Page 13 of The Rivaled Crown (The Veiled Kingdom #3)

CHAPTER 13

VERENA

T he hidden city wasn’t the same, or maybe I wasn’t.

The first time I walked through these caves I had been a prisoner. A stranger in a rebellion that wanted nothing to do with me.

But now, I was something worse.

I was a threat.

The weight of a thousand eyes pressed against me, their whispers curling through the cavern walls like creeping ivy, and I could feel it, the way they looked at me, the way they watched every breath I took as if my next inhale could steal the air from their own lungs.

Because I had taken from Dacre. I had stolen from him, siphoned his power, drained him in front of them all.

I hadn’t meant to. Gods, I hadn’t meant to.

But I didn’t have control. My magic had reached out on its own, had sunk its claws into him, ripped him open and drank him dry.

And I had let it happen.

I curled my fingers into his shirt, pressing my forehead against his shoulder, just to feel the rise and fall of his breath. Just to prove to myself that I hadn’t ruined him the way my father had ruined everything else.

His heartbeat was steady. Solid.

Mine wasn’t.

I sucked in a sharp breath, but it did nothing to steady me. Because I wasn’t steady. I was breaking, and the city, it knew.

Dacre’s grip on me never loosened. Not when we stepped deeper into the city. Not when the shadows of the rebellion closed in, their faces twisted with suspicion.

They didn’t trust me, and he didn’t trust them.

I could feel it in the way his arms tightened around me, the way his body shifted to shield me from their stares. I could see it in the sharp cut of his gaze, the way he scanned the streets, the way his fingers flexed against my skin, ready to draw steel at the first sign of danger.

The city wasn’t the same, and I knew, it wasn’t just because of me. Dacre had lived here his entire life. These were his people, his warriors, the ones who had once followed him without question.

But now they watched him with barely veiled suspicion in their eyes. They looked at him like he was a traitor.

He had chosen me, and in doing so, he had lost everything.

A hollow ache bloomed in my chest, sharp and all-consuming. I had stolen from him. Not just his magic. Not just his strength. I had stolen his home. His rebellion. His family.

And for what?

For a girl who had siphoned from him in front of them all, a girl who had taken what wasn’t hers, a girl they would never trust.

A girl who was dangerous.

I dug my fingers into him, gripping the fabric of his shirt tightly between my fingers, and I looked up at him. I really looked at him, and for the first time since I had woken, I saw what my absence had done to him.

Dacre had always carried war in his bones, but this was different. He looked hollow. His eyes, the ones that had once burned with defiance, with life, with reckless confidence, were dull now. Distant. As if he had been trapped in some kind of torture from the moment I was taken, never truly sleeping, never truly living, just waiting.

Waiting for a moment that may have never come.

The sharp angles of his face were sharper now, his skin drawn tight over cheekbones that had once been carved with golden warmth. There was a fading bruise beneath his jaw, and the faintest tremor in his fingers where they held me.

Dacre didn’t break, but he had unraveled.

And I had been the one to pull the thread.

A slow, aching pressure built in my chest, winding tight around my ribs. I had given so much, endured too much, but so had he.

And I had stolen even more.

I could feel it in the air around me now, the way the city itself recoiled.

It had always been alive, a quiet hum of existence beneath the ground. Warriors training, children laughing, people living despite all that my father had taken from them.

But tonight, the streets were still. Not hushed with reverence. Not holding their breath in relief.

They weren’t celebrating our return. They were waiting.

Every shadow we passed felt like it held eyes. Every figure lingering in doorways and alley corners tensed as we moved through the streets. Not one person spoke. Not one person stepped forward. No one called out Dacre’s name, not as a leader, not as a brother, not as a friend.

And I knew this wasn’t just wariness. It was fear.

They weren’t just looking at me. They were looking at what I had done, at what I had become.

Dacre’s arm tightened around me, his grip sure and steady, but I could feel the tension in his body, a barely restrained storm, ready to break as we reached the large doors, already open and waiting.

The chamber inside was crowded with rebellion leaders, and the tension snapped into place like a snare. The moment they saw me, the moment they saw Dacre shielding me, the air curdled with anger, uncertainty, fear.

