2025-08-20 23:01:07The capital without Alaric felt deceptively calmer, but Elias knew better. Wolves didn’t leave their dens unguarded. If the vizier was marching south, then the council chamber—the true battlefield of the kingdom was left to his pawns.
From the gallery above, Elias watched as the lords assembled once more. The king sat heavy on his throne, his crown weighing as though it were forged of stone rather than gold. The whispers circling the chamber were venom cloaked in silk.
“Prince Elias grows restless,” one baron muttered. “Too reckless for the throne.”
“He has Kael in his ear,” another said, voice sharp. “The shadow of a rebel, nothing more.”
Elias ground his teeth. He wanted to storm down there, to silence them with steel, but Kael’s voice echoed in his mind: Your blade cannot cut every tongue. Power is not in striking, but in choosing when to strike.
Then the doors groaned open. A woman stepped in, cloaked in deep crimson, her presence commanding silence. Lady Selene—Alaric’s ally in the court. Her beauty was as dangerous as any blade, her smile a weapon sharpened on secrets.
She bowed low before the king. “Your Majesty, while your loyal vizier rides to protect the realm, the matter of succession must not lie unattended.”
Elias’s chest tightened.
“Succession?” the king barked. “I yet draw breath.”
“Of course,” Selene purred. “But what if breath falters? The attempted poisoning proves shadows already circle this crown. Should we not prepare?”
The lords murmured in agreement. Eyes turned not toward Elias, but toward Alaric’s cousin—a weak man, easily bent, who now stood tall under Selene’s shadow.
Rage surged through Elias. He leapt to his feet in the gallery. “You dare!” His voice thundered across the chamber. “Plotting the crown’s inheritance while the king yet rules? This is treason!”
Gasps filled the air. The king’s face hardened. “Elias”
But Selene only smiled, cool and unshaken. “Treason, my prince? No. Prudence. The realm must endure, even if fate claims its sovereign. Or would you rather see the kingdom collapse for your pride?”
The chamber erupted in debate, voices clashing like steel. Elias’s words were drowned in the tide. He could feel himself losing ground, every noble face turning from him, every whisper sowing doubt.
And then, like a blade through the noise, came a messenger’s cry.
“News from the south! A massacre at the border! The vizier’s men… slaughtered!”
The hall stilled. All eyes widened.
Selene’s mask cracked for only a heartbeat. Then she recovered, lifting her chin. “The vizier endangered himself for the realm. If he falls, then his allies must ensure his work continues.”
But Elias’s blood ran cold. If Alaric’s men were dead, it wasn’t defeat—it was design. A staged disaster, meant to tighten his grip.
He turned on his heel, storming from the gallery. Kael found him in the corridor, eyes narrowed.
“You see it now,” Kael said. “The council is theirs. The south is theirs. If you remain chained to these halls, you will lose before the war even begins.”
Elias’s fists trembled. “Then I will not remain chained.”
“Good,” Kael replied, voice like flint. “Because the trap is already sprung. Alaric did not ride south to defend the border. He rode south to draw you out.”
Elias froze. The realization hit like ice down his spine. He had followed Alaric into open ground. And now the noose was waiting.
That night, beneath the cover of moonlight, Elias stood at the southern gate. His horse stamped impatiently, mist rising in the chill air. Kael handed him a bundle—maps, rations, steel.
“Once you cross,” Kael said, “you walk into the wolf’s den. Every ally you think you have may already be his. Every stranger may bear his coin. You must decide now—are you heir to a crown, or hunter of a usurper?”
Elias tightened his grip on the reins. “I am both.”
Kael gave a single nod, then stepped back into the shadows.
The gates creaked open. Beyond lay the road to the south, empty and endless. Elias urged his horse forward, heart pounding, breath sharp.
He would face Alaric. He would uncover the truth, or die in the attempt.
As the gates shut behind him, he didn’t see the pair of eyes watching from the darkness above the wall. Lady Selene’s spy leaned against the stone, lips curling into a cruel smile.
“The prince rides to his ruin,” he whispered, before vanishing into the night.
