Page 26 of The Rivaled Crown (The Veiled Kingdom #3)

CHAPTER 26

VERENA

T he halls of the palace had never been this quiet.

Not in all my years behind these walls. Not in all the nights I had curled beneath my blankets, listening for the distant sounds of music from the ballroom, the hurried footsteps of servants, the faint cries of people he was hurting. Not in all the nights when I had begged for him to stop, to leave me, to let me go.

Now, there was only silence.

Dacre’s fingers curled around mine as we carefully moved inside. Beside us, Kai and Wren stood close, their blades drawn, their breaths steady but sharp. Dacre’s father moved ahead of us, but I still hadn’t seen Dacre’s grandmother. None of us had.

“She should be here,” I murmured, scanning the empty corridor.

The plan had been simple. Get to the vessel first. Cut my father off from his power before we faced him. But something was wrong. She should already be with us.

A rustle in the shadows made me tense, and all of us braced as a figure stepped into view.

Dacre’s grandmother moved swiftly, her long skirt billowing behind her. But there was blood smeared across her sleeve. Her silver hair had come loose from its usual bun, strands clinging to her face.

She had been fighting.

Dacre exhaled sharply, stepping forward. “Where have you been?”

She lifted a hand, her breathing measured but strained.

“We tried,” she murmured. “We tried to reach the vessel.”

Miach moved behind her, just as breathless.

My pulse quickened. “What do you mean?”

Her sharp silver eyes locked on to mine. “The entrance is blocked. He was waiting.”

A cold weight settled in my gut. Of course he was. He would protect the vessel over everything else.

“How many guards?” Dacre asked, his grip tightening on his sword.

“Too many,” she admitted. “There’s no way to the vessel except through the throne room.” She looked at me. “There is a path just behind his dais. A stairwell that leads directly down.” She lifted her hand, running it over her mouth, and I was shocked to see how badly it shook. “The others?”

“They are right behind us. My father, Eiran, others.” A muscle in Dacre’s jaw twitched. I could feel his magic coiling, restless, the same fear curling inside me.

But then there was something else.

A pounding. A deep, thrumming beat. Not from the castle walls, not from the rebellion still clashing outside the gates. From within me.

My breath hitched. My knees nearly buckled as the sensation rippled through me, a call, a whisper, a pull. It wasn’t magic, not in the way Dacre and I shared magic. This was something older. Something deeper.

I gasped, pressing a hand against my stomach as the sensation clawed inside me.

Dacre’s head snapped toward me, his hands catching my arms. “What is it?”

He couldn’t feel it, not through me, not through our bond. I tried to answer, but the words died on my tongue as it pushed harder against me until pain thrummed in my temples.

Dacre couldn’t feel this because it was tied to me.

The vessel was calling me.

Not like before, when I had felt its power, its vast emptiness, when my father had assaulted me with its power. This was different. This wasn’t just the vessel lying deep beneath the palace.

This was the piece of it that lived inside me now.

A fragment of its magic buried inside my bones, inside my blood. A piece that I hadn’t even realized was there.

A shudder racked through me, threatening to buckle my knees.

I recognized the feel of it. I had felt it when he connected me to it. When he tore through my body and left his power inside my veins, when he had tried to bind me to him forever.

I thought he had failed.

But the vessel had never let me go.

“Verena?” Dacre’s voice was urgent now, low and rough. He could feel me shaking, feel my magic reacting to the unseen force, as he ran his hands over me.

“The vessel,” I whispered, voice hoarse. I lifted my head, my gaze locking on to the doors ahead. The throne room.

It was waiting. He was waiting, and I couldn’t stop my feet from moving forward.

I barely felt the marble beneath my boots as I stepped forward. The doors stood ahead, massive, dark, waiting.

Somewhere behind me, Dacre was calling my name, but the sound was muffled, like I was slipping beneath deep waters.

I pressed my hands against the doors, and they opened. A slow, groaning creak, the ancient wood bowing inward. Not pushed. Not pulled.

