Page 81 of Rhapsody of Ruin
A shift in the shadows at the corner of the chamber caught my gaze. Maelith stood there, the Shadow Counselor, silent as stone, black staff in hand. His eyes were unreadable. He had heard every word. He did not move to stop Iriel. He did not move at all.
Perhaps he knew this moment was already written. Perhaps he wanted it so.
I shivered, though the water was hot. “Guard him,” I said weakly, my voice directed at Maelith. “Even if he damns us all.”
Maelith’s mouth moved just enough to form one word. “Always.”
I closed my eyes.
My last strength was not for my son, nor my counselor, nor the vault. It was for the Shroud. I lifted my hands, let the steam curl through my fingers, and whispered the final rite. Old words. Forbidden words. They cut my tongue as I spoke them, sharp as glass. My veins lit, every nerve set alight as if molten silver poured through me.
The chamber trembled. The pools glowed brighter. Outside, the Shroud steadied, its trembling pause stretching into something firmer, like a wound sutured, if not healed.
My lungs seized. My vision narrowed. Still, I whispered until the last word burned through me and left me hollow.
The Shroud sang once, low and terrible, and fell silent.
Iriel leaned closer, his face unreadable. The glamour was gone. He let me see him as he was, my son, my heir, the boy I had once cradled in these arms now limp against the water.
I searched for grief in his eyes. There was none. Only calculation.
My chest collapsed inward. The steam thickened, black at the edges.
“Iriel,” I tried to say, but the sound came as nothing but a breath.
He reached out and closed my eyes with his fingers. Not gently. Not cruelly. Simply… as if sealing a ledger.
When I was gone, the glamour around him shimmered once more, and I felt in the fading pulse of my heart what he meant to do: wear another man’s skin, wear another man’s power, until even the world mistook him for rightful.
He rose, tall and sure, already regarding the vault with a hunger that could swallow kingdoms.
And when he turned, for the first time in my reign, my son’s face carried no mask, no softness, and no tears.
The Queen of Lunareth was dead.
The heir of Lunareth had already decided what to resurrect.
Chapter 37
Rhydor
The solar smelled of ash and oil, the remnants of half-burned candles and the steel polish Thariac never seemed to wash from his gloves. The narrow chamber had been a map room once, its walls painted with constellations of ink-stained stars. Now every surface was scarred from my pacing, boot leather against stone, impatience digging grooves into the floor.
I braced my hands against the long table, its lacquer chipped from years of planning wars that never stayed finished. Torian hovered at my shoulder, steady as always, his quill scratching notes into a slim ledger as if a plan could be bound into parchment alone. The other veterans filled the shadows beyond, their presence grounding me more than I would admit aloud.
“We are outnumbered.” Thariac’s growl was low, meant to scrape against nerves and force a man to react. His shoulders looked broader than the room deserved, his jaw set like the anvil he trained his soldiers on. “This is not a battlefield, Highness. It is a nest. You don’t beat a nest of hornets by standing still in it.”
I straightened, letting the silence stretch until the steam from the braziers coiled between us like smoke ready to choke.
“You forget,” I said, my voice a controlled rasp, “that a dragon doesn’t always burn what threatens him. Sometimes, he teaches it to bow.”
Torian lifted his eyes at that, approving, though the corner of his mouth twitched as if he doubted how far I would carry the metaphor.
“Perimeter,” I told him. “Hold the galleries. If the Masks advance from the left, you call retreat. If they advance from the right, you buy me seconds, no more. Seconds are all I need.”
He dipped his quill, wrote the instructions down as though one day we might survive long enough for someone else to read them.
I turned to the veterans. “Brenn, distract. You know their fondness for humor. Use it. Trip them in their own arrogance.”
