Page 99 of Haunted Crowns
A bitter laugh cracked from Stephan. "Before?" He shook his head. "Before I came back to Eris and remembered what actually matters?"
Raphael said nothing, and then it hit.
Stephan’s fists curled at his sides as his breath came fast, uneven. “It was you,” he said, seething. “Every mission. Every exile. None of it was duty. It was all by design.” His voice dropped, venomous. "You tried to erase her!"
Raphael didn’t speak. That silence said everything.
Something hollow cracked open in Stephan’s chest. "You kept us apart. You turned loyalty into a leash. You made me a soldier in your war against her."
Raphael exhaled, measured. "It was not the only reason," he said. "But yes. It was a factor."
Stephan’s vision blurred. Rage built like a storm with nowhere to strike.
He needed something to break. "You had no right!"
Raphael didn’t blink. "I had every right." His voice was calm, chillingly certain. "Eris has never been fit to be queen."
Stephan’s eyes flashed. "You are wrong."
Raphael didn’t flinch. His next words sliced deeper. "She has no restraint. She is reckless. Wild. Unwilling to submit to authority. And worst of all," his voice sharpened, "she clouds your judgment." Then his tone shifted, softening into something almost indulgent, dangerously close to patronizing as he stepped closer. "Son, trust your father. Love burns brightest at the beginning. I know. It is intoxicating. You want more and more. But when a king chooses his queen, he must choose wisely."
Stephan’s stomach turned.
Raphael pressed on, unrelenting. "A true queen does not cast shadows. She obeys. She pleases. She stands behind her king, not beside him. Eris is not just defiant. She is a liability. A danger to legacy, to every house still loyal to us. She is not a partner. She is a fracture waiting to happen." His voice dropped, cold and final. "So tell me, Stephan…do you want to rule? Or do you want to be ruled by a woman who refuses to know her place?"
"You disgust me," Stephan spat.
Raphael didn’t flinch. "You are still young. Blinded by passion. And I understand," he said, almost indulgent. "Eris is…astoundingly beautiful. Even I will not deny that. I see why you are drawn to her…why any man would be. But beauty is fleeting, Stephan. A momentary indulgence. Take her if you must. Enjoy your youth." Then his voice hardened. "But when it comes time to choose your queen, do not mistake passion for worth. Love fades. Obedience builds kings."
Stephan went still. The words didn’t land at first—too vile, too hollow to come from the man who raised him. But then they took root, and something inside him cracked.
His fists clenched. The hearth spat embers, fire hissing like it felt his fury. His father had always been cruel. But this? This was desecration.
"I am glad she is not here to hear the filth coming out of your mouth," Stephan said. "Because it would break her."
The image returned, unforgiving: Raphael’s sword raised. Eris, standing alone, so small beneath the weight of his judgment. The moment she flinched. The moment she believed she was unworthy of her life, of her name, of being loved.
How could his father speak of her like that—like her beauty was indulgence, not sanctity? Like she was meant to be touched, but never kept? What would that do to her, knowing that in his eyes she was only ever a secret to be erased the moment duty called?
It would crush her. And it would destroy him. How could he live with marrying another, lying beside someone who would never feel like fire in his arms?
He simply couldn’t. His fists shook. Fury burned through him for every word unspoken, for every breath Eris still thought she had to earn, for every time his father reduced her divinity to dust.
He turned, throat raw, gaze sharp. "You have never cared about anyone’s feelings. You do not understand love—never have. You see people as tools to command, to break." His breath turned ragged. "You think a queen is meant to be ruled. That love is weakness. But if there is one thing I know—" His gaze locked on Raphael’s, unwavering. "I will never be like you."
Silence stretched, charged, one breath from violence.
Raphael barely blinked. "Spoken like a boy who still believes in fairy tales."
The words sparked like embers on dry tinder.
Stephan’s voice dropped, lethal.
“I love her because she will not kneel,” he said, voice sharpening. “Because she fights. Because she will always challenge me, push me, never let me become something I should not be. Because she is fire. And you will never understand what it means to burn for someone.” He drew a sharp breath. "I do not need your approval. I never did. I will either marry her, or I will not marry at all."
Raphael’s eyes darkened. Then his voice lowered, dangerous. “Have you ever wondered, Stephan, how easily Eris could become Seraphina’s echo? Not her pawn—her prophecy. She could undo you without even trying.” He stepped closer, gaze unwavering. “That bloodline does not love—it consumes. Power lives in her bones, and it does not answer to reason. She walks in trances, in madness, in sacred delusion wrapped in skin. You think you are choosing her, but it is the prophecy choosing you. She is the heir to ruin. And you, if you follow, become the man who let fate into the gates and called it love.”
A pulse jumped at Stephan’s temple, as if even his blood wanted to strike back. “She has already unmade the lies I was taught to wear. She peeled back everything Dragov made of me and showed me the boy I buried to survive you. If her love consumes, then let it devour me. I would rather be destroyed by something sacred than preserved by something hollow. You say I am not choosing her. That the prophecy is choosing me.” He stepped forward, gaze burning. “Good. Because for once, I am not choosing with a crown on my head. I am choosing with a soul I did not know I still had. I would rather fall with her fire than live untouched by it. And if you ever speak to her the way you have spoken to me tonight, if you so much as make her question her worth, or what we are,” his voice dropped, razor-sharp, “you will answer to me.”
