The entire palace was vibrating with alarm — guards sprinting through corridors, servants ducking out of sight, nobles whispering Seren’s name like it was a returning plague. But Kaedan didn’t slow. Didn’t speak. Didn’t look at Ariaxa once.
He simply grabbed her by the elbow and dragged her down the hall.
“You are not leaving my sight,” he growled.
Ariaxa yanked her arm back. “You cannot lock me away like property—”
“You’ll do as I command.” His voice was a blade. “Seren is hunting you. The rebels are hunting you. Half the palace wants your head. You are safest in my chambers.”
“I am not going to hide in your bed like something you keep!” she shot back.
Kaedan spun on her, eyes burning pitch-black. “You are something I keep.”
The words hit her harder than a slap.
For a moment neither breathed.
Then Ariaxa lifted her chin. “Try it. Try locking me away.”
The muscle in his jaw jumped—once—before he turned sharply and strode toward the lower wings.
Ariaxa followed him.
His steps echoed like strikes against iron. He took a staircase she’d never seen — one carved with old sigils, lit only by flickering blue lamps. The air grew colder. Denser. The stone beneath her feet felt older than the palace itself.
“Where are we going?” Ariaxa demanded.
Kaedan didn’t answer.
He reached a heavy iron door, unlocked it with a rune pressed to his palm, and shoved it open.
A chill crawled up Ariaxa’s spine.
The room beyond was vast. Silent. Dim.
And full of horrors.
Rows and rows of shelves lined the walls, holding rune-collars of every size — scorched, twisted, stained by things she didn’t want to identify. Metal cuffs. Shackles. Masks. Torture instruments shaped to break bodies, break magic, break minds.
Some still hummed faintly with old spells.
Ariaxa stepped inside slowly, breath trapped in her throat.
The air smelled faintly of blood long dried.
And beneath that — fear.
“Kaedan…” Her voice cracked. “What is this place?”
He didn’t answer.
Her gaze darted across the room. The instruments were arranged meticulously. Some bore symbols she recognized — Elyndor designs. Solar sigils corrupted into weapons. She saw remnants of Sun-forged shackles, melted and bent, mixed with Vharon’s darker metal.
“This was part of your rise to power,” she whispered. “Wasn’t it?”
Kaedan’s silence was the loudest confession she had ever heard.
Ariaxa walked deeper. Her fingers hovered over a collar thicker than her wrist. “How many people did you put these on?”
His voice came from behind her, low and lethal.
“Enough.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You tell me.”
Kaedan stepped forward. The shadows of the room clung to him like ink. “This room is not meant for your eyes.”
“Then why bring me this far?” she shot back.
His mouth tightened, but he looked away. That was her answer.
Ariaxa moved toward a table of tools. The metal glinted coldly. “You told me you wanted to protect me. That you wanted to keep me safe. But you lived here, in this darkness, long before I existed.”
“Do not psychoanalyze me,” he snarled.
“You torture people who disobey you—”
“Vharon needed order.”
“You nearly tortured Riven—”
Kaedan’s voice dropped into a growl. “He took what’s mine.”
“And I?” Ariaxa stepped toward him. “Am I next? When I say something you don’t like?”
His body went still.
Ariaxa pushed further. “You killed rebels. You mark slaves. You nearly broke Seren—”
“That was before I knew what she was capable of,” he snapped. “She betrayed me.”
“And now she wants me dead because she thinks you love me.”
Kaedan jerked as if stabbed.
Ariaxa’s breath caught — she hadn’t meant to say it. But the words hung in the air like smoke.
Kaedan took one step toward her. Then another.
Until she felt the heat of him.
“It doesn’t matter what she thinks,” he growled.
Ariaxa held her ground. “It matters to me.”
“You think I want this?” He motioned sharply to the room, to the darkness, to the violence lingering in the walls. “Do you think I wanted to become this monster you keep trying to defeat?”
Her voice softened, just barely. “You let this place shape you.”
Kaedan seized her waist in a whip-fast motion.
Her breath left her.
He slammed her back against a stone pillar — not enough to harm, but enough to make her gasp. The cold stone pressed against her spine while his body pressed to her front, pinning her, trapping her.
His hands gripped her hips with dangerous clarity.
“You want to know what I am?” he growled, eyes inches from hers. “Then look.”
He grabbed her chin, forcing her head slightly to the side, forcing her to face the shelves upon shelves of tortured pasts.
“Look,” he whispered again, voice cracking with something too jagged to name. “This is me. This is what your people made.”
Ariaxa trembled, breath fogging between them. “This isn’t all you are.”
Kaedan’s grip tightened. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know you carried me from that ritual chamber like I was the only thing you had left,” she said, voice trembling but unyielding. “I know you let Seren live when you could’ve ripped her throat out. I know you look at me like—”
“Don’t.” His voice broke. “Don’t finish that.”
Ariaxa looked up at him, her throat tightening. “Why? Because it’s true?”
Kaedan slammed his palm into the pillar beside her head, leaning in so close she could taste the heat of his breath.
His forehead pressed roughly to hers.
Their nose tips brushed.
Their lips hovered a breath apart.
“You do not understand,” he whispered, the words nearly a plea. “I want you.”
Her lungs crumpled in her chest. “Kaedan…”
“I cannot have you.”
His thumb traced her lower lip as if memorizing the shape he couldn’t touch.
“But if you stay here another second…”
His breath trembled.
His body shook with restraint.
His voice dropped into the lowest, rawest tone she had ever heard from him.
“…I will.”