Chapter 117: Chapter 117

For each move I make, a half-breed appears, blocking my path. For each one of them I kill, that blade is pulled out of Valka and pushed in again.

There are moments in one’s life when you come to understand that there are certain things all the power, all the wealth, all the centuries of blood and victory cannot buy.

Moments that humble you, not by weakness, but by the vast impossibilities the universe flings in your face. When you finally understand how small you are. How little control you truly wield. How the strength you have built amounts to nothing when the world decides to take what you love.

I have lived that moment before.

When I felt Ilya die. When Jessa’s laughter was permanently ripped away. When my sisters were slaughtered. When I looked at Evadne and realized the light had gone from them.

I could not save them.

Now, as I watch Valka gasp beneath the blade, I feel that same truth crack through me again.

There are too many of them. And they do not hesitate to die to keep my mate from me. The blood on my hands have begun to feel like hers.

This cannot happen. I cannot lose her again. I cannot lose her, too.

The sound her body makes when steel meets flesh is the undoing of every war I’ve ever won. It is the shattering of empires, of thrones, of gods.

For a heartbeat, I am still the creature the world fears. The air trembles around me. Power surges, snarling to be unleashed. I could end this. I could turn this shore to ruin, drown their screams beneath the tide, turn everything to dust. I could end it.

But the collar on her throat glints silver, and I have felt that metal before. I know the scent of it, the ache of it, remember the way it burned through my veins, how it made the world dim, how it silenced the very marrow that made me divine. It is the kind that festers, that seeps into the blood until the body forgets how to heal.

It was an atrocity. One I believed I had condemned when I ruined their dungeons back then. But I miscalculated. I should’ve known, and now, she suffers for it.

The harder I try, the deeper she bleeds. If I continue in my rage, she dies. If I act out, she dies faster. It is a hellish loop, one made to entertain the King of Silvermoor.

Because he came prepared. I cannot reach into their minds and compel them because they wear silver and ash.

Furthermore, the male holding the sword against Valka’s neck has a madness in his eyes, the sort that does not bluff. He has seen monsters before, has dealt my particular breed of dark. His stance tells me he has trained for this very moment. And when the light catches his skin, I see it. The faint silver hair, the pointed ears.

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There is nothing humane in the way he clutches the blade. Only hatred. Old and deep. There will be no hesitation. He will slit her throat, while the other carves her insides out if I keep fighting.

So I stand there--I, the most powerful creature to ever walk the worlds--force myself to stand still, head hung, chest heaving in rage and a growing despair. I can’t... I can’t do anything? How far have I come in those centuries, how hard have I worked, only to find myself once more in a bind?

My power gathers like a storm and I swallow it down because one wrong breath will end her. Every instinct screams to kill, to tear, to avenge, but the part of me that loves her... the part that remembers her laughter in the dark... keeps me frozen.

Because while I know that they will die when I get my hands on them, I will also fucking die if anything happens to her. And they know this. They know I have allowed myself this one weakness.

"Name your price," I say finally, voice hollow. My throat feels raw, as if I’ve been screaming inside my skull for hours.

Valka gasps, fury flickering through the pain. "Don’t--"

"I imagine you know what happens," Rafael hums, gesturing lazily to the guard who twists the blade deeper into her side. "When silver touches your impure blood." His smile is pure venom. "It sizzles."

Her breath catches on a sharp, strangled sound. The smell of burned flesh hits the air and I lurch forward, but the instant I do, ten bows tilt--not toward me, but toward her.

I falter, hands rising. "Stop."

Rafael’s fingers run down his face as he laughs. "Now, would you look at that. The mighty beast himself. Formidable, they said. A god on the ice, they called you. But you’re no different than every other man." His teeth flash. "A fool you have become, weak for a cunt with pretty blonde hairs. Must be a gilded one if it’s made you so pathetic."

My vision narrows to a tunnel of red. The world trembles on the edge of frost.

"What. Do. You. Want." Each word is harsher than the last, as blood drips from her to the sand below. The ice crawling down my hands fractures uselessly. I feel the echo of her pain through the bond between us, the burn of silver, the poison spreading in her blood.

Rafael cocks his head, smile vanishing as he casts Valka a side-long glance where tears stream down her cheeks, apology shinning in her eyes was her mistake and not mine. "Tell me, Valka, what shall I ask in exchange for your life? His life?"

Her breath hitches, fear leaping into her gaze, because she knows. That if push to came to shove, way before that even, if it was her life or mine, I wouldn’t hesitate before giving mine.

It is fucking admirable. That she is scared for me. Under different circumstances, I might even have butterflies crawling in my belly.

Rafael clicks his tongue and his grey eyes track the tears running down her cheeks with sick glee. "You prided in being mated to the most powerful man alive. A devil, where I was a pup." Another soft laugh. "Let’s see how much he treasures you." His gaze flicks to me. "Kneel, plead for her life, and I might let her go."

That was to be it, then. A humiliation ritual.

My knees find the sand before I even realize I’ve fallen. My palms dig into the grit. I taste salt, and blood, and disgrace. "Please," I hear myself say, raw and foreign.