Page 50 of Haunted Crowns
Astareth Summit, Morning After the Match
Eris sat in one of the Summit’s vaulted chambers, staring past the speaker, past the gathered nobles, past the present itself.
Her mind floated, unfocused and unmoored. The wrongness had begun the moment she’d opened her eyes. Nightmares had dragged her through a tangle of broken sleep, leaving her brittle and dazed. Each limb felt impossibly heavy, her skull thick with fog, pressing in from every direction.
Outside, the wind howled, clawing at the walls. The birds didn’t sing; they screamed. Even the trees whispered warnings, their rustling leaves more omen than breeze.
Something was coming. Something terrible. The unease had followed her here. It clung to her skin like a second layer, threading through her breath, laced into every pulsebeat.
And then there were the stares.
No one laughed. No one mocked her trances or whispered about the strange girl who heard what others could not. This was different. Eris Dragov had been seen with Lycans. Gossip spread fast.
Now the Firstblood elite stared at her as if her very existence had desecrated their lineage.
“She does not belong here.”
“She is tainting our legacy.”
“He could have had anyone—and he chose her?”
The Obsidian vampires made no effort to hide their disdain.
“Dragov’s little fiancée, running with wolves now.”
“A noble princess playing at rebellion.”
“Maybe she got tired of being on a leash.”
Even the humans glanced at her sideways, unsure whether to fear her or follow her.
She hadn’t done anything, but that didn’t matter. The truth, twisted and sharpened, had become a weapon, and she bled from a thousand invisible cuts. She was always watched. Always weighed. Always condemned.
Eris closed her eyes and gathered herself. Was this what Seraphina had endured? A life under scrutiny, judged and isolated by those too afraid of what they couldn’t control? Had Seraphina felt this same pull in her chest, this pressure between who she was and what the world demanded her to be?
Eris inhaled slowly. A bitter clarity settled deep inside her. This was the cost of prophecy, of legacy, of freedom. She had never asked for any of it, but she had chosen it, and she remembered why. It wasn’t for glory or revenge. It wasn’t even for herself. It was for the oppressed, the forgotten, the childrentaught to hate, and those who still dared to dream of a future untouched by war.
And it was for him: Stephan.
So he would not inherit a kingdom drowned in blood.
So love might one day mean something greater than sacrifice.
Her fingers curled around the arm of the chair. Her breath deepened. She had made her choice. Now she would see it through, not because she had to, but because she believed. And belief, unyielding and defiant and wholly hers, was a power they could never take.
The sound came sharp and sudden.
The door burst open, and a wave of black armor and cold steel flooded the room.
The Obsidian Guard.
The air itself seemed to shrink, pulled tight under an invisible force. The rhythmic strike of their boots against marble echoed like a war drum, filling every corner of the vaulted chamber with an unspoken warning. This was a raid. Avaristo’s enforcers, street-patrolling tyrants who tore through Lycans and silenced rebellion before it could take root, had been Goznoth’s nightmare for years, but they had never come for a Dragov.
Until now.
Eris’s stomach clenched as they moved straight for her. They were here for one reason, and everyone knew it.
The speaker stumbled back, knocking over a stack of papers, his face pale. “What is the meaning of this?”
