Chapter 18

The day after Veyris’s attack, the palace felt heavier, as if the stones themselves had absorbed the tension. Servants moved in hushed tones, their eyes darting to shadows as though they feared they might move. Even the air smelled different—like rain that refused to fall, heavy and waiting.

Kael had been gone since dawn, summoned to the War Council. Lucien had disappeared without explanation, the way he often did, like smoke slipping through cracks. That left me alone in my chambers, pacing like a caged animal.

The quiet was unbearable.

I replayed the fight over and over in my mind—the way Veyris’s eyes had locked on mine, the strange pull I’d felt toward him, and the certainty in his voice when he’d said, You come willingly… eventually. It had been more than a threat. It had been a promise. And the worst part? Something deep inside me had recognized him.

Not his face. Not his voice. But the shadow in his presence.

A knock broke through my thoughts. Before I could answer, the door creaked open, and a palace guard stepped inside.

“Lady Astrid,” he said, his voice tight, “the Queen requests your presence in the council chamber. Now.”

The Queen never summoned me. Not directly. My stomach twisted.

The council chamber was a cathedral of shadows—tall arches, stained glass casting fractured moonlight across the blackstone floor, and a table so long it could have been a bridge between worlds. Vampires of the highest rank lined either side, their expressions carved from marble.

At the head sat Queen Serenya. Her beauty was a weapon—skin like polished porcelain, hair black as the void, and eyes that could strip a soul bare. She was dressed in silver and midnight blue, a crown of obsidian resting lightly on her brow.

Kael stood to her right, rigid as stone. His amber eyes flicked to me the moment I entered, scanning for injury, for weakness. I gave a slight shake of my head, as if to say I’m fine. His jaw tightened, but he didn’t move.

“Lady Astrid,” the Queen’s voice rang clear, though soft enough to make the chamber lean in. “We have heard troubling reports of last night’s events. It seems Veyris himself saw fit to… visit.”

Her tone made “visit” sound like a declaration of war.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” I said, my voice steady despite the pressure of a dozen ancient eyes on me. “He brought others with him. Skilled fighters. They were… after me.”

The chamber murmured at that. It wasn’t scandal for a vampire to be hunted—it was scandal for someone so low in the court’s hierarchy to be worth hunting at all.

“And yet,” Serenya said slowly, “you survived.”

It wasn’t a compliment. It was a question.

Kael took a step forward, his voice edged in warning. “She survived because we fought them off. Veyris retreated.”

The Queen’s eyes slid to him. “I am aware of your… contributions, Lord Kael. But my question remains—why would Veyris seek her?”

Every instinct told me to keep my answers plain, uninteresting. “I don’t know. Perhaps he sees me as an easy way to provoke the court.”

“Perhaps,” the Queen said. But her gaze lingered too long, like she was peeling back layers I didn’t even know I had.

The meeting turned to strategy—border patrols, intelligence gathering, reinforcing the Peace Accord’s crumbling edges. I tried to keep still, but my skin prickled. It wasn’t just the tension of the room. Something else was wrong.

The moment my fingers brushed the edge of the council table, a jolt shot up my arm—not pain, exactly, but a rush of heat, like blood boiling in my veins. My vision swam for a fraction of a second, and the chamber around me blurred into somewhere else entirely.

A different room. Different voices. A man’s laughter. A silver goblet spilling red liquid across a marble floor.

Then it was gone.

I jerked my hand back as if burned, my breath shallow. No one seemed to notice, except for one.

Lucien.

He was seated further down the table, lounging like the meeting bored him, but his eyes—those sharp, predatory crimson eyes—were fixed on me. He tilted his head slightly, as though filing the moment away for later dissection.

When the council adjourned, I tried to leave quickly, but Kael caught up to me in the corridor.

“What happened in there?” His voice was low, almost accusing. “You looked pale.”

“I’m fine,” I lied. “Just tired.”

Kael’s gaze was steady, unblinking. “Astrid, I know when you’re lying.”

My lips parted, but the truth felt too heavy to hand over in a hallway where shadows might be listening. “Not here,” I said. “Later.”

His jaw flexed, but he nodded.

Later turned out to be much later.

The palace descended into its nocturnal rhythm—quiet footsteps in long corridors, candlelight flickering in the draft. I had retreated to the library, a place that always felt safer than it should. Rows upon rows of leather-bound tomes, the faint scent of parchment and dust, and moonlight pooling through the tall windows.

I thought I was alone.

“You touched the council table,” Lucien’s voice came from behind me, smooth as silk. “And it touched back.”

I turned, startled but not surprised. Lucien had a way of appearing only when he wanted to. He stepped closer, the candlelight catching on the edge of his smile.

“What did you see?” he asked.

I hesitated. “It was… nothing. A flicker.”

