Page 31

But I couldn’t look at him. Not now.

“Severyn Blanche,” the king said. Then he extended a white-gloved hand. “Would you join me?”

I glanced at Archer. “How could you? ”

Then I stepped forward. A dozen eyes followed as the king led me to the center of the floor. I had no choice but to take his hand.

We began to dance.

Starlight flurried around us, but his gaze didn’t stray from mine. Those amber eyes were cruel, intrusive, a glare that thinned my composure with every turn. Curses burned at the edge of my tongue. I swallowed them back, because silence was safer.

His beard was braided with eerie precision, dusted in gold and threaded with pearl beads that shimmered like secrets. His voice slipped between words like oil, smooth and sharp.

“You make a beautiful Serpent, Severyn Blanche,” he said. “But my crown would look even lovelier resting on your skull.”

“I don’t want to be queen,” I hissed, pulling just out of reach. “No one even knows you’re my blood.”

He leaned closer. His breath carried the scent of oak and poison. “Your mother stole my heart,” he murmured. “So I stole the color of her eyes. When power is stripped, the eyes turn black.”

My breath caught.

“I thought you’d be like her,” he said. “That you’d end me.”

He tilted his head, almost offering himself. “Kill the snake. Consume the power, Severyn.”

I stepped back, heat building in my chest. “I already did. And I’m still being punished.”

His smile curved slowly. “Then do it again. There’s one snake left.”

“Your title?” I asked, pulse pounding.

He nodded. “I am the final Serpent, Severyn Blanche. That’s how you become queen. End me.”

Around us, the music faded. The hush of gawking stares pressed in, a tight pressure beneath my ribs. “Why trust me with this?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper .

His gaze held mine. “Because someone else will kill me if you don’t. And I’d rather it be you.”

A pause.

“My soul lives in an empty cage,” he said. “You see betrayal in everyone, but I see vengeance in you. And kindness. My quell doesn’t just reveal truth, it sees souls. Yours…” He leaned closer. “Yours is pure.”

“You want me to kill you?” I asked.

“No,” he replied. “I want you to choose my heir. If it’s not you, find someone worthy.”

His eyes flicked briefly toward Archer. “In a world of scavengers hungry for power, you’re the only one who understands what nobility costs. You had seven chances to save the one you loved, and now you have none.”

“Everyone I saved, I cared about.”

He spun me once. “And yet you haven’t killed me. That proves my point. You could take a knife and crown yourself right now.”

The words struck like hot coal behind my ribs. Then he dipped me low, his scaled cloak sweeping past my knees. For a moment, I faltered under the weight of everything he’d said.

“How do I find someone worthy?” I whispered.

He didn’t miss a step. “Reach into that cursed heart of yours. There will be a trial for my title. Choose before then.”

“You’re making a mistake, trusting me with this.”

“When the Seekers wrote about Vera and me, I never imagined you’d exist. I searched the Continent for a child with her eyes and Neval markings.”

My voice dropped. “What does Neval mean?”

A wistful smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Your grandmother liked codes. She spelled things backward so no one else could decipher her. Laven means ‘to live.’ Ciaran means ‘ darkness.’ Naraic …” He let the word hang, just long enough. “Is the opposite.”

I had never thought to spell the dragon names backward. But now... it made sense.

“Are you asking to die?” I asked quietly.

“The Herrings must remain in power,” he said simply. “We are the only pure souls in a world of deception.”

Then, without warning, he lifted my arm high into the air. A hush swept through the gathering.

A guard stepped forward, cradling an onyx crown and ring laced with obsidian and threaded starlight. The crown didn’t touch my head, but the ring, cold and solid, slid onto my pointer finger.

“Night has found its heir,” the king declared. “And her name is Severyn Blanche.”

Then the king turned, addressing the onlookers with a theatrical flare. “And now... perhaps a few words from Mr. Archer Lynch. I find truth keeps us all harmonious.”

Archer appeared moments later.

He moved with the same lethal grace he wore like armor, shadows curling at his heels like even the dark refused to leave him. He stepped onto the dais, raised a goblet of wine to the stars, and let the silence stretch.

Then his stare found mine. And for a breathless moment, something flickered there. No, something actually flickered in his eyes, like his pupils were glowing.

