The ironwood desk groans under the sudden, uncontrolled spike of my magic. The power bleeding from my skin is no longer the cold, calculated pressure of a warlord. It is a feral, catastrophic ruin.
"Zhetrin."
The voice feels entirely distant, drowned out by the roaring sound of my own failure. The massive desk bows under the invisible weight, the dark timber splintering under the pressure. Shadows lengthen across the floor, swallowing the room in darkness.
"Zhetrin, look at me."
Small, scalding hands clamp onto either side of my jaw.
The physical contact strikes a violent jolt against the freezing void of my magic, forcing my gaze downward.
Standing on the chair and leaning over the ruined desk, her fingers press firmly against my skin. Her wide amber eyes remain entirely devoid of the fear she should possess while occupying the epicenter of a Khuzuth warlord’s wrath.
"You did not write these ledgers." Her voice cuts clearly through the deafening hum of the shattering room. "You did not know. I see that."
"I enforced his laws." A demonic, overlapping vibration replaces my voice, shaking her small frame. "I built my empire upon the blood he spilled."
"Then tear it down." Her thumbs press harder against my cheekbones, physically anchoring me to the world, dragging my focus away from the abyss. "You hold the gold. You command the legions. Varynth is hiding behind the ancestral seal because he knows you have the power to break him."
The fierce, unyielding lines of her face paralyze me. She is entirely mortal. A single surge of my unrestrained power could turn her to dust, yet she holds my jaw as if she is the one tethering the mountain to the earth.
The feral, blinding rage in my chest cools, hardening into a sharp, calculated weapon.
Reaching up, my hands wrap securely over her delicate wrists. I do not push her away. I let the frantic warmth of her pulse steady the violent static of my magic. The trembling in the walls ceases. The remaining glass settles.
"The Patriarch will call these tomes a forgery." My mind rapidly accelerates, running through strategies. "He controls the High Assembly. If I present these ledgers to the neutral lords, Varynth will claim I manufactured the treason to steal the Patriarch seat."
"Then we force the neutral lords to verify the ink." She refuses to break the physical connection of her gaze. "They carry truth-glasses to detect forgery, do they not? We just have to ensure the ledger makes it to the floor."
Releasing her wrists, I step back from the ruined desk. The master of the estate—the cold strategist of the Undercity—is dead. Varynth killed him when he drafted these tallies.
"I will not simply steal his seat." The vow binds itself to the silence of the room like a blood-oath. "I will cleanse this house of his filth. I will tear the ancestral palace down from the inside out, and I will leave his rotting head upon the High Council floor."
13
MEGAN
The deep breaths tearing through my chest are the only sound left in the ruined study.
Crushing the splintered glass of the alchemy lamps into fine powder beneath his boots, Zhetrin abandons the desk. He stalks to the cracked windows, his broad back rigid. His body eclipses the ambient glow, the weight of the Patriarch's slaughter settling physically upon his shoulders as he surveys the foul expanse of the Undercity.
A sharp, biting guilt twists beneath my ribs, anchoring my focus to the ancient, iron-clasped tome resting between us.
I brought the proof of his Patriarch’s treason into his sanctuary, forcing a dark elf warlord to face the rotting foundation of his empire. Navigating the jagged shards of glass, my bare feet carry me around the dense ironwood desk. I halt just behind the sweeping hem of his black leather coat.
"I accused you without knowing the sum of the truth. I am sorry."
"Leave me, Megan." The dismissal carries a hollow resonance, his back remaining turned. "The darkness in this room is my own. You do not need to stand in it."
"I am already standing in it." Closing the distance, I wrap my fingers around the thick, cold leather of his sleeve. "Zhetrin."
He turns. The freezing, unbothered facade of the High Sovereign is gone, entirely consumed by a feral, chaotic intensity burning in his silver gaze.
"You were right to question my honor." The baritone drops into a solemn, vibrating vow as his large hands swallow mine completely. "Do not ever tone down your mind to accommodate the pride of my caste. Do not dim your light to survive my shadows. You will speak your thoughts. You will read the ledgers. I will listen to you, Megan. Not as a ward. As my equal."
The word strikes the air like a ringing anvil.
"We are tied together in this war." I refuse to break eye contact. "For my entire life, the streets taught me my fate was a fixed tally. I was meant to starve in the alleys. But meeting you... you gave me the power to change the fate of my people. I choose to stand by you."
