24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

A fter so many days woken by his circadian rhythm alone, Azriel groaned against the morning sun filtering through gossamer curtains. He recoiled from the light and threw an arm over his eyes to block it out.

Until, of course, he realized the softness of the bed, the easy warmth of the room, and overall comfort he felt.

Something was wrong.

Azriel's abdominals contracted hard to bring him upright in an instant. The bright room swam around him with the scent of florals and lemons. A mixture of Melia's signature citrus and…the scent from a faded memory. One of dark curls, blue eyes, and a gentle hand leading him to this room where he—

Someone stirred beside him, the sheets rustling. He whipped his head around, stomach clenching in the worst of ways. He couldn't remember what happened. Couldn't remember anything except for the high fae getting beaten again and again. The drink that made his head swim. The way the bond had screamed at him.

Screamed a warning.

Azriel threw himself from the bed. His tunic was gone, and he was so very naked. He cupped himself with his hands before snatching the sheet he'd left behind to tie about his waist, exposing the one who'd been beside him.

"Come back to bed." The mage yawned, her lithe, tan body stretching across the mattress. She smirked up at him. "Looks like the potion wore off. Perhaps now you can do all those things you'd tried so hard to do last night."

Sharp teeth and fangs bared, Azriel took a step away. His back slapped the wall. What had he done ?

A liquid fire pumped through his veins, fueled by the bond to Ariadne. If he'd done anything at all, it hadn't been because he'd wanted to do so with this woman. It'd been because he'd thought she was his wife .

Oh, gods. Gods . His wife! The woman he put above all others. The one he'd do anything to protect, even from himself. The one he'd betrayed, now in more ways than one.

If he'd fucked this mage…he couldn't live with himself.

"Fuck you," he grit out, that fire churning within him until it blazed into an inferno. He'd kill her, then he'd kill Melia for doing this to him. It was worse than the Pits—worse than death.

"That's precisely what I want you to do," the mage said, crooking her finger at him. "Come now. Be a good dhemon, and let me use those horns as handles."

The very thought of such things was enough. Azriel charged forward, grabbing the edge of a bedside table as he moved and hurling it at the woman. She shrieked, stopping it midair with her magic.

Then the door to the room burst open, and Paerish stalked in as though waiting just outside the door for the first sign of trouble. Their eyes shot from the woman on the bed, suspending the table above, to Azriel as he snarled at her. The guard dragged their curved blade from its sheath and leveled it at him before saying, "Step away."

Azriel launched at Paerish. They swung the sword, and he threw himself forward on his knees to avoid the blade, grabbing their forward ankle and shoving his head against their inner leg. The guard stumbled, then fell with a surprised yelp. It was enough of a distraction for Azriel to yank the sword from their grip and reel back.

With no shoes, he didn't dare try to kick the fallen guard. Instead, he did exactly what had happened to him. He slammed his bare foot down on Paerish's femur hard enough to hear a blood-chilling crack .

Paerish screamed, then the woman echoed the sound as he turned on her.

Fuck them. Fuck the mages. Fuck Melia. Fuck that entire place. Azriel would burn the chateau to the ground and dance in its fucking ashes for all these people had done to him.

Footsteps sounded behind him. Azriel charged at the mage on the bed, who scrambled away as though forgetting her own magic. She shrieked again, an ear-splitting sound, and the terror in it awoke that terrible part of him that he'd long since locked away. It almost made him laugh.

Azriel brought the sword down in an arc that cut across the woman's chest. Not deep enough to kill, but enough to cause her pain in the moment so she could glean an ounce of what he felt. Her scream of agony was music to his ears. He would tear her apart and revel in her misery—

Someone shouted behind him, and then his body locked up. The collar around his throat flared to life with magic. He choked on the tang of it so close to his mouth, coughing through the pain of struggling against its hold.

Voices filled the room. The mage before him scrambled across the bed, holding the light blanket to her bleeding chest.

"Well then." Melia's voice stoked the fire in Azriel's blood. "What's going on here, Ada?"

Azriel's hand twitched forward, the tip of the blade pointing at Ada. The magic of the collar rippled through him again, and he snarled against the ice competing with his inferno. The chill melted away as he stared at the mage before him. It'd been so long since he'd been fueled by so much hate—not even Loren stoked such ire.

Because this woman took advantage of his bond to Ariadne for her own gains, whether she knew what she was doing or not.

"I only did what you told me," Ada said. "I took him to bed, but he couldn't even get it up—"

None of it registered through the haze. The magic snapped. Azriel surged forward to a chorus of shouts and Ada's scream. He plunged the blade through her belly, halting the shriek and replacing it with a cough of blood.

The crimson poured from her lips, a beautiful shade of red to match the pain he felt at what she'd done to him. He twisted the sword, widening the wound as more magic wrapped around his arms and waist to haul him back. It seared into his cobalt skin, but still, he pressed forward in determination.

"I hate you," he snarled, not quite certain to whom it was directed. Ada? Melia? Paerish? All of them? It didn't matter. They were all his enemy, and each of them deserved the same terrible deaths. Then he switched to the dhemon language, hoping the rougher tongue would sound as cruel and disparaging as he'd been told it did. "May Keon curse your soul and bind you into the darkness of the Underworld where my people will torment you for eternity. You are vile and unworthy of Sora's light."

"Enough," Melia said monotonously, and her hold on him tightened.

Azriel took a step back, unable to withstand the sudden yank. Before him, Ada crumpled to the floor in a pool of her own blood. He growled and tried to turn the blade on Melia, but the collar's powers reignited. Again, he choked. Again, his body locked up in response to her command. Though he fought against it, the moment her fingers wrapped around his wrist, the magic swelled and slammed into him like a deluge.