They didn’t speak, not at first. But I heard it, the shuffle of boots as they edged closer, the sharp exhales, the clench of fingers around weapons. The weight of their eyes pressed into my skin, burned hotter than the bruises on my body.

I tried to stand on my own, tried to will the weakness from my limbs, but the moment my feet touched the ground, my knees buckled. Dacre’s hands were on me instantly, steadying me before I collapsed. His touch was grounding, but it did nothing to stop the slow, creeping horror unfurling inside me.

They had watched me siphon from him. They had felt my power lash through the air, had seen how easily I took from him, drained him.

They had seen what I was.

And I had seen it, too. Felt the way my magic had hooked into him, desperate, insatiable, unwilling to let go.

They were afraid of me, and for the first time, I was afraid of me too.

Dacre pulled me firmly against his broad chest, every inch of my body melding into his warmth. His arm encircled me with gentle possessiveness, his hand resting securely on my stomach. He leaned down to place a soft, lingering kiss on my shoulder. It was a tender gesture, a kiss for everyone to witness, a silent declaration in front of them all.

One that I didn’t deserve.

“She’s a siphon!” The words struck like a blade, sharp and merciless, and I flinched. My body curled in on itself before I could stop it, as if trying to make myself smaller, as if I could somehow shrink away from the truth of the words.

“He’ll come for her.” Torin stepped forward, his face a mask of fury. I barely knew the man’s name, had only seen him a few times. “He’ll come for his heir.”

It didn’t matter that he hadn’t shouted it. It didn’t have to be loud to hit like a war drum.

Gasps. Footsteps scraping back. The murmur of voices swelled into a roar, the whispers turning to accusations, the uncertainty into something sharper.

Torin wasn’t alone.

“Did you feel it?” another voice rang out. A woman’s voice, raw with disbelief. “I did. She was taking from him—taking?—”

“She drained him,” someone else hissed. “If she can do it to him, she can do it to any of us.”

“She’ll bleed us dry, just like her father.”

The words should have been impossible to hear over the chaos, but somehow, they sank in, lodged deep.

I dug my nails into my arms, as if that alone could keep my power contained, as if I could hold it all together before it spilled out of me again. But I could feel it, recoiling against their words, as desperate to hide as I was.

It wasn’t just fear in their voices now. It was anger. Disgust.

Dacre’s father stepped forward, and the room seemed to close in. His eyes found mine instantly. He wasn’t just looking at me. He was weighing me. Measuring. Calculating.

A verdict in search of a trial.

And it didn’t matter that I hadn’t spoken a single word. He had already decided my fate. His gaze flickered once to Dacre. Then, back to me.

“You’ve brought war to our doorstep.” The words hit like the lash of a whip.

The murmur of the crowd snapped into silence. The finality in his voice split through the room like a fault line.

Dacre stiffened. His grip on me tightened, his body locking around mine like armor.

“She can’t stay here.”

A woman moved before Dacre did. Her light hair glinted in the firelight as she stepped forward, placing herself between Dacre and his father, her sharp gaze flicking between them.

“And what, exactly, do you propose we do with her?” Her tone was even, unreadable. But there was a warning beneath it. A quiet blade waiting in the dark.

Dacre’s father barely spared her a glance. “You know what must be done, Liya.”

The room reacted first. A ripple of movement, a sharp inhale, the subtle shift of warriors tightening their stances.

“You mean to use her?” Liya pressed. “You’re going to tell your son that after everything he just risked for her, after everything he’s done, you would slit her throat like a lamb and hold her out for her father to feast?”

Dacre’s hand left my waist, and he was moving before I could stop him. His father didn’t flinch, but the room did. Several people took a step back. Liya didn’t move at all.

“You gave me your word,” Dacre growled as the space between them shrank. “I gave you the way in and you swore she would not be harmed.”

Dacre slammed his hands into his father’s chest, and he stumbled back, knocking into the stone wall. But Dacre didn’t stop. His hands fisted into his father’s leathers, his voice low and lethal.

