The intensity in his eyes pushes me closer to the edge. I can feel myself unraveling, my control slipping away as my body tightens around him.
"Come for me, wee rose," he growls against my mouth, and the word becomes a command, a prayer, a promise.
My back arches as the pleasure crests, impossible to contain. I shatter around him, my body convulsing as waves of ecstasy wash through me. "Finn—" His name tears from my throat like a confession.
He follows me over the edge, his grip bruising on my hips as he drives up into me one final time. I feel him pulse inside me, filling me, claiming me from within. His forehead presses against mine, our breath mingling in the space between us.
"My queen," he whispers, reverent and raw.
I collapse against his chest, my heart hammering against his. For several moments, we remain joined, neither willing to break the connection. His hands stroke my back, gentle now where they were desperate before. I can feel him still trembling beneath me, aftershocks rippling through both our bodies.
"That's what power feels like," I murmur against his neck, tasting salt on his skin.
He laughs softly, the sound vibrating through me where our bodies connect. "Aye. And it suits you."
I lift my head, breath still uneven, and look at him—really look at him. Not the boy in the chapel. Not the man bleeding on stone. Not the groom beneath cathedral bells. The king. And beside him, reflected back in his gaze, something I have not allowed myself to name until now. Equal.
His hands are still on me, steady and warm, anchoring me to this moment as the world beyond his office waits—quiet, fearful, bleeding in its anticipation. Below us, chains shift. Voices murmur. Men who thought themselves untouchable are discovering the cost of being wrong. Finn presses his forehead to mine, not in command, not in conquest—but in oath.
“We end this,” he says softly. Not a threat. A promise.
I nod once. “Together.”
His thumb brushes beneath my eye, wiping away the last trace of tears I hadn’t noticed falling. He kisses my brow—gentle, reverent—then sets me back on my feet as if I am something precious rather than breakable. Rather than forged.
When the door opens behind us, the house seems to inhale. Finn takes my hand, lacing our fingers together in a way that leaves no room for doubt. No room for separation.
“My queen,” he murmurs—not for anyone else to hear.
I squeeze his hand once. Ready. Whatever waits below will learn the same truth the city is already beginning to understand: We are not haunted by the past. We are the reckoning.
Chapter fourteen
Ashes Under the Altar
Finnian
Thehousehasaheartbeat. You can hear it down here—slow and old, carried through stone and bone. Each step I take down the narrow stair echoes like a confession, the sound swallowed by damp walls that have heard worse men than these beg for mercy.
Chains shift below. A wet cough. The low, animal sound of someone trying not to cry.
The basement smells of iron and old water and fear that’s been sweating into the stones for generations. This place wasn’t built for comfort. It was built for truth.
Róisín walks beside me. Not behind. Never behind. Her hand is in mine, fingers cool and steady, her presence a blade at my siderather than a shield. She’s quiet—not because she’s afraid, but because she’s listening. Always listening. The same way she used to listen to a room before she played, head tilted, reading the silence like it might lie to her.
The corridor narrows. The ceiling lowers. The light grows thin. A man sobs when he hears our footsteps. Another laughs—high and brittle, already broken enough to be dangerous. The third says nothing at all.
That one worries me.
I slow at the final archway, the iron door ahead scarred with age and use. The sounds behind it sharpen, sensing the end of waiting. Róisín’s grip tightens once—just once. Not for reassurance. For alignment.
I glance at her, and she lifts her chin, eyes dark and clear, the ghost of chapel candles reflected there. No hesitation. No softness. Only purpose.
I push the door open and step in, sparse light fills the space just enough. The door closes behind us with a sound like a final prayer being denied.
The room is low and wide, stone sweating damp into the air. A single bulb hangs overhead, its light unforgiving. Three men are suspended from iron rings set into the ceiling—wrists bound, feet barely brushing the floor. Blood stains the stone beneath them where waiting has already taken its toll.
One lifts his head when we enter. Hope flickers. It dies when he sees her. I don’t speak. I don’t need to. I pull a chair from the wall and set it carefully in front of them—deliberate, courteous, almost gentle. I turn it so it faces the men, then look at Róisín.
