“I don’t know,” Callum admitted. “But your mother—”
“Don’t.” Ronan’s whole body trembled, not from rage alone but from the memory of loss he would never settle into. “Don’t ever speak of her.”
Callum swallowed hard, then lifted his chin. “We can still save them. All of them.”
Ford’s eyes widened, the light catching the panic in them. “Wait, did anyone see Elva before she was taken? Her arms, did anyone notice if the heir mark of Nyctom even appeared?”
They all locked eyes.
“Should we ask either of them?” he muttered, throwing a hand over his shoulder to where Reve and Fritz slumped back-to-back, bound and half dead.
Nezra answered first. “Don’t bother.” She looked up through the ruined ceiling, where night seeped through the smoke. “No one saw.”
Ronan’s mind spiraled. “It should have appeared. Even in stasis while she was awakening, it should’ve been there.”
Ford moved a few paces away, staring down at what was left of Obrann. The headless corpse slumped in its own decay, the twisted crown still gleaming beside it. “Well,” he muttered, dragging a bloody hand through his hair. “Another royal funeral for Luamis. Gods, they’re going to run out of marble.”
No one laughed.
Somewhere beyond the wreckage, Verena was still out there, unbound, enraged with purity and curse alike.
Ronan wouldn’t grieve for her yet. Grief implies loss, a surrender. And he had not lost her. Not entirely.
He would tear apart every sky that dared to cover her, would unmake every throne, every realm, until the world was forced to its knees if that’s what it took to bring her back to him.
And he wouldn’t stop. Not even when the gods themselves begged him to.
He shook the blood from his hands, straightening. A prince again, even shattered. “I’m going after her.”
Callum huffed out a weak laugh. “Vivianna didn’t die for nothing. She poured every lost drop of heressenceinto the divinity stone. Everything she ever was now lives as Verena. She’s aPrimal, Ronan.” He shook his head slowly, like it cost him something. “And with the Viper’s curse...” He exhaled, almost a laugh. “The only thing worse than a pissed off Primal, is a cursed one. That’s not something you can save. That’s extinction wrapped in skin.”
Ronan whirled, his eyes meeting Callum’s. “Then I’ll learn to hold the end of the world in my hands.”
Callum exhaled, leaden, tired. “She didn’t just slip through your fingers, she let go. Without asking to be followed.”
“You talk of her like she’s been doomed from the start, beyond saving. So, what’s the point, right?” Ronan’s voice dropped. “But that wasyou, Callum. You never believed she could have been anything else. And if you had only looked, only taken one fucking second to see her for who she is—"
Callum shifted his weight, fingers curling in on themselves, knuckles white. “And what would it have changed? She still would’ve burned.”
“No,” he murmured, refusing to look away. “She would’ve known we believed in her. The way Vivianna always had.”
The embers in Callum’s eyes flared. “I swore an oath, prince. Royalty should understand what that means.”
Ronan’s jaw flexed. “To a dead man?”
“To aking,” Callum snapped. “I did what I was ordered to do.”
Ronan closed the distance entirely, looking down to him. “And what did that buy you, guardian?”
Callum folded under his stare, eyes glancing away for half a second before he forced them back. “It bought her time. A life. Even if it wasn’t the one she deserved.”
Ronan’s throat worked, a laugh edged in a snarl. “You call that life?” He gestured toward the empty space where she’d once stood. “You chained her to prophecy and called it compassion.”
“And you think love would’ve saved her?” His voice stayed quiet. “Love doesn’t rewrite fate.”
Quiet, Ronan said, “Love was the only damn thing keeping her from becoming what you all feared. I would’ve done anything to protect her. And now she’s gone. Because we both failed her. But you don’t get to decide her ending. And you sure as hel don’t get to decide mine.”
The weakest trace of remorse winked and died behind Callum’s eyes.