“I gave you no such promises.” His father’s voice was steady, but it was impossible to miss the way he clenched his jaw or the blood rushing to his face in fury. “That was them.” He nodded his head toward Liya, but Dacre didn’t turn.

“You were the one scouring the kingdom for her not too long ago. It was you who was willing to do whatever it took to get her back.” Dacre shoved him harder against the wall.

There was movement at my side, and I flinched before I saw Wren step forward, lining herself up with me. She looked awful, blood coated her clothes and splattered on her face, but she was standing at my side, staring straight ahead at her brother and father without wavering.

“I was willing to fetch the heir from the damn forest!” their father bellowed, his face a mask of fury. “But you, you have done far worse. You risked this whole rebellion to save that girl.”

He spoke of me as though I were invisible, as though his piercing gaze didn’t scrutinize every detail of my being, absorbing every fragment of vulnerability I couldn’t conceal.

“That was before we knew what she was.”

“She is my mate.” The words cracked through the chamber like a thunderclap. Undeniable. Unyielding. “I’d risk every one of you to save her.” Dacre’s voice was steel, forged in fire, honed by war. “I’d risk everything.”

My heart lurched, an uneven stutter in my chest, as the words settled over me like a death sentence. He had already risked everything.

The moment he found me in the forest, the moment he tore me from that palace, the moment he held me in his arms and whispered my name like a vow, he had made his choice.

And I was destroying him for it.

The bond, our bond, flared. It roared to life inside me, sudden and all-consuming, seeping into every fraying thread of me. Warm. Steady. Him.

My stomach curled violently, my hands trembled as I pressed them against my ribs, as if I could push the bond back, bury it, sever it.

He was standing here, daring them all to strike him down just so I could keep breathing, so he could protect me at his side.

I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t do this to him. Not again.

I staggered back, my body locking up as panic tore through me. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, like the bond was pulling at me, pushing into me, trying to settle in a body that didn’t deserve it.

I barely noticed the way the chamber erupted, the murmurs turning to shouts, a fevered, frenzied pitch of voices clamoring over each other. The council was no longer afraid. They were enraged.

“Then you are no son of mine,” Dacre’s father hissed. His voice was quiet, deadly. But the rage behind it was a blade unsheathed.

Dacre turned slowly, and I saw it.

The way his body went eerily still. The way his fingers twitched, like they ached for steel. He was one breath away from war with his own people, and I was one breath away from breaking.

Dacre was too close. His warmth pressed into me, steady, unrelenting, an anchor in the storm. The only solid thing in a world I was slipping through, and I couldn’t handle it.

My pulse thundered. My hands shook. I couldn’t breathe.

I jerked back, panic crashing over me in a violent, suffocating wave, but Dacre didn’t let me go. His fingers wrapped around my arms as he pulled me in. His body coiled around mine, iron and heat, locking me in place, refusing to let me slip away.

“Verena.” His voice was low, quiet, barely more than a breath, but I felt it everywhere.

I shook my head, pressing against his chest, desperate to pull away, to make space, to make the bond stop digging its claws into me.

“Verena.” This time, his voice was insistent, his grip firmer. “Breathe.”

I couldn’t. I couldn’t.

“She’s dangerous,” someone snarled. “Look at her.”

I flinched. I already knew. I knew what I was, what they saw when they looked at me.

Dacre moved so quickly. One second, he was holding me, the next, he was turning, his body snapping toward the voice with lethal precision.

“She is not her father.” The words slammed into the room, slammed into me, and everything stopped.

The shouts cut off; the whispers fell silent.

“She is not him,” Dacre repeated, and this time, his voice trembled with rage.

His father scoffed. “She’s his heir?—”

“She was his prisoner,” Dacre snarled.

Something deep inside me cracked. The words lashed through me, carving through the panic, cutting deeper than anything else in the room.

Dacre’s chest heaved, his fists clenching at his sides. “You think she is dangerous? You think she is a monster? Then look at her. Look what he’s done.”

He turned to me with his jaw tight, his eyes dark. “You’re asking me to choose between this rebellion and my mate, but I already chose. I wouldn’t care if it was poison that runs through her veins, I will still choose her.”

