Page 15 of The Rivaled Crown (The Veiled Kingdom #3)

CHAPTER 15

DACRE

I didn’t want to leave her.

Not when she was still asleep in my arms, not when every breath she took felt like a silent war against everything she had endured.

But I had to go.

Because while she lay curled beneath the blankets, safe for now, the rebellion was deciding what fate they would allow her.

As if the choice was ever theirs to make.

I shifted carefully, peeling myself from the bed, but the moment my warmth left her, she stirred. Her fingers twitched against the fabric of my shirt, grasping blindly, as if reaching for something just out of her reach.

“Dacre…” Her voice was rough with exhaustion.

“I’m right here.” I brushed my lips over her temple, breathing her in, trying to stop the ache in my chest. “Go back to sleep. I will be back soon.”

She blinked slowly, fighting it. “Where…?”

I ran a hand down her spine, grounding her. “I need to speak with the council,” I murmured, running my lips along her cheek. “Wren and Kai are going to take you to the springs once you’re ready to wake.”

Her lips parted, a sliver of panic flashing in her eyes.

I cradled her face between my hands, forcing her to look at me. To see me.

“No one will take you from me.” I searched her eyes, watched as her pupils flared at my words. “No one.”

She stared at me for a long moment before slowly nodding.

I exhaled, resting my forehead against hers. “Wren will be with you the whole time.”

She swallowed hard, and her magic stirred beneath my fingertips. “And you?”

“I’ll find you the second this is over.”

I didn’t wait for her to reply. I couldn’t, or else I wouldn’t leave at all.

I kissed her before I walked away from her and pulled my bedroom door open. I looked back at her one last time to remind myself that she was safe, to try to stop the burning desire to never leave her side again.

Wren and Kai were already waiting outside, their faces grim.

“She’s still sleeping,” I said, my voice tense. “Do not leave her side.”

Wren nodded, already reaching for the door. “We’ll be with her.”

Kai’s eyes met mine, sharp and knowing. “We’ll keep her safe. You handle the council.”

I moved through the halls with sharp, purposeful strides, but I could feel the city watching me with every step I took. The air felt different today, tighter, thinner. The weight of a thousand unspoken fears pressed into the walls. The council wasn’t the only ones waiting for a verdict.

They all were.

She wasn’t one of us. She was his heir. She was dangerous.

I could feel the words, feel their fear, whispering through the city, and I clenched my fists, forcing my pace steady. I had never wanted to be my father’s son. But tonight, I needed the power that came with it.

Verena was the daughter to the king, and I, I was the son to the rebellion leader.

Verena was not their prisoner, and I would make sure they knew it.

The closer I got to the chamber doors, the sharper the tension wound in my gut. I swept my gaze around the corridor, searching for any sign of my grandmother. Of Micah.

They were supposed to be here. Micah had promised to bring her.

I hadn’t wanted to place trust in him again, not after what he had allowed to happen to Verena in that palace, but he was the only choice I had.

I needed my grandmother in the hidden city. I needed to leverage the way they all respected her, to use her against my father in a way that only she could provide.

He was the rebellion leader, but my grandmother, she was something else entirely. She had served the queen, served this rebellion, and she had lost her daughter to the cause.

And if Micah was lying, if he had betrayed us?—

I exhaled sharply through my nose, forcing the thought away.

Micah had too much to lose. His sister was still in the king’s hands, and he knew that this rebellion was his only chance of getting her back.

I still didn’t trust him, and I would never forgive him.

But I needed him.

And right now, I needed my grandmother more.

I reached for the chamber doors, my jaw set, my pulse a slow, steady war drum in my chest.

The moment I stepped inside, the talking stopped. Not gradually. Not in murmurs that faded into silence. The moment my boot crossed the threshold, the room silenced like a blade severing sound itself.

I had their attention, their fear, and I welcomed it.

I let the door shut behind me, the sound echoing through the cavernous space. Familiar faces turned to stare. Some I had fought beside. Some had trained me. Some I had bled with.

Now, they looked at me as if I had already betrayed them. As if siding with Verena had already signed their death sentence.

Good. Let them be afraid.

If they feared me, they wouldn’t touch her. If they feared me, they would know that I would do whatever it took to keep her safe.

My father stood at the center of the chamber, waiting. His expression was carefully neutral, but I saw the triumph in his eyes. He had already won them.

The council had been divided, but I could see it, the way they leaned toward him, their expressions wary but persuaded. He had already started his work.

But it wasn’t just the council who was packed into the chamber now. My father had brought others who would aid in his cause, elders and soldiers alike. All of them loyal to him, all of them fearful of her.

