Page 123 of The Nymph King

Doubt did not change why she had brought Saevel here. Whatever kind of king he became, he was not Kiran. Imani had spent too long watching her heartmate gather a kingdom, power, and creatures beneath him to believe Niflheim would ever be enough. As far as she understood it, Kiran wanted Essenheim next. He wanted her beside him, her Crown of Life tied to his rule, and eventually every kingdom in the Mesial Realm answering to no authority but his own.

Saevel might prove dangerous or cruel. But he had a legitimate claim to the Throne of Destruction, one kingdom, and a heartmate standing beside him. Imani could work with that. What she could not tolerate was leaving Kiran in possession of Niflheim long enough to turn its power against Essenheim and call the conquest love.

Saevel looked at the Throne, nearly crushing his wand in his fist.

The Throne reacted at once, its dark surface catching light in a new pattern, faint lines of power moving across it in response to his proximity.

Saevel bared his teeth, then walked forward, and the room moved with him—High Sentinels and nobles shifting in their seats, the dragon’s head tracking his approach, the Throne’s dark surface catching light differently with every step he closed between himself and it.

“You sit on a stolen seat, brother,” he announced, flipping his wand up and pointing it at Kiran. “After you killed our father, you put on a glamoured crown that was never yours to claim. I am now the king of this kingdom, and you are nothing but a usurper clinging to power you do not understand.”

“Prove it,” Kiran demanded with a crazed look in his eye.

“Father has been having me prove it for years. I sealed the river oaths with Niflheim in the lower vault, a place where the stone drinks what is given and remembers it,” Saevel said. “I’ve always been the Heir Apparent, you sniveling snake, and the Throne of Destruction answers to blood, not force. It binds to the line, not to theft.”

The obsidian surface of the Throne pulsed again as he spoke, faint currents of power moving in response, visible to every witness. “You forced your way into it,” Saevel added. “You carved your claim into flesh and called it rule. But the Throne does not forget its king.”

At those words, Imani understood exactly what Saevel’s existence meant for her. Kiran had counterfeited the Throne’s obedience. She had not, but authenticity and rightful inheritance were not the same thing, and the crown growing from her own skull could no longer protect her from that truth.

Nausea continued pitching in her stomach.

Chairs scraped against stone as some High Sentinels stood while others leaned forward, their attention swinging between the Throne and the man now standing before it, uncertainty breaking through in visible waves.

The dragon moved next, its massive head turning fully toward Saevel, body adjusting with a low rumble in its throat.

Voices rose again, low at first, then louder, splitting into competing lines as factions formed in real time; some looked to Kiran for direction, while others watched Saevel, mouths agape, waiting for confirmation. Faint pulses of power moved unevenly around them.

And then the Throne answered.

CHAPTER 38

Kiran’s mouth curved in knowing satisfaction as the chamber’s uproar fell into silence.

“Did you really think I didn’t see this coming?” Kiran’s taunt echoed across the stone. Tightening his fingers around his bone wand, he rolled his shoulders, loosening as raw power gathered in his pulsating magic signature.

“I knew you’d go looking for him,” he continued, casting a fleeting, sidelong look toward Imani.

The glance made Imani acutely aware of the person who was not standing beside her. Ellisar remained in Essenheim because she had left him there to hold the kingdom while she crossed into Niflheim. Bringing both rulers into Kiran’s territory at once would have left everything they had just reclaimed vulnerable. She had known that when they separated. Right now, with Kiran and Saevel preparing to tear the Throne room apart, she still felt his absence.

“I knew you wouldn’t leave him buried where he belonged.” Kiran’s wild gaze snapped back to Saevel, his expression hardening into a cold and lethal stare. He took another step. “So, I let you.” A beat. “I wanted this room full. I wanted witnesses.” He shifted his weight, ready to attack. “When I end him,” he said, his voice dropping to a heavy, final register, “there won’t be a single soul questioning who their king is.”

Energy violently ruptured through the chamber as both men lunged, thrusting their wands toward the obsidian Throne.

The ancient structure answered in visible, concussive pulses that drove outward, rippling across the floor and climbing the walls. Jagged lines of light spiderwebbed to the Throne’s surface, splitting and converging as two opposing claims tore at its ancient magic. With tremendous force, the division’s impact pressed into the room, and stone cracked beneath the dais, the fissures spreading as pressure built with nowhere to vent. Their magic signatures collided, and waves of blistering heat rolled through the chamber as the competing forces deadlocked.

Magic roiled through the room as both men fought the Throne’s magic, wrenching its power and trying to force it to their wills. Arc after arc of stray energy struck the floor in hard bursts, splitting stone and carving jagged scars into the pillars.

“You feel it, don’t you?” Saevel’s voice cut through the deafening clash, punctuated by another massive surge. “It answers me.”

The Throne answered again before Kiran could reply. Light raced through the jagged lines already burning across the obsidian and surged toward Saevel, feeding directly into his wand without resistance. The force drove outward from him hard enough to fracture another strip of stone beneath his boots, yet none of it turned against him.

“You’re forcing it,” Kiran shot back, redirecting a lethal strike. “You always did mistake brute strength for magical finesse.”

But Kiran twisted his spell. He dragged the edge of his bone wand across his palm, opening the flesh, then pressed his blood into the spell. Imani understood flesh magic. It probably let him treat his own body as a conduit, forcing a false pathway between his magic signature and the Throne where the monarch’s natural connection should have been. The spell let him seize part of the power moving through it and redirect it before it could fully reach Saevel. It gave him control over smaller portions of the Throne’s power, compressed into faster, more precise attacks.

Kiran had to keep forcing the connection every second it remained open, though. He drew from the Throne through blood and flesh, building the stolen power into precise, targeted strikes that slashed easily toward Saevel.

“I took what you never had the will to hold,” Kiran sneered, driving a focused burst forward that sheared the very air between them.