Elenwe.
One, a child of his court. The other, a woman he’d loved as family.
Now Monsters.
Kael stood frozen, breath sawing in and out of his lungs like a blade dragged across stone. The battlefield blurred at the edges. All he could see were the ghosts Eiren had turned into weapons.
Astrielle’s voice echoed in his skull like a curse.
I gave my life to you.
He remembered that nights of her silhouette in his throne room, spine straight with devotion, eyes bright with unspoken dreams. He had know for years what she desired — had let her hope instead of making her place clear. He had watched as she twisted withhatred for Maris and let it fester to be rid of her without consequence. His people had loved her, but he had not.
Now she stood before him once more.
Eyes like broken mirrors. Mouth curled into a mockery of what once might have been love.
He could still see the blood on her lips from that night. He could still feel it on his hands.
And Elenwe,
Kael staggered back a half-step, the ground lurching beneath him.
Elenwe’s gaze hadn’t even flickered toward him. Not once. She didn’t look at him with anger. She didn’t look at him at all.
Because she wasn't there.
The goddess had taken her, ripped out the light and replaced it with frost. Her soul, her laugh, her light-touch voice, her gentleness… gone. And what remained was a weapon with a heartbeat.
He had killed her.
No, his body had.
But it was his blade that struck. His hands.
It had been Eiren's influence, he realized now, that drove his blade.
She knew this day was coming and she'd need a weapon to break their people before a blade was drawn.
“Kael,” Riven said quietly beside him, voice taut. “You need to calm”
Kael couldn’t. There was only his fury.
Only the scent of magic and rot. The sound of distant, rattling shrieks of spawn circling like vultures.
And her voice.
Eiren’s.
You killed her for dreaming. And now, she will kill you for waking her from it.
This wasn’t war.
This was punishment.
Not for what he’d done but for what he had failed to protect.
He’d failed Astrielle. Failed Elenwe. Failed Maris, even now.
