This chapter includes toxic intimacy, explicit sexual content, emotional breakdowns, and psychological trauma. Please read with care.
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POV: Alaric
The wine decanter shattered against the wall.
Alaric stood in the center of his study, chest heaving, surrounded by the wreckage of his own rage. Broken glass glittered across the carpet. A portrait lay face-down on the floor, its frame cracked where he'd ripped it from the wall. Papers scattered everywhere, some already soaking up the wine that spread across the stones.
Imperial guards stood outside every door, every window, every gate, and he was trapped under house arrest like someone who no longer mattered to anyone.
He grabbed another glass from the shelf and hurled it into the flames. The crystal exploded and sparks flew upward, but he didn't feel better. Nothing made him feel better anymore.
It had been three days since the signing, three days since Seraphina had stood in Eleanor's chamber and signed away their marriage like it meant nothing, three days since Thalion's words had carved themselves into his skull.
You had her. You had a woman who loved you, who would have forgiven almost anything, who spent eighteen months trying to make your marriage work. And you threw her away for a manipulator who saw you as a stepping stone. You didn't cherish her. You didn't protect her. You didn't even see her.
The Crown Prince had leaned closer then, his voice quiet and lethal.
Now you'll watch someone else do what you never could. And you'll spend the rest of your life knowing you had everything and destroyed it yourself.
The memory made his jaw clench until his teeth ached. He kept replaying it, kept torturing himself with the moment Thalion had stepped between them. The way Seraphina had looked at him afterward, with nothing in her eyes except cold dismissal.
She used to look at him differently.
He remembered their wedding night, the way she'd trembled with hope when he touched her. And that night three weeks ago, when she'd finally responded to him without reservation. He'd let himself believe she was coming back to him.
All of it had been lies, calculated and strategic, designed to buy her time while she planned his destruction.
Even knowing that, he couldn't stop thinking about her. The curve of her neck. The sound of his name on her lips. Why hadn't he cherished what was right in front of him? Why had he always been reaching for Evelyne's sharp edges when Seraphina's softness was waiting for him to notice?
He'd built everything around her and hadn't even realized it. The marriage, the political alliances, the path to power that required a D'Lorien bloodline to legitimize his ambitions. Eighteen months of careful planning, eighteen months of shaping her into what he needed while ignoring what she actually was.
All of it was gone now, destroyed in the span of a single audience with the Empress.
And the worst part, the part that kept him pacing this ruined study at all hours, was that she'd done it deliberately. Every soft word in her letters during those weeks apart, every tender touch that night she'd finally let him close, every promise of devotion whispered against his skin.
She hadn't been manipulated or coerced. She'd been hunting him all along.
He'd used his bloodline gift to search her mind that day in the garden, the ability that let him sense when someone's thoughts had been tampered with. He'd been certain he'd find evidence of external influence.
He'd found nothing. Just Seraphina making her own choices with clear eyes and deliberate intent.
The door opened without a knock.
Evelyne stood in the doorway, and for a moment Alaric didn't recognize her. The polished woman in silk and jewels was gone. The woman before him wore simple dark wool, her hair pulled back severely, exhaustion visible in the dark circles under her eyes.
She carried a leather satchel pressed against her chest like something precious or dangerous.
"I told you not to come." His voice came out rougher than intended. The memory of their last encounter still burned, her kneeling on wine-stained silk, him telling her to get up with disgust thick in his voice.
"I know." She stepped inside and closed the door behind her, moving carefully over the broken glass. "But something happened. Something that changes everything."
"Nothing changes anything. We're finished, both of us."
"Three days ago, the night of your signing, someone contacted me." Evelyne moved closer, her eyes scanning the destruction around them before settling on his face. "Someone who knew things they shouldn't know. About your family. About the Celestine bloodline. About a century of arrangements that put you exactly where you are."
Alaric went still.
"They told me your marriage wasn't your idea, not really." Her voice dropped lower, conspiratorial. "Your family was guided toward the D'Lorien match by people who've been watching the Celestine bloodline for generations, containing it and controlling it and making sure their women never awakened to whatever power they're supposed to have."
"Who are they?"