“Most don’t find their heir in two years,” he said, voice low and steady. “But I chose mine.”

A gasp rippled through the crowd.

The king leaned in. “And how,” he asked silkily, “did a Flame become your heir?”

Shadows coiled tighter around Archer’s boots. His silver gaze flared, not with defiance, but something almost resigned. That’s when I saw it. A gleam, pulsing in the king’s open palm. A truth quell. He was forcing Archer to speak.

Archer didn’t flinch. “To answer your question,” he said, calm as ever, “I must confess to treason.”

I jerked forward, the words slicing through me. “No.”

But he kept going. “I sought Severyn Blanche out. I fell in love with her. What the journalist wrote is true. And I want him released.”

My breath caught.

“What?” I whispered.

The crowd surged with murmurs. The starlight above us seemed to dim. And just like that, the world turned on its axis.

Again.

The king swept his gaze across the stunned courtyard. “You cannot fall in love with your heir. Are you saying you chose Severyn to be your heir?”

Archer’s chin lifted. “I did.”

Murmurs flared like fire across kindling. Dozens of Serpents turned, whispering, blinking.

The king slammed his snake cane into the stone. “And how,” he said slowly, “did you succeed in Severyn Blanche becoming your heir?”

“Archer, don’t.” I reached through our bond, but his mind was already barred. He had locked me out.

“I harbored a lindworm in Demetria until it matured,” Archer said. “I found it on Academy grounds. Kept it hidden. My plan was to make Severyn kill it, if she wanted to claim it.”

He took a breath, steady and sharp. “I accept full responsibility for what I did.”

The king slowly lowered his other hand. A thread of translucent light retracted into his grasp. Those words, they weren’t voluntary. They were pulled from him.

But still... they were true .

A bead of gold slipped from the king’s braided beard as he turned, voice calm but cutting. “Escort him to the prisons. Interfering with a Serpent titling is treason, punishable by death.” He waved a hand. “And release the journalist. He was telling the truth.”

I collapsed to my knees, reaching for Archer as they dragged him away. “Archer?” I cried out, pounding on our bond. But it snapped shut, sealing me out like a slammed door.

I tried to follow, stumbling forward, but a boot caught on my hem, tearing the fabric and stopping me cold.

“He’s lying!” I screamed. “ It chose me! ”

Monty Garcia stepped closer, releasing my dress from his heel as he slowly clapped his hands. “Well,” he drawled. “You’ll be finding your heir sooner than expected. And I only have so much patience, Severyn.”

I couldn’t hold my anger back as I slapped him across the cheek. “Did you plan this?” I demanded.

He hissed low. “If only,” he said with a smirk. “But truth quells are nasty, especially when the leader of our glorious Continent harbors one.”

Then, a blur of white silk and pearls rushed toward me. Malachi reached and swarmed me with a hug. “Severyn, I thought… I thought you were dead,” she whispered.

I could count on one hand the moments that broke me. This was one. Her words echoed through my skull as ash rained down. “I need everyone out. Now, ” I hissed.

Malachi flung both wrists out wordlessly, light and wind cracking from her fingertips. Serpents screamed, clutching their hats and cloaks as a gust swept them off the property, until only Malachi remained .

“Nothing like a little wind to make everyone scurry,” she said lightly. Then, in a whisper, “How are you alive? How are you Archer’s heir?”

“I don’t have time to explain. I need to get him out. Where are the prisons?”

“Near the Day sector. But I can’t go with you, Severyn. Just being here could get me expelled.”

“Then why are you here?”

“When they took all the Night students, I knew someone had been titled. I hoped it was you. I begged Monty to let me come. A healer convinced the headmaster that I was sick and needed two days of rest in the infirmary… I even called to the wind a few weeks back.”

I gripped her tighter, breath ragged. “I don’t know what to do, Malachi. How do I save him?”

“They won’t kill him. Not yet…” she whispered. “They’ll wait until Spring, when the flowers are most potent. Or they’ll drain his powers slowly.”

“I can’t lose him, Mal.”

“You can’t leave. You can’t save him. Not yet.”

“Please, tell me what to do.”

She cupped my face, voice shaking. “We wait.”