Chapter Thirteen

Amid the cold, colorless stone of her new room, Sylaria closed her eyes and clung to a memory she could still call her own. She let herself drift, if only for a heartbeat, back to that sacred moment under the weeping willow.

Elara had smelled of smoke and steel, her hair matted with sweat, her smile crooked from exhaustion and victory. They’d barely survived the last skirmish. Bruised, bloodied, alive. Elara had dragged her into the clearing like it was some war prize and collapsed onto the moss beside her. Their armor half-off, their laughter bitter, tired, hungry.

They made love like soldiers—clumsy, impatient, desperate to forget the scent of burning flesh and screams. And yet, even in that chaos, even covered in grime, Elara had looked at her like she was the gods’ own moonlight.

"You’re my war cry," Elara had whispered once, fingers trailing across the scar that curved beneath Sylaria’s ribs. "And my peace after the storm."

Sylaria had never needed a crown. Only that.

She blinked, yanked from the memory like a blade from a wound.

The door slammed open.

Valerius entered like a curse, his coat billowing behind him, his mouth twisted in contempt. “Dinner was a fucking disaster,” he snarled, his voice sharp enough to cut stone. “I sit at a table of halfwits and cowards while you rot in here like some martyred saint.”

Sylaria didn't move. She stayed seated, wrapped in the blanket that now felt thinner than parchment. “You amount to a throne of corpses and expect me to applaud?” she said. “You’re not a king, Valerius. You’re a butcher boy with a crown.”

He approached with slow, deliberate steps, fury radiating off him like heat from a forge. “I gave you a choice,” he hissed. “I offered you alliance, power—”

“Enslavement,” she snapped. “You offered me a leash. And you’re angry I spat on it.”

Valerius’s jaw twitched. “Your defiance is tiresome.”

“So kill me,” she said, standing despite the tremor in her limbs. “Strike me down. Or admit that what truly infuriates you is that you need me. That somewhere in your rotted heart, you know Caelum will never kneel.”

He crossed the space between them in a breath, his hand clamping around her jaw, forcing her head back. “You think yourself brave?”

“I think myself free,” she rasped.

Valerius slammed her back onto the bed. The blanket twisted beneath her as he pinned her there, his iron grip full of hatred. She didn’t scream. Didn’t flinch. Just glared at him with the same fire she once led armies with.

“You’re not a man,” she spat. “You’re a tantrum wrapped in armor. I’ve buried better men than you with my bare hands.”

Valerius stood over her, breath ragged, the fire in his eyes flickering into something darker—less rage, more conflict. But before the silence could stretch, iron boots thundered down the corridor.

Two guards burst into the room.

“Seize her!”

Without a word, they obeyed.

Sylaria snarled, thrashing, spitting like a feral thing—but they were trained for worse. One twisted her arm behind her back, shoving her forward. The other grabbed her legs and slammed her down onto the bed yanking the blanket away.

Valerius didn’t flinch. He didn’t stop them either. They pinned her on her back, each guard restraining her arms.

She writhed against the weight of their hands, breath punching out of her lungs. The stone bit cold through her thin shirt. Still, she didn’t cry out.

Only laughed. Bitter. Low.

"Is this your justice, king?" she rasped, cheek pressed to the furs. "Two dogs to hold one woman still?"

Valerius stepped closer, his voice like gravel: “You reap what you sow, Sylaria.”

"Then sow better," she growled, “because what’s coming for you won’t be half as merciful.”

Her words lingered in the air, curling into silence.

He raised a fist.

And she smiled.

“Go on,” she whispered. “Beat me. Break me. But know this: even if you gut me here and now, my people will never call you king. They’ll spit on your name for a thousand years.”

He growled as he sunk his teeth deep into her shoulder. Her scream tore from her lungs, filling the room as she fought to unpin her legs from under the weight of his guards.

Valerius slid his tongue up her chest to her neck. His teeth feverishly gnashing at the contours of her neck down to her shoulder, biting her nipple.

Somewhere distant, she heard herself scream—dry, hoarse, guttural.

Sylaria’s breasts thrashed beneath him and her hands anxiously fought to free her from their grasp.

The room spun around them and Sylaria began to lose feeling in her hands and arms, letting them fall limp. With that, Valerius released his grip on her throat. She convulsed involuntarily as her lungs begged for a precious gulp of air.

He struck her in the face, sharp and violent. Her vision flashed white as bone and flesh collided. Again. And again. The bedposts shook with each blow, her face swelling under the storm of his fists.

Hot blood surged from her nose, copper flooding her mouth, choking off breath. She coughed, gagged, then bit down on her own tongue just to stay conscious.

And then—cold steel.

“This is Saintbreaker. This blade was my father's. And his father's before him,” he breathed. “And tonight you will learn that mercy died when your people murdered my mother.”

She froze.

He unsheathed the blade at his belt with a deliberate rasp, letting her hear it. He pressed the flat side to her shoulder first, letting it rest there like a threat. Then he dragged it—slowly—down her sternum, slowly splitting her skin as she let out a howl.

