Page 42 of King of Flames and Shadows

Every line of her body radiates her hatred, the fierce defiance I first saw in her eyes the night she arrived in Millrath. She’s still that same girl. Even now, her resistance is a pulsing force that I can feel in the marrow of my bones.

“Come forward,” I command, my voice echoing through the silence.

For a moment, she doesn’t move, her chin lifting a fraction higher, her eyes narrowing. Her defiance is infuriating. And exhilarating.

But then, slowly, she steps forward, her bare feet whispering against the cold stone, her movements tense. Her gaze locks with mine, dark and unyielding. I can feel the surgeof her anger. It’s a fury that electrifies the air, that threatens to ignite the very room around us.

“Good,” I murmur, not breaking her gaze as I extend a hand toward her.

She doesn’t take it. She looks at my outstretched hand, her lip curling in barely concealed disdain.

“I will never be yours, Arvoren,” she says, her voice steady, cold, defiance woven through every word.

“Is that so?” I step closer, letting my hand fall back to my side. “The ritual will decide that, Calliope.”

Varya moves beside me and begins the ceremonial words, first invoking Kaelith, God of marriage, then Iepehin for the castle and city, as tradition demands. The mixing of these Gods' blessings is intended to strengthen both bloodline and bond—though looking at Varya's face, I can tell she believes this union will please neither deity. Her voice is low and rhythmic, filling the sanctum with an ancient language that feels as much a part of this place as the stone itself. I focus on Calliope, feeling the pulse of magic thickening in the air, binding us in its threads. I can see her resisting it, every inch of her tense and unyielding. I wonder how long she’ll last before she breaks beneath it.

“You must speak your vows, then join hands,” Varya instructs, her voice calm and unshaken.

For a brief, thrilling moment, Calliope’s eyes flash. I know she’s weighing whether to bolt, to throw herself through the glass of this place and fall to her doom in the choppy waters far below if it means escape.

But she doesn’t. She just stands before me, and if I knew her even a little less than I do, I might have been foolish enough to believe she has been broken.

Of course, she hasn’t been. Not yet.

“Speak your vows,” Varya instructs.

I don’t take my eyes off Calliope. “From this night onward, you are mine, bound by blood and magic, your will entwined with my own. By the power of this ritual, I claim you as my queen. To rule by my side, to share in the legacy of Kaldoria until death takes one of us from this world.”

The words are harsh and cold, but there’s a promise woven into them, a promise that even I feel echoing within me. Does she feel it, too? Does it mean a single thing to her?

Varya turns to Calliope, her voice gentle but unyielding. “Your vows, Lady Calliope.”

Calliope holds my gaze, her expression hard, mouth set in a line of defiance.

“No.” It’s not a surprise. Her voice is low but certain, vibrating with the depth of her anger. “I won’t bind myself to you. I won’t be your queen.”

For a heartbeat, the room falls silent, her words echoing, defying the very walls of the sanctum. A ripple of shock passes through those assembled, even Varya’s composure faltering as she looks to me, awaiting my response.

“Vows or no,” I say eventually. A vow of its own. “Vows or no, Calliope.”

I reach to take her hands in mine.

The moment our skin touches, the world explodes.

Chapter 18 - Calliope

The moment our skin meets, it’s as though the entire world fractures. The earth beneath us shudders, and with a sudden, violent force, power explodes from somewhere deep within me, raw and untamed.

Later, I know, I will not remember how any of this happened.

The sanctum’s walls of glass shiver, tremble, then shatter outward in a rain of gleaming shards. The light of a hundred flames flickers and dies as the glass catches the moonlight, each shard reflecting a thousand fractured, whirling pieces of the same moment, suspended in a storm of glinting edges. The fragments cut through the air, glittering with an otherworldly sharpness, their edges catching the light in jagged arcs as they spin and dance through the chaos.

The space erupts around me, raw energy tearing through everything. Cracks race outward from my feet, splintering the marble floor into jagged shards that jut out at sharp angles. All around us, the priestesses fall where they stand, crumpling onto the fractured stone, their ritual vessels shattering on impact and spilling dark oils that stain the marble.

Shards of glass whirl like a deadly storm, refracting fractured moonlight, while thick smoke and dust fill the air in an eerie, suffocating haze. Chunks of stone rain down as the sanctum’s walls fracture, flames flickering among the debris. Every symbol of power, every ancient marking, lies twisted and broken, shattered as thoroughly as the ceremony meant to bind me.

For an endless second, I feel suspended, as if floating in the center of a void of light and sound. My vision bleeds to white, the world silent, and everything—walls, floor, sky—falls away.

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