Page 78

CONFRONT YOUR PAST (brING THREATS, NOT FORGIVENESS)

ARABELLA

Sleep hadn’t brought rest, only a restless tangle of limbs and simmering resentment.

Kazimir had all but collapsed beside me after hauling my father off to the dungeons, the lingering drain from Solandris finally claiming him.

He’d honored my request—no cage hanging from bare rock, merely a cell with some added “enhancements.”

The magical entanglement continued to hum between us. The pain of forced proximity had eased enough that neither of us collapsed if we stepped apart, but I still found myself reaching for him in the darkness, startled awake by the emptiness if he rolled too far away.

Kazimir was already awake when I stirred. Leaning against the headboard, he regarded me with a stare that seemed to peel back my every defense. Though a slight tightness lingered at the corners of his eyes—aftermath of overusing his magic in Solandris—he appeared more relaxed than the night before.

I pushed off the sheets and swung my legs over the side of the bed. My father had sat in a cell long enough. Now, I wanted answers. And I wanted closure.

“You’re going,” Kazimir said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” I replied, my tone clipped as I grabbed my still-dirty training leathers. Pulling them on felt almost ceremonial. “And you’re coming with me.”

The entanglement left him little choice, but I wanted him there regardless. He cracked a dry smirk. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

Skyspire’s dungeons weren’t musty pits in some forgotten courtyard.

They were carved into an outer isle. Cold walls absorbed the light, making it feel less like a prison and more like a void carved into the sky.

This was Kazimir’s domain—efficient, cold, and unyielding.

He walked beside me, one hand splayed against the small of my back.

Rows of cells lined the interior of the smaller isle, all of that same smooth obsidian. Guards in black armor watched us from behind face-covering helms. Most cells lay empty. Kazimir didn’t believe in long-term imprisonment; swift judgment or recruitment were more his style.

A jarring dissonance echoed up the corridor: some poor soul mutilating a lute while singing off-key about shadows and heartbreak. The chords made me want to rip the strings out of his hands.

“The ‘Minor Annoyance’ wing,” he explained. “For petty criminals. Your father got premium accommodations last night.”

We stopped in front of a cell. Lord Atticus Evenfall sat on a pile of straw, looking sallow and exhausted. The reek of stale sweat and regret clung to him. Next door, the hapless minstrel belted out an especially painful note.

“He’s improving,” Kazimir noted with mock cheer, tilting his head toward the musician. “He hasn’t sung the verse about my ‘brooding eyes’ in at least a day.”

My father hauled himself up, fury flaring across his features. “Arabella! Praise the heavens! Get me away from this lunatic’s serenade. Have you any idea what I’ve endured?”

Kazimir stepped up to the bars, radiating menace. “My wife suggested we keep you—” he smiled coldly, “lucid. Now I’m second-guessing that decision.”

Whatever bluster my father had mustered vanished. He went pale, casting frantic glances between us.

I signaled the guards. “Open the door. We’re moving him.”

They hauled him out quickly, and I couldn’t resist noticing how pathetic he looked, stumbling and trying to maintain a scrap of dignity.

The journey to the next wing felt interminable.

My father’s breathing turned ragged the moment we led him into a chamber with a row of terrifying implements lining the walls—spiked contraptions, scalpels, bizarre glass vials with tortured spirits swirling inside.

Kazimir’s presence completed the effect, leaning against the wall with an air of menace.

My father’s eyes fixed on me. “Whatever he promised you, Arabella,” he rasped, “he’s lying. Men like him don’t?—”

“What do you suppose he wants, Father? My bloodline? My connection to the First Hero? How different is that from what you wanted? Or Auremar?” I let my voice harden. “Forty thousand crowns, wasn’t it?”

He gaped at me while the guards forced him onto a stone chair. Shackles sprang to life and clamped around his wrists.

“Why does Auremar want you dead?” I demanded. No point in wasting time.

Father started with bluster—denials, righteous indignation. My truth-sense screamed behind my eyes. He must have noticed something in my expression because he faltered, hedged, and finally stammered, “I… I don’t know.”

I shook my head in cold disbelief. “Liar.”

Shadows snapped down, swift as a whip, slicing a thin line across his cheek. He yelped.

“I’m not known for my patience, Evenfall,” Kazimir said in a dangerous voice.

Father’s eyes darted around the chamber. “I can’t tell you,” he whispered, voice shaking. “There are… consequences.”

“And there are consequences for not speaking.”

