"Magnus!"
The single word was a raw crack in the dreadful silence.
Kaelen broke from the stunned crowd. He fell to his knees beside the body, his fine ceremonial jerkin staining instantly with the dark, poisoned blood.
Ahhhhhhh!
A guttural sound of agony tore from his throat as he cradled Magnus's head.
"The wedding is over!" The new voice was a whip of command, sharp with a grief already turning to fury. Rhazor strode forward. His face was pale with shock, but his eyes burned. "Everyone out! Now! Guards, seal the hall!"
His order unleashed a frantic, terrified exodus. Velmara flowed with the crowd, her ancient face a rigid mask of thwarted rage.
Her plan had been wasted on the useless brother.
The king—her true target, Tenebrarum—still lived.
Before the hall could fully empty, Kaelen was on his feet. In a blur of motion born of a lifetime of shared blood and now shattered loyalty, he crossed to Isabella. His hand shot out, seizing her by the throat. He lifted her, the satin of her gown tearing.
"Where is Tenebrarum?" he snarled, shaking her. "Our brother lies dead by a poison meant for him! What game are you and my brother playing?!"
Isabella choked, her hands clawing uselessly at his grip.
But it was useless, she could not free her self.
Rhazor was there in an instant. He placed a hand on Kaelen's wrist, his voice low and dangerous.
"Release her. We do not administer justice in our father's hall with our bare hands.The king, Tenebrarum, will answer for his absence."
For a tense moment, Kaelen's wild eyes held Rhazor's.
The man they had to demand answers from was not even legitimately supposed to be king .
Then, with a sound of pure, conflicted grief, Kaelen opened his hand. Isabella collapsed to the floor, gasping.
Kaelen stepped back, his gaze burning into her. "I am sure," he hissed, "that you and our brother planned this together. He flees, you weep, and my brother who stood to take his place lies dead. This is his work. I'll make sure you both pay."
Rhazor said nothing, his cold, assessing look now fixed on Isabella—a fool who had just become the fragile, blood-soaked link between a dead prince and a king who had abandoned them all.
---
Isabella did not walk—she ran.
The moment she realized Kaelen and Rhazor wer gone, she ran with all her strength .
The plan was in ashes, the trap had sprung on the wrong prey, and the only person who could possibly control the fallout was Velmara.
She fled the Grand Hall, her wedding gown a grotesque, blood-stained banner fluttering behind her.
She shoved past fleeing nobles and stunned guards, her mind a single, screaming directive.
Find the witch.
She burst out of a side entrance into the main courtyard.
There, in the center of the torch-lit yard, stood Velmara.
The witch was a pillar of terrible authority.
The flames from the recent failure had died to embers at her feet, casting a hellish, dancing light that made her silver hair look like molten metal.
Her back was to the palace, her head tilted back slightly, not in prayer, but in assessment—as if reading the portents in the smoke-stained plan.
She wore a travelling cloak of deep, forest green over her grey robes, and in her hand, she held not a staff, but a long, slender hunting knife, its blade dark and wet.
Around her, her personal guards—humans with faces as hard as the stone walls—were methodically cleaning the site, their movements efficient and silent.
Isabella stumbled to a halt, her breath coming in ragged gasps. "Velmara!"
Slowly, with a grace that was terrifying in its control, Velmara lowered her head and turned.
The sunlight carved severe lines into her ageless face. Her frost-colored eyes held no surprise, only a deep, simmering fury that had been banked by action.
In them, Isabella saw no grief for Magnus, only a colossal, focused wrath that the intended target—Tenebrarum—had escaped.
"He's dead," Isabella blurted, her voice cracking. "Magnus is dead. Tenebrarum had left since and now the poison… it worked on the wrong brother."
Velmara's gaze swept over Isabella's disheveled state, the blood on her gown, the panic in her eyes. She did not speak immediately. She simply stared, as if measuring the depth of Isabella's failure.
"I know," Velmara finally said, her voice a low, carrying rasp that cut through the courtyard's quiet. "I felt the threads of the spell dissolve. A death, but not the right death." She took a step forward, the wet knife in her hand catching the light. "You were at the altar. You were the variable. And you failed to control the equation."
"I had no power to stop him!" Isabella hissed, desperation making her bold. "He took the cup! It happened too fast!"
"There is always a moment," Velmara countered, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper. "A dropped cup. Something. You chose to be a queen for a heartbeat rather than the hand of fate. And what did it buy you?" Her eyes flicked to the blood on Isabella's dress.
"A dead husband and a king who is now riding to unite with the very prize we sought to deny him. You have turned our victory into a race."
Isabella wrapped her arms around herself, the cold of the night—or perhaps Velmara's words—seeping into her bones.
"What do we do now?"
Velmara finally looked away from her, her eyes lifting to the horizon beyond the palace walls, where Tenebrarum had vanished. A cold, sharp smile touched her lips—the first expression that wasn't pure fury.
"Now?" she said, sheathing her knife with a definitive click. "Now we leave, we will prepare for the war...we will take back all that belonged to humans...to us"
She turned her back on Isabella, her focus already on the next move. Isabella felt a sliver of grim relief. They were leaving together. She would escape the consequences here.
The blow came not as a strike, but as a cold, iron grip on her upper arms. Two of Velmara's guards seized her from behind.
"What are you doing? Velmara!" Isabella cried, her relief twisting into panic.
Velmara turned. The strategic coldness was gone, replaced by a raw, personal venom that made Isabella's heart stutter. This was not about the failed assassination.
"You think I'll forgive?" Velmara's voice was a low, seething thing. "I'm sure that you and Tenebrarum planned this."
She took a step closer, and Isabella could see the wounded fury, long buried beneath layers of power, now cracked open and bleeding into her eyes.
"You did this to hurt me. To claim some petty power because I called you wombless. And then," Velmara's voice dropped to a deadly whisper, "at the altar, the plan I built for seventy years falls apart. The wrong man drinks the poison. And you, the woman I just called 'wombless,' you were the only one who could have stopped him."
Isabella shook her head, desperation rising. "It wasn't like that! I couldn't—"
"Couldn't? Or wouldn't?" Velmara cut her off, the accusation slicing through the night air. "I see it now. This was your pathetic revenge. Your wounded pride was worth more than my life's work. You sabotaged it. You stood there and you let Magnus die instead of Tenebrarum, just to watch me fail. To prove your worthless point."
The logic was twisted, born of a deep, personal hurt, but in Velmara's eyes, this was betrayal.
"Bind her," Velmara commanded the guards, her gaze never leaving Isabella's horrified face. "She is not a companion. She is a traitor. A spy for her own vanity. We do not bring poison into our home. We lock it away."
The heavy manacles closed around Isabella's wrists with a final, metallic clank that sealed her fate.
"You're wrong!" Isabella screamed, true fear taking hold as the guards dragged her backward. "I didn't betray you! I swear!"
Velmara watched, her expression hardening back into impenetrable ice. "Your vows are as empty as you are. Take her away."
As the door of the black wagon slammed shut, plunging her into darkness, Isabella was all alone.
The wagon moved, then was loaded onto a ship. She felt the deep, groaning sway of the sea beneath her. She was in the darkest part of the ship as it moved back home.
The only sound was the creak of wood and the slow, sloshing water below.
Velmara thinks I betrayed her, she thought, the words circling in the silence of her mind. She's wrong. She's so wrong.
She wrapped her arms around herself in the thick, smelling dark.
I'll explain everything. When I'm out of here, I'll make her understand. I'll tell her how it really happened. I'll make her see.
She closed her eyes, though it made no difference in the black.
I pray she hears me out.
----------------------------
To be continued...