She was still alive, barely. Crumpled in the stone, body broken, one wing of her armor twisted, bow shattered.
Her eyes met his.
And for just a breath something in them changed.
Recognition.
The smallest, most fragile sliver of what had once been.
Alarik knelt before her.
She tried to speak, but blood dripped from her lips.
He reached for her face, cupped it gently.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
And with that, still gentle, still reverent, he drove his blade through her heart.
She exhaled once. A shudder. A release.
And then Elenwe the peace-bringer, the fallen princess was no more.
Alarik pulled the sword free and lowered her to the ground, cradling her as the last light faded from her eyes.
Maris stood frozen, breath shaking, the storm of power still humming around her.
Alarik looked up at her bloodied, ruined, eyes shining.
And bowed his head.
Not to a goddess.
Not to a queen.
But to her.
To the one who would finish this war.
Chapter seventy-four
The Light That Calls the King
-Kael-
Astrielle screamed as he dragged her across the battlefield by her blood-matted braid.
She kicked. Clawed. Snapped her teeth like some rabid thing.
Kael didn’t care.
He had given her a thousand mercies in life. Overlooked the ambition. Forgiven the disobedience. Ignored the hunger in her eyes when she looked at his throne, and later, at Maris.
But this?
This was not the girl Valea raised.
This was rot. Bitterness given flesh. A weapon pointed at the woman he loved.