Shadows curled around Father’s forearm, raking thin welts down his skin. He whimpered. This sniveling coward was the man who had ruled my life with an iron fist? He broke at the first touch of real pain.

“You don’t understand,” he gasped, terror flashing across his face. “There are things worse than your shadows.”

“Try me.” Kazimir leaned closer. “Whatever you fear, I assure you, I can make it seem like mercy.” He raised his hand again, letting more shadows slither around my father.

Father’s eyes bulged. “The King!” he choked out, his voice barely a whisper. “His magic… it isn’t his own. He wasn’t born with any.”

I frowned. “I’ve seen Auremar’s spells in court. If it’s not from heroic blood, then what is it?”

“Something old. Terrible.” Father sagged in the chair. “The Golden Roses help contain it—contain him —but Auremar’s been siphoning power.”

“Go on,” Kazimir said, as if he was bored.

Fear twisted Father’s face, and when he spoke, it was in a strangled whisper, “The Shadow King… he’s real, imprisoned for centuries beneath the Rose Fields.”

I felt Kazimir’s rigid silence. For all his earlier dismissal of ancient tales, he looked distinctly grim now. He and I exchanged a look. The Hero’s Garden. The ley lines. Perhaps they were all connected.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “The Shadow King’s been dead for centuries. After Soriven transformed him, he led a long life atoning for his evil deeds.”

“That’s what your mother told you,” Father said.

Bitterness twisted his features. “She didn’t know the truth.

Few people do. I’m not even supposed to know.

It’s why”—he licked his lips—”why the king wants me dead.

Long ago, Auremar told me that Soriven never redeemed the Shadow King; he sealed him away with blood magic. The Golden Roses grew from that blood.”

“What?” I stepped closer, disbelief churning in my gut. “Mother’s stories all said Soriven transformed him through compassion. That the roses were a gift of healing.”

Father let out a harsh laugh. “Pretty lies for children. Your mother believed them too—her family made sure of it. Every Golden Rose that blooms reinforces the seal.”

“The Hero’s Garden,” I whispered. “It wasn’t about compassion at all.”

“It was about containment,” Kazimir said quietly beside me, his expression darkening. “Blood magic of that magnitude would require an anchor, something living that could sustain the spell across generations.”

Father nodded, sweat beading on his forehead. “For centuries, Solandris has built its kingdom atop a monster’s cage.”

“And Auremar’s messing with it,” I realized. “Drawing power from something that should never be awakened.”

“He’s grown greedy,” Father said quietly. “Or desperate. I suspect he realized I knew too much.”

My truth-sense hummed, but it wasn’t sounding any alarms. This was genuine. Kazimir’s voice cut in like a blade. “So you offered your daughter’s magical blood as a bargaining chip?”

Father stiffened. “It was a chance to elevate House Evenfall?—”

“A staggering display of fatherly devotion,” I said flatly. “What does the king want with me?”

“He said he wanted an heir.”

“Auremar already has heirs,” I spat. “Did you not think it might have something to do with his dark schemes?”

My father studied the floor. “I told you… I’m not supposed to know.”

“And how did you learn all this?” Kazimir pressed.

Father recounted a sordid tale from his youth—drunken nights at court, Auremar’s loose lips and dark appetites, a secret spilled in confidence that Auremar didn’t seem to remember the next morning.

“He suspected I knew,” Father mumbled. “My influence waned. When he made it known he was looking to marry again, I reminded him of my daughter, and told him of her power.”

“Even knowing what he was like,” I said with disgust. “What he was doing. And the suppression runes? The tower?”

“I did what was necessary to keep you manageable,” he said coldly.

“To break me, you mean.” Magic sparked in my fingertips, but I held it back because my truth-sense was tingling again. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

His silence was damning.

A slow, glacier-cold anger churned through me, dredging up memories of isolation, fear, and betrayal.

And even now, my father couldn’t admit to everything he’d done.

I extended my hand until it rested against Father’s chest. “I’ve learned how to reverse my healing magic.

I wonder how effectively I can target one organ. Your left lung, perhaps?”

Terror flooded Father’s face. “Arabella, you wouldn’t?—”

“Why not?” I asked with a thin smile. “You taught me that blood means nothing if it stands in the way of ambition.”

I pictured the lung in my mind, seized it with that lethal part of my magic, and squeezed . He wheezed, eyes bulging. I felt a dull satisfaction in seeing him panic, but also a sick sense of emptiness. Still, I didn’t pull back right away.