The vessel was welcoming me inside. It was calling me.

I stepped into the throne room, and the air became suffocating. The walls stretched high, the familiar tapestries that once draped over the stone now hung in ruins, moth-eaten and crumbling. The chandeliers above, once gleaming with golden light, flickered weakly, their flames barely clinging to life.

Decay.

That was what filled the room, what clung to my skin, what made my stomach turn as my gaze landed on the throne.

And I saw him.

My father sat slouched in his seat, a shell of the man he had been when I last saw him. His skin, once golden with power, was gray, his cheekbones hollowed, his lips cracked.

But it was his eyes that made everything inside me revolt.

Still sharp. Still cruel.

He was still watching me as if I were something to devour.

“You’ve finally returned home, daughter.”

I flinched at his words, and his expression shifted, the corners of his mouth lifting into a sickening smile.

“This isn’t my home.” The power inside me reacted, it coiled and bent, and I didn’t know if it was my power, the vessel, or my bond.

“No? Then why did you come back?” He cocked his head, and I stilled, my entire body reacting to him. “Is it me you missed or the power I let you feel?”

He studied me, his gaze flickering over the leather armor strapped to my body, the weapons that adorned my chest. Then he sighed. “You look like your mother when I first saw her.”

Rage flared inside me, burning away everything else I could feel. “You mean when you stole her away from her kingdom, before you destroyed Veyrith?”

His eyes narrowed, a slow, almost imperceptible movement. “Your mother came willingly.”

A sharp laugh scraped against my throat, bitter and cold. “You took everything from her, her home, her magic, her choices.” My breath shuddered. “Just like you tried to do to me.”

Something flickered in his eyes. Something almost human.

“It’s what I did to you.” His words were poison, and I could feel them infecting me. “It’s what I’m still doing.”

The shadows near his throne shifted, and the Sight stepped forward.

She stood beside him, her long white hair falling in waves down her back, her skin as pale as the moon. Her eyes—white, cloudy, endless.

I remembered those eyes. I remembered her hands pressed against my skull when I was locked in my cell. I felt the sting of my father’s magic. Felt the vessel crawl inside me all over again.

A ghost of pain rippled through my veins.

She tilted her head, her expression vacant, and yet, I knew she was seeing me in ways no one else could.

“She knew you were coming,” my father murmured, standing from his throne. His steps were slow, measured, as he moved down the dais. “She warned me of your plans for the tunnels.”

I clenched my fists at my sides, forcing my magic to still, begging the vessel to stop whispering in my mind.

“She has seen the future, Verena.” His voice was almost soft. “And she has seen the end.”

The Sight finally lifted her chin, finally spoke. “You will kneel before him.”

My blood turned to ice just as I felt someone move behind me. Dacre’s chest pressed against my back, and I tried to breathe, tried to feel him.

His breath was warm against the back of my neck, his presence steady even as the weight of my father’s words pressed into my ribs.

“I will never kneel to you,” I said, my voice like steel, but the Sight’s blank, white eyes bore into me.

“You already have.”

A chill raced through me as she took a slow step forward, her movements eerily graceful, as if she wasn’t fully of this world.

“I have seen you in a thousand lives, Verena,” she whispered. “And in everyone, you kneel.”

Dacre’s magic surged, wild and furious, and it raced through every inch of me. The Sight tilted her head, her lips parting just slightly as though she were listening, not to me, but to something inside me. Her white eyes flicked down, landing on the golden mark on my wrist.

It burned under her gaze before she murmured, “You carry more than his mark.”

Her words radiated through my wrist, and my breath caught. “What?”

She exhaled slowly. “The vessel you seek is not the only one that calls your name. The blood of Veyrith sings inside you.”

Then she turned, and her eerie gaze landed on someone else. “And it sings in another.”

A gasp rang out from the other side of the throne room, and I turned my head just in time to see Micah go rigid, his body coiling like a predator poised to strike.

Then I saw her.

