Princess zetulah viridian POV;
Blood clung to me like a second skin, thick in the choking smoke. It burned my lungs, a reminder that I was still breathing when so many weren't.
Below, Viridian warriors roared, their cheers ricocheting off the valley walls as the last Emberclaw wagon crumbled into embers.
I didn't smile.
This wasn't victory.
This was jabbing a leviathan with a spear.
My hands trembled—slick, sticky. Whose blood? Mine? Theirs? The boy who had stumbled into my blade, eyes wide as winter frost?
No time to tally the dead. No time to scrub my skin raw. War didn't pause for grief. It devoured it.
Solric found me, his sword gleaming too brightly. Relief flickered in his eyes—those sharp green mirrors of my own.
"We did it," he rasped, raw from barking orders.
I stared at the blood drying between my fingers. Liar. Instead, I met his gaze. "We've just given the beast a reason to hunt."
—--
Lady Syrene Moriba lounged like a panther in her gilded hall, sunlight pouring over her. The scroll in her hands might as well have been a child's scribble.
King Ragnis's offer dripped from the parchment: Land. Wealth. Power. All for plunging a dagger into Viridian's back.
Her lips curled. Foxfire glinted in her amber eyes as she tossed the decree into the hearth. Flames devoured the words, their edges curling like pleading hands.
"My lady?" The shadow at her shoulder shifted, voice gravel-rough.
Syrene tilted her head, firelight sharpening the blade of her smile. "Tell our spies in Viridian to plant rumors. Let Emberclaw's king think he's bought me." A beat. "Then burn his counteroffer at the gates."
—----
Prince Kallan Azzuri's breath hung frozen in the air. Below, his warriors moved like wolves—all coiled muscle and bared teeth.
Then the door slammed.
A scout staggered in, frost crusting his lashes. "Emberclaw's torching Moriba lands. Villages. Crops. Everything."
Kallan's hand froze on his sword hilt. Moriba? Ragnis despised Viridian, not—
Oh.
While Syrene played with fire, Kallan was drowning in ice.
The ice-forged walls seemed to lean closer, groaning. This wasn't revenge. It was a gambit. Sacrifice a pawn to corner the queen.
His jaw set. "Sound the horns."
The room bristled.
"We ride before their fires go cold."
Foxwood's golden trees writhed, their bark peeling like scorched flesh.
Prince Kaelith Emberclaw urged his horse forward, jaw locked. The village ahead was a chorus of screams. A woman fell mid-sprint. A child—gods, no older than six—collapsed beside a burning cart.
His soldiers cut through Moriba's defenders like wheat.
Father's orders, he told himself. No choice. No choice. No—
A flicker of gold.
Syrene stood atop the watchtower, untouched. Not fleeing. Not shouting. Just… smirking. As if the carnage were a puppet show staged for her amusement.
A trumpet shrieked.
Arrows blotted the sky.
Fuck.
Azzuri wolves ripped into Emberclaw's ranks, their ice-forged blades shattering steel.
Kallan spotted Kaelith across the chaos—his face ashen, sword arm trembling.
Their eyes met.
A heartbeat. A truce.
Two princes. Two pawns.
Then the battle swallowed them whole.
The raven's message crumpled in my fist. Syrene betrays. Emberclaw burns Moriba.
Why? Why ally with Ragnis only to bait him? Why let her own lands burn?
My hands—still streaked with blood—curled. No more flinching. No more retreating.
Let them come.
Let them learn what happens when prey grows fangs.
"Let them come. I'll carve their names into the dirt myself."
—----------------------
The map bleeds. Not real blood—just ink smears on parchment—but hell if it doesn't feel alive. Red splotches mark villages reduced to ash. Black slashes carve out battlefields we've lost. The world is burning, and I'm standing here holding the match.
Solric waits, solid as a damn boulder in a landslide. "What's our move, Princess?"
I shut my eyes. Just for a heartbeat. Just long enough to see the ghosts.
Strike now? Emberclaw is fractured. Risky. But war isn't won by flinching.
Or align with Syrene? That viper let her own people burn to lick Azzuri's boots. But vipers bite both ways, don't they?
I exhale. The air tastes like iron. "Prep the scouts. I need to know if Kaelith's leading Emberclaw."
Solric stiffens. "Kaelith?"
His doubt cuts deeper than any blade.
I force my voice steady. "If he's there…" If he's still him.
My chest tightens. Kaelith—the boy who swore he'd never become his father. Now wearing that bastard's sigil like a second skin.
Blood drips from Kallan's blade, slow and thick. Torchlight glints off steel as he cleans it, each stroke deliberate. The Ice Hall is so quiet you could hear a snowflake land.
A scout kneels, breath fogging the air. "Moriba didn't send reinforcements. The battle—it was a test."
Kallan laughs, sharp as a shard of ice. "Syrene's playing both sides."
His sword slams into the table. Wood splinters, the crack echoing through the hall.
"She let Emberclaw torch her lands to play martyr," he mutters.
Sirius steps forward, his face like weathered stone. "If the Viridian princess has half a brain, she's marching here."
Kallan's eyes narrow. Blue as glacier cracks.
"Then we'll be waiting."
—---
Syrene trails a finger along the rim of her wineglass. Firelight licks the gold threads in her gown, turning her into something molten. Dangerous.
The spy kneels, trembling. Hooded. Pitiful.
"You didn't kill her."
"She's guarded like a relic, my lady."
Syrene's laugh is smoke—sweet but deadly if you breathe too deep.
"Then we'll invite her."
A quill scratches parchment. An invitation. A trap wrapped in silk.
Let Zetulah walk into her den.
She'll never walk out.
Smoke stains the sunset, thick and acrid. Bodies litter the ground—Azzuri blue, Emberclaw crimson, Moriba gold, now dirt-streaked.
Kaelith's armor feels heavier tonight. Like the dead are clinging to his shoulders, whispering their names.
A soldier leans in, voice hushed. "Viridian scouts. Watching us."
Zetulah.
He turns, slow and deliberate.
A flicker of green in the treeline. A shadow darting between pines.
She's here.
Moonlight claws through the ruins. I move like a ghost, silent but thrumming with tension.
A shadow shifts.
Kaelith.
The air between us crackles—old memories, older betrayals.
"You shouldn't be here, Princess."
I bristle. "Last I checked, you're the trespasser."
His jaw tightens. For a heartbeat, I see him—the boy who used to flinch when I scraped my knee. But then—
Footsteps.
I whirl.
Azzuri warriors emerge from the dark. Kallan steps forward, blade glinting. "Step. Away. Emberclaw."
Kaelith's hand drifts toward his sword. Kallan's knuckles whiten.
The night reeks of iron and choices that will haunt us come dawn.
Zetulah's blade is half-drawn. Kaelith's gaze locks with hers.
Fight with Azzuri? Kallan's ice against
Kaelith's fire.
Or let him go? And risk losing the last thread of Kaelith?
The wind holds its breath.