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Even the pain was better than the paralyzing sense of powerlessness that threatened to consume me.
most. I was a threat to everything he stood for. And still, he had chosen me. Even after the betrayal, after learning my true identity, after every reason I had given him to turn away, he had protected me. He had given me the most dangerous weapon of all. Hope. It flickered inside me, fragile and desperate. A single ember in the darkness.
“I’m here for you, Nyra,” he murmured the only name he had ever known me by. Micah.
I had bled for this rebellion. I had fought for it, killed for it, and now, because I had decided to fight for her, I had become their enemy. But I wouldn’t let them decide my fate for me. I wouldn’t let them decide her fate either.
I feared that I had become the one thing my father always wanted me to be. I was a siphon. I was just like him. I was powerless on my own.
“Let me be clear,” I said, my voice like a whip. “I will choose her over every one of you.”
“I am not an enemy you want, Eiran, but for her, I will become whatever I have to.”
“And all I’m doing is trying to save my mate.” I met him head-on even as murmurs rippled through the council. The word settled hard into the room, and it seemed to draw the very breath from each of their lungs as they stared at me in disbelief. “Mates are from storybooks.” My father cocked his head slightly as if he could see through me, see the lies he believed I told. “And we have grown tired of your lies.” “She is my mate.” I said each word slowly, letting them land as hard as I intended. “She is bound to me as I am bound to her.”
“Because Veyrith was a kingdom of balance. Of magic. Of power. And where there is power, there is always someone who seeks to take it.”
“You are not just the daughter of Marmoris, Verena. You are a daughter of Veyrith, the last daughter, and I bound your power to protect you. I bound your magic so it wouldn’t awaken until you found safety in someone who wanted you to have power, but did not wish to use it.” Dacre.
The prophecy. When shadow swallows the golden throne, And rivers run dry where magic has flown., The cursed shall rise with fate-bound hands, A tethered soul to shifting sands. Born of ruin, blood, and war, Bound to take yet cursed to mourn. The tideborn’s gift, bound in chain, To break the bond or bind again.
“A kingdom torn in blood; a world turned to ash.”
She was caught in a battle between her power and her fear, and all I could do was watch as it tore her apart.
“If any of you lay a single finger on her, I will burn this city to the ground.” And this time, no one doubted that he would.
“She is the tideborn.”
“When shadow swallows the golden throne, and rivers run dry where magic has flown. The cursed shall rise with fate-bound hands, a tethered soul to shifting sands.” Everything inside me stilled. I couldn’t find my breath, couldn’t stop the crushing weight of her words. “Born of ruin, blood, and war, bound to take yet cursed to mourn. The tideborn’s gift, bound in chain, to break the bond or bind again.”
“I want to control it,” I whispered, and I could feel my blood rushing to my face, could hear it in my ears. “Of course I do.” “No.” She shook her head, but her silver eyes didn’t leave me. “You want it to go away.”
“The rest of the kingdom will fall to their knees before you, Verena.” He leaned forward and pressed a kiss just below my belly button before he stared up at me. “But please allow me to be the first.” Another kiss, this time on my right hip bone. “Allow me to show you how you should be worshipped.”
I had spent my entire life running, from my father, from my past, from the power that lived inside me, but not anymore. I wasn’t running. I was his.
“I want you as my wife,” I murmured, my voice hoarse. “Not because it’s expected. Not because of the rebellion. But because I love you. Because we were bound before either of us even understood what it meant. We are bound by fate.”
“A true vow is not just words, my love. It is a tether, a bond as old as the land itself. To speak it with your soul is to be bound, not by laws or men, but by the gods themselves. That is the power of love, it does not bow to kings.”
“It is the only thing that is freely given, and when it is, Dacre, it is the most unbreakable thing in the world.”
These vows, this love, they were the one thing in my life I could freely give. And it belonged to her.
“This was where your mothers knelt side by side,” she whispered, “whispering to gods who had long since turned their backs. This was where they begged for peace, where they mourned the war they could not stop.”
“True mates are rare,” my grandmother murmured, almost to herself. Her fingers ghosted just above Verena’s skin, as if afraid to touch the mark now seared into her flesh. A circular brand of gold ink, the same one forming on my own wrist. “Many claim the bond, but few ever bear the mark.
This was not just a marriage. It was a claiming. A choosing.
And nothing, not fate, not kings, not gods, could take that from us now.
Chapter 18 … 🥵
“You are not just a siphon, Verena.” She took another step forward. “You are not just an heir to a throne.” Her gaze flickered downward to the golden mark on my wrist. “And you are no longer just a girl with power bound inside her.” A chill slithered up my spine. “You have never been powerless, but you have been trapped. But you are free,” she murmured. “The only question now is what you will do with it.”
“She believed in who you would become. She prayed to the old gods and the new, her hopes weaved into every plea, that when her daughter ascended to rule this kingdom, she would do so with a courage that surpassed her own and possess a strength that could bring an entire kingdom to its knees.”
“Then I will fight at your side, Verena. I will fight for you as I once fought for your mother.” She pressed her palm to the cavern floor. “You are not just an heir, not just a warrior.” A whisper of her power rippled through the stone. “You are the last daughter of Veyrith. The next Queen of Marmoris. Then, ever so slowly, she lowered her head. “You are the ruler that will unite us all.”
“I wasn’t just some boy who found you in the streets.” His voice was quieter now, like he was forcing himself to say it out loud. “I wasn’t just your friend.” Something inside me stilled. “What?” Micah hesitated, his fingers twitching at his sides before he let out a slow breath, like he was bracing himself for a blow. “I was meant to protect you, and I failed her.”
“You speak of fate, but both of those mothers are dead. Both of them died at the hands of your father.” My voice was quiet, measured, but the magic inside me was not. “And your hands are clean?” I looked down at his hands before me, and he clamped them into fists. “My father will die for what he’s done.” The words settled into me. They slammed into my chest as I felt the truth of them in my bones. “And what price will you pay?”
“You believe you are the future of this kingdom?” he spat, looking at her as if she weren’t worthy of even sitting in front of him. She didn’t hesitate. It was as if she hadn’t even noticed his anger. “I know I am.”
“No one in this rebellion will follow you, none of them will bow.” Verena only smiled. A slow, lethal thing before her hand slipped out of mine, and she leaned forward until she was only inches away from my father. “Your son already bows for me.”
Daaaamn. Get him girl. Haha
“Your future queen is leaving,” I said firmly, and I felt Verena stiffen beside me. I felt her magic take in my words and slither back as if it, too, were waiting to see what I would do. “Kneel.”
