Chapter 20 20
RONAN'S POV
The pack bonds exploded with the emergency call, frantic and desperate. Another scout of mine who’d been keeping an eye on elaris had sent word that something was awry, he could feel the wrongness spreading out in the Fae kingdom like a plague.
I jumped out of bed without clothes and stank my way through the woods to the great hall. My pack soldiers were already mustering, senseing that urgency in our link and standing at the ready to respond against whatever force that had made itself known.
"Report!" I snapped at the scout who issued the warning.
“The Fae capital is being assaulted,” he gasped. "But not from outside forces. The attackers are Fae, shipping like they're puppets. And..." he hesitated. "I can feel the Oracle Queen. She's there, and she's terrified."’
My wolf rejoiced within me, itchy and ready to move on to our mate. But I had to use my brain and be strategic. If Kael's court was breached, if the infection the child spoke of had spread, we required greater numbers than my pack.
Without thinking, I sent a wave across the connections with the other kings, our shared line to Aria. "Draven. Lucien. We have a situation in Elaris. Kael’s court is a fortress under siege from within.”
Draven's response was immediate. "The infection?"
"Most likely. And Aria is there for the trial.”
"We're coming," Lucien said. "Twenty minutes."
"Make it ten," I growled. “I am sending in my fastest runners. Follow as soon as you can."
I didn't wait for confirmation. I selected my finest warriors— those who could run as fast as me, and we took off. Across the forests of Lyra and over into Elaris where the trees grew queer and crystalline. Each minute seemed to drag on for hours, my wolf howling for our mate, and knowing that she was in danger.
And, when we finally exploded into the capital, the carnage was even more hideous than I’d imagined. Warriors of the Fae with the black eyes killed everyone and all who remained loyal. The shadow dripped from them like blood, as if it would seep into and pollute anything in its path. And all along, in the middle of it somewhere, I was aware of Aria through the bond, her place searing my mind.
"Hold the infected at bay," I commanded my warriors. ‘CIRCLE THEM,’: Don’t let them spread to the rest of the city. Kill only if you must."
My pack shifted into practiced efficiency, forming a living wall around the tainted Fae. There were good at what they did, and I could trust them to hold the line while I located Aria.
I pursued the bond, running down crystal hallways that convoluted and contorted as though they were reacting to the turmoil. Up spiraling stairs, past gardens that had begun to rot with corruption of shadow until I was inside a chamber vibrating with power.
Alongside the barred doors, fae magic trapped the room from within, but I had stopped giving a damn about property. I converted and pushed with all my weight on the doors. They flew apart in a shower of crystal fragments.
What I found inside was nightmare come to life.
Kael was at the center of it, darkness billowing from him like smoke. The eyes were fully black by now, his handsome face warped by whatever darkness was inside of him. The room was coming alive in his fears and darkest dreams. Chimaer snatched glimpses of Aria dying in dozens of different fashions, the realms burning, himself standing victorious over the other kings’ corpses.
And there was Aria, standing near to him with the Luminous Blade alight in her hands, attempting to beat back the darkness with pure light.
"Ronan!" she cried when she saw me. "Help me! The infection is consuming him!"
I transformed back into human and made an ultra-fast estimate. The infection was severe, had probably been festering for days or weeks in Kael’s body without his knowledge. And the Fifth King was using Kael’s guilt and jealousy as a ball-and-chain, same as he’d done in their previous life.
"What do we need to do?" I looked at her, stepping to Aria's side.
“I’ve been attempting to burn it out with divine light,” she said, breathing heavily from the effort. "But it's not enough. The infection is too strong, the alignment too deeply entrenched.”
Kael chuckled, but the sound was false and distorted by harmonics that screamed pain. "You can't rescue me, little goddess. I am lost. Just as I had always been intended to be lost. “You were wrong,” the Fifth King said, revealing to me that I am not good enough for you--that I never was.
“That’s the infection talking,” Aria shot back. “The Kael that is in there, he’s fighting. I can sense him through the connection.\\"
She was right. Underneath all the corruption I could feel Kael ' s presence, fighting helplessly against the darkness. He was giving it everything, but not enough.
Suddenly I had an insane and desperate idea, one that might be our only hope. "Aria, keep the light going. Push as hard as you can."
"What are you doing?"
I didn't answer. Instead, I bit into my own wrist and rent flesh with my fangs until it poured blood freely. Lycan blood, filled with the power of pack bonds, the strongest connection my kind understood.
"Kael!" I called out, a walking service even as the shadows fought to drive me a step back.” "I know you're in there. I know you're fighting. And I’m going to give you the energy to win.
I touched my own wrist to Kael’s bleeding mouth and held it down. He struggled against it, the infection sensed the danger but Aria's light kept him in place for just long enough to gulp him down.
The impact was as immediate as it was dramatic.
