Chapter 12 The Dungeon Ambush
The torches in the lower corridors burned low, their flames trembling as if the keep itself sensed danger. Lyrathia moved in silence, gliding rather than walking, shadows curling around her ankles like black fog. She hadn’t meant to come here. Not at this hour. Not after the dream still pulsed like a bruise beneath her ribs.
Kael dying in her arms.
Ridiculous. Impossible. The curse should have smothered dreams centuries ago. She shouldn’t have felt anything at all. And yet the phantom warmth of that imagined loss had dragged her from her throne and down into the depths.
The deeper she went, the sharper the unease became — not emotional, but instinctual. Something was wrong.
A flicker of movement. A disturbance in the air.
Lyrathia stilled.
Noise had no place in her dungeon. Not without her permission.
She inhaled slowly. The scent hit her first — blood, human and fresh. But not Kael’s. Another mortal. Several. And something acrid underneath: poisoned steel.
Then came the whisper of blades being drawn.
Lyrathia’s eyes narrowed.
Her guards were stationed above. None should be down here. And certainly none would dare unsheathe a weapon in her presence.
The intruders didn’t know she was here yet.
Perfect.
With a sweep of her hand, the torches extinguished all at once. The dungeon plunged into perfect blackness. Most creatures would have been made helpless by it, but she fed on shadows. She was born in them.
She slipped forward.
Footsteps scraped against stone. Breathing — three, maybe four intruders. Heartbeats thrashing wildly. Mortals, then. But mortals trained for stealth; they moved with discipline, with purpose.
Lyrathia reached the dungeon door just as a voice hissed, “Seal it — quickly! The queen must not—”
She tore the iron door off its hinges.
The intruders froze, their eyes widening at the monstrous silhouette in the doorway. One of them faltered, whispering a doomed prayer.
Lyrathia stepped inside, letting the twisted metal clang against the stone behind her.
“You should have prayed before breaking into my domain,” she said softly.
And then she moved.
Her hand shot out, closing around the throat of the nearest assassin before he could shout. She lifted him effortlessly, his boots kicking against the air, and flung him into the opposite wall. Bone cracked.
The others reacted instantly — these were no common rebels. Their blades were laced with something dark, something that hissed with power the moment it scraped the air. Enchanted steel. Designed to kill vampires.
Designed to kill her.
One lunged for her heart.
Lyrathia vanished.
She reappeared behind him, her fingers slicing through his spine with the ease of tearing parchment.
The third assassin didn’t attack — he ran. Straight for Kael’s cell.
Her vision tunneled.
Not him.
Lyrathia surged forward in a blur, but the assassin reached the barred door first and hurled something inside — a crimson vial. Blood magic. Forbidden. Explosive.
The cell lit with a pulse of red.
Kael jerked awake, instinctively covering his face.
Lyrathia caught the assassin by the back of his collar, slammed his head against the bars, and let his body drop.
Then — she turned toward the cell.
The vial rolled to Kael’s boot, ticking with unstable, pulsing runes.
She moved before thought, before reason, before the curse could reassert itself.
She broke through the bars.
Steel shrieked as she bent them aside with inhuman force. The vial’s glow intensified — one heartbeat, two—
She grabbed it and crushed it in her fist.
The explosion dissolved into a hiss of magic against her skin. It burned — real pain, not the phantom echo she was accustomed to. She inhaled sharply, and Kael’s eyes widened as her palm blistered before healing slowly, too slowly.
“Are you hurt?” she demanded.
His gaze flicked between her hand and her face. “What— what was that?”
“Bloodfire,” she said coldly. “Designed to liquefy you.”
“And you destroyed it with your bare hand?”
“Yes. You're welcome.”
He opened his mouth, probably to argue, but something behind her hissed.
The fourth assassin.
He had slipped behind her, blade raised.
Kael saw him first.
“Behind you!”
She whirled, catching the assassin’s wrist mid-strike. The blade cut her cheek — a shallow line, but she felt it. Felt the sting, the heat, the life of the wound.
Her curse wasn’t blocking sensation anymore.
That realization almost cost her.
The assassin twisted sharply, aiming for Kael this time, but she wrenched him backward, her arm snaking around his throat. She squeezed, just enough to feel his pulse stutter.
“Who sent you?” she asked.
He spat blood at her boots.
“Long live the Silent Heir.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Who?”
He drove his own blade into his chest before she could stop him.
His body slumped to the floor.
Silence pressed in.
Kael stared at the corpses, at the destroyed cell bars, at her burned hand, at her bleeding cheek — all evidence that she had moved for him, fought for him, nearly lost herself for him.
“You… saved my life,” he said quietly.
“Do not mistake it for compassion,” she snapped, breath unsteady. “Your death belongs to me alone.”
He didn’t flinch. “That supposed to make me feel grateful?”
“No,” she said, forcing her voice back to its usual cool detachment. “But it should make you understand something very clearly.”
She stepped closer, shadows licking at her heels like living things.
“Anyone who threatens what is mine dies by my hand.”
He met her gaze — defiant, unyielding, but no longer careless. Something burned in his eyes. Something dangerous. “And am I yours, then?”
A tremor went through her. Imperceptible, she hoped. The curse surged, fighting, cracking, responding too strongly to his presence.
“No,” she said, but the word didn’t sound like truth.
Kael exhaled slowly, the faintest smirk touching his lips. “You broke iron bars for me, Lyrathia.”
She shouldn’t have felt anything when he said her name.
But she did.
The dungeon suddenly felt too small. Too warm. Too alive.
She forced the sensation down. “I acted only because if someone is to kill you, it will not be them.”
“Generous of you.”
“You mistake survival for generosity.” She turned away before he could push further. “I will double the guards. You will not be touched again.”
“By them,” he murmured.
She froze.
He knew exactly how to say things that shook her.
She forced herself to keep walking, her voice cool and sharp like frost. “Rest, warrior. Tomorrow I will learn why assassins want you dead before I do.”
As she left the dungeon, her cheek still thrummed with phantom heat from the shallow cut. Her palm still tingled from the bloodfire’s sting.
And deep inside her, where nothing should have existed anymore, something pulsed.
Something waking.
Something dangerous.
Kael had nearly died — and the thought had terrified her.
That alone made her more vulnerable than any assassin’s blade.
And she hated it.
But she also couldn’t deny the truth.
Lyrathia wanted someone to live.