"I don't know their names. I met their intermediary yesterday, a man with no house colors and no sigil. He gave me something." She opened the satchel and withdrew three glass vials filled with dark liquid that seemed to pulse with its own heartbeat, thick and wrong in ways that made his skin crawl. "And this."
A sealed envelope, heavy cream paper with no markings.
Alaric stared at the vials. The liquid inside was too dark to be wine and too thick to be ink. Something about it made the air feel heavier.
"What is that?"
"Ritual components for the Wound of Othren."
His blood went cold.
The Wound of Othren. His grandfather's artifact, sealed away in the family vault for three generations. Alaric had been twelve when his grandfather showed him the vault's location and made him memorize the blood-locks and wards. The old man's hands had trembled as he'd pointed to the sealed chamber.
Never touch it, his grandfather had warned. It consumed more than it gave. I sealed it away so no Vessant would ever be tempted again.
But it was his mother's words that echoed louder now. She'd held his face in her hands the night before she died, her eyes bright with something he hadn't wanted to understand at the time.
Only in the direst moment, she'd whispered. Only if all hope dies. Then, and only then, release the blood.
He'd dismissed it then as the ravings of a dying woman. She'd been dead within the week, taken by a fever that came too quickly and killed too cleanly. The physicians had called it natural. The household had mourned. And Alaric had buried those words somewhere deep, a secret instruction he'd never expected to need.
Now here he stood, surrounded by the wreckage of everything he'd built, and his mother's voice rang clearer than it had in years.
"How do they know about that?" His throat felt tight.
"They know everything." Evelyne set the vials on his desk. "They've been watching noble houses for a century, guiding bloodlines and removing threats. They say the Wound of Othren can disrupt magical wards, corrupt protective barriers, and turn allies against each other. The effect spreads over two days, and by the time anyone realizes what's happening, it's too late."
"My grandfather said it was dangerous, that it demanded more than it gave."
"Your grandfather also died powerless and forgotten." Her voice sharpened with something like desperation. "Are you going to be like him, cautious and remembered by no one? Or are you going to take back what she stole from you?"
The words hit exactly where she intended.
Alaric picked up one of the vials. The liquid inside seemed to press against the glass, and it felt warm in his palm despite the cold of the room.
"What do they want in return?"
"They want Seraphina stopped. Whatever she's becoming, whatever power she's awakening, it threatens everything they've built." Evelyne stepped closer, close enough that he could smell the jasmine she always wore. "They don't care how we do it. They just want it done."
He should be suspicious and should question why anyone would help him now that he'd lost everything. He should wonder what price they'd eventually demand for this convenient assistance.
But the rage was too hot and the humiliation too fresh. Somewhere beneath both, a darker hunger stirred: the desperate need to matter again.
"There's more." Evelyne's smile returned, sharp and familiar despite her haggard appearance. "They have someone inside the palace. Close enough to know Eleanor's movements, her priorities, where her attention is focused."
Alaric's attention sharpened despite himself.
"Right now the Empress is consumed with her investigation. Protecting Seraphina. Building cases against our allies." Evelyne leaned closer, her breath warm against his jaw. "But if something happened to throw the palace into chaos, to force Eleanor to deal with a crisis that demanded all her attention..."
"Seraphina loses her protection." He finished the thought, seeing the shape of it now.
"Eleanor can't shield your precious wife if the palace is burning around her. And without imperial protection, Seraphina becomes vulnerable again." Evelyne's eyes glittered. "Exposed. Alone. Exactly the way she left you."
Alaric looked at the woman before him. A week ago he'd thrown her out with disgust. Now she stood in his ruined study offering him exactly what he wanted most: a way to make Seraphina pay.
"Tell me I still matter." Her voice dropped, suddenly raw beneath the calculation. "Tell me we still matter. That everything we built wasn't for nothing."
He saw it then, the desperation beneath her sharp edges. She'd been alone for a week now, cast out by him and ruined by the gala. Her family had stopped answering her letters. They were both broken and hungry for something to hold onto.
"You're not worthless." The words landed low and quiet, more exhale than actual sentence. They felt foreign in his mouth, too soft and too late for someone like him. "You're the only one who didn't give up on me."