The woman stood just behind the king, hidden behind a line of guards with two other courtesans. Her hair fell in waves down her back, and even beneath the dim torchlight, I could see it, her resemblance to Micah.

It was his sister.

“Maliah!” Micah’s voice was a snarl, a battle cry of pure desperation as he shoved through the rebels, his sword already drawn, already moving.

He barreled toward the throne, toward his sister, his sword already raised, and my father snapped his fingers.

Power lashed from his palm, a sudden, violent burst of magic that sent Micah flying across the room. His body slammed into the marble, skidding across the floor with a sickening thud.

I barely had time to react before my father’s head jerked toward me. His eyes darkened then he moved.

I didn’t see it. I barely felt it. One second he was standing at the foot of the dais, then the next he was right in front of me.

I gasped, stumbling back, but his hand snapped around my wrist.

A cruel, sick smile curved his lips. “My daughter,” he breathed before his gaze landed on Dacre at my back. “Is this the one you cried out for?”

Dacre tensed for only a second before his roar filled the room, and before I could react, steel flashed through the air.

Dacre’s sword sliced down, so fast it was nothing but a blur. My father jerked away from me at the last second, dodging the blade, but only just. Dacre’s sword sliced through the fabric of my father’s robes, leaving a thin, bleeding cut along his ribs.

My father snarled, his lips curling in disgust as he watched Dacre move between us, his chest heaving, his body coiled. His sword was dripping with a trace of my father’s blood.

“She had cried for you, you know.” His voice was a low, taunting drawl as he locked eyes with Dacre, a predatory gleam lighting up his gaze.

My magic surged within me, a wild, rabid beast desperate to do anything to get my father’s attention back on me, away from my mate. But I held on to it as tightly as I could, forcing it to simmer beneath the surface.

“So many of those scars on her body,” he continued, his tone dripping with disdain, “could have been prevented if you had only come when she called.” He clicked his tongue in mock disappointment, his eyes sweeping over Dacre with a scrutinizing glare. “I hope the scars aren’t too much for you, that I haven’t ruined her beyond your desire.”

His words hit Dacre exactly where he wanted them to, provoked him until he lunged forward, his movement sudden and charged with emotion. It was a trap, meticulously laid by my father, but I moved. I reached out and snatched Dacre’s hand in mine before he could take another step forward.

My father laughed, the sound slithering over my skin, as he looked back at me. “I think I’ll kill him first,” he declared with a chilling calm. “I’ll hang him in the city streets, gently, though, ensuring he fights for each breath until death mercifully claims him. Slower than the others.”

The others. The boy.

“You’ll be able to watch from your window,” he added, lifting his finger to point ominously to the floor above us. “Once you get settled back in.”

Fury ignited within me like a wildfire, fueled by his words and the grotesque image he painted in my mind. It was provoked by the image of the boy that I couldn’t get out of my mind, the one who likely still burned in the flames outside.

I was consumed by my anger, so lost in it completely, that I didn’t see it coming.

He raised his hand, and a sudden, searing pain followed, enveloping me. It ripped through me like a thousand blades, twisting, searing, burning.

My father’s magic slammed into my chest, but it wasn’t his at all. It was the vessel that surged inside me.

Not just the piece buried in my veins, the power deep beneath the palace. It recognized me, claimed me, and suddenly, I wasn’t just standing in the throne room anymore.

I was falling.

A rush of memories, of visions, spilled through my mind.

A throne room before this one, walls carved from white stone, vines curling through the cracks. A golden-haired queen standing with a crown of silver and sapphire resting against her brow. A king with eyes like mine pressing his hand against a glowing vessel, binding his blood to it.

The vessel of Veyrith.

I gasped, my body locking up as I saw my mother. She stood near the king and queen that I didn’t recognize, her hand held out to me, and I reached for her as I fell. Pried through the fog in my mind as I tried to touch my fingers to hers, and the moment they did, the moment the warmth of her skin pressed against mine, another ancient power crashed through me.

