Page 150 of Haunted Crowns
Her shoulders fell. “Yes,” she whispered in surrender.
Kareon smiled, not smug or triumphant, but warm and knowing—infinite.
“Good.” He brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Then do not run from it.”
She shut her eyes and shook her head. “It’s wrong,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t—”
His fingers tilted her chin. “You shouldn’t what?” His voice was gentle, coaxing. “Love us both?”
She nodded, her silence heavy with ache.
Kareon leaned closer, voice low, eyes unrelenting. “Maybe the gods did not give you two hearts by accident. Maybe they gave you one wide enough to hold a kingdom.” He did not flinch. He offered it like a truth older than prophecy. “Love is not a cage, Eris. It does not ask you to carve out pieces of yourself to be worthy.” His thumb brushed her jaw. “It asks you to be whole. To be seen. To be terrifyingly true.”
Her voice cracked before the words could form. “If I give in to this…I’m afraid I will lose everything I have sworn to protect. Including him.”
Kareon’s gaze softened. “Then let him love you through it. If his love is true, it will not shatter when it sees the rest of you.”
He did not move. He did not need to. He was already close enough to be everything she could not escape.
“You were crafted to love like the gods do. Without fear. Without end.” His voice dropped, became intimate. “You are divine, Eris. The spirits marked you. Seraphina lives in your skin. You do not love in halves. You never could.”
She shook her head, tears breaking, breath faltering. “It’s not fair.”
“No,” he agreed. His voice was firm. “But it is the truth.”
The silence that followed was not empty. It was sacred. In that stillness, he pulled her close, not to claim her, but to anchor her.His arms wrapped around her, solid and safe, one hand in her hair.
She buried her face in his chest, holding him tight. His lips brushed her ear.
“You have spent too long lying to yourself.” His voice was warm and quiet. “Don’t do it again.”
She did not answer with words, but she was breathing again. And when she lifted her head, eyes wet and voice fragile, she did not tremble. She met his gaze, unflinching for the first time.
“I don’t know how to walk this truth yet,” she whispered. “But I will not keep running from it.”
Kareon smiled, small, crooked, and real. “Good.” He reached for her hand, threading his fingers through hers like a vow remembered across lifetimes. “Come on, princess. I’ll take you back home.”
Her chest tightened; she finally understood. This moment, this truth, had always been waiting for her to claim it.
And just like that, the moment passed. The war inside her was far from over.
But Kareon—he had already won.
“The blood of Dragov is not wine for lust.
To taste it unbidden is to offend the gods.”
—Dragov Codex Regnum
Chapter 30
The room was silent, unnaturally so, as if the air itself had paused to listen.
It was the night before war.
Eris sat before the mirror, combing her long hair in slow, deliberate strokes. Each pass was a ritual, a final act of peace before the blade. Her nightgown whispered against her skin, a last softness before fire.
Candlelight traced her collarbones, catching the lace like an omen unspoken. For the first time in days, the woman in the glass looked changed. The sorrow that had hollowed her, drained her, and nearly unmade her was gone. She had shed it like old skin. She had emerged forged by loss, shaped in flame, and made unbreakable. Then the candle dipped, its flame bending toward a breath not her own. The air grew dense, heavy with age, as though time itself had drawn still.
