Chapter 17 – The Poison Beneath the Crown

The voice inside me had changed.

It no longer whispered from shadows. It no longer sounded like a warning. It spoke clearly now with hunger, with purpose.

"You can't protect both."

"You must choose."

It had Kaelen's softness and Malric's sharpness.

But it was neither of them.

It was... me.

Or the version of me the curse had started to shape.

And I was terrified.

Kaelen noticed the change before I spoke a word.

He watched me from the edge of our fire, arms crossed, body half-tensed like a wolf waiting for the wind to shift.

"What did it say this time?" he asked finally.

I didn't look at him. "It said... I'd have to choose."

"Between what?"

"My heart," I whispered, "and the world."

He didn't flinch. "Then choose the world."

I turned sharply to face him. "What if I don't want to?"

He stepped closer. "Then I'll burn for you, Seraphina. But don't let the rest of us burn too."

His voice broke something in me.

Because I knew he meant it.

And that made the choice even harder.

Later that night, while Kaelen scouted the perimeter, I found a raven sitting at the edge of our clearing.

It blinked once silver eyes glowing in the dark.

A message.

I approached slowly. It didn't fly away.

I plucked the scroll tied to its leg, unfurled it with shaking hands.

"Return to the Hollow. Maelin has answers. But not all allies wear crowns."

There was no signature.

But I knew the handwriting.

Councilor Imra.

One of the few witches on the High Circle who had ever dared to question Maelin openly.

Kaelen returned moments later, and I handed him the scroll.

He read it. Scowled.

"It's a trap."

"Or a test."

He met my gaze. "Same thing."

By dawn, we were riding through the Ashen Trail.

I cloaked us in a vision ward, and Kaelen masked our scent. Still, we knew better than to trust secrecy. The Cradle had ears in the dirt and mouths in the trees.

When the Hollow Temple came into view, it looked... wrong.

Not destroyed. Not attacked.

But different.

The columns were cracked not by force, but by time unraveling faster than it should. Magic bled from the stones like they'd been wounded.

Kaelen sniffed the air. "Rot."

"Not physical," I said. "Magical decay."

His grip on his blade tightened. "Something's feeding off the Circle."

And then the gates opened before we could knock.

Someone had been waiting.

Imra met us in the antechamber.

Her robes were dust-streaked. Her braid loose. She looked like someone who hadn't slept in days.

"Quickly," she hissed, pulling us into the Hall of Oracles.

The chamber flickered with ghost-light. None of the other Council members were present. Only us, and the bodies of former Seers entombed in crystal around us.

"We don't have much time," she said. "Maelin suspects. The bloodline magic has grown unstable. She's begun purging."

"Purging what?" I asked.

"Records. Names. Anything tied to the First Hybrid."

I stepped back. "But... that history is protected."

"It was protected," Imra snapped. "Until you awakened it."

She turned to Kaelen. "And you. You carry a shard of it in your bones."

Kaelen frowned. "What shard?"

Imra waved her hand and a vision flared in the air.

A man with Kaelen's eyes. A wolf covered in white flame. Kneeling before a witch's pyre.

"Your ancestor," she said. "Tyrin the Oathbound. He made a vow to protect the First Hybrid. When she died, he took her final breath into his soul."

"And cursed every son after him," Kaelen said bitterly.

Imra nodded. "Yes. Because he failed. And the Wyrm took advantage."

I felt sick.

We weren't just bonded by fate.

We were bonded by failure.

By a cycle that had repeated for centuries.

"How do we stop it?" I asked.

Imra hesitated.

Then she drew a small dagger from her robes etched with runes too old to read.

"You can't break the curse. But you can confuse it."

Kaelen stepped forward. "Confuse it?"

She nodded. "Mating bonds are pure. Straightforward. The curse feeds off that certainty. If you create a magical divergence if you bond temporarily with another…"

Kaelen went rigid.

"So she sleeps with someone else?" he growled.

"No," Imra said. "Just enough blood magic to redirect the flow. No mating. Just binding."

"To who?" I asked.

Imra didn't answer.

Because the doors burst open.

And Maelin walked in.

She wore obsidian robes threaded with bone.

Her eyes glowed with unnatural light.

And she was smiling.

"Imra," she said gently. "You disappoint me."

Imra dropped the dagger, stepping back.

Kaelen shielded me instantly, blade drawn.

Maelin raised a hand, and the entire chamber trembled.

"I warned you both," she said. "The deeper you dig, the louder you wake it."

"You're working with it," I whispered.

Her smile widened. "No, child. I am it."

And then her skin cracked—

And from her chest, black tendrils of ancient magic poured out, swirling toward me like a storm of ash.

Kaelen grabbed me and ran.

We barely made it through the eastern passage before the temple began collapsing.

Stones fell like thunder. Statues shattered.

I turned to look once and saw Maelin's form shift into something enormous, monstrous, inhuman.

A piece of the Wyrm.

Still wearing my people's skin.

We fled into the Whispering Caves.

Kaelen threw up a barrier spell, and I collapsed against the wall, heart pounding.

"She's not just corrupted," I said. "She's a vessel."

Kaelen didn't speak.

He touched his chest where his rune now glowed black.

Not red.

Not silver.

Black.

"I felt it," he said softly. "When she opened herself... it reached for me."

I reached for his hand. "We're not letting it win."

He closed his eyes.

But I saw the fear return.

Stronger now.

Because the Wyrm hadn't just awakened...

It had chosen a queen.

And Kaelen?

He was starting to dream in its language.