Kael steps forward, swinging his sword forward, pointing it toward the guards.
“Drop your weapons, boys,” Kael says, his voice surprisingly soft. “You do not need to die here today.”
“They can’t,” Aldric sneers. “They are mine now. Their oath-bound magic now beckons to my every command.” The three knights all share the same sorry look. The room descends into a chaotic, heartbreaking blur. Kael uses the flat of his blade, slamming the men into walls with enough force to knock them unconscious but careful enough not to kill them. Sam, or Masen, moves as if he never left this kingdom. Like the knight that lives in him has reawakened with a vengeance.
“Kael, Masen, don’t kill them if you can help it,” Rowan orders his voice straining. “Just get me to that cage,” he says, his eyes locking onto mine.
“Stay back!” Aldric shrieks. Rowan does not stop. He reaches the cage as he grips the rune-etched silver.
“Masen, now!” Rowan roars. It’s a distraction. Aldric’s eyes dart toward Masen, expecting an attack, but Masen isn’t looking at the King. He slams his palms against the marble floor. Shadows surge upward, wrapping around the silver bars as the lock snaps loose. Rowan drives his shoulder into the silver door, wrenching it upward as the metal twists like wet paper. He pulls me against his chest, his armour cold and wet with blood. His hands find my face as he searches my expression for any signs of pain.
“I’ve got you,” he breathes. “I’ve got you, Hawthorne.”
“How?” Aldric gasps. He looks at Masen, who steps forward, blade pointed at Aldric.
“Do you remember why I fled those years ago?” Masen says softly, pushing forward towards the king. Aldric’s face drains of colour completely as he looks between Masen and then me.
“She isn’t here by coincidence, is she?” Aldric’s voice wobbles. “You found the true heir.” Masen gives me a tragic look full of regret before turning to the king once more.
“I did. And you’ve had her caged next to her throne.”
The words don’t just hit me.
They hollow me out.
My breath vanishes as the room flickers around me. The revelation hits me like a physical blow to the chest. All this time I thought I was a prisoner in some foreign place. A girl from a small suburb who had been snatched by mistake.
Her throne.
I look past the guards, past the blood, to the high-backed chair of obsidian and gold behind Aldric. My blood is pulsing in my ears. When the ground reacted to me when I bled into the soil. It wasn’t magic. It was recognition. Not because I am a stranger to the land.
But because it knows me.
“I’m sorry, Elodie,” Masen whispers to me. “I spent years trying to hide you from this. Protect you. I didn’t realise how deep your blood was connected to this realm.” I look down at my hands — dirty, trembling. I thought it was a fluke, that I was sent here by a complete mistake. This world hasn’t been trying to imprison me.
It’s trying to free me.
“Iam the King!” Aldric screams. “You cannot kill me. I don’t fear you, Masen, your blood is bound to me!”
Masen stops just inches from the dais. A slow, terrifying smile spreads across his face.
“That’s the thing about magic, Aldric,” Masen says, his voice dripping with satisfaction. “It requires a connection. When you sealed the gates and cut me off. You severed the tether. You undid my oath.” Masen leans in closer, his blade against Aldric’s throat.
“So actually, Aldric…Icankill you.” He doesn’t hesitate, thrusting his blade forward, the steel sinking into the king’s throat with a sickening wet slide. I turn away as Rowan pulls me into his chest, guarding my view from the savage scene of blood and bone. The king is gone. The room goes completely still. The knights look at each other, a knowing expression on their faces. Suddenly, the floor beneath Aldric’s body seeps thick emerald green vines. We all watch breathlessly as it spreads through the floor, ivy pulling itself over the marble floor, over the unconscious bodies of guards. Trailing over the broken wood and glass until they reach Rowan. The moment the first vine touches his boot, Rowan’s body jerks, his back arching backward.
He lets out a sound that isn’t a scream but a groan of pure agony. Dropping to his knees, his fingers claw at the marble as the green vines sinkintohim. I watch in horror as emerald light pulses beneath his skin, turning a solid black like molten poison.
“Rowan!” I shriek, reaching for him. “Help, someone help!” Kael and Masen are beside me in a breath. They look down at him with expressions of profound, crushing grief. Rowan’s teeth snarl in a pain so intense his nose bleeds a thick black line of blood.
“What is happening to him!? Make it stop!” I cry out, my hands trembling.
“He’s the next king,” Kael whispers as he falls to his knees beside us, placing a firm hand on Rowan’s chest.
He looks at me, his eyes wet with heartbreak I didn’t think I would see on a man wrapped in layers of steel.
“He has the king’s curse. He’s tied to the soil now. This land will rot him from the inside out,” Kael says, his voice sounding almost hollow.
I look at Rowan- the man who had become my entire world in a place I never thought I belonged. A man who has taken on the weight of so many scars, so much violence.