It filled me, flooded me, and I had no power to stop it.

The heir.

The words weren’t my own. They flowed through my veins, whispered in my bones.

A throne carved from white stone. The queen’s hands outstretched. A vessel humming with life.

My breath caught, my chest rising and falling in sharp, desperate gasps.

And I wasn’t alone.

A sound ripped through the air, not a scream, but something else. A chorus of gasps.

I pressed my hands against the stone floor as my vision came back to me, as my father’s throne room came back into view.

Wren fell to her knees, a strangled noise escaping her lips.

Dacre’s head jerked back, his breath coming in short, sharp bursts.

Micah staggered, his hand clamping over his chest.

His sister let out a choked cry, her eyes going wide as she looked at me.

Dacre’s grandmother stared in shock, her silver brows drawing together as she clutched the pendant at her throat.

It was inside all of us. The blood of Veyrith.

And it had answered.

The Sight’s lips parted as she shuffled back, her cloudy eyes bouncing throughout the room. “The tideborn has come. The vessel of Veyrith rises.”

The Sight stumbled, her gaze darting to my father. “The vessel of Veyrith rises,” she whispered again, her voice trembling.

My father stiffened. His entire body jerked, his lips pulling back from his teeth as his fingers curled into fists. The veins along his neck darkened, pulsing with magic, and then the throne room shook.

The torches along the walls flared, shadows stretching high, flickering wildly as if caught in a storm. The floor beneath us groaned under the weight of power, power he could not control.

“This is mine!” he snarled, his voice splitting through the chaos, his magic lashing outward.

I staggered back as his fury hit me like a wave. The magic plowed into me, it struck me in a way I had never felt before. He was trying to reclaim control, trying to silence the power that had awakened inside me.

But he couldn’t.

Panic twisted across his face, warring with rage as his eyes darted through the room, searching, calculating, desperate. His body trembled, the gray hue of his skin deepening, as if the power inside him was rotting him from the inside out before my very eyes.

His gaze snapped to the Sight. “Do something.”

But the Sight only shook her head.

“I warned you,” she whispered, stepping farther back into the shadows. “You tried to claim what was never meant to be yours.”

My father let out a feral roar, and then he moved. Not toward me. Not toward Dacre, but toward Wren. His power struck before I could react, a vicious whip of dark magic lashing out and slamming into Wren’s chest.

She choked on a scream as the force of it sent her skidding to the ground. She hit the ground hard, gasping, her limbs twitching, the mark of his magic burning like black veins along her skin.

Dacre’s magic detonated.

“No!” His roar shattered the air, and I felt the rage inside him snap, his control breaking apart as he lunged forward, his sword aimed for the king’s throat.

But before he could reach him, my father yanked Wren upright, his hand wrapped in the back of her hair.

“Enough.” The single word rang through the throne room, and everything stopped.

Dacre froze. Kai’s chest heaved beside me, his magic a raging storm inside him. The rebels halted their fight, watching in horror as the king held Dacre’s sister in front of him, her body limp, her breath ragged.

His gaze slid to me, a slow, venomous smile curling across his face. “Let’s see if your mother’s blood is as powerful as they say.”

His fingers tightened around her, and Wren screamed.

Her body jerked violently, her back arching as power ripped from her. He was siphoning from her.

I lunged forward, but a guard blocked my path. Dacre snapped. His sword sank through the soldier’s ribs before I could even blink, and I heard Kai’s voice, raw and wild.

“Wren!”

Kai’s blade was already flying. He was already moving like a shadow weaving through the room as my father lifted his other hand.

But Wren wasn’t the one who fell.

Eiran was.

A sickening crack filled the air as Eiran’s body slammed into Wren, knocking her free from the king’s grip, shielding her just as my father’s magic struck once more.

Wren slammed into the marble, and Eiran’s back arched violently, his mouth opening in a scream as the siphoning power meant for Wren hit him instead.

I gasped, I could feel it pulling, feel it taking. It was killing him.

