In the Shadow of the Crown

Eliza awoke to the scent of damp stone and something far worse - blood.

Her own.

A dull throbbing pulsed at the base of her skull, spreading like molten lead through her veins. Her limbs felt sluggish, as if she had been drugged. When she tried to move, metal bit into her wrists. Shackles.

[Where…?]                             

Blinking past the haze, she took in her surroundings. The room was small, windowless, the flickering glow of torches casting long, restless shadows across the cold stone walls. The air smelled of old magic, thick and suffocating.

She was underground. A dungeon.

[So, he really did it.]

A figure moved in the darkness beyond the bars of her cell.

She didn’t need to see his face to know who it was.

“You always were reckless.” His voice was smooth, but beneath it lay something sharper, something edged with amusement and warning alike.@@novelbin@@

Eliza swallowed, her throat raw. “And you were always a traitor, Tristan.”

A chuckle. “Ah. There she is.”

The man in black stepped into the torchlight, pulling down his mask to reveal sharp cheekbones and dark, knowing eyes. The same eyes that had once watched over her as a child. The same lips that had whispered secrets in the halls of her father’s house.

Now, they held only amusement and something colder, remorse, perhaps, but too distant to matter.

Eliza’s nails dug into her palms. “You work for him now?”

Tristan tilted his head. “You say that as if I had a choice.”

She let out a bitter laugh. “There’s always a choice.”

His gaze darkened. “Is there?”

Silence stretched between them.

She could still hear the echoes of their past, when he had been a knight sworn to her father, when she had trusted him more than anyone. Before the war, before the blood, before the king had sunk his claws into them all.

“You shouldn’t have come back,” he murmured.

Eliza’s jaw tightened. “I had no choice.”

A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Neither do I.”

[Then why do you look like you wish you did?]

Her body ached, but she forced herself to sit straighter. “What does he want with me?”

Tristan exhaled sharply. “Do you really need to ask?”

She already knew the answer.

[Raen.]

The king had always known Raen would burn for her. That his loyalty, his fury, his love - twisted and consuming as it was…was his greatest weakness.

And now, she was the bait.

Eliza’s stomach twisted. “If he thinks he can use me to control him, he’s a fool.”

A shadow passed over Tristan’s face. “Is he?”

She hated the way her breath caught. Because she knew Raen too well.

For all his ruthlessness, for all his careful strategies, he had one fatal flaw: her.

If the king threatened her, Raen would come. He would fight. He would kill.

And he would fall into the trap laid before him.

Eliza’s hands curled into fists. “Let me out, Tristan.”

His lips twitched. “You know I can’t do that.”

“You can.” She leaned forward, her voice low. “You just won’t.”

Something flickered in his eyes hesitation.

[Good.]

[He had not yet become a monster. Not entirely.]

“Eliza...”

“Please,” she whispered.

His fingers tightened around the bars. For a moment, just a moment, she thought he might listen.

Then a second set of footsteps echoed through the corridor.

Tristan stepped back, his expression closing off as another figure emerged from the shadows.

A man in royal black and gold.

The king.

***

King Edric of Luvein was not an old man, yet he carried the weight of centuries in his gaze. His hair, dark as ink, was streaked with silver at the temples, and his face bore the sharp elegance of a ruler who had never known anything but power.

He looked at Eliza as if she were something to be studied, dissected. A pawn, not a person.

She met his gaze unflinchingly.

“So,” he said, voice smooth as polished steel. “The wayward countess returns.”

Eliza lifted her chin. “You make it sound as if I had a choice.”

Edric smiled, a slow, knowing thing. “We always have choices.”

[Not all of us.]

Her eyes flickered toward Tristan, who stood stiffly at the king’s side. She could see the tension in his stance, the way his fingers twitched near the hilt of his sword.

[He hates this as much as I do.]

[Good. That meant there was still a chance.]

Edric stepped closer, his presence like a noose tightening around her throat. “You’ve been meddling in things you do not understand, my dear.”

Eliza said nothing.

He reached into his cloak and pulled out something small, something wrapped in cloth. With deliberate care, he unwrapped it.

The breath fled from her lungs.

A ring.

Raen’s ring.

Blood still clung to the metal.

Something inside her cracked. “What have you done?”

Edric smiled. “What I must.”

The world blurred at the edges, rage and fear warring for control.

[No. No, he can’t—]

“Raen,” she whispered.

Edric tilted his head. “Do you truly believe he would not come for you?”

He leaned down, his voice a whisper against her skin.

“He is already on his way.”

Eliza’s breath caught.

Because she knew what that meant.

Raen was coming.

And he would kill them all.

Or die trying.