Page 82 of Crown of Chaos

“I need what Aria holds, but that’s not only why I want her, Sabine. And furthermore, I honestly don’t give a fuck who they think I’m going to marry simply because they say I should. I’d send the head of whomever they tried to force upon me back to them on a fucking silver platter with a polite fuck you note in its mouth.” I slid my eyes over her head, smirking as the color drained from her face. “If they think Aurora can actually take what Aria holds, they’re naïve, gullible, and haven’t been paying attention. Aria’s magic comes directly from the Nine Realms because it has chosen her as the heir and true queen. It wouldn’t allow Aurora, or anyone else, to use it because it belongs only to Aria. I am in Aria’s way of taking her throne. But only because I plan to stand beside her and rule the realms by her side with my mate, and queen. Together, she and I are unstoppable and nothing like this world has ever seen before.”

“I’m aware, and I realize you and Aria are true mates. She is different with you, and I honestly hate you for it. What I can’t hate is that she allowed someone to finally see her broken soul and the cracks she’s been holding together. You’re an arrogant, conceited, selfish prick, but she sees more than the outer shell you show the world. That is what I am hoping to use because she’ll never trust me or my sisters again. It’s also why I’m here asking for your help. If I thought I could reach her without you, I’d have done so. I need her to know that Aurora has our sisters and that is why we haven’t abandoned her and sided with Aria. Tell her the others are being held to ensure we don’t step out of line. Amara never opened a portal, Aurora did. She planned and orchestrated events if we were forced back here.”

“Ask me if I fucking care, Sabine,” I hissed, giving her a glimpse of Lennox, who wanted the bitch gone. Her eyes rounded, and she stepped back, but she merely strengthened her resolve and continued.

“The council you appointed? Aurora didn’t need to seek them out, Knox. They came to us. Think about that for a moment. You’re the fucking king, right? Why aren’t they turning to you for leadership? Why are they going to her and talking about the new world order of the Nine Realms will look like?”

“I don’t care what they think or do. I placed them there for a reason, and everything happening is by design. I leave nothing to chance when I am making my moves. And I assure you, if they think to depose me as king, I will add them and anyone who follows them to my throne room walls.” She tilted her head, and her light colored brows pressed together in thought.

“Unless your plan is in play and you intend to start making moves soon, that’s irrelevant, King Karnavious.” She smoothed out her features and pursed her lips. “Aurora is demanding your crown and will only be satisfied when one of us stands beside you. So, even if you’re moving parts, even if you somehow considered this to be a scenario to plan for, you should accept my offer anyway. Even if you do it for no other reason than to add another ally on your board. I’m not saying we need to be friends or that we should fuck because, I assure you, I have no interest in facing Aria’s wrath, but our goal is the same. We both want Aria protected and safe from Aurora’s plans.”

“It doesn’t matter what Aurora wants, Sabine.” Brander snorted. “And Knox isn’t the king of Norvalla. I am. Hard to force his hand when it is me holding the throne as his proxy,” Brander admitted, crossing his arms over his chest as her lips dropped open in shock.

“What?” she asked. “Aurora thinks Knox is king since he ordered Celia’s punishment and carried it out. In fact, the council does as well. They’re all closed in a room right now, discussing how to convince Knox to marry one of us.”

“What they assume isn’t my problem. Brander’s my proxy, and he has been since I married Aria.”

“So she could never take your throne?” she asked, snorting before her eyes lifted to the stars.

“Exactly,” I returned coolly, watching as her mouth tightened with anger on Aria’s behalf, which told me more than her pleas had.

“That’s actually brilliant,” Sabine stated. “It still changes nothing, though. She’ll ask for the king’s hand in marriage still because she wants a monopoly on the Nine Realms, just as her mother wanted. We’re all trapped until we figure out where she hid the others, which means Aria will be alone until we do. Not that she would trust us either way. If I were her, I wouldn’t trust us, and I hate it.”

