Page 3 of The Syndicate’s Shadow Heiress (Branche de Lune Syndicate #1)

THE COST OF POWER

Kali’s Emotional States: Restless. Pained. Coiled like a blade not yet drawn. Her magic is twitchy. Her patience, thinner than a breath.

T

he leyline gate pulsed—violet and bone-deep—before spitting them into Hollow Crown Academy’s courtyard.

Kali landed first.

Her boots hit the cobbled stone with practiced grace, shadows trailing behind her like war banners. Irina flanked her right, weapons holstered but hands twitching. Astraeus descended from the upper veil moments later, human-shaped but carrying stormlight in his bones.

It was quiet.

Too quiet.

The courtyard should’ve hummed with children’s laughter, spell practice, low choruses of Cradle Mothers murmuring lullabies in the old tongue. But today, the air felt pulled tight like something was listening.

Nickel, first to cross the threshold, paused. The pitbull’s hackles rose.

“She won’t move,” Irina said, frowning. “That’s new. ”

“She senses something,” Kali muttered, gaze sweeping the grounds.

A young Sovereign boy burst from the nursery—barefoot, flushed with sleep-terror. His silver-glow eyes locked on Kali, and he screamed a phrase she hadn’t heard in centuries. “ Zarok’ven’tar. Hollow’kaar shae’tal!”

Astraeus’s breath hitched. “That phrase... it’s part of the old seals. It’s not just a dream—it’s a warning.”

Kali’s pulse spiked. The phrase wasn’t just rare. It was forbidden.

Astraeus’s body went rigid. Kali dropped to her knees before the boy, gently steadying his shaking frame.

“Who taught you that?” she asked softly.

He blinked. Confused. “I heard it in my dream. It came from the floor.”

Inside the Cradle Hall, the sigils lining the nursery threshold sparked and hissed when Kali passed. Her ring pulsed in response.

Cradle Mother Aya met her with a tight smile and a sealed scroll.

“This arrived on my altar,” she said. “The seal was your grandfather’s. But the ink is moving.”

Kali took it. The scroll trembled against her palm.

Astraeus leaned close. “This ink is old magic—leyline blood. It was never meant to be seen again.”

The scroll unfurled on its own .

Inside: a warning. Not in words, but in shapes.

A diagram of the Hollow Spiral, crossed through with a circle of Sovereign blood. At its center: the symbol of the First Gate. And beneath it, a single Zarokian phrase, burned into the page:

"Sol’varan veyr’karoth. Draeka’kaar ven’thral ."

(If the dragons remember, the Gate will awaken.)

They descended into the Academy’s lowest chamber, beneath even the Cradle training grounds. The path was carved of blood-hardened stone, sealed generations ago.

But the seals were cracked.

A fine black fissure marred the center of the floor—hair-thin, but pulsing.

When Kali crouched beside it, her ring burned hot.

She reached out.

A whisper coiled through her mind, like smoke trying to become speech.

You crowned the blood. But you never buried the Gate.

She jerked her hand back.

Irina stepped forward immediately, blade half-drawn. “What did it say?”

Kali didn’t answer. Her voice had gone somewhere unreachable .

On their way back through the courtyard, a small girl stood by the garden stones, holding something carefully in her hands.

A new flower crown.

This one burned, not in orange flame, but white and silver. Pure starlight woven through ash petals.

“For the Queen who doesn’t burn alone,” the girl whispered. “So you remember.”

Kali took it gently.

She remembered the boy in the courtyard. The children who trained while the world burned around them. That crown wasn’t decoration—it was a vow. A child’s way of saying, “Don’t let the world kill us, too.”

And for the first time in days, her fingers didn’t tremble.

At the edge of the gate, Kali turned back.

The spire cast a long shadow. The runes beneath the stone still pulsed, faint but steady.

Irina moved beside her. “You think it’s safe?”

Kali didn’t look away.

“If even this place falls,” she said softly, “then we’re not fighting a war anymore.”

Her voice dropped to a whisper.

“We’re fighting memory itself.”

The morning after her coronation , it was colder, not in temperature, but in energy. As if the city itself knew power had shifted and was bracing for impact.

Kali stood before her office window, arms folded, eyes fixed on the streets below.

The skyline reflected against black glass, hazed with low clouds and warded auras, but her attention wasn’t on the view.

Her mind lived in layers now: one in the present, one in the shadows, and one pressed eternally against the Gate.

Her back throbbed with pain, nerves tight and screaming. Her shadow magic flexed in response, curling protectively up her spine like armor made of ink and wrath.

The world below buzzed on, trivial, noisy, forgettable. Her war was waged in silence. In spells carved into flesh, in dreams corrupted by sigils no one else could see. Her magic wasn’t a tool anymore. It was instinct. Legacy. Will.

The door creaked open.

Irina entered, face carved from calm, but Kali felt the tension before she spoke.

“There’s been a development.”

Kali didn’t move from the window. “Where?”

“The East End. Warehouse sector. Azareal’s people moved in overnight. They’re drawing bloodwork sigils, not surveillance. Corruption magic. Two enforcers already down, psychically quarantined. ”

“Show me.”

Irina dropped the data tablet on the table. Kali turned. The images weren’t just tactical—they were surgical. Vein-thin runes drawn with scalpel precision. A contamination meant to infect not just space but magic itself.

“He’s escalating,” Irina said. “One of his corrupted dragons was seen circling the rooftops. Black scales. Red eyes. Not glamour—true mutation. We think they’re blood-bound. Maybe spirit-tethered.”

“And the immortality rumors?”

“Confirmed. He’s offering it. Soul-binding in exchange for loyalty. The cost?”

Kali already knew. “They don’t come back human.”