“We must discuss what is to be done about the heir,” Enora, one of the elders, spoke first.

Heir. Not Verena.

I clenched my jaw so hard it ached.

“She’s a liability,” my father said smoothly, stepping forward, his voice calm. Calculated. “Her magic is unstable as we all witnessed last night, and her father will do whatever it takes to get her back.”

A murmur rippled through the room, and I let it settle before I spoke. I knew their arguments, knew their fears, and my father had probably spent the entirety of the night helping those fears fester while I held Verena and tried to make hers disappear.

“The king is desperate.” My voice was like iron. I let my words settle, let them cut through the thick tension strangling the room. “And we all know what happens when men become desperate.” I looked to my father. “They make poor decisions. They make mistakes.”

I took a slow step forward, sweeping my gaze over the council. “I’ve given you the location to the tunnels.” My voice was calm, but the edge beneath it was sharp. “Verena has more knowledge of the palace than all of us combined. She can help us.”

A few of them shifted uncomfortably.

My father tilted his head, watching me carefully. “That is exactly my point, boy.” His voice was smooth, even. “Do you really believe he’s just going to let her slip through his fingers so easily? She knows the palace, she knows the king, and he isn’t going to allow his secrets to stay hidden in the rebellion that wants him dead.”

He let the question linger, let the weight of it sink in before his gaze flickered over the room.

“And worse,” he continued, his voice soft but dangerous, “what happens when she wants to go back to him?”

A murmur rippled through the room, and I felt the anger in my chest crack like wildfire.

“You dare suggest that she?—”

“I suggest,” my father interrupted smoothly, “that her loyalty is not so clear-cut.” He turned his attention back to the others. “Tell me, Dacre, are you so blinded by your feelings for her that you don’t see the truth of what she is?”

My hands balled into fists as I shifted, trying to control the anger that grew with every word he spoke. “The truth is that she is not your prisoner.”

I wanted them to hear me, to let what I said sink into the very marrow of this rebellion.

“She is not your enemy,” I continued, letting my eyes sweep across the chamber. “She is not a weapon. She is not a siphon to be locked away, or a blade to be pointed at her father. She is a girl who barely escaped with her life. A girl who has suffered more than anyone in this room can begin to imagine. She is not him.”

No one spoke, they didn’t move, but my father smiled. Slowly.

“You say she is not him,” he murmured, his voice quiet, taunting. “But she took from you, didn’t she?”

My muscles locked, and his smile only grew.

“We all saw it, Dacre. We felt it when she siphoned from you. We felt the way she stole the life from your body until there was almost nothing left.” His eyes shuddered, and for the slightest moment, I thought I could see fear in his eyes. Not for himself, for me. “Tell me, did it feel different than what her father has done to us our whole lives? Did it feel like she was protecting you in the way you are dying to protect her?”

No . It had felt like drowning in her. It had felt like being consumed.

A few of the council members nodded, their eyes dark with unease, as my father’s words spread through them, fermenting their fears until they became more potent with each passing moment.

“She didn’t mean to,” I snarled. “She would never?—”

“She would never?” My father laughed, cold and callous. “Don’t treat us as if we’re fools, Dacre. We all witnessed what she did. What will stop her from doing it again?”

I stepped forward, my rage barely leashed.

“You’re all so focused on fearing her,” I growled, letting my own magic crackle at my fingertips, “that you’ve forgotten who the real enemy is.”

I let my gaze sweep the room, let them see the fire in my veins, the truth written in every inch of me.

“The land is already dying,” I continued, my voice hard as stone. “The rivers slow, the earth wilts beneath his rule. You think you can hide in these caves forever? You think you can outlast his cruelty?”

I pointed to the ceiling, to the kingdom that lived above us. “Walk outside this city. Look at the land. It is rotting. It is withering beneath his magic, beneath the vessel.”

A few murmurs rippled through the room. They knew. They had seen it too. We had all seen it for years.

And still, no one moved. No one spoke.

They just sat there like fucking cowards as if their silence somehow negated the truth, but then the doors opened, and they could hide no longer.

“You fear her power, but I do not.”

The council turned, shocked gasps ringing out around us as my grandmother stepped through the chamber doors with Micah at her back.

Her eyes were twin mirrors, reflecting like the cool glow of the moon, and her gaze was unflinching, piercing through the chaos and landing directly on my father.

And he was watching her back, his gaze fixed intently on her as she moved farther into the room until she could look upon each and every person inside.

“You say you fight for this rebellion,” she said softly, but there was a knowing lilt in her voice. “You say you fight for freedom, but you are afraid of the only one who can truly stop him.”

