Page 126 of Haunted Crowns
His jaw tightened, then eased.
Kaelioth watched him. “The spirits bless you both. Guard her well. She is light, and the dark is coming.”
Stephan swallowed. He would die before the darkness touched her. So would Kareon.
His hands unclenched. "I will," he said. The vow was quiet and final.
Kaelioth nodded, satisfied.
Night thinned toward dawn as laughter rose beneath stars reluctant to fade. The scent of roasted game lingered, drums pounding, primal. Alive. The Lycans feasted, their songs lifting with war, moonlight, and her name.
Eris. Their queen.
Stephan sat beside her, a carved wooden cup in hand. Present, yet distant. He had once fought these people. Their blades had crossed his. He was raised to see them as beasts. Now they welcomed him without hesitation because they loved her. Not as a symbol, but as kin.
It unraveled him.
His world had tried to make her feel like a mistake. This one called her sacred.
She laughed as Varis pulled her into a mock headlock. Smiled as elders pressed charms into her hands. She belonged, and itcut him. Her birthright had tried to burn her out. This world let her burn bright and called it holy. They did not fear her fire. They fed it. And Stephan saw the truth. It was not enough to love her. He had to build a world worthy of her. A world where she no longer chose between power and belonging. Where Lycans were not enemies, and Eris no longer fought for space to exist. He would burn the old world to ash, and from its ruin, he would raise a kingdom where she could be whole, without apology.
She turned to him, eyes soft with something deep. Gratitude. Because he had stayed. Because he had brought her to Kaelioth and broke bread with those he once called enemies. It meant everything.
And as dawn broke, violet and gold spilling across the sky, she brushed her hand against his.
It was time to go. The castle waited, its halls heavy with blood and memory.
Raphael’s reckoning had only just begun.
“Fire burns. Sun weakens.
But only a severed head makes the monster fall.”
—Old Lycan War Saying
Chapter 26
Dawn stretched pale and cold across frost-laced fields, night still clinging to the world's edges. Eris pressed against Stephan’s back, arms looped around his waist. Only the horse’s hooves broke the silence. They didn’t need to speak. They knew what waited at Dragov Keep.
Raphael.
Stephan’s grip tightened. It was not just his father. It was the past, and Kareon’s warning, echoing in his skull.
Your Watchers were right. We found dissidents, my own, working with Avaristo. They never accepted Eris. I cast them out. Now they’ve joined the Obsidian Order.
Stay sharp, Dragov.
Something moved against them. The thought lingered sharp, like a knife at the throat.
Dragov Keep loomed ahead, all stone, shadow, and silence.
The castle swallowed them whole. Cold air curled through the halls, thick with parchment and burnt wood.
Stephan kept Eris close, the weight ahead pressing down on him.
Then came the chamber. Two men waited inside. Just before the threshold, Stephan stopped, his grip tightening around her hand as he turned to meet her eyes.
“Afraid?”
