“I’m good,” Elora said, her eyes holding his.
Why the hell weren’t they running to the men they loved?She was no longer captive in place, at least not by the Chamber.She looked back at Trik and could see him shaking.Rage.He was filled with it.It was him keeping her in place.
“Give me a minute, beloved,”he told her gently.“I don’t trust myself not to hurt you if I lose my shit.”
“You sound like Elora,”she teased, attempting to lighten the situation, understanding that his emotions were all over the place, even if he was keeping a calm demeanor for everyone else.
“The darkness is too close, I used it to get here, I won’t push you away again, but just give me a minute.”
Cassie nodded silently as she watched the man she loved struggle to control the emotions that had no doubt been driving him insane since he realized she was gone and their bond had been locked down.Cassie forced herself to breathe slowly and pour peace into him so that he’d be able to focus on the moment at hand.They could worry about everything else later.They just needed to get out of this forest without anyone dying, or Trik destroying the realm.
Rezer feltit the moment the glamour tore away.Relief.Fear.Hope.All tangled together so thick it was hard to know which emotion belonged to whom.
The air itself changed when Cassie and Elora became visible.The Chamber’s magic, once smug and smooth,stuttered.Its energy recoiled like a liar caught mid-sentence.
The clearing no longer felt curated.The illusion of control slipped.The Chamber was reacting, not orchestrating.Defensive.Good.
Rezer’s muscles ached as if the memory of centuries pressed against his bones.He drew a slow breath and forced his focus outward.Cassie looked ...regalwasn’t even enough.Torn sweatshirt and messy hair aside, she carried the weight of a thousand choices in her spine.Her eyes were a storm, her chin a dare.That’s why she’s queenly,he thought, impressed despite everything.
Beside her, Elora shimmered with barely contained magic, her fierce beauty illuminated by defiance.Part dark elf fire, part human stubbornness, and part her mother’s grace, she was a dangerous cocktail.Alive.Unbroken.
The Chamber had miscalculated.It thought binding them together would benefit it.Instead, it had drawn every stubborn soul in creation into one clearing.Rezer almost pitied it.Almost.
He felt the Chamber turn its gaze back toward him, colder now, calculating, hostile.He stared right back.
“You feel it,” came Trik’s quiet voice.
Rezer turned.The elven king stood a few paces away, shadow and light coiled around him in serpentine rhythm.Not unleashed, but far from restrained.Trik’s power vibrated with the kind of command that remembered what it cost to lead.This wasn’t the diplomat or ruler.This was the weapon that had once walked out of legend drenched in battlefield blood.
“You remember,” Rezer said.
Trik’s jaw flexed once.“I don’t understand how I ever forgot to begin with.”His voice was rough, but steady.“It seems too miraculous to forget.And yet, we all did.”
Rezer drew in air that scraped like sandpaper through his chest.“You saw me created.”
“Yes.”No hesitation.Recognition, nothing more, nothing less.
“You fled,” Trik continued evenly.“Not from the war.From what came after.”
A short, humorless laugh escaped Rezer.“They were terrified.Hundreds of them.They looked at me like I was an answer.”
“And you led them,” Trik said, not accusing.Observing.Almost proud.
“I led them to their doom.”His hand gestured toward the massive stone door, its veins of light and shadow writhing.
Tamsin shifted behind them, voice low but cutting through the tension.“Every leader leads someone to ruin, whether by accident or necessity.”He looked briefly at Syndra, who gave him a dry smile that didn’t reach her eyes.“We just try to minimize the casualties.”
“Spoken like a former king who’s seen far too many strategy meetings,” Syndra murmured.“And funerals.”
Lisa’s hand brushed Rezer’s arm, a tiny touch, steadying.“You can stop flagellating yourself now,” she said softly.“The Chamber’s doing plenty of that for everybody.”
Trik’s gaze flicked toward her, then back to Rezer.“Every leader does the best they can with the information they have.You were created from warring elements.You acted in mercy.What came next, that’s not on you.That’s on me.”
The tone shifted, old guilt and honesty wrestling inside the king’s voice.
Rezer saw it clearly in Trik’s eyes: regret, battle-born and bone-deep.“You don’t extend yourself the same grace you extend others,” Rezer said quietly.
Lisa exhaled, muttering, “Join the club.None of you egotistical immortal types seem capable of cutting yourselves slack.”