She cried again—loud, sharp—but he clamped a hand over her mouth, leaning in over her until his weight crushed her down. “Shut your filthy mouth,” he hissed into her ear, teeth grazing the shell. “We will see if you can still scream when I’m done.”

She couldn’t answer. Her mouth hung open, eyes swollen, her body bruised and shaking beneath him. That just spurred him on. He spat again, this time on her chest, then smeared it across her broken skin like a mark—his mark.

He yanked her head back by her hair, baring her throat, flushed and glistening. He held the blade steady against her neck, the edge angled just enough to remind her that he could...if he wanted. Her pulse fluttered beneath the steel.

He spit down between her legs and shoved in the hilt with a brutal snap. She cried out, body jolting as he split her open in one savage thrust of his arm. His grip on her hip was bruising, anchoring her as the hilt fucked her hard—quick and ruthless. His hand bled where he gripped the blade, but his arm never slowed.

His other hand gripped her throat like a man possessed, squeezing until the edges of her world turned black. The guards watched—one in disgust, and the other with a morbid curiosity. His eyes burned fiercely with the fevered hatred of a man unraveling, a child-king lost in the fury of his own creation.

With a quick, adrenalized motion, he threw his blade to the side. He wrenched her arm from one of the guards, pinning it behind her back as he twisted her around, and buried her face into the mattress.

He sat up as he ripped the back of her nightgown open.

He mounted her from behind. Her defense was in vain as he pulled down his pants to reveal his fleshy weapon of choice. He struggled only for a moment to breach the rim of her ass. She clenched hard. He grunted and his body vibrated as he tore his way deeper into her.

She clawed at the sheets, her fingers digging deep. He howled a feral, unhinged sound, more beast than man.

She had no memory strong enough to escape into. Just the brutal sound of her body breaking under the weight of his hunger, and him—grinning through clenched teeth—driving her toward the edge of obliteration.

Sylaria hacked up blood and bile, her throat torn raw, breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps. Her scream burst from her like a dying thing, cracked and primal. The sound split the stone corridors of the keep like a warhorn from hell.

Until the door exploded inward with a resounding crack.

“ENOUGH!”

Axiel’s voice tore through the chamber like judgment day. His blade was already drawn—no hesitation, no diplomacy—only cold steel and righteous fury.

The old general’s boots echoed as he stormed into the room, eyes locking on the savage tableau before him: Valerius crouched over her, shirtless and shaking, skin slick with sweat and blood—some of it hers, some of it his own. Sylaria lay twisted beneath him like shattered porcelain, barely conscious, bruises blooming across her skin. Her body didn’t move. Her spirit barely clung.

Axiel saw red.

“This wasn’t the agreement,” he growled, stalking forward with fire in his bones. “She was a prisoner—not your whore, not your wound for you to fuck open. You crossed into something foul, Valerius.”

Valerius rose, panting like a feral dog, his lip bleeding, eyes alight with something that had nothing to do with victory.

“Don’t lecture me, old man,” he spat. “She spat in my face. Laughed in my halls. This is discipline. This is consequence.”

Axiel moved so fast the torchlight blurred.

His fist cracked across Valerius’ face—bone met bone with a sickening crunch—and the king staggered, blood spraying from his mouth. He barely had time to react before Axiel was on him.

“You call this consequence?” Axiel roared, slamming Valerius into the stone wall. “You filthy little coward. You think this makes you powerful? You think breaking a woman makes you strong?”

Valerius rolled, coughing, face smeared in blood. “You serve me, old man—”

“I serve Tenebria,” Axiel snapped, blade drawn again and now resting at the king’s throat. “Not your sickness. Not your shame.”

Valerius swung, wild and sloppy. Axiel caught the punch, twisted his arm until something snapped, then drove his knee into Valerius’ ribs. The king hit the floor with a choked grunt, gasping for breath, curled like a beaten animal.

“This—this is what power looks like,” Axiel snarled, standing over him. “Restraint. Mercy. Things your father died before ever teaching you. And you spit on his grave with this filth.”

Behind them, Sylaria whimpered—a raw, broken sound.

Axiel looked to her. The blood. The ruin. The hollow gaze of someone still alive only because death hasn’t found her yet.

Something inside him shattered.

He turned back to Valerius, voice low now. Lethal.

He drew his sword. “You will never touch her again. And if I catch the stench of your lust near her door, I will draw steel—and no one will recover your body.”

For a long, breathless moment, only the crackling torchlight and Sylaria’s broken breathing filled the silence.

Valerius didn’t rise.

Didn’t speak.

He only spit blood at Axiel’s boots and turned away like a dog slinking from the lash.

Axiel let him stumble out. Not out of mercy. But because some defeats need to be witnessed to be truly felt.

Two handmaidens rushed in seconds later, skidding to a halt at the doorway. Their eyes went wide at the sight of Sylaria’s blood, of Axiel’s blade, of the discarded monarch limping into the dark.

