Princess zetulah viridian POV;
The cold doesn't just bite—it carves. Deep, raw, merciless. Not just the air. Not just the wind. But the weight of a thousand years of war pressing against my skin.
Mud, blood, and steel-thickened sweat coil around us, heavier than fog, denser than fate.
Kaelith stands in the eye of it, empty-handed, crimson gaze unyielding. His stance is loose—casual, like he's greeting a storm with open arms instead of facing a circle of Azzuri blades.
Like he's already seen the ending of this battle and decided it doesn't touch him.
Prince Kallan grips his sword hilt so tightly his knuckles bleach white. His stare is a blade of ice, carving Kaelith's grave in silence.
"Step. Away."
Kallan's voice slides through the air like oil across water—smooth, cold, waiting to ignite.
I don't move.
If I let them take Kaelith, Emberclaw's wrath will fall upon us like a sky splitting open. If I save him, I fracture Azzuri's trust.
Kaelith's gaze locks onto mine—unreadable. Always unreadable.
"Make your choice, Zetulah."
My pulse is a war drum, a herald of blood yet to spill.
War took my brother. Now it licks its lips for him.
I take a step forward. Gravel crunches beneath my boot—a sound that seals fates.
Azzuri warriors draw in sharp breaths. Kallan's sword twitches.
"Prince Kaelith is under my protection."
The words hang there, bold and reckless. A declaration that cannot be unsaid.
Kallan barks a sharp, humorless laugh. "You'd side with him? After the blood his house spilled?"
I lift my chin, the wind lashing against me like the spirits of the fallen.
"I side with ending this war. Not feeding the pyre."
The silence hollows the air.
The wind howls through crumbling pillars, as if even the ruins hold their breath.
Finally, Kallan sheathes his sword. The metal slides home with a whisper that feels like a promise of something broken.
"Then you're a fool."
He snaps his fingers. Azzuri warriors lower their blades. But their glares burn hotter than Emberclaw's forges.
This isn't over.
This is only the spark before the inferno.
Kaelith slouches in my war tent, candlelight dancing in his red eyes. He doesn't look grateful. Or wary.
He looks amused.
What have I done?
The tent flap rips open. Solric storms in, fury rolling off him in waves.
"You brought an Emberclaw here?"
Kaelith smirks, stretching like a lion too lazy to be bothered by the barking of dogs.
"Your princess has a soft heart. Adorable, really."
Solric's growl rumbles deep, but I cut him off with a raised hand.
"This isn't kindness." My voice is sharp steel. "It's a trade."
Kaelith leans forward. The firelight carves shadows under his sharp cheekbones, his smirk deepening.
"Do tell."
I don't blink.
"Tell me how to break your father."
---
Torches burn like living beasts, their flames clawing the soot-stained walls of Emberclaw's throne room.
A soldier kneels, trembling.
"My king… the Viridian princess has your son."
King Ragnis stills.
Lady Syrene shifts in the shadows, her golden eyes glinting.
"Captured?" Ragnis' voice simmers like magma beneath stone.
The soldier hesitates. A mistake.
"N-Not captured. She… shielded him."
Syrene exhales a slow, knowing breath.
Interesting.
Ragnis' fists ignite, heat rippling through the air. The throne cracks under his grip, the ancient wood screaming.
Syrene twirls a dagger, the edge kissing candlelight. A servant lays a letter before her—the Viridian seal broken.
The princess seeks allies.
A slow, rich laugh coils from her throat.
"Fool girl. Marching into the viper's nest with open hands."
She flicks her wrist, the dagger embedding itself in the table.
"Ink," she purrs. "Let's see how deep her desperation runs."
---
Damp leaves. Cold steel. The forest reeks of wrongness.
We ride hard, scouts flanking me—hunting a path to Moriba.
A crack.
Too sharp. Too close.
An arrow hisses—
A scout gurgles, tumbling from his horse.
"AMBUSH!" Solric's roar splits the night.
The trees explode with Emberclaw red.
Steel flashes. Eyes burn.
I shift mid-leap—fur, fangs, fury.
Solric collides with a warrior—bone snaps, a scream cuts short.
A blade arcs toward me—
Kaelith streaks past, steel singing.
Blood sprays. Too many. Too fast.
"Retreat!" My snarl tears through the chaos.
Solric snarls, shielding us. Kaelith cuts down a final foe, chest heaving.
I whirl on him.
"You said your father wouldn't strike yet!"
Kaelith wipes blood from his cheek. A slow, bitter smirk.
"I was wrong."
Flames rise in the distance. Not just fire. Not just war.
A kingdom burning alive.
There is no turning back.
Only ash. Only ruin.