Kael shook and his back arched as two types of magic battled within him. That sensation filled with magical energies, deep and primal, ancient to the bone as it coursed through him. And shadow infection, scrambling to keep a grip.
The pack magic hadn't worked with her manipulation of shadow. It was about connection, fitting in, family ties that could not be perverted. And when Kael’s body sipped in my blood, I felt something fit into its place.
A new bond. And not just through Aria, but between Kael and I. All of a sudden, I could hear his emotions just as clearly as my own pack's. His terror, his guilt, his desperate wish not to hurt anyone. And, beneath it all, the will to fight back.
"Resist it," I ordered, pouring strength into the new connection. "You're pack now, Kael. And pack never leaves their own.”
"Kael," he screamed, and it was his own voice once more, not in layers the corruption. The shades cringed, repulsed by the mingled source of light and pack magic. They withdrew to his extremities, then began fading altogether.
Finally, it was over. The darkness vanished and Kael crumpled to the floor. I got him before he fell all the way down, and eased him to the floor. His eyes had regained their green, wide and conscious and appalled.
"What... what happened?" he gasped. “I recall the darkness, I remember the battle, but it’s all splintered.
"You were exposed," Aria said, crouching beside me. The Luminous Blade was gone, dismissed after the immediate danger had passed. "But we got it out. You're okay now."
"Am I?" Kael’s gaze shifted to me, and I could see the realization seeping into his eyes. "I can feel you. Your emotions, your location. What did you do?"
"Gave you my blood," I said. "Formed a pack bond. It was the only way to combat the infection.”
"But pack bonds are for life," Kael sat up carefully. "We're connected now. For life."
“Well, yeah,” I said, embarrassed by the level of intimacy but not irked in any way by my choice. “Better online than dead or corrupted.
The doors erupted inwards and there came Draven, Lucien and their men. They met the gaze, the fading shadows, Kael’s worn but alert expression.
"What happened?" Draven demanded.
I gave her a brief summary of the infection, and how we solved the pack bond thing, how it had worked but it had been at an extreme cost by binding Kael and I together in some twisted way.
“If a pack bond can wage war against the infection,” Lucien scraped out, “then perhaps that is our solution. For all of us."
"What are you suggesting?" I then ventured to ask, though I fancied that I knew.
"That being a true pack," said Lucien. But not to Aria, but to each other. Stand as one rather than the arrogant four kings that just so happen have a mate in common.
"That's insane," Kael said. "We've been enemies for centuries. The thought of being that closely connected, of experiencing each other’s emotions all the time..."
“Just what we need to offset the Fifth King’s tricks,” Draven concluded. “He pits us against each other. “If we take those divisions completely off the map, then we take his greatest advantage away from him.”
I glanced at each one, and saw their unwillingness and fear as well as the desperation of hopefulness. We were running out of time and the blood moon happened in only three days.
"I'm willing," I said. “If it helps keep Aria, help keep all of us safe, I will pack bond with you all.”
“I am too,” Draven offered after a moment.
"Fuck it," Lucien added. "What's one more impossible thing?"
Kael was silent for a long time, obviously feeling the shift of our new bond, getting what it would mean to extend that out to the others. Finally, he nodded. "Alright. We do this. We become a pack."
We never even got to the point where we contemplated how we might actually make them break those bonds — the sound of breaking glass filled the air before that. We all looked over at the crystal coffin in which the child – brought to Elaris for safety – began to fragment.
Cracks ran up and down its body, flickering with internal light. And then it broke, shattering into pieces of crystal that cascaded to the ground. But the child, instead of being there, was a burst of light.
It was the child's voice, and it seemed to dart into all our brains at once without simmering outside our ears. "Three days until the blood moon. The Fifth King€™️s supreme powers will be reactivated. Mother, you need to pass all four trials by then or the weapons won't respond when you need them most.”
"We know that," Aria said. "That's why we're doing them."
"But be warned," the child went on, its voice thick with sadness. “The final trial will require a sacrifice. A king of yours needs to die by your hand, or the weapon will shun you and the 5th King get your soul.”
Horror washed over all of us. One of us had to die? Killed by Aria herself?
"No," Aria said immediately. "I won't do it. There has to be another way."
“The trial is old, subject to laws older than the realms. They're not subject to alteration, or evasion.” The light was dimming even now and the child was thinning away. "I'm sorry, Mother. I wish there was another way. But the choice will be yours: kill one to save many, or deny and destroy all."
As the light finally left us, words appeared in the air, written through letters that looked as if they burned into place: ‘The traitor is closer than you think. Trust no one. Not even yourselves."
Then, the child was gone entirely, with only its cryptic warning remaining behind in the air.
I glanced at the others, saw my own horror mirrored in their expressions. One of us would have to die. And Aria would have to be the one to murder them.
The question was: who among us would be prepared to make that sacrifice?