Chapter 95 Scent blood

Chapter 95 Scent blood

The temporary victory at the canyon path had left a bitter, metallic taste in the air. We had returned to the Citadel under a dark cloud of heavy silence, the unconscious body of Julian carried by four elite guards down into the high-security cells beneath the inner keep. The vanguard was broken, but the winter solstice was still breathing down our necks, and the violet ring around the twin moons was growing wider and more distinct by the hour.

Kael had barely touched his throne since we stepped back inside the gates. He stood by the massive arched windows of the Grand Council Chamber, his hands clasped behind his back, his obsidian armor throwing long, jagged shadows against the tapestries. Through our blood-bond, the golden highway between us was tightly wound, vibrating with an intense, overprotective paranoia that made my own skin prickle.

"The border wards are holding, Kael," I said softly, stepping up beside him.

My movement was slower now. The accelerated second trimester was heavy, a tight, solid curve beneath my velvet robe that seemed to change by the day. Inside, the twins were incredibly still, their two tiny hummingbird heartbeats resting like a quiet, concentrated core of raw power against my spine.

"They are holding on the surface, Aria," Kael murmured, his deep, velvet voice rough with exhaustion. He didn't look at me, his mismatched gold and emerald eyes scanning the snow-covered peaks of the northern ridge. "But my father’s ghost did not come to that pass to lose. He used Julian’s flesh to scan the frequency of my blood-seals. He knows how I think. He knows how I build my walls."

Before I could reach out to touch his arm, the heavy bronze doors of the chamber burst open.
Commander Kenneth stepped into the room, his silver armor dented from the battlefield, his face completely drained of color. He dropped to one knee, his hand trembling as he held up a small, cracked communication crystal—a royal distress relic that only the northernmost perimeter scouts carried.

"High Sovereign," Kenneth rasped, his voice tight with panic. "The Frost-Spire outpost has just sent an absolute distress signal. The northern border line is collapsing. The scouts report a massive, concentrated concentration of shadow-eclipse magic tearing through the northern valley gates. They are calling for the Sovereign's direct intervention. If the northern ridge falls, the East will have a clear, unhindered drop straight into our lower town."

Kael froze. The temperature in the room instantly plummeted into a sub-zero freeze, a thin layer of white frost crystalizing over the stone floorboards.

A false signal, a sudden, sharp instinct screamed inside my mind, the silver Sage rune on the back of my hand flaring with a brief, warning heat.

"Kael, wait," I said, grabbing his arm, my fingers digging into the cool leather of his tunic. "It’s too perfectly timed. The vanguard just retreated. Why would they hit the northern ridge now?"

Kael turned his head to look down at me, his golden eye blazing with a sudden, wild desperation. Through the bond, I felt the brutal, agonizing whiplash of his protective instinct. He was a king who had spent five centuries answering every threat with absolute, personal slaughter.

The thought of an army breaching his northern ridge and slaughtering the people he had sworn to protect was a trigger he couldn't ignore.
"If the northern valley gates fall, Aria, the mountain itself will slide into the town," Kael whispered, his voice shaking with a terrifying weight. He reached down, his large hands framing my face with a desperate, breathless tightness. "I must go. Kenneth will split the reserve legion. Twenty guards will remain locked inside the master suite with you, under a direct blood-lock. I will blur-step to the ridge, crush the breach, and return before the moons cross the meridian."

"Kael—"

"Promise me you will not leave the inner sanctum," he commanded, his emerald eye swirling with a volatile, defensive dark magic that left no room for argument. "Promise me, Aria."
"I promise," I murmured, leaning up to press a quick, desperate kiss to his cold lips, tasting the faint, familiar hint of cedar and winter rain.

In a fraction of a millisecond, Kael vanished from the room. The sudden vacuum of his departure left the velvet curtains rattling against the stone, and the heavy golden highway of our bond stretched thin, pulling across the miles until it was a faint, tense wire hum in the back of my skull.

Two hours later, the master suite felt less like a sanctuary and more like an obsidian cage.
The twenty elite guards Kael had left behind stood like silver statues in the corridor outside, their heavy broadswords drawn, their gold and emerald eyes scanning the shadows. Inside the rooms, the silence was suffocating. The only sound was the crackling of the wood fire in the hearth and the quiet, steady scratching of Elara’s mortar and pestle as she prepared a soothing lavender tonic to help me rest.
"You should lie down, My Queen," Elara said softly, her pale face full of concern as she looked up from her small wooden table near the balcony doors. "The High Sovereign will be back soon. The northern scouts are resilient."

"I can't sleep, Elara," I said, pacing the length of the room, my hand resting protectively over the tight curve of my stomach.

The silver Sage rune on my hand wasn't dimming anymore. It was humming, a low, continuous vibration that felt like a localized fever beneath my skin. The twins inside me were completely quiet, but it wasn't a peaceful sleep. It felt like they were holding their breath, their preternatural instincts waiting for a drop in the ambient pressure.
I walked over to the back corner of the suite, pushing open the glass panels that led into the small, private greenhouse—a beautiful, stone-rimmed conservatory Kael had built for me, filled with rare winter roses and soft pink blossoms that thrived on the residual heat of the castle's volcanic pipes. The air inside the greenhouse was warm and damp, smelling heavily of sweet earth and crushed petals.
"Elara, bring the tonic in here," I called out, leaning against the central stone fountain, looking out through the glass panes at the falling snow. "The air is clearer."
"Right away, My Queen," Elara murmured, her footsteps soft against the stone tiles as she carried the silver chalice into the greenhouse.
But as she stepped through the glass doors, the light in the master bedroom behind her didn't just flicker—it died completely.
The roaring fire in the hearth was extinguished in a single, sudden second, replaced by a thick, heavy silence that made the tiny hairs on my neck stand up. Outside in the corridor, the rhythmic, heavy clanging of the elite guards' silver armor didn't sound. There were no shouts. No blades clashing.
Only twenty consecutive, wet thuds against the stone floorboards.
The twenty elite guards hadn't even had time to raise their swords. They were dead before they could breathe.
The silver chalice slipped from Elara’s fingers, clattering loudly against the greenhouse tiles as the pale purple tonic spilled into the cracks. Her eyes went wide with an absolute, primitive terror, her lips parting to scream as a sudden, thick wall of ancient, rotten cedar musk flooded into the warm conservatory.
The false distress signal hadn't been an attack on the ridge. It had been a clearing of the board. The assassination squad of the Eastern Coven had just bypassed the mountain wards using a dark blood-ritual, and Kael was miles away in the dark.