“I didn’t see you,” Kael had said. “Not as I should’ve. Not as you are.”
And gods, he meant it.
Alarik could feel it in the marrow-deep stillness of the room. The court barely breathed. Zairon had said Kael would be let in only under the vow that he would not harm Maris, that he would hold his tongue unless she wished otherwise. And here he was tongue loose, soul cracked open.
Alarik’s chest ached in a place he didn’t often let himself feel.
Because Kael wasn’t groveling for dominance.
He was laying down his sword.
Begging not to be chosen but to be considered.
And that was a different kind of war entirely.
What would she do?
Her reaction strong, luminous, terrifyingly still. She had stood beneath a sky torn open by the gods and sealed it shut with a single breath. She had worn power with grace, and now she wore silence like armor.
Alarik hated Kael. Resented the expansive power he wielded. Envied the place he held in Maris's heart.
But he also admired him, his relentlessness, his control.
He prayed she remembered who had bowed before her first.
Chapter fifty-nine
The Cost of Kneeling
-Maris-
The throne room was silent.
So silent, she could hear the distant rhythm of the sea, calm. It didn’t match the thunder in her chest.
Kael knelt.
Alarik stood behind her, still as carved stone.
And she stood in the middle of them like a blade waiting to be drawn. Like every step she’d taken had been leading her to this choice.
She knew no matter what she chose —whoshe chose —someone would bleed.
And right now, they both looked at her like salvation.
Like ruin.
Like she was the end of one world and the beginning of another.
“You kneel,” she said, voice low. Rough. Her magic curled around each word. “But you didn’t kneel when I broke in silence.”
Gods,he flinched.
“I see you now,” he rasped finally. “Not as something to tame or keep. But as the force you are.”
Maris blinked—pain pricked behind her eyes, sharp and traitorous.
“I should’ve told you then,” Kael continued, “that you were never small. That your light was terrifying. That I didn’t dim it out of malice but fear— because it was the one thing I couldn’t control.”
