Page 34

CHAPTER 34

POV: Briar

The silence between us stretches like ice across a winter lake—beautiful, treacherous, and moments away from shattering. Cadeyrn stands motionless at the clearing's edge, his kill forgotten at his feet. The cillae across his skin pulse erratically, betraying emotions his face refuses to reveal.

"Briar." My name emerges from his lips like a prayer and plea wrapped into one. "What have you done?"

"What have I done?" The laugh that escapes me holds no humor, only bitter disbelief. "That's what concerns you? Not what you've done for seven centuries?"

I gesture to the documents spread before me on the flat stone serving as our makeshift table. The Survivor brought them from the archive after we returned from the Vale of Culling—physical proof of Cadeyrn's complicity that he can't dismiss or explain away.

He approaches slowly, as one might approach a wounded predator. His eyes never leave mine, even as they flick momentarily to the damning evidence between us. The elegant script of his signature seems to mock us both, a tangible record of atrocities authorized with a casual flourish of his hand.

"You went to the Vale." Not a question. He can likely smell the stench of death clinging to my clothes, see the horror etched into my expression.

"I saw what you've done." My voice fractures despite my efforts to remain steady. "Hundreds of graves. Omegas buried while still pregnant, their babies left to die slowly underground."

Frost spirals from my fingertips across the stone, crystallizing around the documents. The anger building inside me feels different from human rage—colder, more focused, manifesting physically through the Wild Magic now flowing through my veins.

"And this." I tap one particular order bearing his signature, dated just two Hunt cycles ago. "Authorization to divert the contaminated runoff toward border villages—toward Thornwick." I force the words past the vice grip in my throat. "You poisoned our water. You killed my mother with your death magic."

He flinches at that, the first crack in his careful composure. "It wasn't?—"

"Don't." Ice forms beneath my feet, spreading outward in jagged, broken patterns unlike the elegant spirals of our claiming bond. "Don't you dare tell me it wasn't intentional. Your signature stains every order."

The cillae across his skin dim visibly, as if the magic connecting us recoils from the truth laid bare between us.

"I won't deny my complicity." His voice drops to that dangerous register I remember from our first meeting at the Gathering Circle—the Winter Prince reasserting control. "But you need to understand what you're condemning."

"Enlighten me." Frost crackles around my clenched fists. "Explain how murdering infants and poisoning villages could possibly be justified."

He moves closer, avoiding the spreading ice with careful steps. "Court magic has been failing for generations. Each breeding cycle produces diminishing returns. The cullings were implemented to eliminate bloodlines showing instability or regression."

"They're children ." My voice shatters on the word. "Not bloodlines or breeding stock or court assets. Living, breathing children you buried alive for the crime of developing magic you couldn't control."

"Yes." The single word falls between us like a death sentence. "And I authorized it. For centuries, I signed those orders believing the court physicians who assured me the process was humane, necessary for our survival."

"Humane?" Rage surges through me, transforming the ice at my feet into deadly crystalline spears that advance toward him. "I saw the graves. I saw the death blooms feeding on their lingering magic. Do you have any idea what it feels like to die slowly, buried alive in your mother's cooling body?"

He doesn't retreat from the advancing ice, though it tears at his leather boots. "No. I don't." Those ice-blue eyes that once held me captive with their intensity meet mine without flinching. "I've never witnessed the cullings personally. I authorized the protocols but delegated the implementation to court physicians."

The casual admission of his detachment ignites something primal within me. "So that's your defense? You signed the death warrants but didn't watch the executions, so your hands remain clean?"

"My hands have never been clean." He spreads them before him, cillae pulsing weakly across his palms. "I'm seven centuries old, Briar. I've authorized executions, led hunt parties, made decisions that prioritized court survival over individual lives. I won't pretend innocence I don't possess."

"Then what? What possible explanation could justify centuries of infant murders?"

He's quiet for a long moment, the frost connecting us fluctuating with emotions he's struggling to contain. "There is no justification," he finally says. "Only context that you deserve to understand before you judge."

"I've seen enough to judge." The pendant the Survivor gave me burns cold against my chest. "But go ahead. Explain how you could sign death warrants for innocent children and still sleep at night."

A muscle ticks in his jaw, the only outward sign of his agitation. "The courts weren't always as you see them now. The seasonal divisions were meant to balance power, to prevent any single entity from controlling all magic flowing between realms."

"I know this already." Ice crackles around us as my impatience grows. "The Survivor showed me the wall carvings."