She turned her head, sweeping her gaze across the council. “The king will not stop. He will bring Marmoris to ruin just as he did with the others. He will devastate your home just as he did with Veyrith.”

“This has nothing to do with a forgotten land.” My father bristled. “We are not fighting for Veyrith.”

“You should be.” My grandmother’s gaze snapped back to my father’s, and he flinched. “Verena is the last daughter of Veyrith, but there were many daughters before her.”

She took a step forward.

“The queen.”

Another step.

“My daughter.”

Her voice sharpened.

“Me.”

A slow, tense silence stretched through the chamber. Not one of us daring to utter a word. “I watched Veyrith die,” she continued. “I watched the land beg for mercy beneath his rule. I watched as he took and took and took until there was nothing left to give.”

She stared at my father, so close to him now that she could reach out and touch him if she chose to. “And you think hiding in these caves will save you?”

She took another slow step toward him, and he recoiled, the sound of his boots stepping back away from her echoing for us all to hear.

“You will starve beneath these stones,” she murmured. “You will rot in the darkness, just like the land above you.”

It was as if she had poured a bowl of molten lead into the room, each word heavy and thick as it landed and coated the air with an oppressive weight. She turned back to the council with a somber grace.

“You do not have to trust her,” she said simply. “You do not even have to fight beside her, but you will fight for her. Because she is the only future you have left.”

The chamber shifted. A ripple of unease spread through the council as my grandmother turned, her presence filling the space like a tide rolling into the shore.

She did not look at me. She did not look at my father. Her gaze locked on to the rebels who had barely seemed to breathe since she arrived.

“She is his heir, Elis,” my father roared, but she moved as if she hadn’t heard him.

“That is not what she is.” Her voice was quiet, but it commanded the attention of every soul in the room.

My father scoffed, his nostrils flaring. “Then tell us, what is she?”

My grandmother tilted her chin, her silver eyes gleaming like steel in the torchlight. “She is the tideborn.”

The word slammed into me like a strike to the ribs.

Tideborn.

The word had been written on the statue beneath the capital city, in the ruins that led us into the palace, in the whisper of stone carved long before we were born.

A tethered soul to shifting sands.

It was a warning etched into the bones of the past. My blood ran cold as the words whispered in my mind.

Verena had been written into fate long before any of us knew her name.

“The king has spent his reign trying to rewrite the prophecy, to bury it beneath his rule,” she urged. “But we are the only ones who have forgotten. The land has not. The sea has not. The vessel has not.”

She turned, meeting my father’s glare with something sharper than defiance.

“You call her dangerous.” She let the words settle. “But that is because you know the truth. This war does not end with you. It does not end with this rebellion. It ends with her.”

A profound silence settled deep into the chamber, enveloping the space with an eerie stillness. It was not the silence of agreement; it was the heavy, oppressive silence of fear. I could feel it wrapping around the rebellion leaders like a vise.

They had devoted their entire lives to waging a war they believed they could win, a war that had not accounted for fate.

My father sneered. “Prophecies are for fools and kings desperate to hold their thrones.”

My grandmother did not flinch. She did not waver.

“The king believes in this prophecy,” she murmured. “Why else do you think he kept her alive?”

“What prophecy?”

My grandmother looked at me then, stared into my eyes as the words began falling from her lips. “When shadow swallows the golden throne, and rivers run dry where magic has flown. The cursed shall rise with fate-bound hands, a tethered soul to shifting sands.”

Everything inside me stilled. I couldn’t find my breath, couldn’t stop the crushing weight of her words.

“Born of ruin, blood, and war, bound to take yet cursed to mourn. The tideborn’s gift, bound in chain, to break the bond or bind again.”

The words slammed into me like a hammer to stone.

My magic lurched. It coiled tight in my chest, like something ancient was twisting inside me, something that had been waiting. Waiting for her.

The bond flared. Not gently. It roared. A crack of heat racing through my ribs, searing through my veins like wildfire.

My breath locked in my throat, and for a moment, all I could breathe was her.

The prophecy wasn’t just words. It was a thread, stitched into the very fabric of this war. It was woven into Verena’s blood, into the magic that I felt writhing beneath her skin.

It had been waiting for her.

“The tide has already begun to rise.” My grandmother’s voice felt like it was whispered through a fog.

I clenched my fists at my sides, forcing myself to breathe, to steady my pulse, but the bond between us was still deafening inside me. It pulled at me, weaved within me, as if it knew.

The room shifted, murmurs rising again, uncertainty growing like a storm on the horizon. I met my father’s gaze, felt the weight of the choice ahead. He saw it too.

This was no longer his rebellion.

This was hers.

“We either rise, or we drown.”