(Zetulah's POV)
Blood hadn't yet dried on the war table.
Not from wounds.
From choices.
Candlelight flickered across the map of the fractured realm, where Viridian markers lay scattered like bones—outnumbered, outmaneuvered, nearly out of time.
I hadn't slept. Not since the traitor's whispers.
Not since Moriba smiled behind golden masks and offered the devil's favorite lie: salvation, at a price not yet tallied.
Solric leaned against the tent's wooden post, arms crossed, shadow slicing the map like a warning.
"You can't seriously be considering working with them."
His voice wasn't angry. It was afraid.
"I'm considering survival," I said, eyes locked on the bloodstained borders. "Would you rather I consider surrender?"
He didn't answer. The silence between us felt like iron.
"House Moriba doesn't make deals, Zetulah. They make traps."
I knew.
Gods, I knew.
But Viridian bled from too many wounds. Doubt coiled through the camp like smoke—poisoning belief, loyalty, even hope.
I drew a breath, sharp and cold as steel.
"Find me their envoy."
Solric stiffened.
"And what should I tell them?"
I looked him in the eyes.
"Tell them I'm ready to negotiate."
As his footsteps vanished into the storm outside, the candlelight flickered once—then again—as if uncertain whether to stay or extinguish. The war table remained, but my thoughts pulled elsewhere, toward the man whose silence had once steadied my storms… and the fire that had nearly been snuffed out forever.
---
(Kaelith's POV)
The dagger came at dawn.
A flicker of motion.
A breath.
Then steel—silent and silver—slashing through the smoke-filled air of the Emberclaw keep.
I moved before thought.
Flame surged from my fingers, a reflex older than fear. The blade missed my throat by inches, slicing only fabric.
The assassin vanished into smoke and shadow.
Guards stormed in, swords raised.
"Seal the hall!" someone barked.
I stood still, chest heaving, fire still licking my palms.
Lady Syrene arrived last—composed, controlled, terrifying in her calm.
She surveyed the scorched curtains and the ash-stained floor. Then, with theatrical grace, she dropped to one knee.
"Your reign has begun, my King," she said. "And so has the first test."
My heart thundered.
"Find the one who sent them."
Her lips curled, dry amusement beneath bloodred lipstick.
"We already know."
She leaned in close enough that only I could hear.
"House Moriba sends their regards."
The fire in my hands dimmed. A colder flame lit inside me.
But before I could speak, the memory of another fire rose—one not born of rage, but desperation. Somewhere in the west, a woman with war in her blood might have already struck her own match.
---
(Zetulah's POV)
The Moriban envoy arrived draped in gold—head to toe—as if opulence could excuse their sins.
Their smile made my skin crawl.
"The princess is wise to seek our guidance," they purred.
I didn't bother to be polite.
"You claim protection. I want proof."
They chuckled, circling my war table like a vulture sensing the death of strategy.
"Proof?
Very well. Consider this: your enemies will fall before your war even begins."
Something twisted deep in my stomach.
"What are you planning?"
The envoy bowed.
"A gift."
As they turned and vanished like a shadow with no master, the torchlight dimmed, as if the air itself had recoiled. Morning arrived not with sun—but with screams.
Three Emberclaw generals were dead.
Poisoned. Slit throats. One burned alive.
I hadn't lifted a sword.
And already, blood soaked the battlefield.
---
(Kaelith's POV)
Syrene said nothing as she led me through the old passage. Just her footsteps echoing like ghosts.
Beneath the throne room, past flame-scorched stone, lay a vault forgotten by time.
"There is something you must see," she said.
My palms still stung from summoned fire. I clenched them now—unsure if it was pain… or dread.
She pressed her hand to ancient Emberclaw runes. They pulsed. Opened.
Inside—
Bones.
Wolves.
Thousands.
Stacked like kindling for a pyre that never stopped burning.
I stepped in. Cold gripped my chest.
"What is this?" I whispered.
Syrene's voice was soft.
"Your father's throne was not built on power, Kaelith."
She looked at me.
"It was built on sacrifice."
I stumbled backward. These weren't just bones.
They were an altar.
"He… fed them to the flames?"
She didn't answer.
She didn't have to.
I hadn't inherited a crown.
I'd inherited a curse.
"He wasn't a king," I said. "He was a butcher."
"And now?" Syrene asked. "What will you become?"
The question echoed in the silence. But across the fractured land, another answer was already being written—in ink blacker than midnight and sharper than betrayal.
---
(Zetulah's POV)
I found the message in my tent.
A single black feather. Moriban signature.
On the parchment beneath:
"We have delivered your proof. More can follow. If you survive what comes next."
I stared at my hands.
They didn't tremble.
But I saw the generals—their faces, their families, their fire—haunting me like phantoms.
I hadn't ordered their deaths.
But I'd lit the path to them.
"Have I already become what I feared?" I whispered.
Solric didn't answer.
Silence was enough.
Viridian's generals were divided.
Some praised Moriba—called it brilliance.
Others whispered of shadows that couldn't be leashed.
The cost of their "gift" was still unknown.
And devils always come back for their due.
Outside, thunder cracked like a god's warning. The sky was beginning to churn. And in that storm, something was galloping toward me—fate on horseback, truth beneath its cloak.
---
(Kaelith's POV)
I stood before the altar of bones.
"He did what was necessary," Syrene said.
"He murdered our kin."
"He secured the throne. You sit on it now."
"And if it demands more blood?" I asked.
She looked away.
"Then it is no longer the throne you must protect… but the world you must rebuild."
The truth burned deeper than any fire I'd ever summoned. And in that silence, I felt it—a break in the current, as if the threads of destiny had begun to twist elsewhere, pulling taut toward the edge of war.
---
(Zetulah's POV)
That night, I stood on the cliffs outside camp. The sky churned above me.
A rider galloped through the storm. Solric stopped them halfway.
"Princess," the messenger gasped. "Kaelith Emberclaw survived an assassination attempt."
My heart went still.
"By whose hand?"
The rider hesitated.
"The assassin bore a Moriban crest."
And in that moment, I understood the true cost of alliance.
I hadn't just wounded Emberclaw.
I'd declared myself the enemy…
…of the only man who had ever truly understood me.
Kaelith.