it took to knife my hope clean through. I exhaled sharply, shaking my head to myself. Of course.
Of course.
“It’s not what you think,” she rushed, stepping closer, reaching for me again. “Let me explain.”
“Then explain, Mirabelle,” I cut in, my voice sharp as steel. “Because from where I stand, it looks an awful lot like you lied.”
She swallowed, her hands trembling as she clenched them at her sides. “I was trying to protect you.”
I laughed, cold and humorless. “Don’t lie to me. Again.” My voice was low now, lethal. “I don’t tolerate those who lie to my face. I have killed for far less than that.”
She flinched. But I wasn’t done. “You were perfectly fine the day before the Hunt. And suddenly, you became afraid? Why?”
Her lips parted, but she hesitated, as if trying to choose her words carefully. Guilt carved itself into her face. “I overheard the Elders speaking in the palace.”
The rage inside me sharpened into something vicious. “I moved you to the palace to keep you safe, and you repaid me by eavesdropping on palace affairs?” My voice dropped to a growl.
“I didn’t mean to!” she burst out. “I accidentally heard them say you weren’t safe.”
“So you decided lying to me and sneaking into Etheris was the best course of action?”
“It wasn’t like that!” she shouted, her frustration cracking through. “I didn’t want to pressure you while you were on the Hunt...”
“So you lied,” I cut her off. “And you lied about Jasper being there. About Nathan being there. About you being in danger?” I scoffed.
“Yes! And I didn’t know it mattered!” she shouted, exasperated. “I was going to tell you after we got back. I even forgot about it. And I am sorry!”
I should have felt something at her words. But all I felt was the slow, sinking certainty of betrayal. “Are you sorry for stealing the key and opening the sigil?”
Confusion flickered across her face. “What sigil?”
My stomach turned. “So you don’t even know?” My voice dripped with disbelief.
She hesitated, her brows knitting together. “I know about the key. It was on the ground near the portal. I only used it to open the portal and—”
A raw, uncontrollable fury ripped through me. “There is no key to the portal, Mirabelle!” I roared, the sound echoing through the stone walls. “Now shut up. Enough.”
She flinched, eyes wide, as if she had just begun to realize that I wasn’t the one who had held her so gently last night. I let out a sharp breath, running a hand through my hair, willing the crushing weight in my chest to lessen. But it wouldn’t.
It wouldn’t, because I had been a fool. Because the only person I had ever let touch the iron walls of my heart had been using me. Because the only one I had craved, the only thing I had ever allowed myself to want, had been deceiving me all along.
How had I not seen it? How had I been so blind?
A bitter smile twisted at my lips. Of course. I turned my gaze back to her, my voice empty, hollow. “Hear me, Mirabelle.”
Her breath hitched.
“We, the Atlassians, have always executed traitors. And we always will.”
I watched the blood drain from her face.
“You will stay here until I take my Clan back from the disaster you unleashed upon us.” My voice was void of warmth now, stripped bare of any tenderness that had once existed between us. “And when it is done, I will seek vengeance on you. For the Clan.”
A pause. A beat of silence so thick I could barely breathe through it.
“And for me.” The words left my lips like a death sentence.
Her mouth parted slightly, but no words came. Silent tears welled in her eyes, sliding down her cheeks. I ignored the way a sharp ache twisted inside me at the sight of her tears. I’d already learned that lesson the hard way. Twice.
“Don’t,” I snapped, my voice a blade. “Don’t try to manipulate me with tears, Mirabelle.”
I turned sharply on my heel, ignoring the way my chest felt like it was caving in, ignoring the way something inside me was screaming at me to stop.
But I didn’t stop. Because the man I had become with her had died the moment she betrayed me.
Chapter 26
Mirabelle
Four days.
Four days of silence, of solitude, of pacing these stone walls until my steps felt like echoes of themselves. Four days of being treated like a criminal.
I had waited the first day, too stunned to do anything else. I had stared at the heavy wooden door, expecting it to open. Expecting Damien to return. Expecting, foolishly, that this was all some grave misunderstanding.
But then came the second day. Then the third. And now, on the fourth, I am forced to face a truth I should have known all along.
There was no misunderstanding. No mistake. Damien believed them. And maybe that shouldn’t have been the most painful realization of all.
I had endured a childhood of being overlooked, of scrubbing floors until my hands were raw, of whispered insults and sharp-edged gazes that saw me as less than those around me. But for the first time in my life, I had thought, perhaps, just perhaps, I had found something more that could have been mine.