"You'd better kill me now," he wheezed down at her, lip curled back to bare his sharp teeth and long fangs. Around them, guards rushed to the dying Ada behind him. Gods, he hoped they didn't heal her in time. She deserved to die. Just like he deserved to die if he'd done exactly what he thought. Hot tears, fueled by anger and despair, fell down his cheeks. "Or I'll kill you for doing this to me."

Melia's silver eyes sparkled like moonlight. Her lips curled into a devastating smile, and she laid a hand on his cheek, from which he could not pull away, to wipe away a tear with her thumb. "Oh no, dhomin , I'm not done with you yet."

Loren scrawled his name across the bottom of the paper, feeling calmer than he had in a long time. This was right. The decisions he had made up until this point may have been questionable, but this was the best thing he could do for himself…and for all of Valenul.

Because the choices made by the Council, particularly the Princeps, had become far more untrustworthy.

Someone had to set things right.

A knock at the door drew his gaze up from the document. Loren sat back in his chair. "Enter."

Colonel Trev Wintre stepped through, his crimson uniform sharp as ever. He pushed back his curly crop of hair from his forehead and lifted his chin. Though not a tall man, Trev had always had an imposing figure. Even standing alone in the General's office, he appeared just as at home as ever.

"You asked for me, General." Trev raised a questioning brow, though he did not voice whatever was on his mind. Wise.

"Indeed." Loren opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out the bright red stick of wax. He set it beside the candle in the corner before carefully folding the document, along with the identical copies beneath it, into a crisp envelope shape. "Three of these are to be sent to the other provinces immediately. The rest to all Councilmen."

"Sir?" Trev took a step forward. Certainly, he was wondering why he had just become a delivery boy. Someone of his rank was nothing of the sort.

Loren held the wax above the flame before letting it drip onto the first document. After pressing his sigil into it, he set the folded paper aside and moved to the next. He did so without speaking, knowing full well that Trev would stand there and wait like a good Caersan soldier, as he had always done.

When at last he finished, Loren tapped it and said, "I want you to deliver this to the Princeps yourself. He is not to leave his estate for any reason. Take a company of men with you. They are to monitor the grounds. No missives in or out."

"Is the Princeps in danger?"

"Of himself." Loren stood. "I need every soldier still stationed in the Hub to assemble immediately. We must move quickly if we are to succeed."

Trev frowned, collecting the documents as instructed. "Forgive me, General, but I am not certain what you mean."

A slow smile curled the corners of Loren's mouth. This had all been such a long time coming. Since the appointment of a traitorous half-breed, he had known it was far past time to look into the law, as created by the first High Council. The General had always held almost as much power as the Princeps. What he had found, however, provided Loren with precisely the necessary legalities to do what needed to be done for the greater good of the kingdom.

"In the event that Valenul's High Council no longer works for its people," Loren quoted, the words a perfect melody in his mind, "and steps have been taken by the Princeps which no longer aligns with the needs of the kingdom, it is the General's solemn duty to introduce Military Directive Fourteen."

A long silence followed. Trev looked from Loren to the documents in his hand and back. "I do not doubt your reasoning, General, though I am curious as to what the Princeps has done to suffer such consequences."

Loren stepped around the desk, forcing Trev to tilt his head back to look up at him. "I am glad you asked, and I believe it is long overdue for everyone to understand the severity of his actions."

"Sir?"

"You heard what happened to the late Lord Governor Caldwell?"

"Of course." Trev seemed to be racking his brain to figure out how this connected.

"Then you should know the truth of it." Loren cocked his head with a sneer. "Azriel Tenebra did not die, though he should have. While rushing the Lord Governor's inauguration, the Princeps placed a traitor of Valenul into a position of extreme power and allowed his daughter to succumb to the hypnosis of that filthy half-breed."

Trev shook his head. "Apologies, sir, but—"

"Azriel Tenebra is a dhemon."

The color drained from the Colonel's face. He blinked long and hard as he took in the information. "And the Princeps knew?"

"It is my firm belief that he did." Loren nodded to the documents in Trev's hand. "Those documents hold a list of his betrayals to the people of Valenul that will be read aloud to the capitals of each Province and presented to the Lords across our fine kingdom. When Tenebra's true identity came to light, I scheduled his execution, but the Princeps intervened."

Now, a hard anger simmered in Trev's eyes. He set his jaw and stood a little straighter. "Tenebra is alive?"

"Sent to the Pits of Algorath to fight out his sentence. Trial by combat, as it were." Loren shook his head in disgust. "The idea came from Lord Governor Nightingale. Perhaps it is not so terrible; the Desmos of Algorath are ruthless, and his final nights will be dreadful. A fitting punishment, yet the Princeps overstepped, and immediate action should have been taken."

Trev nodded, his mouth a thin line. "Then this is fitting, indeed. If the Princeps is so willfully ignorant of his own appointments, he is no longer a suitable leader. This is an abuse of power, to be sure."

Loren had always known he liked Trev Wintre. This was one of the many reasons for it. He clapped the Colonel on the shoulder, then opened the door. "I will speak with the soldiers of the Hub. We will be locking down all of Valenul until further notice. No one travels to or from any of the provinces without my explicit permission."

"Of course, General."

The two of them exited the study together. As Trev made his way to the Hub's messengers, he called for his company to be assembled. Loren watched him go, chest swelling as he took on the power of his new self-appointment. With his military behind him, no one could stop what was coming next.