Princess zetulah viridian POV;
The Golden Court was not burning.
It was being consumed.
Fire had a hunger, and tonight, it feasted without restraint. The air—gods, remember how it used to smell? Crushed jasmine and spice from the western ships, like someone bottled sunlight. Now? Choking on burnt silk and melted gold that reeked like a blacksmith's nightmare. And blood. Always blood, hanging metallic in the air—like licking a dagger.
Those pillars… the ones carved with a thousand years of our *who-gives-a-damn* lineage? Cracked. Split clean through, like the fire didn't just burn them. Like it hated them. Hated *us*. Stone shouldn't sound like that when it breaks—like bones. Brittle, old bones.
And the flames? Oh, they weren't satisfied. Never satisfied. They gnawed. They chewed.
King Ragnis.
His presence was not merely seen. It was felt in the marrow. The very weight of him warped the atmosphere, turning breath into an agony, each inhale scraping raw against the inside of my throat. He did not shout. He did not need to. His voice hit first—gutter-low, the kind that doesn't just hit your ears. It rattled my teeth. Settled deep, vibrating in the hollows of my ribs like my bones were fucking tuning forks.
"You." A pause, sharp as a blade's edge. "Never meant to rule."
The words didn't sound like words. Felt like gravel in my chest. Like he'd reached inside and *squeezed*.
My body betrayed me. Knees threatening to give, lungs clawing for air. My voice—gods, my voice was ruined. I tried to swallow, but my throat was shredded raw, blistered from the inside. The heat was a living thing, pressing against my back, eager to make a grave of my flesh.
Kaelith stood between us, breathing hard, the edges of his silhouette blurring in the wavering heat. He wasn't fighting anymore. He was stalling.
For me.
The realization hit harder than the battle itself. It sickened me. Because we both knew what came next.
The spear found him before I could move.
For a split second, there was silence. A void where sound should be. A wrongness in the very fabric of reality. Then came the impact—not just the wet, sickening crunch of metal piercing through flesh, but something deeper. The sound of inevitability. The moment the world sealed its fate.
Kaelith stumbled, his golden eyes flickering, as if uncertain whether to look at me or pretend this hadn't happened.
No.
NO.
I surged forward, but the flames reared up like a living beast, roaring between us, forcing me back. My skin screamed before I did, the fire so hot it felt like it was burning away something deeper than flesh. Kaelith wasn't even trying to reach for me.
He turned.
And walked away.
The burning wall swallowed him whole.
I did not hear myself scream.
---
The air outside was not relief.
It should have been. I should have gulped it down, should have felt some sliver of respite from the choking heat. But instead, the night was wrong. Too still. A corpse's breath, stale and unmoving.
Syrene stood at the broken gates, slow-clapping, her smile a blade, her perfume—gods, it was inside my lungs. Too sweet. Too perfect. Cloying like something rotten wrapped in silk. It made me want to tear my throat open just to rid myself of it.
She tilted her head, her eyes glinting with something colder than ice. "Oh, Zetulah. He lives. But not for you."
I didn't understand. Couldn't. My mind refused to put the pieces together. But my body did. The nausea curdled deep, a sickness that had nothing to do with exhaustion or fear. The truth was already inside me, pressing against my ribs, refusing to let me breathe.
Then I saw it.
The collar.
Iron, forged in emberlight, clasped around Kaelith's throat.
Something inside me ruptured. A sound tore out of me, raw and strangled. A sound that wasn't human.
Kaelith wasn't dead.
Something worse.
Behind me, the Golden Court collapsed in a symphony of ruin, the embers drifting skyward like the remnants of a funeral pyre. But there would be no mourning.
Not yet.
Because war was coming.
And it carried my name.
—--------------------
Blood dripped onto the stone floor. Mine? His? Couldn't tell anymore. Pain pounded against my skull, a relentless drumbeat, each throb a jagged edge slicing through thought. The dungeon reeked—incense curling into rot, sweet and putrid, a dying fruit's last breath before collapse. The scent clung to my lungs, thick as decay.
Torchlight slashed shadows across the walls, their figures jerking and swaying like hanged men still fighting the noose.
And those iron bars? Rusted fangs, grinning. Waiting to snap shut.
Beyond them—
Kaelith.
His head sagged forward, black hair damp with sweat and something darker. Shackles gnawed his wrists, metal sinking deep, swallowing flesh, drinking pain. Bare chest streaked with whip marks—raw, glistening, carved like a war map upon his skin. But his eyes?
Still burned. Always burned. Like embers refusing to die, no matter how much ash buried them.
"Took you long enough," he rasped, voice sandpaper grinding against steel. "Princess."
My breath caught. My throat tightened. Alive. Thank the gods.
Relief curled in my chest, warm and unwelcome, because it was followed by something worse. A weight pressing into my ribs, sinking into marrow. Guilt.
A slow, deliberate clap carved through the silence. Thud. Thud. Thud. Like a rotting heart, sluggish and heavy.
I knew that sound. Knew the voice before it slithered into the air, honeyed and venomous.
Syrene.
She moved like silk unraveling, robes pooling gold at her feet, each step a whisper of triumph. That smile—a blade slipping between ribs. "Here to beg?"
—
I dug my nails into my palms, felt the sting, welcomed it. Don't flinch. Don't. But the past pressed hard against my ribs—my kingdom, dust. My brother, bones. And Kaelith… because of me.
"Name your price." The words scraped my throat raw, but I steadied my voice. Always steady. Always controlled. Because weakness was something Syrene could scent like blood in the water.
She laughed. A sound that curled like smoke, thick with amusement. "Simple." A flick of her hand toward Kaelith, like he was nothing more than an afterthought. "Pledge yourself. To me."
Silence stretched, taut as a bowstring. The dungeon walls felt closer, the air thicker.
Kaelith jerked against his chains, metal groaning against stone. "Zetulah, don't—"
Syrene twitched a finger.
Kaelith's collar flared.
His body snapped taut. Muscles corded, veins rising beneath skin, breath vanishing into a strangled gasp. Agony surged through him, sudden and sharp, an invisible noose tightening around his spine.
I lunged.
Guards wrenched me back, iron fingers bruising my arms. "STOP!"
Syrene tilted her head, golden eyes gleaming. "Then say it."
The words clawed up my throat like glass shards. This is wrong. My body rebelled, but I forced them out.
"I… pledge loyalty. To House Moriba."
Kaelith's face—horror. Syrene's smile—victory.
"Good girl."
---
The mirror showed a stranger.
Gold silk draped over me like a funeral shroud. The fabric was too smooth, too soft—like a spider's touch before the bite. Servants wove chains into my hair—click, click, click—each link a silent promise of submission.
A knock.
Kaelith stood in the doorway, half-swallowed by shadow. He looked tired. Hollow. And yet, his eyes still burned. "You shouldn't have."
I met his reflection's glare. "You shouldn't have been fool enough to get caught."
A ghost of a smirk. There and gone.
"They'll never let you go."
I rose, the chains in my hair chiming. "Then we'll burn this place to the ground."
His gaze flickered—embers stoked to flame.
---
The corridors breathed. The walls listened. The torches spat and flickered, whispering secrets to the dark. Footsteps echoed—too close, too loud. We moved like smoke. Like ghosts.
Syrene thought she owned me. Thought she'd bound me in gold and silk and honeyed lies.
But wolves? We eat chains.
Kaelith limped beside me, hand pressed to his side. "This is sui
cide."
I grinned, teeth bared. "Trust me."
He huffed. "That's what terrifies me."
We ran.
---
The escape? It's begun.
But Syrene's no fool.
And the dark? It's watching.