Chapter 40 The shattered flame
"The soldiers call them the Ghost Raiders. They strike at night and vanish before dawn. They don't take prisoners. They don't negotiate. They don't leave survivors." Aldric's voice was steady, but his hands were shaking. "We lost thirty-two men in my last engagement. Thirty-two. And we never saw what we were fighting. Not clearly. Just... shadows. And teeth."
"Shadows," I repeated. "Like shadow-creatures from Hel?"
"Maybe. I don't know. They move like shadows but they kill like beasts. The soldiers say they came from the mountains. From the old caves. From the places that used to belong to Hel before the Sundered Gate."
Cardan stood abruptly. He walked to the window, his back to both of us.
"How long has this been going on?"
"Over a year, Your Majesty. Maybe longer."
"And the reports I received said 'minor skirmishes.'"
Aldric was silent.
"Who ordered the reports sanitized?" Cardan's voice was dangerously quiet. "Who told you to lie to your king?"
"I—" Aldric swallowed. "I don't know who gave the initial order. But it came through Lord Castellan's office. And Princess Elowyn's. They said the King didn't need to be burdened with unecessary details. They said the situation was being handled."
"And is it? Being handled?"
Aldric didn't answer. He didn't need to.
Cardan turned back to face us. His silver eyes were blazing with a fury I had never seen before, not the cold, controlled anger he wielded in council meetings, but something raw. Something wounded.
"I have been lied to," he said. "By my own advisors. By my own sister. For over a year."
"Your Majesty," Aldric said, "the Princess Elowyn believed she was protecting you. She believed the situation could be contained. The northern situation is... complicated. There are political considerations. The treaty with Hel. The..."
"The treaty with Hel has nothing to do with the northern border."
"It might," I said quietly.
Both men turned to look at me.
"The northern mountains used to be part of Hel," I continued. "Before the Sundered Gate. Before the treaty. If something from the old days is waking up, if there are creatures in those mountains that haven't been seen for centuries... we need to know what they are and why they're attacking now."
Cardan studied me. "You think this is connected to the Oath?"
"I think we need more information. Why are the fae rebels using these creatures to fight? Captain Aldric." I turned to him. "If I asked you to provide a full, unabridged report of everything you saw on the northern border, every detail, every engagement, every creature, would you do it?"
Aldric looked at Cardan.
"Do as the Queen says," Cardan said. "No more lies. No more sanitized reports. I want the truth. All of it."
"Yes, Your Majesty." Aldric bowed. "I'll have the report on your desk by tomorrow."
\---
After Aldric left, Cardan stood by the window for a long time.
I watched him. The rigid line of his shoulders. The way his hands gripped the windowsill. The muscle beneath his left eye, twitching and twitching.
"You didn't know," I said finally.
"I should have." His voice was rough. "I'm the King. I should have known."
"You trusted the people around you. That's not a weakness."
"It is when they betray that trust." He turned to face me. "Elowyn. Castellan. Percival. How many other Lords are lying to me? How many of my advisors have been lying to me while the kingdom crumbles?"
"I don't know."
"My father always said ruling was lonely. I didn't understand what he meant until now." His silver eyes met mine. "You're the only one who's been honest with me. The only one who told me the truth even when I didn't want to hear it."
"I'm your wife. That's supposed to be my job."
"It's everyone's job. You're the only one doing it."
The vulnerability in his voice caught me off guard. He looked less like a king in that moment and more like a man, lost, betrayed, trying desperately to hold together a kingdom that was falling apart.
"Then let me help you," I said. "Let me investigate the northern situation. Let me find out what's really happening up there. My people have contacts in the old territories. If there are creatures from Hel involved, I might be able to identify them."
"You don't have to do that."
"I know. I'm offering."
He studied me for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded.
"Thank you," he said. "For the truth. For the help. For..." He trailed off.
"For what?"
"For still being here. After everything. After the way I treated you." He stepped closer. "I don't deserve your help."
"Probably not," I agreed. "But you have it anyway."
The ghost of a smile flickered across his face. "You're very bad for my ego."
"Someone needs to be."
He laughed, soft, surprised, real. It was the first time I had seen him laugh and it warmed my heart. He was laughing.
\-----------------------------
Three days after Captain Aldric's testimony, the sacred flame went out.
I was in the library when it happened. I had been there for hours, surrounded by old maps of the northern territories and crumbling histories of the Sundered Gate, searching for any mention of the creatures Aldric had described. My eyes were burning. My back ached. Ash had long since given up on me and was dozing on a pile of scrolls, his tail twitching in his sleep. I was surprised he had even lasted that long.
Then the bells began to toll.
Not the celebratory peal of a wedding or a coronation. Not the steady rhythm of the hour. This was something else, a deep, mournful clang that echoed through the palace like a death knell.
I looked up. "What is that?"
Liriel appeared in the doorway, her face pale. "The Temple bells, Your Majesty. Something horrible happened at the Grand Temple."
"What kind of something?"
"The sacred flame. It's gone out."
The sacred flame. The eternal fire that burned in the heart of the Grand Temple of Solara, the flame that had been lit four thousand years ago by the first High King of Aurelia, the flame that was never supposed to die. It was the heart of the Aurelian faith. The symbol of the sun's eternal blessing.
If it had gone out...
"Take me there," I said. "Now."
\-——————————————
The Grand Temple was in grand chaos.
Priests and priestesses ran through the corridors, their white robes disheveled, their faces stricken. Courtiers had already begun to gather in the courtyard outside, their whispers rising like a swarm of bees. The High Lords were the, Castellan, Thornwood, Ambrose, Percival, their expressions ranging from shock to barely concealed satisfaction.
And at the center of it all, standing before the cold, dark altar, was Elowyn.
She was dressed in white, her golden hair unbound, her face arranged in an expression of profound grief. When she saw me enter, something flickered in her eyes. Something that looked very much like triumph.
"The Queen Consort has arrived," she announced, her voice carrying through the silent temple. "How convenient."
"What happened?" I demanded.
"The sacred flame has been extinguished." Elowyn gestured to the altar. The great golden brazier that had held the eternal fire for four millennia was dark. Cold. Empty. "It went out an hour ago. The High Priestess is in seclusion, communing with the sun god for guidance. But we already know what happened."
"Do we?"
"The sacred flame does not simply go out. It must be extinguished. Deliberately. By someone who wished to harm this kingdom." She turned to face the gathered crowd. "And earlier this morning, the temple guards found this at the base of the altar."
She held up an object.
It was a pin. An obsidian hair pin, carved with the symbol of the Morrigan bloodline. The silver dragon. The mark of Hel.
My blood went cold.
I recognized that pin. It was one of a set, Vesper had given them to me before my wedding. I had worn them in my hair the night of the engagement party, the night I had lost control of my shadows and terrified the entire court and also on my wedding day.
I hadn't seen them since.