"What the carvings don't show is the decay." His voice drops lower, an undercurrent of genuine pain rippling beneath the controlled surface. "With each generation, our connection to Wild Magic diminished. The courts implemented breeding programs to preserve what remained, culling those whose magic manifested unpredictably."

"And that justified murder?"

"Nothing justifies it." Frost falls from his hair as he runs a hand through it—a surprisingly human gesture from the Winter Prince. "But after centuries of seeing court magic fade, of watching bloodlines weaken despite our best efforts, the cullings became accepted protocol. Not questioned, not examined. Necessary evil for a greater good."

"What greater good could possibly come from poisoning villages with your magical waste?"

Here, finally, his composure shatters. "That was never the intention. The contamination of human water supplies was an unforeseen consequence that..." He hesitates. "That once discovered, was permitted to continue rather than invest resources in proper containment."

The cold truth of his admission hits harder than any lie could have. Not an accident, then, but a deliberate calculation—the lives in border villages deemed acceptable collateral damage.

"My mother died in agony because of your 'unforeseen consequence.'" Ice spears grow around my feet, responding to the rage coursing through me. "Willow wastes away even now because the Winter Court couldn't be bothered to dispose of its victims properly."

"Yes." He doesn't try to soften the admission. "And I was complicit in that decision, as in all court policies regarding the Hunt and its aftermath."

The cillae connecting us pulse with shared pain—his regret and my rage creating discordant rhythms across our skin. Through our bond, I sense emotions he isn't expressing aloud: centuries of isolation, decisions made from cold logic rather than compassion, duty calcified into unquestioning obedience.

And beneath it all, a newer sensation—shame. Not just at being caught, but genuine shame at what I've forced him to confront in himself.

"When did you stop seeing us as people?" I ask, the question emerging softer than intended. "When did omegas become breeding vessels to you, their children mere components to be harvested?"

Something shifts in his expression—a crack in the princely mask he's worn for centuries. "I don't know," he admits. "Perhaps I never truly saw you at all. Not until..."

"Until what?" The ice around us stills, waiting with me for his answer.

"Until you." His voice holds no manipulation, no calculated seduction. "Until I claimed you and felt what no court protocol prepared me for—a mind connecting with mine, emotions flowing both ways across a bond that shouldn't be possible."

I shake my head, refusing the easy comfort his words offer. "That's not good enough. Realizing one omega is a person doesn't erase centuries of treating the rest as disposable."

"No, it doesn't." He takes another step toward me, cillae brightening as our proximity strengthens the connection between us despite my anger. "Nothing erases the past. Nothing justifies what I've authorized. I can only tell you that claiming you has awakened something I thought long dead—the capacity to question, to feel, to see beyond court doctrine."

"How convenient for you." My bitterness tastes like metal shavings on my tongue. "One good claiming and suddenly you develop a conscience."

The cillae across his skin dim at my words. Through our bond, I feel his genuine hurt—and beneath it, fear. Not of my anger or the ice forming around us, but of losing something he's only just discovered he needs.

"I don't expect forgiveness," he says quietly. "Only understanding that the man who signed those orders is not the same man standing before you now."

"Isn't he?" I place my hand on one of the execution orders, frost spreading from my fingertips across his elegant signature. "The Winter Prince, Seventh of His Line, Keeper of the Frost Throne—that's still who you are. Still the man who would return to court and continue signing these orders once this Hunt concludes."

His silence is answer enough.

Something breaks inside me—not my heart, which has somehow protected itself despite our growing connection, but something deeper. The trust I'd reluctantly extended, the hope that whatever grew between us might transcend the brutal circumstances of our meeting.

The cillae across my skin pulse chaotically as magic responds to my emotional state. Ice spreads from my feet, not in controlled formations but in wild, jagged spears that advance toward Cadeyrn like physical manifestations of my rage.

"Briar." He doesn't retreat from the approaching ice. "I know you're angry?—"

"Angry?" The laugh that escapes me sounds nothing like my normal voice. "Angry doesn't begin to describe what I'm feeling."

The magic builds within me, a pressure seeking release—raw, primal power responding to emotions too complex to name. Nothing like the controlled frost abilities Cadeyrn demonstrated during our journey.

"I killed my heart to serve my court," he says, his voice barely audible above the crackling ice. "For centuries, I did what duty demanded without questioning the cost. Until you."

"And now?" The ice surges higher around us, forming a crystalline barrier between where I stand and where he remains perfectly still. "Now that you've remembered how to feel, what will you do with all those inconvenient emotions?"

Through our bond, I sense his struggle—genuine remorse battling with seven centuries of ingrained duty, newfound empathy crashing against the weight of court responsibilities.