“Help her,” Axiel said quietly, sheathing his sword like it had just done something sacred. His voice trembled with fury barely contained.

“And bring water,” he added. “Hot. She’ll need more than stitches.”

He knelt beside Sylaria then, pressing a hand to her temple, whispering something only she could hear.

Not a prayer.

Not an apology.

Just her name. Spoken like it still meant something.

“Master… is she—?”

“Tend to her, now!” he snapped, voice ironclad.

They moved fast, lifting Sylaria with shaking hands, her weight like wet wood between them. She didn’t speak. Didn’t sob. Just stared. Her silence was louder than any scream had been.

They brought her to a bathing chamber where steam coiled like ghosts above the water. One of the maids wept as she undressed her. The other whispered soft apologies for things they had no power to stop.

Axiel stood in the doorway, unmoving, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword. His eyes never left Sylaria’s face.

Not once.

And when she finally blinked, when her gaze met his—bloody, defiant, hollow—he knew.

She would survive this.

The sky over Tenebria cracked open like a rotting wound, bleeding twilight into the rain-slick courtyard. Clouds gathered like mourners, swallowing the last of the sun. From the study window, Axiel watched the king move like a wraith across the stone.

Valerius was alone. Shirtless. Soaked. His sword hissed through the air, each swing less graceful than the last—more rage than form. He fought shadows that wouldn't die, their names etched behind his eyes.

Axiel sighed through his nose, jaw clenched. The events of the previous night still clung to his skin like Blight. Sylaria’s scream. Valerius’ eyes wild with madness. Blood on the floor. On his hands. The boy he once carried on his shoulders had grown into something he no longer recognized—a weapon without a sheath.

He buckled his own sword to his hip and stepped into the storm.

The rain came down harder as he crossed the courtyard, the rhythmic drumming on stone like distant war drums. Valerius didn’t stop. His blade swept toward invisible enemies, breath sharp, soaked hair plastered to his brow.

“Enough of this,” Axiel said, voice cutting through the rain like iron through .

Valerius didn’t look up. “Leave me.”

Axiel took another step. “I’m not here to watch you flail at ghosts.”

Valerius turned, sword raised. “Then let us flail at mortal shells.”

Their blades clashed before another word passed. Valerius drove forward, reckless and fast, fury in every swing. Axiel met him cleanly, his own sword sliding into the rhythm like a familiar prayer—efficient, controlled, mercilessly calm.

“You came to me for guidance once,” Axiel said, parrying a savage cut. “Now you soil your halls with blood and expect silence?”

Valerius snarled. “She mocked me in front of my court. She defied me in chains. You think I should’ve kissed her feet?”

“I think you disgraced your crown,” Axiel spat. “You didn’t break a rebel. You raped a queen. A Blightborn just as you!”

Valerius roared and swung wildly, their swords crashing. He pushed hard, but Axiel twisted, pivoted, and drove his boot into the king’s chest, sending him sprawling in the mud.

For a moment, neither moved. Only the sound of rain and ragged breathing.

Valerius rose slowly, his lip split and eyes burning. “You think I’m my father. You think I’m a coward in a crown.”

“No,” Axiel growled, blade at the ready. “Your father was a king. Flawed, but he wore the burden. You—you're just a boy drunk on pain, pissing on the ashes of the realm he built.”

“He let my mother die!” Valerius screamed. “He prayed while the fever ate her alive. He clung to his god while she choked on her own blood.”

Axiel advanced. “So you killed the gods in your heart. Fine. But now you spit in his name to justify every sin. Is that the man you wanted to be? Or just the boy who’s still screaming for his mother?”

Valerius charged again, this time with real hate. Their blades met like thunder. For every blow Valerius landed, Axiel returned two. One cut to the cheek. One disarm. One boot to the ribs.

At that moment, as their blades separated, Valerius found himself disarmed and on the ground, rain and sweat falling from his brow. He glanced up at Axiel, his chest heaving.

Axiel’s sword was pointed at Valerius’ throat. The weight of their past, their friendship, and their shared grief bore down on both of them.

“You betrayed me,” he rasped, coughing rainwater. “You humiliated me—for her.”

“She’s just the mirror,” Axiel said, looming over him, sword leveled at his throat. “You hate what you see in her eyes. That you're no better than the monsters we once bled to keep from our gates.”

Valerius closed his eyes, breath trembling. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Axiel stood over him, motionless. “Then it’s time to remember.”

He didn’t offer his hand right away. He let the silence stretch, let the shame crawl across the king’s skin like a brand. Then, finally, he reached out—not as a soldier, not as an advisor, but as the last man who still believed Valerius was redeemable.

His resolve wavered in a brief moment of vulnerability. “I’m lost, Axiel,” he confessed. “I don’t think I can be the man you want me to be.”

“I will help you find your way back, Valerius,” he said, his voice a tender reassurance in the midst of the storm.

The rain did not let up. Nor did the past. But Valerius, after a long, hollow beat, reached up and took his hand.