One moment, Veyrion is standing calmly with his talon hands clasped beneath his wings. The next, one of those hands is wrapped around Seraphyne’s throat and they're launching into the air.
His wings crack like thunder as he rockets up toward the ceiling.
Then—he lets her go.
Seraphyne screams.
I gasp.
And the King and Queen cry out as their daughter’s body hurtles downward.
The screaming cuts off the instant her body hits the altar’s built-in Offering Bowl with a sickeningCRACK—a sound I can only assume is every bone inside her snapping at once.
Then the Stone Fae King alights on the ground in front of the Aralysse king and queen with the graceful calm of a breeze after a sudden storm.
“Would anyone else care to speak to me about what is fair—and how you’ve done my female no harm?” he asks, voice low but lethal.
A beat of silence.
Then both the Aralyssean king and queen collapse to their knees, wailing in unison. “No, Sovereign!”
“Please, have mercy!” the king sobs, pressing himself flat to the ground. He even attempts to kiss Veyrion’s taloned feet.
But the Stone Fae King steps back before he can.
“Take them to the dungeons,” he commands. “I will deal with them later.”
With the unhesitating precision of soldiers who’ve known real war—not just court pageantry like Aralysse’s—the Ironwing Commander and a garlanded warrior step forward and drag the royal couple away.
And then Veyrion turns his terrible gaze to me.
I want to run. I want to grab my father and flee, even if I know escape is impossible.
But I’m trapped…caught in the hypnotic red suns of his glowing eyes as he strides back toward me and tips up my chin with the same taloned finger he used to stroke my cheek when calling me a liar.
“You will tell me the truth,” he says. “You are not the Stone Bride, are you?”
I swallow. I try to look away, but can’t.
Finally, I admit, “No. I’m not. I’m just a lowly handmaiden.”
The confession burns as it leaves me. I take a breath, then rush to plead, “But please, don’t punish all of Aralysse for my choices. And spare my father. He’s a gentle, innocent man. He’s done nothing?—”
“Would you like to be?” Veyrion asks, cutting me off.
I blink, not understanding. “What?”
“Would you like to be the Stone Bride?” he repeats. “Would you like to become my wife this moonsrise and rule by my side… until your relatively weak human body succumbs to the organ failure of old age?”
Is he… is he asking me to marry him?
“What?” I whisper again.
But this time, my stunned question is echoed from across the hall—“What?!”
His father storms forward. “Surely, you cannot be serious about marrying ahuman commoner!”
He practically spits the last two words. “Never in our history has such a thing come to pass!”
