Page 24 of Claimed In Darkness
24
ZEPHIRAN
S omething is wrong.
The vault’s air presses against my skin, thick with old magic, of forgotten curses humming against my bones. It’s in my teeth, in the slow, insidious coil of heat creeping through my veins.
This isn’t how it was supposed to be.
I wasn’t even supposed to be here. But there’s an almost undeniable urge that I should come.
The plan was simple—get in, get the relic, get out before the High Council even realized we’d touched it.
Yet, as Naira steps past the threshold, her fingers brushing against the enchanted steel of the vault door, I know we have already made a mistake.
The magic inside is wrong.
Not the kind that guards a treasure.
Not the kind that keeps thieves away.
The kind that waits.
I inhale sharply, trying to clear the heaviness pressing into my skull. But the moment I do, I feel it—something beneath the layers of magic, something old, something that reeks of familiarity.
The realization slams into my ribs like a fist.
My father was here.
Before me. Before us.
He knows.
Fuck, he’s aware.
I should have expected this.
I should have known the moment I started moving pieces into place, the time I let myself believe that I could ever outmaneuver him, that he was already ahead of me.
The curse twists against my bones, sensing the shift in the atmosphere, knowing before I do that I have walked directly into a trap.
And worse?
I brought her with me.
Naira moves with purpose, her gaze sharp, scanning the rows of enchanted artifacts, the jagged remnants of a hundred stolen powers locked in this graveyard of greed.
She doesn’t sense it.
She doesn’t feel it the way I do.
Because this magic was never meant for her. It was meant for me.
I follow her deeper into the vault, my body moving on instinct, my pulse pounding in my throat.
The relic is here.
Somewhere past these shelves of hoarded ruin, somewhere beneath the gilded and cursed.
But now I can’t decide if I should touch it.
Because my father has already been here?—
Then this is no longer about breaking my curse.
This is about what he wants from me.
I will be damned if I give it to him.
Naira pauses ahead of me, her fingers moving fleetingly over a chest bound in dark iron, sigils carved into its surface, pulsing with an ugly, red glow.
"Is this it?" she asks.
Her voice is steady, but there’s something else beneath it.
She’s tense, full of anticipation.
She feels it now too.
Not the betrayal. Not the warning.
But the shift.
The way the space seems to still, as if waiting.
Like something is watching.
I move closer, slow, deliberate, forcing my body to obey despite the way my spine threatens to crack open beneath my father’s spellwork.
The sigils on the chest pulse in recognition.
My blood. It was keyed to me.
That confirms everything.
This was never meant to be stolen.
It was destined to be found.
By me.
By only me.
The curse in my veins writhes, the mark my father burned into my flesh igniting beneath my ribs, a silent whisper of got you, boy.
He wanted me to come here. He planned for me to take this.
To take it.
To make the mistake of thinking I could ever hold power that wasn’t his first.
Naira shifts at my side, her stance subtly changing, the barest flicker of awareness tightening her muscles.
She doesn’t know what’s wrong. But she knows me well enough now to see when something is.
"What is it?" she murmurs.
I keep my mouth shut, refusing to admit what’s going on. I grit my teeth.
There’s no way I will admit that I let my father lead me here like a fucking hound to the slaughter.
And that she used him to hook me.
My fingers curl at my sides, my nails digging into my palms, fighting the urge to rip this vault apart, to tear through every piece of magic laced into the walls.
I have been waiting years for this moment.
I have suffered through bone-breaking nights, through every full moon where my body turned against me, through decades of servitude to a man who never intended to let me go.
I thought I was close.
I thought I was smarter than him.
But no matter how many games I play, how many moves I make?—
Zeran Zacria is still winning.
Even when he isn’t here, he is. His shadow, presence and power is here.
His voice curls through the chamber, a whisper in my mind, something old and rotten and familiar.
"You never had a choice, boy."
The curse flares hot and violent, slamming into my ribs like a clawed hand reaching up from the grave.
I stagger back, barely catching myself on the shelf behind me, my vision going black at the edges, my breath catching on nothing.
Naira moves immediately, her fingers wrapping around my arm, yanking me forward before I can collapse like a weak, broken thing.
"Zephiran," she hisses, her grip so tight it bruises.
I can feel her fingernails sinking into my skin, sharp, grounding.
But I barely register her in my eyes. Barely hear her words.
My father’s magic is suffocating, coiling, claiming.
"You are mine."
I snarl against the voice, against the instinct to drop to my knees, to shatter all over again.
Not this time. Not ever.
I wrench myself free from Nairagrasp, sucking in a shuddering breath, locking my knees before they can betray me further.
Her expression is unreadable.
But her eyes?—
They are watching me too closely.
Too sharply.
She has always known I was hiding something.
Now, she is starting to understand what.
She is too smart not to start putting the pieces together.
I can’t let her.
I grab the relic.
Not because I know what it will do. I’m clutching on straws here.
I don’t even know if it will break my father’s spell.
But because it is the only power I have left.
A crack of energy tears through the chamber, splitting the atmosphere, filling the vault with the scent of charred magic.
Naira shields herself instinctively, her arms coming up against the backlash.
I barely have a moment to realize what I’ve done before the world shifts?—
And the door behind us slams shut.
Locked. Sealed. Trapped.
My father’s voice hums in the silence.
"You were never going to win, boy."
As the magic swells around us, swallowing us whole, I realized?—
This was never my game.
It was his.
He just fucking called checkmate.