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Chapter Twelve
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2026-01-01 01:20:22Selene:
The quiet afterward is different.Not the kind that follows danger—tight and watchful—but the kind that settles when something has been acknowledged without being taken. My body feels warm in a way that lingers, awareness stretched thin but not frayed, like skin after heat.I sit at the edge of my bed, boots abandoned somewhere behind me, fingers curled loosely in the fabric of my tunic. The crown rests on the stand beside the bed, dark and inert, but I can still feel it listening.The Axis hums low.Patient.Rowan and Lucien remain in the room with me, neither crowding, neither withdrawing too far. The space between us feels intentional now—measured rather than tense.I notice everything.The way Rowan leans slightly forward without realizing it, like his body still wants to close the distance. The way Lucien stands perfectly still, hands folded behind his back, eyes heavy with something he refuses to n
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Blood ,Fire and Frost Chapter Twenty-Six
Selene POV:The demonstration is not meant to impress.That is the first rule I give the Accord when they ask how public this needs to be. No banners. No invocations. No ritual language that promises safety like a charm spoken over a wound. What we are building cannot survive on awe.It has to survive scrutiny.We choose a place that has never loved me unconditionally: the river forum on the city’s edge, where traders argue louder than priests and rumors travel faster than truth. The stone tiers curve down toward the water, scarred with old scorch marks from riots long forgotten and protests that never truly ended.Neutral ground.The Axis hums softly beneath my ribs as I stand at the forum’s center, hands empty, cloak plain. Rowan is visible by design, stationed at the lower steps where trouble tends to ferment. Lucien remains near the arches, half in shadow, half in sight. Neither of them looks ceremonial. Both look ready.
Blood ,Fire and Frost Chapter Twenty-Five
Selene POV:We don’t announce the council.We build it.That distinction matters.If I proclaim a solution, it becomes another doctrine, another mouth waiting to be fed certainty. Instead, I authorize the framework quietly, letting it grow outward from necessity rather than decree. Ward-mages, healers, scholars, and regional representatives begin meeting under a name Lucien chose carefully:The Accord of Autonomy.Not a law.Not a church.An agreement.I sit in on the first gathering without crown or title, just Selene, listening while people argue about thresholds, safeguards, and the difference between consent and compulsion. It’s messy. Slow. Frustrating.Perfect.“This won’t stop everyone,” a healer says, hands stained with ink and herbs. “Some people will still try to force power.”“I know,” I reply. “This isn’t about stopping choice. It’s about making informed choice har
Blood ,Fire and Frost Chapter Twenty-Four
Rowan POV:I don’t like fighting things I can’t smell.Steel has a scent. Blood does. Even magic leaves tracks if you know how to read them. But whatever the Ash Queen is using sits wrong in my senses—muted, filtered, like the air after a storm when the ground hasn’t decided what it wants to be yet.Which means someone made it that way.Lucien and I don’t speak as we move through the outer districts again, this time under heavier cover. No veils. No soft bending of attention. Just shadows, timing, and patience. Selene stayed behind—not because she isn’t capable, but because this part needs to be done without her gravity warping the room.That alone tells me how serious this is.“You feel it too,” I murmur as we pass beneath a collapsed archway.Lucien nods once. “Yes.”“Good,” I growl. “Because if you told me I was imagining it, I was going to break something.”Lucien’s mouth curves faintly. “Your insti
Blood ,Fire and Frost Chapter Twenty-Three
Selene POV:If I march into the outer districts as queen, the story writes itself before my boots touch the stones.Threatened monarch confronts rising rival.Crown crushes the people’s new hope.Power silences faith.They would chant it in the streets with the same mouths that once prayed for me.So I don’t go as queen.I go as woman.I dress plainly: dark wool, travel boots, hair braided tight and tucked beneath a scarf. No crown. No sigils. No visible authority. Lucien paints a quiet veil into the air around my presence, not hiding me completely, but softening the edges, bending attention away from recognition. A suggestion, not a spell that screams illusion.Rowan hates the plan so much I can taste it through the bond.“This is stupid,” he mutters, hands braced on the table in my chamber. “We should go in, take control, end it.”“That’s what they want,” I reply evenly, p
Blood ,Fire and Frost Chapter Twenty-Two
Selene POV:The first demand arrives as a petition.Wax-sealed, beautifully penned, respectful enough to make anger feel impolite. It’s delivered by a delegation of robed envoys who bow as if they’re offering reverence instead of obligation.“Your Majesty,” the lead envoy says, voice honey-smooth, “we come in the spirit of unity.”Unity, I’ve learned, is often a pretty word for obedience.Lucien stands a half-step behind my right shoulder, still as carved stone. Rowan is to my left, arms crossed, gaze fixed on the envoy like he’s deciding where to bury him.I take the parchment and skim.A request. A recommendation. A “framework.”They want a doctrine.They want me to define what’s allowed. What’s forbidden. Who may attempt bond resonance. Who must never.They want me to become the ruler of a thing I never meant to govern: intimacy as power.I fold the parchment slowly. “You
Blood ,Fire and Frost Chapter Twenty-One
Selene:The first ripple reaches us through rumor, not magic.It arrives folded into council reports and trade ledgers, carried by messengers who don’t realize they’re delivering something far more dangerous than news. No wards fail. No villages cry out.Instead, people begin trying.I hear about a border city where a priestess attempts to “anchor” her power through devotion alone. A warlord two regions east binds himself to three consorts, believing intensity will make him untouchable. A coven fractures when one of their own insists that desire is the missing key to ascension.None of them succeed.Some barely survive.The Axis hums when I read the reports — not alarmed, not urgent, but aware. Like a sea responding to distant storms.“This was inevitable,” Lucien says quietly, standing at my shoulder as I stare down at the parchment. “You demonstrated a principle. Others will attempt to reproduce it without understanding the architecture.”Rowan’
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