And yet, here I am. Locked away in his cave, stripped of anything that might remind me that I was ever welcome here at all. I had been a fool all along.
The air inside the cave is cold, emptier than it was before. Every trace of Damien has been removed, his weapons, his armor, his belongings, even the faint scent of him that once lingered. As if my very presence had tainted them, as if the mere act of existing in his space had been an offense that could not be tolerated.
All that remains are the walls that surround me. My prison. I have no weapons. No allies. No way out. The only time I am permitted to leave is when I am escorted, either to bathe or for the occasional stroll. Even the bath comes at a price. Beatrice shackles me with enchanted iron, a length of chain binding us together as she leads me through the narrow, winding paths of the caves toward the water.
Rowane and Beatrice wait nearby, out of sight to give privacy, but never out of reach, ensuring I do not run. And still, despite everything, I tried. I tried speaking to Beatrice, tried reasoning and even tried shouting. I asked her if she truly believed this of me, if she saw the truth in my eyes or if she was simply following orders. She did not answer. She never does. She simply sets my meals before me and leaves, locking the door behind her without a word, without a glance, without an ounce of hesitation.
My mind should have been too numb to think, too exhausted to make sense of the pieces that had been thrust before me like a puzzle meant to be unsolvable. And yet, the more I sat with it, the more I tried to tame the chaos in my mind, the more unease curled in my gut.
How had I become the traitor?
The evidence was laid out too perfectly, aligned with eerie precision. Every thread, every accusation, all pointing to me like a map designed for one conclusion. But something was missing. Something didn’t fit.
I closed my eyes, forcing myself to walk through it again.
The key.
I had found it beneath the portal, on the ground like it had been waiting for someone to pick it up. And beside the portal, there had been a slot. A simple conclusion, a natural assumption, one that anyone would have made.
But then there was Damien’s voice in my mind, cold, condemning. “There is no key to the portal.”
Then why had there been a keyhole? Why had the key been lying there as if placed for me to find? A slow, creeping dread began to settle in my chest.
And now, through the scattered fragments of overheard conversations, passing remarks from those who despised me, I was beginning to piece together the horror that I unknowingly unleashed. The key I twisted had seized the Clan. It had opened the flow of Untameables into our lands.
But more clearly, I had walked straight into a trap.
The door swung open without a knock. I blinked, dragging myself from the haze of thoughts, my body stiff from days of confinement. My first thought was that it must be Beatrice, perhaps Rowane, but they always knocked, always gave a warning before entering.
So, when my gaze lifted, meeting the venom-filled eyes of Haldric Chanler, my stomach turned. The Elder loomed in the doorway, his presence thick with disdain, as if even standing in my presence was beneath him. I had crossed paths with him only in passing, heard his voice giving orders to the newly arriving Majors and commoners, his authority growing in Damien’s absence. But never had he stepped foot into this cave. Never had he come for me directly. Until now.
I sat up slowly, back pressing against the cold stone wall as I studied him. He had the air of a man who believed the world spun only because he willed it so. A man who had always been powerful, untouchable, feared.
And he hated me. No, hate was too tame a word for the look in his eyes. Contempt. Like my very existence was an insult. Like I had poisoned something sacred simply by breathing in the same air.
I had seen it in his face every time I was forced to pass him. Every time my mere presence reminded them of what I had become. Before all this, I had been an afterthought. A nameless face in a crowd of commoners.
Now, I was visible. Not for my power. Not for my survival in Etheris. Not for anything I had done.
The Thralls who came to clean my cave, those who had once treated me like dirt. The warriors who barely acknowledged my presence before now glared as if I had slit their kin’s throats in their sleep.
I was the stain on Atlassian’s honor. And Haldric wanted me to know it.
“You’re awake,” he drawled, stepping inside like a man who had already decided I belonged to him. His gaze swept over me, slow and deliberate, lingering in places that made my skin crawl. Assessing. Searching for something to tear apart or something to revel in. “Good. I’d hate for you to sleep through your last days of comfort.”
I said nothing. I had learned quickly that speaking only gave them more to twist, more to use. So I simply stared back at him, keeping my expression blank, waiting for him to get to whatever reason had brought him here.
Haldric smirked, as if my silence was confirmation of some silent truth he had already decided for me. “Ignore all you want, but in the end, it won’t matter. Obey us, or I’ll make sure you don’t live long enough to regret it,” he continued, voice dripping with mockery.
I remembered the way he spoke of me when he thought I wasn’t listening. “She should be made to kneel, to answer to those she betrayed…And yet, she is still allowed to eat? To breathe?”
