(ZETULAH POV)
The dagger doesn't plunge in—not yet.
I feel it kiss my spine. Cold. Deliberate. The traitor's breath trembles just behind me. My body stills, every nerve pulled taut like bowstring.
One blink. One breath. One misstep—
Gone.
But the strike never comes.
Only silence.
Golden eyes, masked in shadows, hold me in their gaze. Not anger. Not cruelty. Calculation.
"House Moriba never plays just one side of the board," they whisper—voice too warm, too close.
I smirk. Let them taste the steel in me.
"Then tell me… what do they gain from my death?"
My voice is slow ice—meant to slice.
The dagger lingers against skin, teasing the future.
"Not your death, Princess," they breathe.
Then—like smoke—it's gone.
Not an attack.
A message.
A warning carved in restraint.
Moriba doesn't want me dead.
They want me bent. Useful. Bound by invisible thread.
---
(KAELITH POV)
The throne room reeks—scorched velvet, blood, broken crowns.
I stand above the ruin of a man.
King Ragnis—my father—sprawled in a mess of shattered armor and extinguished pride. The sword that pierced his heart still drips with what remains of him.
It should feel like victory.
Instead, it feels cold.
The doors behind me groan open.
"So," Lady Syrene's voice coils through the air like perfume, "the boy becomes a king."
She steps into the light, her smile full of secrets.
"And yet," she muses, circling his corpse, "your father wouldn't have fallen so easily."
I tighten my grip on the blade—his blade—now mine.
"Are you testing me, Syrene?"
She kneels, shockingly soft.
"Long live the King of Ashes."
Ashes.
Not flame.
Not fire.
Ashes.
The crown burns colder than the blade.
---
(ZETULAH POV)
The battlefield stinks of sweat, steel, and shattered honor.
I stand firm.
The Moriban traitor watches me—those golden eyes like traps.
"House Moriba does not make mistakes," they say, voice laced with poison sugar.
"Then what is this?" I demand. "A mistake? Or another poisoned gambit?"
Their lips curl.
"A bargain."
The word tastes wrong in the air.
Moriba doesn't bargain. They bind.
"Your kingdom will fall without us," they say. "We can ensure it survives."
"And what's your price?"
But I already know.
"You will kneel before Moriba."
I looked at the soldiers trying to understand what's going on, "why are they always asking for my loyalty? what's so special about a princess whose house is on the brink of extinction."
The silence stretches like a blade.
Let them think I'm weighing it. Let them hope.
"I'll consider it."
They nod once.
"Wise choice, Princess."
Then they vanish—smoke, shadow, arrogance.
My hands don't shake from fear.
They shake from fury.
This war is no longer about land or blood.
It's about power.
Control.
Leverage.
And I refuse to be their pawn.
—
(KAELITH POV)
The Shadow Council chamber reeks of mold and memory.
Stone walls sweat secrets.
I descend into the pit my father once ruled from—his last throne. The one he feared more than fire.
They wait—hooded figures. Silent. Ancient. Watching.
One speaks, voice silk-draped rot:
"You've taken the throne. But a king is only as strong as the hands that crown him."
Another leans forward:
"We offer what your father accepted. Power. Loyalty. Obedience."
My voice slices clean.
"And what's your demand?
A chuckle slithers along stone.
"Only your obedience, Your Majesty."
"I am not my father's puppet."
The oldest voice rasps like bones on wind:
"That's what your father said, too."
My grip tightens on my sword.
I thought I'd burned the chains when I killed him.
Turns out—they were only waiting for a new wrist.
—
(ZETULAH POV)
Midnight leaks across the horizon, painting the world in bruised blue and blood rust.
I walk the battlefield alone.
Ash and bone crack under my boots. The wounded groan in rows—some breathing. Others gone.
My second-in-command finds me beneath a dying tree. Dented armor. Eyes too old for his years.
"They've pulled back. Emberclaw regroups. They'll return."
I stare at the distant ridge.
They're there. Watching.
Not just Emberclaw.
Moriba.
Waiting to see if I break.
Waiting to see if I kneel.
I won't.
I'd rather be devoured by wolves than serve serpents.
"If I fall," I whisper, "I fall fighting."
---
(KAELITH POV)
The obsidian throne feels like a blade in my spine.
I sit. Alone.
The crown presses down—not gold, but ghosts.
Lady Syrene waits by the door. Silent. Still.
Above me—behind curtains, inside walls, in breathless alcoves—the Council watches.
They wear the palace like a mask.
Rule it like a theater.
Pretend it's mine.
The sword at my hip—his sword—is still warm.
The same one that gutted my father.
Sometimes I wonder:
Will it one day be used on me?
Not by enemies.
Not by war.
But by the ones who call me King.