Eiran’s body convulsed as my father drained the life from him.

His hands clawed at the ground; his breath became shallow. Staggering.

I tried to reach out, tried to stop it, but the power my father slammed into him was too strong, too cruel.

Dacre’s father shouted his name, but Eiran was already stilling. He was already gone.

Kai moved to Wren’s side, and he pulled her into his arms, his chest heaving, her gasping for air.

And my father—my father laughed.

He wiped a hand over his mouth, stepping over Eiran’s lifeless body like it was nothing. Then he looked at me, his smile razor sharp.

“You cannot stop this,” he whispered.

And I felt it again, the vessel snarling beneath the palace, rising to meet me.

My father’s magic crashed into me. Not like before. Not like the searing, consuming heat of his siphoning. This was cold.

It dug into my ribs like shards of ice, pressing, twisting, pulling at something inside me.

I gasped, my knees buckling as the sensation ripped through my chest, as if invisible hands were trying to pry me open, trying to dig deep and pull something free.

The vessel was inside me. Not just its power. Its will.

It curled through my veins, dragging me toward him, toward my father. I could feel its tether, the invisible chain he had forged when he had forced its magic into me. He was trying to summon me back to him, trying to bind me completely.

A breath shuddered from my lips.

No.

I dug my heels into the ground, my body trembling under the weight of it, but another force rose inside me, something equal in power, something opposite.

Veyrith.

Its presence slammed into me, its power pushing against the vessel like a crashing tide. It did not bind. It did not chain. It called, and I answered.

A sound tore from my throat as my power lashed outward, white-hot and blinding. The very air cracked, and suddenly, I was not just inside the throne room.

I was inside the vessels.

Marmoris and Veyrith.

The two of them clashed inside me; one built on power hoarded, the other built on power shared. One built on taking, the other on giving.

The vessel of Veyrith had awakened, and it had chosen me.

The last daughter of Veyrith. My mother’s blood sang in my veins.

A voice filled my mind. “It was never lost, Verena. It was only waiting.”

I opened my eyes, my vision fractured, split between two worlds, the throne room fading in and out like a flickering candle.

The Sight stood frozen where she hovered near the wall, her white eyes wide, her mouth slightly parted as if she could see it too.

Dacre’s fingers dug into my arm, his voice distant, fraying, as he called my name.

But my father looked at me and staggered back.

He was afraid.

I felt them both.

The vessel of Marmoris. A gaping void, endless and consuming.

The vessel of Veyrith. A storm, an untamed current.

They warred inside me, the magic tearing through my veins, fighting for dominance, pulling me in two.

Too much. It was too much. I couldn’t hold them both, I couldn’t control either. A hand slammed over my wrist. Pressed hard against my skin.

I blinked up at Dacre, tried to focus on the details of his face. His grip on me was tight, his voice a roar through the storm. “Verena.”

The vessels surged, but his presence held steady, his soul twining with mine, our bond flaring within me.

Not just a tether. A balance. Our bond rushed through my veins, raced alongside the vessels within me. It coaxed them, calmed them, helped me breathe.

I gasped, my vision snapping clearer, the throne room sharpening back into focus. The Sight was watching me, lips parted, awed. My father was still staggering back. His face was ashen, his body trembling. He could feel it.

I wasn’t just wielding one vessel. I wasn’t tied to it as he had tried to force me to be. I was wielding both.

I lifted my hand, and he fell to his knees.

His head snapped up, panic bleeding into his gaze, and I knew that he had never truly feared before this moment.

Because he had never believed I could break him.

But I reached inside myself for that power, for the bond he had forged between himself and the vessel of Marmoris. The one that had made him a god.

I could see it now. The magic wrapped around him like a leash. A chain. I tightened my fist, wrapping my hand around it, and I tugged.

My father shot forward, his hands slamming down against the marble as he looked up at me with so much fear in his eyes.

I could hear the others fighting around us, could hear the clang of metal and grunts of pain. I paid them no attention.

