The links grated softly against the polished-bone frame as I tugged, testing the limits. They didn't budge. My stomach still protested the impalement, a dull throb beneath the luxurious silk sheets, but the wound was already a tight, thin line. Karnal's magic, no doubt. Annoying. And efficient. Just like everything else he did. A low growl rumbled nearby, pulling my gaze across the chamber. Plush rugs the color of dried blood absorbed all sound. Walls of shimmering, dark metal rose to meet a vaulted ceiling, painted with constellations I didn’t recognize, lit by a soft, internal glow that cast no shadows. Every surface gleamed. Every object was exquisitely crafted, rare and intimidating. It was a fortress disguised as a boudoir, an obscenely comfortable prison. My retirement had arrived, wrapped in gilded shackles and velvet. Just not the one I’d planned.
A soft click echoed through the room. The impossibly thick obsidian door, inlaid with pulsing runes of power, hissed open. Karnal stood there, a silhouette against a backdrop of what looked like a newly constructed, fortified sky-bridge spanning a dizzying void. He was taller, broader, if that were possible. His ash-skin seemed to drink the light, making him appear carved from shadow. His eyes, though, were a stark, unsettling red. They landed on me, a possessive heat that made the hair on my arms prickle.
“Awake,” he rumbled, his voice a deep thrum that resonated through the room, somehow bypassing my eardrums and settling directly in my bones. He took a step, then another, until he loomed over the bed. The chains, for all their ornate beauty, suddenly felt flimsy beneath his gaze. “You rest. You heal.”
I raised an eyebrow, a flicker of my old cynicism returning. “Resting is difficult when one is literally tethered to their bed like a prize war-beast. And healing is rather fast-tracked when someone has, say, bonded their life-force to yours.”
He chuckled, a soft, dangerous sound. “A minor inconvenience. For your safety.” He reached out, his calloused thumb brushing lightly over the auric cuff on my wrist. The metal felt impossibly cold beneath his touch. “No one will ever harm you again.”
Before I could retort, another figure appeared in the doorway, hesitant and stiff. Bhavar. He wore the formal robes of his sword-sect, now dyed a stark, uncompromising black. The haughty swagger was gone, replaced by a wary deference, especially as his eyes darted to Karnal. He still carried his ancestral blade, but it seemed to weigh heavier on him now.
“Sovereign,” Bhavar said, bowing deeply to Karnal, his voice tight. Then he looked at me, jaw stiffening as his gaze settled on my bonds. “Tavira. I… pay my respects. My sect stands with you both.”
I gave him a wry smile. “Bhavar. New robes suit you. I assume your ‘respected elders’ are no longer a concern?”
“They are… interred,” he stated flatly, avoiding Karnal’s gaze. “Their treason was irrefutable. My apologies, Tavira, that it took so long for me to see the rot.” He cleared his throat. “Nalumi… she fled. They say she took passage on a Leviathan-back merchant vessel, heading for the Uncharted Shard-Isles. As far from Oravas as one can get.”
Good for her. The original heroine got her happy ending, far away from the monster I’d made. My monster.
“The Crown… what of it?” I asked, pushing aside the thought of Nalumi.
Bhavar’s expression grew even more strained. “The Crown no longer exists. The capital fell three days ago. Sovereign Karnal has… unified Oravas. Under his banner.” He risked a glance at Karnal, then quickly looked away. “The ancient power structures, the clans, the Imperial Guard… all dismantled. The leviathan pathways are under his sole command. There is no one left to challenge him. Or you.”
My blood curse had demanded I dismantle one clan. Karnal had dismantled an entire empire. To protect me. To keep me. The sheer scale of his obsession was suffocating. This wasn’t a retirement. This was the ultimate gilded cage. My cynical, pragmatic mind kicked in. I had to push him away. He was a completed asset. A danger, now, to my very autonomy.
I met Karnal’s piercing red gaze, forcing my voice to be cold, clinical. “Well, Karnal. It seems your purpose is complete. The Varnak clan is annihilated. My name is cleared. Oravas is… unified, I suppose. You’ve done what was asked of you. You are… a remarkably effective tool. I commend your efficiency.”
His eyes narrowed, not in anger, but in something far more unsettling. He didn't even flinch. Bhavar, however, audibly flinched, taking a nervous step back towards the door.
Karnal took another step, pressing closer to the bed, his shadow falling over me. “Tool?” he murmured, his voice a low growl that vibrated through the air. “Is that what you truly believe? After all this?” His hand, impossibly gentle, cupped my jaw. His thumb traced the line of my cheekbone, prickling like ozone against my skin. “You treat everyone as temporary, disposable. A means to an end. But you created me. Shaped me with your own blood, your own cynical commands. I am not a temporary asset, Tavira. I am *yours*.”
My throat tightened. I opened my mouth to snap back, to remind him of my detachment, my carefully constructed walls. But the words died on my lips. He leaned in, his gaze burning into mine, and then his mouth was on mine.
It held no tenderness. It was a claiming. A deep, consuming kiss that tasted of blood and ash and power. A primal force that demanded a response. My mind screamed at me to fight, to push him away, to maintain my cynical distance. My body, traitorously, arched into him. My bound hands, useless, still twitched with the desperate urge to grasp, to cling. The carefully constructed armor I’d worn for so long, the one that kept me safe from caring, from feeling, from *being trapped*, began to crack.
He pulled back, his lips stained a faint red, his gaze blazing with triumph. “You cannot push me away, Tavira,” he rasped. “Not anymore. You are mine. And I am yours. Forever.” He leaned down, brushing his lips against my ear, his final words a promise, a vow, and an inescapable truth. “And you will never, ever escape my protection.”
The gilded cage had closed. And for the first time in this cursed world, I felt a treacherous flicker of something beyond dread. I was the warlord’s pampered, eternally captive queen. And perhaps, a tiny, defiant part of me thought, an early retirement chained to a monster was hardly the worst fate after all. I just hoped the food was good.