Page 6 of The Crimson Walls Of Algorath

Markus Harlow, Princeps of Valenul, did not look at her. He did not so much as acknowledge her pleas—the same words she had used to sway him after the duel. Nor, though, did he give his General leave to cut open her husband’s throat. Rather, he stared at the dhemon before him with a vacant expression. What thoughts and memories swirled behind his golden eyes?

One, she knew, was of a young boy with black hair and his mother’s green eyes. A young boy who called him Father despite knowing his mother’s lies. A young boy General Harlow had tried to kill, only to be saved by a dhemon—the Crowe.

When at last he spoke, the two words left on a breath: “Arrest him.”

“No!” The fire built in her veins, and Nikolai lifted her, scrambling to reach Azriel, off her feet. Imprisonment meant being under Loren’s watch. It meant nights of agony. The sound of a whip and the clanking of chains.

Somewhere beyond her screams, her father gave a second command to lock her away. At that, Azriel surged forward with a roar. Whether from her cries or the threat of their separation, she did not know. She did not care. All she knew was that he would fight.

And so would she.

She kicked and twisted, but Nikolai held firm. He hauled her backward to the stairs so she could see as the soldiers surged forward, surrounding Azriel and cutting off her view of him. He roared again, and a soldier’s scream sputtered short as blood rained from his gaping neck. The second soldier’s arm broke in Azriel’s hand.

Then, someone took hold of his black horns, and he disappeared beneath the sea of crimson cloaks. At first, a deafening silence descended. Her heart thundered in her ears as fear sank its vicious claws into her gut. They would not kill him. Not without permission from their Princeps.

Right?

When the soldiers peeled away, she understood why Azriel no longer struggled. A wide, metal collar wrapped around his neck and pulsed with a low, iridescent light. His body hunched, rigid and bound by an ancient fae magic woven into the iron.

There was a time, not too long ago, that Ariadne would have cowered at such a sight. Blood coated the dhemon’s mouth, and those red eyes seemed to glow as they swiveled to bore into her. Pleading. His lips parted with unspoken words.

What did he want to say? All she wanted to hear were the words he had spoken in the carriage: Until the very end, my love. It felt so long ago now.

“My Lord,” Loren said, “it may be dangerous to keep him alive. I must insist—”

Her father shook his head and held up a hand. “I have questions for him first.”

First. For a word meant for beginnings, it felt so final. It tore through Ariadne’s heart with a promise. A promise that, once those questions were answered, Azriel would be of no more use to him. A promise that Loren would get what he had wanted for so long: Azriel’s death.

“Very well.” Loren nodded to the soldiers, who attached a long chain to the fae collar. “Take him away.”

Ariadne lurched forward again, and Nikolai grunted at the sudden momentum. He steadied himself with a hissed curse before taking another step upstairs. She swung her elbow around, connecting with his temple, and shoved a hand into the pocket of her dress. The split, hidden inside the skirt, gave access to the dagger on her thigh—even if she still could not wield it with much dexterity.

“You have ruined everything,” Ariadne snarled and pulled the blade free. Though both her father and Loren looked up at her, she did not know to whom she spoke. They were equally at fault. “After everything he has done for me? I hate you.”

Unlike when she had uttered the words to Azriel mere weeks ago upon her discovery of his dhemon blood, she meant it now. Neither Caersan at the foot of the stairs had done in a year what her husband succeeded in a fraction of the time. Where they ignored and belittled her, treated her like a fragile doll and lost their tempers, Azriel did the opposite. He listened and heard her words. He acknowledged her past without making her feel lesser for it, and when it threatened to shatter her into a million pieces, he reminded her of her strength. Her fortitude. Her worth. And he had never, not even as her villain so long ago, laid a hand on her with the intention of causing pain.

Azriel, once the catalyst of her nightmares, had long since become the architect of her dreams.

“You are the true monsters.” Ariadne twisted in Nikolai’s hold and shoved the dagger into the Captain’s thigh. His shriek of surprised pain echoed through the foyer.

Below, Azriel lurched back as the soldiers tugged him away. He watched her in wide-eyed shock from the open doors, a twin to the expression painted on her father’s face. Nikolai released her when his leg gave out, and she ripped the blade free before rushing down the stairs, reaching for her husband.

Halfway across the foyer, a strong arm wrapped around her waist and gripped her wrist—hard. With a yank and twist, the hilt slipped from her grip, and Loren growled in her ear, “I tried to warn you, Miss Harlow. Now you will watch him hang at my side like a good little wife.”

Ariadne writhed against him. Above the heads of the soldiers, a vicious snarl put Azriel’s wickedly sharp teeth on display, but his body locked up again as he tried to move back to her. Hot tears of heartbreak and frustration ran down her face. “Let me go!”

“General,” her father said behind them, “release my daughter.”

The strong arms slipped away, and she stumbled before falling hard to her knees. “Of course, Princeps.”

“I will never forgive you,” she breathed as Azriel disappeared behind the prison wagon doors again, head ducking low to avoid hitting the roof with his massive horns. Her fingers curled in her lap, and she imagined picking up that dagger to shove it into Loren’s heartless chest.

“Excuse me?” Her father’s low rumble, closer now, pushed through the pounding in her ears.

“I hate you both.” Ariadne pushed to her feet, eyes trained on the wagon as it started down the estate drive. “I hate you, and I will never forgive you.”

With that, she picked up her skirts, and turning back to the stairs only when the soldiers were out of sight, shoved past both Caersan men. Emillie stood at the top, face pale and hand gripping the railing hard. Ariadne’s heart cracked again, a fresh wave of tears rolling down her cheeks, as she hurried to her old rooms on the second floor—the suite she had once abandoned and now sought for the strange comfort of terrifying memories.

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