—-------------------
The candlelight doesn't flicker—it writhes. Twists. Claws at Kaelith's face, pooling shadows in the hollows beneath his eyes. The war map beneath him is no parchment; it's a carcass, its veins stitched with rivers, its bones carved into borders. His fingers drift over Emberclaw's heart—his father's throne.
I don't trust him.
But trust is the luxury of those who do not stand at the edge of a blade.
"Burn them first." His voice is a match struck too close to kindling. "That's how my father wins. No warnings. Just ash."
I fold my arms. "I'm not your father."
"No," he says, grinning like a blade reflecting moonlight. "You're worse. You hesitate."
The tent flap doesn't just open—it tears, as if the night itself is being peeled apart. Solric storms in, frost clinging to his beard like the breath of ghosts. "Syrene's agreed. Meet at dawn in her lands."
Kaelith goes rigid. "You're insane."
Maybe. But when your back's against a pyre, you don't pray for rain. You grab the nearest dagger and carve your own salvation.
"We ride at first light."
He slams a fist on the table. The ink on the war map runs like fresh blood.
"Syrene doesn't broker peace," he spits. "She butchers it."
I lean in, my breath colliding with his. "Then you'd better pray she chokes."
---
The war room of Emberclaw Keep does not breathe.
King Ragnis' fists sink through the iron table. Not upon it—through it. Molten metal hisses, drips, hardens against stone like fallen stars.
No one speaks. No one moves.
"My son," Ragnis growls, his voice the weight of thunder about to break, "bends knee to a Viridian."
A soldier swallows hard. His voice is a brittle, cracking thing. "The princess shields him, my King. They say he fights at her si—"
Crack.
The man's skull meets the wall before his body knows it is already dead.
And then—Syrene.
She emerges from the darkness the way venom glides through a wound. Her robes are spun gold, gilded chains coiling her wrists. Her voice drips, slow and honeyed:
"Why waste your fire… when you could borrow theirs?"
Ragnis turns, slow as a dying sun, slow as a god deciding whether to strike. "Speak."
Syrene tilts her head. The candlelight slides over her lips like a serpent. "Zetulah thinks me her ally." Her laugh is silk unraveling. "Let her. When she drags your traitor son to my doorstep…"
Flames bloom in Ragnis' pupils.
"Burn them together," she whispers. "Cleanly."
---
The road to Moriba is not a road. It is a throat—and we are riding into its teeth.
The fog doesn't roll in. It clings. Presses. Smothers. My mare's ears pin back, and her breath ghosts the air in white curls. She smells it too.
Solric's voice is a thing of stone and bone. "This is suicide."
Kaelith watches the trees. His grip tightens around his reins. "Syrene's favorite kind."
The fog splits.
Not like mist unraveling. No.
Like hands reaching for us.
Moriban riders appear, armor black as drowned iron, eyes gleaming like lanterns in a graveyard. Their leader—Veyn—smiles, and it is not a smile. It is a wolf licking its lips.
"Lady Syrene awaits, Princess."
Kaelith exhales slow. "Veyn." His fingers curl. Fire licks at his knuckles. "Her butcher."
Veyn's grin doesn't waver. "It's been a while since I had a fresh pelt."
I dig my heels into my mare's sides.
"Then let's not keep him waiting."
---
Moriba's court is not a court.
It is a tomb, waiting for its corpses.
Gold vines coil like strangling hands. Fox mosaics leer from the walls, emerald eyes gleaming with knowing. The air is thick—jasmine and decay, perfume and rot.
Syrene does not sit on her throne. She reclines—as if the world itself is her divan. A goblet dangles from bloodred nails, the wine inside thick as secrets.
"Little wolf," she murmurs. "How… quaint of you to beg."
I do not flinch. I do not let my breath break.
"We're not here to beg." My voice is steel. A lie.
"We." She tastes the word on her tongue, as if savoring it. "Does the prince know he's your pawn?"
Kaelith moves before I do, flames licking at his fingertips. His voice is soft, too soft:
"Do you know how fast fire melts gold?"
Syrene's smile sharpens to a dagger's edge.
"Do you know how fast a traitor burns?"
The doors slam.
Not close—lock.
Guards move. Swords unsheathe in a chorus of whispers.
Solric moves first—fur bursting, fangs flashing—but Syrene lifts a single, delicate hand.
And the torches detonate.
Not in gold fire.
No.
Emberclaw's fire.
The flames roar. The heat screams. Th
e air is razored light and dying breath.
Kaelith's fire leaps to meet it—but the truth burns inside my bones:
This fire is older than him. Older than me. It was never ours to wield. It was always his father's.
And through the inferno, Syrene's laughter curls like smoke:
"Sweet dreams, little wolves."