“Nothing doesn’t make your pulse jump like that.” His eyes narrowed, as if he could hear the rhythm of my heartbeat from across the room. “That table has been in the Queen’s possession for centuries. Every major decision of the court has been struck upon it. Some say it remembers.”

“Remembers?” I echoed.

“Blood magic,” he said casually, as though discussing the weather. “It clings. It binds. It whispers to those who can hear it.”

My skin prickled. “And you think I can hear it?”

Lucien smiled faintly, not answering. “You should be careful, Astrid. Powers that wake without warning often don’t like going back to sleep.”

Before I could respond, he was gone, slipping between the shelves like he’d never been there at all.

Sleep was impossible that night. I kept hearing Veyris’s voice in my head, the echo of his parting words. Remember my name.

The strange vision at the council table.

Lucien’s warning.

The way Kael had looked at me today—not just protective, but searching, as if he was trying to solve a puzzle he didn’t have all the pieces for.

By the time dawn crept over Ebonveil, I had made a decision.

If I was going to survive this, I couldn’t just train my body. I needed to understand what was happening to me—why the shadows seemed to watch me, why blood magic felt like it recognized me.

And if the answers were buried in this world’s history, the library was only the beginning.

That afternoon, Kael found me among a stack of books older than the palace itself. His expression was unreadable, but his presence filled the room like a warm, unyielding wall.

“You said later,” he reminded me.

I closed the book I was holding. “When I touched the council table, I saw something. Just for a second. A different place, different people. It wasn’t a memory—at least, not mine.”

His eyes darkened. “And you didn’t think to tell me immediately?”

“I didn’t want to say it in front of the Queen. Or half the court.” I hesitated. “Kael… has this ever happened before? To anyone?”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Visions like that belong to bloodseers—vampires tied to the oldest lines, born with the ability to read history through touch. But those are rare. And you—”

“Am not from here,” I finished quietly.

Kael’s eyes searched mine. “You’re something, Astrid. But I don’t think we know what yet.”

His words should have scared me. Instead, they felt like an opening.

“Then we find out,” I said.

For a long moment, he just looked at me, amber eyes intense. Then he nodded once, sharp and certain.

That night, I dreamt of the marble floor again. Of the spilled goblet. But this time, the laughter was closer. And a voice—deep, commanding—whispered something I couldn’t make out.

When I woke, my hand ached as though I’d been gripping something far too tightly.

And in the corner of the room, where moonlight didn’t reach, I thought I saw a figure watching.

When I blinked, it was gone.

But the whisper remained.

Alright — I’ll extend Chapter 18 – The Whisper Beneath the Throne with a midnight encounter scene right after Astrid sees that shadow in her room.

And in the corner of the room, where moonlight didn’t reach, I thought I saw a figure watching.

When I blinked, it was gone.

But the whisper remained.

I sat up in bed, my senses straining. No sound of retreating footsteps. No creak of a door. Just that eerie stillness, the kind that presses against your ears until you can hear your own blood moving.

Then—there. A faint shift in the air, like something had passed too close.

I slipped from the bed, moving silently toward the dagger I’d hidden under my pillow. The metal was cool against my palm, an anchor against the swell of unease.

The handle of my door rattled.

Before I could move, the latch turned—and Kael stepped inside, his expression sharp, his body angled as if ready to fight.

“What are you doing here?” I whispered, my voice low and fierce. “You can’t just—”

“Someone was outside your chamber,” he cut in, his tone dark enough to still my words. “They moved away the moment they heard me coming. Not a guard. Not anyone I recognized.”

My skin prickled. “And you think they were here for me?”

“I think,” he said, stepping closer, “that no one lurks outside a lady’s chamber at this hour with good intentions.”

His gaze flicked briefly to the far corner of the room—the same one I’d thought I saw the figure in. His jaw tightened. “What did you see?”

I hesitated. “A shadow. Maybe my imagination.”

“Astrid,” he said, his voice quiet but edged, “your imagination doesn’t make my wolf bristle.”

The way he said my wolf made something low in my stomach twist.

He moved toward the corner, scanning it with that predatory stillness only he had. Then, in one sudden motion, he pulled the curtains back from the window, revealing… nothing. Just the pale light of the moon spilling across the floor.

But his expression didn’t ease. “They’re getting bolder.”

I frowned. “They?”

He looked at me then, something dangerous in his eyes. “Whoever is after you, Astrid, they’re not just testing the castle’s defenses anymore. They’re testing you.”

When he left, it wasn’t to return to his quarters. He took position just outside my door, leaning against the wall like a sentry carved from stone. I tried to protest—something about not needing a guard—but the words died when I met his eyes.

“This isn’t about need,” he said. “It’s about keeping you alive.”

And for the rest of that night, the whisper in my head faded beneath the steady, grounding awareness that Kael was there—watching, guarding, waiting.

But the shadow in the corner?

I was no longer sure it had been my imagination at all.

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