"I don't know," he admits, and the simple honesty of it almost breaks through my rage. Almost.

The ice responds to my fury, jagged spears launching toward him without conscious direction from me. He makes no move to defend himself, accepting the attack as his due. Ice tears through his hunting leathers, drawing blood that freezes instantly against his marble-white skin.

Physical pain jars through our bond, his agony reflecting back to me in waves that should bring satisfaction but only deepen my confusion. I feel his blood freezing, feel the ice penetrating flesh, feel his acceptance of this punishment as deserved.

"Fight back!" I scream, unable to bear this passive acceptance. "Defend yourself!"

"Against what?" Blood trickles from a cut across his cheek, crystallizing before it can fall. "Against the justice you have every right to demand?"

His surrender only fuels my rage. More ice forms, sharper and deadlier, drawn from the Wild Magic now flowing unchecked through my veins. It slices through his remaining defenses, drawing blood that steams in the frigid air surrounding us.

Through our bond, I feel no resistance, only sad acceptance and beneath it—impossibly—a growing concern for me rather than himself. His worry centers not on the damage I'm inflicting but on what channeling such raw, untrained magic might do to my human body.

Even now, bleeding and wounded by my attack, he worries for my safety.

The realization doesn't diminish my rage but transforms it into something more complex, with layers I don't have the capacity to untangle. The ice responds to my confusion, its attacks becoming erratic, unfocused.

I clutch the pendant the Survivor gave me, using its solid weight to anchor myself against the magic threatening to consume me whole. "I have to go," I manage, my voice raw with tangled emotions. "I can't—I can't be near you right now."

Cadeyrn makes no move to stop me, though the cillae connecting us dim visibly at my words. Blood seeps from multiple wounds, freezing before reaching the ground. "I understand," he says simply.

"Do you?" The question emerges as a bitter challenge. "Do you understand that every time I look at you now, I'll see the man who authorized my mother's murder? Who created the poison killing my best friend? Who buried children alive for centuries because court protocol demanded it?"

He flinches at each accusation, the cillae across his skin responding with erratic pulses. "Yes," he answers finally. "I understand that's who I've been. Who part of me still is."

"Then you understand why I need distance." I back toward the clearing's edge, our claiming bond stretching painfully between us. "Before I do something we'll both regret."

Through that bond, I feel his acceptance warring with desperation—the part of him that wants to chase me, to force a resolution, held in check by the understanding that I need space to process this betrayal.

"The forest isn't safe," he says instead. "Court hunting parties?—"

"I survived just fine before you claimed me." The reminder is deliberate, a rejection of dependence. "The forest seems positively welcoming compared to what I've discovered here."

He doesn't argue, though concern pulses through our bond. "The central haven will remain open to you. Its protection extends beyond my authority."

The implication that he might leave—might return to his court duties, to signing more death warrants—sends another surge of ice spreading from my feet. "Going back to business as usual, then?"

"No." The single word carries weight beyond its simplicity. "Nothing will ever be usual again. Not for me."

I want to believe him. Part of me—the part connected to him through frost and claiming—desperately wants to trust that he has changed, that our bond has awakened something genuine in the Winter Prince.

But the documents bearing his signature lie between us, physical proof of centuries of calculated cruelty.

"I need time," I say finally, unable to reconcile the man I've come to know with the monster whose actions I've witnessed.

"Time is the one thing I can give you." The cillae across his skin pulse once, brightly, before dimming to near invisibility. "Though the bond will stretch painfully between us."

Already I feel it—a physical ache as I back toward the forest edge, each step increasing the distance between us. Part of me wants to turn and run, to put as much space as possible between myself and the Winter Prince. Another part, traitorous and primal, wants to return to his arms despite everything I've learned.

That conflict, more than anything, forces my decision.

"Goodbye, Cadeyrn." The words emerge as frost on the air between us.

I turn and flee into the forest, our bond stretching painfully behind me. Through it, I feel his resolve not to follow, his understanding that pursuit would only deepen the breach between us.

As I run, the forest responds to my emotional state—branches bending to clear my path, undergrowth parting before my feet. The Wild Magic flows more freely here, away from the central haven with its ancient but contained power.

Behind me, the claiming bond stretches thin but doesn't break. Despite everything, the connection between us remains—damaged, strained to its limits, but intact. Whether that represents hope or another prison remains to be seen.

The forest swallows me into its shadows, offering protection I no longer trust from anyone or anything touched by court influence. From now on, I rely only on myself—and the Wild Magic that responds to my need rather than court control.