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TWENTY-EIGHT

EVRYN

T he walls of Umbraclaw Keep breathed shadow.

Not literally, not in the way living things did. But the stone remembered . Every step she took down those vaulted, echoing halls, the ancient dark pressed closer—silent and watching.

Evryn followed Lucien through the towering entryway, her boots brushing the velvet runner that led to the inner court.

The torches burned with violet flame, casting strange, shifting shadows.

The ceilings arched so high they disappeared into smoke and spellbound gloom.

And always, that chill in her chest. That hum of something ancient curling tighter around her bones.

This place wasn’t just built for royalty.

It was built for power.

And it was hungry.

Lucien walked beside her, his expression carved from stone, but his hand never left the hilt of his blade.

They’d said yes to the meeting.

But neither of them had ever believed it would be safe.

A servant in a rust-red robe led them to the antechamber outside the throne hall. The Queen hadn’t arrived yet. Of course she hadn’t. She wanted them to wait . To sit in silence while her presence settled like a curse in the air.

Evryn’s heart thudded with every breath. She wore no armor—only a traveling cloak and leather, her knives hidden at the small of her back and in the lining of her boots. Lucien had made her leave her shadowband behind. Said it might provoke something too soon.

Now, she wished she hadn’t listened.

“I hate waiting,” she murmured.

Lucien didn’t look at her. “That’s the point.”

Before she could respond, the doors at the far end opened.

But it wasn’t the Queen.

It was another servant—older, with gray-streaked braids and a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“My lady,” the servant said with a slight bow, “Her Majesty asks that you refresh yourself in the guest wing while she speaks privately with her son.”

Evryn frowned, glancing toward Lucien immediately. Her instincts sharpened like drawn steel. The servant's voice was too smooth. Too rehearsed. Even her smile was wrong—too controlled, too expectant. It was a performance meant to put her at ease, and that was the most suspicious thing of all.

Lucien moved without hesitation, stepping forward, his voice sharp. “She stays with me.”

The servant didn’t flinch. She merely tilted her head with the patience of someone who knew her place in the game and wasn’t afraid to play it. “The Queen insists. She only wishes to speak mother to son.”

Evryn’s stomach twisted. The room felt heavier. Not with magic. Not yet.

But with intent.

She could feel it coiling just under the floorboards, rising from the stone like a scent only the blood-marked could sense. A quiet, creeping wrongness.

Her eyes flicked to Lucien—every line in his body a silent scream. He knew it, too.

“Evryn,” he said, and there was something different in his voice now. Something low and desperate. “Don’t.”

She hesitated.

The easy answer was no. Walk away. Stay beside the only person she trusted. But the truth was—this was exactly what she had come here to do.

To look into the face of the woman who haunted her name.

To see the Queen with her own eyes. Not through stories. Not filtered through Lucien’s pain.

But face to face.

She needed to know the shape of her enemy. She needed to know what kind of monster Lucien had been carved by. And part of her—quiet and cruel—wanted to prove she wasn’t afraid.

Still, her gut screamed.

The cold on her skin said it plainly.

This wasn’t about politeness or hospitality.

It was a lure.

But if she backed down now, she wouldn’t forgive herself later.

So she nodded, slow and sure. “I won’t go far.”

Lucien’s jaw clenched. His hand twitched at his side like he wanted to grab her and run. “Evryn?—”

She met his eyes, voice steady. “I’ll be fine.”

And for a heartbeat, she almost believed it.

She wasn’t.

The moment she passed the threshold into the east corridor, the servant dropped the act.

The walls blurred. Her limbs weakened.

A spell—subtle, layered into the very stone of the Keep—snared her like a snare catching a wolf’s leg mid-step.

Evryn staggered, shadows rising instinctively around her, but the magic was old. Older than any ward she’d learned to fight. It didn’t blast or burn—it drained . It pulled.

The servant’s form twisted in the dark, her face warping into something hollow-eyed and sharp-toothed.

Evryn tried to scream. But the world tilted. And everything went black.

She woke in chains. Cold stone beneath her. A circle of blood etched into the floor.

The smell of iron and ash clung to the air.

Selyne stood above her.

Lucien’s mother looked nothing like she expected. No crown. No flowing gown. She wore simple black, tailored for movement, her hair braided tight and looped with silver thread. Her eyes were glacial green—and completely absent of empathy.

“Good morning, Your Majesty,” Evryn rasped.

Selyne crouched, fingers gliding over the rune-carved manacles at Evryn’s wrists.

“You bleed shadow like a natural,” she said. “But the throne-bond lies dormant.”

Evryn bared her teeth. “So you abducted me to play blood seer?”

“No,” Selyne said calmly. “I abducted you to crack you open.”

And with a flick of her hand, the blood magic flared.

Evryn screamed.

It wasn’t pain like fire or blade—it was something deeper . Like her bones were being rewritten. Her blood unraveling. Every drop tugged, twisted, examined. Her veins burned cold, and her vision flooded with white light.

Selyne stepped into the circle.

“This power doesn’t belong to you,” she murmured, eyes glowing. “It never did. It belongs to the line. To me .”

Evryn shook violently, her fingers twitching as blood soaked into the circle.

“You’re wrong,” she choked.

Selyne tilted her head. “Am I? Your own people didn’t know what you were. You stumbled into the Veil blind. And still… you pulled shadows like a Firstborn. Imagine what that could do if harnessed properly. ”

Evryn’s head thrashed.

Her magic responded instinctively, flaring like a wounded animal—dark tendrils coiling up, striking at the Queen’s wards. But the circle was too strong. Her power couldn’t find purchase.

“I’ll rip it from you,” Selyne said, voice tightening. “Even if it kills you.”

Evryn’s laugh was broken glass. “Then you get nothing.”

Selyne didn’t smile. “Your blood remembers . All I need is enough to trace the bond. The throne doesn’t need a body—it needs a line . But still, you being alive will help. FOr the moment. BUt I can’t promise this won’t hurt,” the queen said with a cruel smile.

She raised her blade, tipped with obsidian and bone.

Evryn closed her eyes.