I tightened my hold on the chain, wrapped it securely around my hand, and this time, when I wrenched it back, the chain snapped.

A scream ripped from my father’s throat, his body convulsing as he clutched his chest. I felt the vessel pull away from him, severing its hold, its power twisting free, twisting into something completely different.

The Sight gasped, her voice a whisper of prophecy. “The tideborn’s gift, bound in chain. To break the bond or bind again.”

I lifted my gaze, and I could feel it.

Not just in my veins. Not just in the magic thrumming beneath my skin, but everywhere.

The palace walls shuddered. The marble beneath my feet trembled. The entire kingdom quaked.

The vessel of Marmoris was no longer a thing to be wielded, to be controlled. It was breathing. It was alive, and it saw me.

A rush of something ancient, something vast and unknowable, coiled inside my chest.

Not a king. Not a tyrant. Not a god. It had been waiting for me. They both had.

A breath left my lips, and suddenly, I saw the kingdom.

The land greening, the rivers running fuller, the weight of something unseen lifting from the air.

I saw Veyrith. Not just lost ruins, not a broken kingdom, but something stirring. Something awakening.

It was like standing at the edge of two worlds, Marmoris and Veyrith, and for the first time, they both belonged to me.

Born of two kingdoms.

I gasped, my knees threatening to buckle, but Dacre’s grip tightened.

Stay with me, his magic whispered through the bond, steadying me. You are still here. You are still mine.

I blinked, my vision snapping back to my father. His body shook, hollowed, crumbling as he climbed to his knees. The power he had hoarded for so long was gone.

And without it, he was nothing.

Dacre’s fingers tightened against mine. His voice was quiet. “End it.”

The magic coiled inside me, a storm waiting to break. I could feel it all.

My mother’s screams. The kingdom’s suffering. The weight of a thousand lives crushed beneath his rule.

And I saw him for what he was.

A man who had stolen power that was never his. A man who had called himself a king while he let the kingdom wither.

A man who had tried to break me, tried to make me his weapon.

But I was never his. I was hers.

I was Marmoris. I was Veyrith.

I was the heir.

My father staggered back, his body trembling, magic he no longer controlled dripping from his fingertips like something rotten, something decayed. His chest heaved, his skin gray and cracking as the power he had hoarded for so long rejected him.

“You…” His voice was nothing more than a rasp, a shadow of the man who had once ruled. “You think you can take my throne?”

I lifted my chin, magic burning in my veins, the two vessels surging, pulsing, a rhythm that would shake the world.

“You never deserved it.”

He lurched toward me, hands outstretched, but he had nothing left. No power. No kingdom. Not even fear.

“You destroyed Veyrith.” My voice rang through the throne room, loud enough to make the walls tremble. “You corrupted Marmoris.”

His eyes widened as I took another step, the magic inside me rising, screaming.

“You stole my mother; you tried to steal me.”

Magic roared to life inside me, a storm ready to break, but I didn’t reach for it.

Instead, I reached for the dagger.

I didn’t need magic for this. I wanted him to feel it. He had called me powerless for years. So when I took his life, it would be at my hand, and my hand alone.

His powerless heir.

His eyes widened as my dagger plunged into his chest. Straight to his heart.

His lips parted, a choked, gasping sound escaping him, his hands grasping for me, but there was nothing left to take.

No power. No kingdom. No more control.

“You wanted a weapon,” I whispered, twisting the blade. “And you got one.”

A shudder tore through his body before his weight sagged, the dagger still buried in his chest, and I watched as the great King of Marmoris crumbled.

Like dust. Like nothing.

A sharp, rattling breath left my lips, and Dacre was there before I could fall, his arms steady, sure.

And somewhere, just beyond the silence, someone whispered, “The king is dead.”

A breath. A murmur.

Then, “Long live the queen!”

The words slammed into my chest, shot into the magic that still moved within me.

I turned, and one by one, the room fell to their knees.