The last timeI was in this room, Maldrak was framing me for my parents’ murder. I was branded a kinslayer. An abomination. Evil.
The four-poster bed is the same. Mahogany grain carved into twists that frame the thick furs and velvet blankets.
The ghost of their presence still lingers, hovering somewhere in the very fabric of this place. The scent of the incense my mother liked to burn is embedded in the furniture, and etched into my mind. Frankincense, sandalwood, patchouli.
A lantern gutters and sways, almost gone out.
Maldrak’s not here.
Then—
The rustle of fabric.
The twitch of restless feet.
The staccato rhythm of someone trying to slow their breathing.
Someone’s here. Elyssara breathes through the tether.
The Arcanist’s chambers.
She nods curtly, all warrior and weapon. No sign of the terror she wore only heartbeats ago.
We stalk through the king’s chambers in silence, blades ready to aim true.
I can barely restrain the fury that lurches through my gut as we crouch through the chamber—past my father’s bookshelves, desk, sitting area, and my mother’s vanity, her tea set. He hasn’t moved anything. Hasn’t changed anything about this entire fucking room.
Like he knew I was coming and wanted to taunt me with it.
Like he’s been waiting for this moment for a decade.
The walls of Kryntar Castle feel like home and a prison all at once.
But right now, it’s a battlefield.
Elyssara steps up to the wooden door left slightly ajar, swaying almost imperceptibly with a draft.
She nudges the door open with the toe of her boot.
Inside, the Arcanist’s chambers are… almost quaint.
These rooms were always inaccessible to me—a privilege reserved for kings.
Not the sterile, alchemical den I expected—no glass vials or instruments of torture, just low shelves crowded with herbs hanging upside down, their leaves crisped and gray with age. Clay jars line the desk, marked with symbols that bleed into each other, and a tangle of dried flowers, bones, and feathers hangs from the ceiling like offerings to our lost gods.
A small lantern guttering in the corner casts the room in a feverish glow. The scent isn’t rot or blood this time—it’s sage and salt and something sweet beneath it, something wrong.
Elyssara takes it in, her jaw tight. She moves slowly, scanning every corner, under the bed, behind the furniture. “Nothing.”
But I keep looking. Searching for answers.
There’s no precision here, no cruelty, no masculine order. This place feels… feminine. Occult. Enchanting.
No movement. No breath. Just the faint crackle of flame and the whisper of herbs brushing against each other in the draft.
I circle toward the bed—barely disturbed, sheets turned down, the space too ordinary to belong to a monster. And then?—
A creak. The door behind us.
