The throne room loomed ahead, its tall doors of silverwood carved with twisting vines. Two guards stepped forward.
“No one enters,” one barked as they all halted before them. “By order of both kings.”
For a tense heartbeat, no one moved. Draevyn’s jaw locked, and he highly considered turning everyone in the room to ash and bursting though the fucking door himself.
“This is Prince Draevyn Rowe,” one of the guards announced, stepping forward. “Blood of the fallen king of Lephyrin, brother and advisor to the newly crowned shadow-born king himself.”
The stationed guard looked him over again, now slower and more measured. “Now tell me, then… are you here as your king’s advisor, or hisPhoenix?”
“That depends entirely on you and whether or not you decide to make this difficult.”
Everyone went still, his threat lingering between them all.
“Orders are clear. Not even royal blood may enter without summons.” The guard took another step into him. “And if you dare threaten anyone else in this palace, you will find that your nightmares will never leave you again.”
Too bad this fool didn’t know Draevyn had been living in his worst nightmare for weeks at this point.
“I won’t be barred from my brother and king,” he said, voice low and cold. “Not by steel, not by magic, and certainly not byyou.”
“Captain,” Sam warned.
Draevyn’s jaw ticked as he peered over his shoulder at him. “I arrived as the advisor,” he started, his eyes slowly finding their way back to the males guarding the door, “but if they want me to leave as thePhoenix, then who am I to deny them? They’re separating me from my king. The choice is simply theirs.”
He let every ounce of his aggravation bleed into the words as they hung in the air.
“You will face the wrath of your king,” one of the male’s said.
Draevyn smirked. “I’ll take my chances.”
The guards hesitated. A flicker of unease danced between them as uncertainty sharpened the lines around their mouths. One looked to the escorting guards as if waiting for them to rebuke him, but no one moved or uttered a word.
Then slowly, with obvious reluctance, the guards turned back and allowed the doors to creak open.
Draevyn’s pulse was deafening in his ears. How would Atlas react when he saw him? They were in a foreign kingdom after all, and he wouldn’t have a say in punishment. If the elvens found out he entered under false pretenses, they could hold him as a prisoner.
The moment the doors parted and Draevyn stepped into the throne room, the air shifted. Conversation halted, heads turned, and an eerie silence filled the room. All eyes snapped to him and the two men at his back.
The sudden attention pressed in like a vice, but he barely registered it. All thoughts evaporated from his mind, because just ahead, at the far end of the throne room, was Esmyra.
And she was beingdraggedaway.
Two guards gripped her arms, her bare, bloodied feet smearing the marble as they pulled. Her hair was wild, her clothes torn, and her wrists cuffed in what he could only assume was velsinyte. She lifted her stare as he entered, and her eyes grew wide as they locked with his. Her mouth fell open, confusion creeping across her features as if she couldn’t tell if he was real or not.
And then the guards pulled her through the farthest archway, out of sight.
Gone. Esmyra was there and fucking vanished before he could move.
Draevyn froze, his heart slamming against his ribs so hard it made his breath catch. His stomach twisted violently, his vision tunneling. He forced his hands to remain at his sides as they ached to burst with flames, and it took everything in him not to lunge across the room.
His jaw clenched. His face—he didn’t even know what expression it wore. Rage? Terror? Shock? He prayed it was blank, remaining neutral and guarded like the Phoenix.
He knew it wasn’t.
“…Draevyn?”
The word was soft, disbelieving even.
Draevyn’s gaze remained locked on the small trail of blood thatled toward where she was taken before he lifted his eyes to meet his brother’s. Atlas stood beside the elven king in the center of the room, eyes wide. The look on his face wasn’t malicious or calculating.
