They were reborn alongside her.
Chapter forty-seven
Unyielding
-Alarik-
She was still glowing.
Maris stood on the altar stones, wind threading her dark silken hair, the Crown of Bones resting on her brow. The sigil on her hand shimmered with ethereal light.
She had snapped the Veil shut with a flick of her fingers. She had silenced nightmares with a smile.
He had fallen to one knee before her like a priest before a holy artifact, a male desperate to earn mercy he hadn’t yet been brave enough to ask for.
Now, hours later, their party lounged on the black shore beneath the cliffs, the Argo anchored nearby, its wounded sails fluttering gently as the crew repaired its broken mast. Fires crackled low — tents pitched in a half-circle to create a makeshift camp. The warriors murmured quietly, casting sidelong glances at the newly crowned queen with hesitant reverence.
They feared her.
Admired her.
Some weren’t sure what to do with what they’d seen.
Neither was he.
Serenya stayed near her side, the only one who didn’t seem afraid. Even Kastor, usually brash, charming, and impossible to quiet had gone silent after the temple. Virenth, sat sharpening her blade by the fire, occasionally casting furtive glances at Maris like she might burn them all alive.
Alarik sat near a fire, sword unbuckled beside him, a cloak slung over his bare shoulders. His hair was damp with seawater and sweat, his eyes still shadowed with awe and guilt. Deep, bone-carving guilt.
Because he had been no better than Kael.
Not really.
Not when it came to her.
He had thought she was fragile.You nearly shattered, he had whispered at her door in the aftermath of the sea creature attack. And now, he tasted the bitterness of those words on his tongue like a curse spat back at him.
She had shattered.
But not into pieces.
She had shattered into power. Into light. Into fury wrapped in grace.
She had tossed his words back at him, glowing with divinity and a woman’s defiance.You thought I could shatter… she had said, lifting his chin like a goddess before a kneeling king.But I’m god-forged.
It struck him now like a blade between the ribs how wrong he’d been. He had thought himself her protector, her guide, her equal. But he had never truly been any of those.
Maris was in no need of any of the things he hoped to offer.
She was a reckoning.
Alarik dragged a hand over his mouth, watching her from across the fire.
He hated that he couldn’t reach her thoughts. He’d slipped into her dreams like a phantom lover. But now he was almost certain, there would be no future calls in dreams.
He feared… he’d never be let in again.
“You see it now, don’t you?” Serenya’s voice murmured beside him. While distracted by his thoughts, she'd approached him. She stood just beyond the fire light, blue eyes fixed on the same star-born woman. “She’s not just a pawn.”