I stiffened, my gaze snapping up to search his face.

“You’ve doomed us all,” his father spat, drawing my attention back to him. “You brought a dying flame into a forest already burning, and now you expect us to just hope she won’t damn us all? You want us to pray to the gods that she won’t do to us what we all witnessed her do to you?”

“I won’t…” I said suddenly, my voice hoarse and raw. “I didn’t mean to.”

The room went silent, and I looked around the room at the leaders who stood there with nothing but distrust on their faces.

I stepped around Dacre, ignoring the way he tensed, ready to pull me back.

“I know what my father has done to you, to your people,” I said, my voice quiet but steady. “I cannot change my past, or who my blood belongs to.”

I turned slowly, giving my back to Dacre’s father and the rest of the council. My hands were shaking as I reached for the hem of my shirt, as I pulled the fabric up, as I bared the wreckage carved into my skin.

“This is who I am to my father.” My whole body trembled, yet I held on to my shirt, refusing to let it fall. I wanted them to see it all, the landscape of scars etched into my skin over the years. Some were pale and faded, mere whispers of past pain, while others were freshly healed, their edges still pink and tender.

And then there were the wounds that still wept with blood, raw and angry, as if the hurt was too deep to ever fully close.

Gasps. Curses. Someone made a strangled noise in the back of the room.

The room moved around me, stepping closer, stepping away, crowding in and recoiling all at once.

Wren made a choked sound, and I looked at her, allowed myself to take in her sorrow. Her eyes were fixated on my back, transfixed by the raw agony etched into it, and I hated that I had to allow her to see it.

I looked away from her as my chest ached, but Kai was almost worse. His expression was a tempest of fury, his features twisted into a mask of barely contained rage.

But it was Dacre who I could hardly stand to look at.

His body went rigid as the color drained from his face, and he looked like he was about to collapse under the weight of what he was witnessing. His eyes flickered over each scar, and I could almost see the gears turning in his mind as every bit of his guilt set into place.

My arms ached with the weight of holding my shirt up, with the weight of all the eyes scraping across my back.

I let them look. I let them see the truth.

“Your father did this to you?” The voice wasn’t sharp this time. It wasn’t angry. It was Liya. She was watching me, her expression haunted. She wasn’t looking at the scars. She was looking at me.

I nodded. Just once before I let my shirt fall back into place, as I forced myself to meet their stares.

“You’re right to fear me.” My voice was raw and quiet. “I don’t trust myself, either.”

I swallowed hard, my throat tight, my ribs locking around my lungs. “If you think I will hurt you, if you think I will be your ruin, then imprison me.”

“No.” Dacre’s voice wasn’t quiet. It wasn’t soft. It was a growl of pure, unrelenting fury.

His grip locked around my wrist, not hard, not cruel, but unshakable.

I didn’t turn to look at him. I couldn’t. “Do whatever it is you need to do, but don’t send me back.” I looked up at his father, met his eyes when I wanted to do anything else. “I’d rather you slit my throat than send me back to him.”

Dacre was breathing too hard against me. His hands were shaking.

“No.” This time, his voice was softer, only for me, and I finally looked at him. His eyes burned, flickering gold in the torchlight. “You did not go through hell just to be treated like this.”

“Dacre…”

“No.” He cupped my jaw, tilting my face up toward his, forcing me to really look at him. His fingers pressed against my skin, gentle but firm. “You are mine.”

“She will stay in the cells until the council decides her fate.”

I barely had time to register his father’s words before Dacre’s hand slipped away from my face and he moved like a shadow. His hand shot out, fisting his father’s leathers, and he jerked him forward until their noses almost touched.

Weapons unsheathed in a sharp chorus of steel that sang through the chamber, but it didn’t matter. The moment they saw Dacre’s face, the absolute, undiluted rage burning in his eyes, no one moved.

“If you put her in a cell,” Dacre snarled, his voice thick with something dark and dangerous. “If any of you lay a single finger on her, I will burn this city to the ground.”

And this time, no one doubted that he would.