Her jaw tightened.

Azareal didn’t want territory. He wanted dominion. Her grandfather once said, the boy doesn’t want land. He wants the rules rewritten in his name.

Years ago, Azareal had tried to manipulate her grandfather into granting him access to the underworld gates—gates only Kali’s bloodline could open.

When he’d refused, their top three enforcers were found butchered, blood sigils carved into their skulls.

No one had to ask who was responsible. Azareal never sent messages.

He left lessons.

Irina’s voice lowered. “He’s making a move. And there’s more. ”

Kali turned. “Spill it.”

“Lucian’s been seen meeting with Azareal. Twice. Once in Paris. Once here. Both times under shadow wards. We’re certain he’s flipping.”

Kali didn’t blink, but something inside her went quiet. She’d expected it—that didn’t mean it didn’t cut. Lucian hadn’t just crossed her. He’d crossed her grandfather’s grave.

Astraeus’s voice echoed in her mind, silk and sulfur. "He drinks loyalty but bleeds betrayal."

“Strip his access. Quietly. I want him ghosted from every system. If he so much as breathes near another vault, I want his ashes boxed and branded.”

Irina nodded. “Enforcers?”

“Prep them. But keep them behind the perimeter. I’m handling this personally.”

Later — East End

The Maybach whispered down cracked asphalt, slicing through fog thick with latent magic. The East End smelled like blood and rust, power and rot—a failing heartbeat in the Syndicate’s chest.

When the car stopped, Kali stepped out in a long black coat that moved like spilled ink. Her heels hit the concrete like gunfire. Every step echoed with the promise of judgment .

The warehouse shimmered beneath failing illusion wards. Magic saturated the ground like oil.

Azareal was waiting.

He looked every inch the predator—tall, devastating, empty. His dark hair swept across his brow. His golden eyes burned with hunger. And around him, corrupted magic snapped like heat lightning.

He smelled like ash and old magic.

“Kali,” he purred. “Still sending soldiers to die for you?”

She stepped closer, unbothered. “No. Tonight, I brought the executioner.”

He smiled. “I offer you a kingdom.”

“You offer leashes and rot.”

“Immortality. No more burdens. No more death. This world breaks people, Kali. I’m offering a version where no one ever has to bleed again. Not you. Not them.”

Kali’s laugh was low and wicked. “You mistake me for someone who fears endings.”

Behind her, the warehouse flickered. The illusions peeled back, revealing layers of traps and wards: sigils etched in shadow, glyphs woven with anti-undead enchantments, and teleportation locks spinning silently.

She hadn’t come to fight.

She’d come to end him .

“Every word from your mouth costs you a second of life,” she said. “Keep talking.”

Azareal didn’t. But something in his eyes shifted—too fast to track, too slow to dismiss. The air around him pulsed once. Magic twitched across his fingers. Kali felt it—the moment where she should strike.

But her magic—sharp, erratic, still raw from the Gate—twisted instead of obeyed.

She flinched. Barely. But it was enough.

For a fraction of a second, doubt flashed behind her eyes. Not fear, but recognition. The Gate had changed her. It was still changing her.

Astraeus’s voice echoed, low and concerned—but she shut him out.

Azareal smiled again. This time, less hunger—more knowing.

“Still bleeding,” he murmured. “Perfect.”

A pulse of flame ignited beneath his feet—tainted, Spiral-fed, reeking of old rot. Shadows folded around him like wings, and in a heartbeat, he was gone. Not beaten. Not even bruised.

But the space he left behind felt wrong. The magic didn’t settle—it coiled. Twitched. Like something unfinished still clung to the air.

A corrupted glyph scorched the floor where he stood. It pulsed once, then faded.

Stolen by the very magic she meant to destroy .

Astraeus’s growl echoed from the roof. Irina cursed under her breath.

Kali stared at the scorched spot where he’d vanished. Her jaw clenched.

And for just one breath, she let herself feel it—Not rage. Not failure.

Grief.

Not for him.

For the part of her that didn’t strike fast enough.

The ride back was silent. Not by command but by weight.

Kali didn’t speak. Neither did Irina. Even Vaerkyn stayed unnaturally still, as if sensing that something had slipped, just enough to matter.

Hours Later — Club Noire

Enchanted lights shimmered across black glass. The club’s entrance pulsed like a heartbeat—bass-heavy, seductive, infernal.

The Maybach pulled up, and the crowd parted without prompting.

Vaerkyn stepped out first—massive, smoke-laced, shoulders rolling like a storm about to break. He prowled forward, a wall of heat and magic, eyes molten and unblinking. The kind of creature that made people instinctively hold their breath.

Kali followed .

Eyes lined in charcoal, lips painted blood-red, she stepped into the night with finality in her bones. Her scent hit the air before she did—Voodoo Lily and something sharper beneath. Blood. Judgment.

Vaerkyn flanked her left, silent and lethal, shadows clinging to his paws like they knew better than to leave her unguarded.

Before the club doors, Kali paused for a breath too long.

Irina appeared beside her, silent, steady as ever. No shield. No command. Just presence.

Kali didn't look at her. She didn’t have to.

Irina’s hand brushed lightly across Kali’s lower back—barely a whisper of contact. Not restraint. Not comfort. Just a reminder: You are not alone.

Kali’s mouth curved—something not quite a smile. There would be blood tonight. But it wouldn’t be hers.

Then she moved forward, heels cracking against marble, Vaerkyn at her side, matching her stride, a shadow made flesh.

The Queen stepped back into her kingdom.

Inside, conversation halted.

She didn’t walk into rooms.

She unmade them.

Tonight, the senator would learn in Kali’s world that secrets weren’t hidden.

They were weaponized.

And she owned the vault.