Only when his lips turned a ghastly shade did I relent. He slumped, gulping air, tears streaking his face.

“Ready to talk?” I asked, voice shaking only slightly.

He gave a jerky nod. “The King’s mages,” he croaked. “They… altered your mind. When you first manifested power, you refused to obey, so they made you forget. As you got older, I locked you in that tower, used runes to keep you docile.”

My stomach churned. “I don’t remember defying anyone.”

“Right. Because they made sure you wouldn’t.” His gaze slid away. “Your mother… she wasn’t supposed to be there that night.”

Ice filled my veins. “What night?”

“The night they took your memories.” He licked his lips. “But she found out. And she broke through years of suppression spells her family had placed on her to protect you. It… killed her. The backlash. You witnessed everything.”

An odd numbness spread through me, as though my body refused to feel the full crush of this revelation. “Mother died of a fever when I was eight.” It was a fact etched into my memory, solid and unshakeable.

“No,” he whispered with a helpless shrug. “That’s the story we arranged so you wouldn’t question it. You saw it all, and you screamed for three days straight. That’s why they had to be so thorough. They took that memory, too.”

I stumbled back as if he’d struck me. The room tilted. “I watched her die?”

“You did.” His voice was hollow. He still wouldn’t meet my eyes.

Kazimir’s shadows erupted in rage, sharpened spikes of pure rage that shattered the stone wall behind my father’s head.

The surge of his fury shook the entire room, and his eyes flashed silver.

A low growl—an actual, animalistic growl—vibrated in his chest. Father leaned as far away as his shackles allowed.

Kazimir’s voice scraped across the air, roughened by an accent I’d never heard before. “Why did they suppress your wife’s magic, too?”

Father could only stammer. “She— Her family didn’t… want her drawing attention at court.”

I couldn’t stand to look at him. My breath hitched, rage tangling with grief.

A lifetime of illusions, my mother’s actual death stolen from me.

Every painful minute in that tower. The man who had orchestrated all of it now cowered, pinned by shadows and shaking in fear.

I felt no triumph, only a yawning pit of betrayal.

“And so you offered the court your daughter instead,” Kazimir stated roughly. “Without even knowing why.”

“I offered a political alliance!” Father cried, trying to regain some footing. “One that would restore House Evenfall! Auremar was intrigued—a young bride, pure heroic blood?—”

Kazimir moved so fast I barely caught it until his hand clamped around Father’s throat. “At the cost of silencing one generation and selling the next.” Sharp black claws emerged from Kazimir’s fingertips. “They call me the villain,” he snarled. “But I have never sold my own blood.”

Father’s frantic, choking sounds filled the room. I placed a hand on Kazimir’s arm, not sure if I was stopping him or encouraging him. Part of me wanted to watch Father suffocate. The rest of me wanted to tear him limb from limb for all he’d done. But the bigger part, oddly, just felt hollow.

Kazimir let go, and Father sank forward in a coughing fit. The battered man looked up at me with something akin to dread.

“You remember the stories Mother told me,” I said softly, “about a hero who used love and compassion. She must have been so horrified by you.”

He tried to spew more invective, but it came out as a sob.

Then his eyes narrowed bitterly. He glared past me at Kazimir.

“Don’t pretend you’re any better! What did you want her for, Dark Lord?

Her blood? Her magic? Or just a noble whore to warm your bed?

” He spat weakly towards Kazimir’s feet. “We’re not so different, you and I.”

I maintained my grip on Kazimir’s arm to prevent him from unleashing more fury. “The difference, Father, is that I chose him.”

Kazimir’s gaze flicked to me, a glimmer in those shadow-dark eyes.

He turned back to my father, his fury banked but not extinguished.

“Auremar’s hubris will cost him—and you, Lord Evenfall.

I’ll keep you alive for now while Lady Blackrose decides how to best deal with you.

Know that her will is the only thing keeping me from tearing you limb from limb. ”

The guards unlocked the shackles and yanked him upright. Father’s eyes locked on mine. “Arabella, don’t let him make you his pawn.”

I felt no flicker of sympathy. I said nothing. He’d stolen everything that should have been mine—family, memories, innocence. There was no forgiveness left.

As they dragged him away, Kazimir’s hand slipped into mine. The hum of our entangled magic flared, then steadied. I managed to stay upright, though rage and heartbreak churned through every vein. When my father disappeared around the corner, I released a shaky breath.

“Let’s get out of here,” I muttered. “The stench is making me sick.”