Evelyne didn't let him finish. She surged forward and kissed him hard, unforgiving, tasting like alcohol and unfinished sobs. She shoved him back into the desk with her hips already grinding against his belt, her breath shallow and urgent as she clawed at his collar.
"This isn't real," he muttered into her mouth.
"I don't care." Her hands yanked his shirt open and buttons scattered across the floor. "Lie to me."
His mouth caught hers again, hot and open and reckless. One hand gripped her jaw while the other twisted into her hair. The kiss turned feral and she bit down. He groaned into it with one knee parting her legs as she backed him into the desk and climbed onto it, dragging him between her thighs.
Glass clinked under them as he swept vials aside. Ink spilled across parchment. He pushed her back flat without gentleness or care, his hands already shoving up her skirt, fingers slipping beneath fabric, feeling how wet she already was.
She gasped from the pressure more than pain. Her thighs locked around his waist and dragged him in. He freed himself just enough, then thrust into her in one long brutal stroke.
Evelyne choked on her own cry.
There was no rhythm at first. Just noise and skin on skin and breath caught in throats and the scrape of her boots against the desk's edge. Her hips bucked up to meet every drive of his body like she believed that moving faster would make it feel less like surrender.
"Say it again," she whispered with her voice frayed at the edges. "Say I matter."
"You matter." His voice cracked as he said it. "Right now you fucking do."
She clenched around him with nails digging into his shoulders. Every thrust landed rough and deep, every pull of her hips dragging him back in harder. He fucked her like he wanted to forget himself inside her. She held on like she wanted him to ruin her completely. He hated how much he needed this. Hated her. Hated himself more.
The desk creaked beneath them. Ink stained her thigh. His teeth sank into her shoulder because he needed to anchor himself to something real.
Her hand covered his cheek and pulled him back to her mouth. The kiss was messier now, all spit and teeth and noise. She moaned into him loud and unashamed, her legs trembling as she came around him, her body locking down with a desperate rhythm.
He chased the high of her unraveling, hips stuttering, jaw clenched tight as he poured himself into her with a final guttural sound somewhere between a name and a curse.
They collapsed together with skin slick and breath uneven and bodies still pressed tight. The fire had burned low, throwing shadows across the desk and the wreckage of what they'd just done.
Evelyne's hand slid down to the edge of the table with her fingers trailing through the spilled ink.
"This didn't fix anything," she whispered.
Alaric didn't answer. He just stayed inside her, still hard, still breathing like it hurt to stop.
"The instructions are in the envelope." Evelyne's voice came soft against his chest. "They promise no cost and no consequence, just power."
He reached for the sealed letter, breaking the wax with his thumb.
The handwriting inside was precise and unfamiliar. It described the activation ritual in clinical detail: where to pour the vials, what words to speak, how long to wait before the effect spread through the palace wards. Nothing about sacrifice. Nothing about what the artifact truly demanded.
Your grandfather sealed this away because he wasn't ready to pay what it demanded, the letter concluded. You are different. You understand that some prices are worth paying. The components have been provided. The ritual has been simplified. All that remains is your will to act.
No cost and no consequence. Just power.
His mother's voice echoed in his memory: Only in the direst moment. Only if all hope dies.
Hope was dead. Seraphina had killed it in Eleanor's chamber with a signature and a cold smile.
"What does it say?" Evelyne traced patterns on his chest with one finger.
"Tonight I go to the Vault of Ash and Echo." He folded the letter carefully. "Tonight I retrieve the Wound of Othren."
"And then?"
"And then we burn her world down together."
She smiled against his skin, satisfied and sharp.
The door closed behind her minutes later.
Alaric stood alone in his ruined study, surrounded by broken glass and scattered papers. Three vials of dark liquid sat on his desk, pulsing with power he didn't understand.
His grandfather had been afraid of the Wound of Othren. His mother had told him to use it only when hope died.
But neither of them had faced what he faced now. Neither of them had watched everything they built crumble while the woman who destroyed them walked free under Crown protection.
The letter promised power without price. His mother's words promised salvation in the darkest moment. And Alaric, desperate and blind with rage, believed both.