“Hate what?” Brander asked, staring at her profile.

“That she’s out there alone and thinks we’ve all turned against her. Aria was this soft-spoken little thing when I began caring for her. When she was little, she was content to accept what Aurora and Freya told her as truth, but when she got older, she started asking questions about who her father was.”

I considered her words, wondering how different a creature like Aria would have felt among others. Even that minor detail of how Aria was as a child deepened my insight of why she was the way she was. How she was easy to forgive and could see beyond emotion to the reason behind it. She’d been me and knew exactly how hard broken creatures fought to pull their pieces back together.

“Most of us know who our fathers were, and more often than not, Freya used us against them. No one even thought about Aria’s father until one day I found her sitting in a perched position, tracking me like I was prey. She was only five and had climbed onto the roof, crouched down, and watched me as if she intended to hunt me through the yard. When Aria reached the age to use magic, she’d yanked so much magic from the Nine Realms that Aurora and Freya forbid us from teaching her or training her. It was terrifying to realize that she was more powerful than any of us.”

“Is that really why you never let her inside your little fucking magical circle?” Brander asked, but Sabine continued speaking, ignoring his question. “Because she wasn’t like you, or because you knew she wasn’t your sister?”

“I knew she had to control it, so I began training her myself in secret. The first time I attempted to teach her, she and I were in the basement of the House of Magic. I began, of course, with the basics. Igniting the mark and using it as a focal point to ground you before seeking the magic you’d wield. I’d expected her symbol to be the same as mine, but it wasn’t. It was a sun, and her eyes glowed when it lit up. I panicked, and after I’d calmed down, I taught her how to project our mark. I also added runes into her ribs, hidden in the first raven she got to hide the scars my mother left on her. As she grew, I retouched, reworked the ink to conceal the true meaning of them from prying eyes. I spelled the tattoo to cover her mark and conceal the memory of it from her. I knew that if anyone else discovered she was different and carried that symbol, she’d be even more of a target.”

“Which raven holds the runes to prevent her mark from appearing?” I inquired, observing as Brander slid his eyes down Sabine’s frame. My brow lifted as a cocky smile played on his lips.

“The fourth one beneath her heart with extended wings,” she admitted carefully. “If you touch it or disturb the ink and her symbol’s exposed, you’ll place her in danger.”

I nodded in understanding, but my jaw flexed at the craziness of what she’d disclosed. I’d laughed in Aria’s face when she’d mentioned her last name, but I wasn’t laughing now. If Sabine could be believed and Aria had been correct, it meant that someone had survived all those years ago and had the pretty little monster I was obsessed with.

“I’ll marry you and give you an open relationship,” Brander announced, which had Sabine and I turning to him—her in shock and me in incredulity. “Or I’ll offer you my hand, but you won’t make it down the aisle with me, Sabine. That doesn’t have to reach anyone else’s ears, though.”

“It would buy time.” She nodded. “If she and the council assume I’ve brokered a deal to the king of Norvalla, it would stop them from pushing the matter for a while.”

“We’ll play the fucking game, but if you fuck over me or anyone I care about, I won’t hesitate to end you.”

“I’m aware of your ability to follow through on that, Knox.” She swallowed audibly, leaking fear from her pores. Smiling tightly, I flicked my gaze to Brander.

“Discuss it and let me know what you decide,” I stated, moving back inside.

If Aria was a Prometheus, it changed everything. It also begged the question of which one had survived the massacre? It wasn’t the king because he was the first to be punished in Hecate’s initial attack.

If King Tirsynth’s son was Aria’s father, then he’d more than likely know exactly what he’d been creating when he’d impregnated Aurora. Whether Aurora had been stupid enough to seek the fallen heir and breed with him depended on how desperate she’d been after betraying her mother. Considering that Hecate witches turned to extremes when scared, and I was betting Aurora was a fair bit more than scared, it wasn’t unfathomable that she’d taken that risk.

Chapter Forty-Two

Aria

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