---
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Chapter 80 – Rhys’s Rift
The walls of Wynthorpe still smoked behind them.Elias rode ahead of the column, cloak torn by wind and ash. He didn’t look back at the dead not at the burned village, not at the bodies in the ditches. He had given the order, and that was enough.Behind him, Rhys kept silent, jaw tight. He could still hear the screams.They rode until dawn, when the road forked. The king halted, scanning the horizon. Ahead lay the next stronghold stone, cold, and unyielding.Elias turned to his captains. “We move at first light. Leave no supply unclaimed.”His tone was ice. The captains bowed and scattered to give orders. Only Rhys stayed.“You gave them no chance to surrender,” Rhys said.Elias didn’t look at him. “They burned our outposts, butchered our scouts. There’s no surrender left in them.”“That doesn’t make us better,” Rhys snapped. His voice carried enough fire to draw glances from the soldiers nearby. “You saw the women in the chapel, the children”“I saw,” Elias cut him off. “And I saw wh
Chapter 79 – Rynna’s Prophecy
The night was too quiet for war.Even the wind seemed to hold its breath as Rynna stood alone by the brazier, eyes reflecting the trembling flames. The camp behind her slept restlessly soldiers muttering through dreams, steel clinking faintly in the dark. Elias hadn’t slept in two days. He was in his tent, bent over maps that had begun to look more like graves than borders.She didn’t need to see him to feel his unrest. It rolled through the air like heat.Seren had said the King was changing. Mara said he was finally becoming strong. But Rynna saw something else: a shadow crawling along the edges of his soul, fed by choices he hadn’t yet made.The coals hissed. The smoke rose in twisting shapes, and for a heartbeat she saw two crowns one burning, one bleeding and between them, a hand that trembled before letting go.Her voice broke before she realized she was speaking.“Not by blade,” she whispered to the dark, “but by choice.”The tent flap rustled behind her. Elias’s silhouette app
Chapter 78 – Mara’s Triumph
The dawn came without light. Only a pale, wounded sky over Wynthorpe’s smoldering bones.Mara stood at the ramparts, her crimson cloak snapping in the ash wind. Behind her, the royal banners fluttered half-burnt but victorious. Below, the gates of the fortress lay open blackened by pitch, flanked by heaps of bodies that had once been Alaric’s defenders.They had taken the stronghold.At last.Yet there was no cheer in the morning air. Only the dull hum of exhaustion, and the sound of crows circling above.Elias watched from the courtyard, surrounded by the broken remains of his army. His armor hung loose, smeared with soot. His sword still bore yesterday’s rust-colored stains.When Mara descended the cracked stone steps toward him, soldiers bowed in reverence. They didn’t look at the king they looked at her.“Wynthorpe is ours,” Mara said, her voice steady. “The rebels who lived have fled east. The rest…” She hesitated only briefly. “The rest paid for their loyalty.”Elias didn’t resp
Chapter 77 – Arrows and Ashes
The morning after the blast, the valley was red. Smoke curled up the slopes like mourning veils, carrying the scent of pitch, flesh, and rain.The fortress of Wynthorpe had lost a wall a gaping wound in its western flank. Through that wound, Elias’s army now advanced.“Archers first,” Rhys shouted, his voice hoarse. “Shields up, no gaps!”Elias rode behind the vanguard, his armor spattered with soot, his sword unblooded but heavy in his grip. The world was sound and fury arrows slicing air, catapults groaning, screams lost under the thunder of men charging uphill.The rain began again, thin and gray, like the gods themselves had chosen to weep for what was coming.They reached the breach by midmorning. Wynthorpe’s defenders fought like cornered beasts their eyes wild, their blades clanging against shields slick with rain and blood.Elias dismounted, pressing forward on foot. A spear tore through a man beside him. Another soldier stumbled, clutching his throat. The mud was a mirror of
Chapter 76 – The First Siege
The sky was gray when they first saw the walls of Wynthorpe — vast, black, and silent as if carved from the bones of the mountain itself. Once a fortress of kings, now it flew the banner of treachery: the black hawk on red. Alaric’s mark.The march had taken eight days. Eight days through rain, hunger, and haunted silence. By the time Elias’s army reached the valley, even the air tasted of iron. The storm had passed, but its memory clung to them — a ghost that refused to leave.Rhys reined in beside Elias on the ridge. “There it is,” he said grimly. “The hawk’s nest.”Mara’s eyes gleamed. “A fortress of stone won’t save a coward forever.”Elias said nothing. His gaze roamed the high walls, the ramparts lined with soldiers, the watchtowers bristling with archers. The fortress was not merely defended — it was ready.Seren rode up last, cloak heavy with dust. “If we strike now, we bleed half our strength before we breach the gate. That wall was built to break kings, not house them.”Elia
Chapter 75 – March into Storms
The rain came before dawn not a drizzle, but a deluge that swallowed the camp whole.By sunrise, the banners were soaked, the earth turned to mud, and the army’s departure had become a test of endurance rather than a march of triumph.Elias stood beneath the awning of his tent, cloak dripping, eyes fixed on the gray horizon. The world was mist and thunder, the kind that drowned sound and blurred distance. Every strike of lightning seemed to flash against his armor, turning him into a silhouette a king of ghosts.Seren appeared beside him, his hood drawn low. “The omens couldn’t be clearer,” he said. “Storms before battle. The gods rarely whisper more plainly.”Elias didn’t turn. “Then perhaps they should whisper victory while they’re at it.”“Careful,” Seren murmured. “Mocking fate has a way of making it listen.”Elias gave a hollow laugh and stepped into the rain. “It already is.”The march began with the groan of wet wheels and the rhythmic thud of boots in the mire. The columns str
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