Chapter 14

Elouera

Stirling didn’t take me to the dungeon. He didn’t call the Imperial Guards either.

He grabbed my wrist and twisted it hard. The pain made my fingers open, and the poisoned dagger fell from my hand before it could touch his coat.

Then he grabbed my other arm and held it tightly. He didn’t say a word. He pulled me out of the cold aviary and dragged me toward the North Tower.

We went down a narrow, dark spiral staircase. I could barely see anything as he pulled me deeper into the darkness.

Every step sent a sharp wave of pain through me. My broken rib hurt badly under the tight bandages, while Holden’s poison still burned through my body, fighting against the medicine. By the time Stirling kicked open the heavy oak doors at the bottom of the stairs, I was struggling to breathe. Dark spots filled my vision, and I could barely see.

We spilled into the Imperial Archives.

The old, forgotten room smelled of rotten leather, old paper, and dust. But a few seconds later, Stirling’s presence took over the whole room. His Alpha scent, like cedar and strong woodsmoke, filled the stale air. It felt so heavy that it pressed against my chest, making it hard for me to take a full breath.

He threw me forward. I crashed hard against the edge of a massive mahogany reading table, my hands scrambling for purchase across a sprawling map of the Sovereign Empire.

"The Weaver," Stirling breathed. The sheer, unhinged disbelief in his voice echoed off the vaulted ceiling.

He paced like a caged predator in the narrow aisle between the towering bookshelves. He dragged a shaking hand through his bronze hair, his striking green eyes burning as they locked onto me.

"Eight years," Stirling rasped, stepping closer to the table. "For eight years I watched you flinch at shadows. I watched you stutter and weep like a broken child. And all this time, the pathetic, idiot prince was sitting in the dark, dismantling my uncle’s entire northern campaign."

"I did what had to be done," I choked out, clutching my side as I leaned heavily against the mahogany. "Your uncle is a butcher. He burns villages just to warm his hands."

Stirling stopped pacing. He planted both hands flat on the table, leaning across the map until his face was inches from mine. The heat radiating off him was blistering.

"My uncle is a tactician!" Stirling snarled, his voice dropping into a dangerous, gravelly register. "He was executing the Doctrine of the Blue Mountain. It is an impenetrable siege strategy. We had the supply lines perfectly routed. We had the Outback militias starved out. But you arrogant little rat you gave them our blind spots!"

The fever in my blood flared, mixing violently with a sudden, reckless surge of pure adrenaline.

I was tired of hiding. I was tired of playing the fool for men who couldn't see the board right in front of them.

"The Doctrine of the Blue Mountain?" I laughed. It was a ragged, broken sound that completely silenced the room. I pushed myself off the table, standing as tall as my fractured rib would allow. "You think Vance is a genius for copying a failure?"

Stirling’s jaw locked. "It is the most decorated military strategy in the imperial texts."

"It was written by General Kaelen in the winter of 412, and it is a suicidal maneuver!" I snapped, slamming my own hand down on the northern border of the map between us. My finger traced the jagged ink line of the Iron Valley. "Kaelen starved his own men trying to hold this exact ridge. Your uncle didn't have impenetrable supply lines, Stirling. He overextended past the river."

Stirling stared at me, his green eyes narrowing. "The river crossings were heavily fortified."

"By infantry wearing sixty pounds of steel in the middle of mud season!" I shot back, the tactical maps I had studied in the catacombs blazing in my mind with crystal clarity. "Your grain wagons sink three inches for every mile they travel in that terrain. The militia didn't even need the Weaver’s intel to beat him. They just waited for your draft horses to break their legs in the mud, then slaughtered your men while they were trying to dig the wheels out."

Complete, absolute silence fell over the archives.

Stirling didn't move. He didn't blink. He just stared at my face.

The arrogant, mocking superiority that usually defined his expression was entirely gone, replaced by a profound, earth shattering shock. He wasn't looking at the pathetic Second Prince anymore.

He was looking at an equal.

"You routed Kaelen’s failure to predict the mud," Stirling whispered, his voice incredibly soft, filled with a dark, terrifying reverence.

"I didn't have to predict it," I breathed, my chest heaving against my bindings. "I just actually read the history books instead of just looking at the heroic paintings."

The tension in the air shifted. It snapped, curling into something infinitely more dangerous than anger.

Stirling stepped around the edge of the mahogany table. He didn't rush me. He moved with a slow, deliberate grace, his eyes dropping to my bruised, trembling lips, then down to the collar of my torn shirt, before rising back to meet my terrified gaze.

My Omega biology violently recognized the shift. The cedar and woodsmoke darkened, turning impossibly heavy and sweet with raw desire. My knees went weak. I backed up until my spine hit the towering bookshelf behind me.

"You are a military prodigy," Stirling murmured, stepping into my space. He lifted his hand, his knuckles lightly grazing the line of my jaw. "Wrapped in the body of a female Omega on the verge of her first heat."

A violent shiver ripped through my body at his touch. I couldn't pull away. The fever was burning my rational thoughts to ash.

"Stirling, please," I whispered, terrified of my own body's reaction to him.

"The Empress is going to sell me to Duchess Vespera," he breathed, stepping so close his broad chest brushed against mine. He didn't sound angry about the marriage contract anymore. He sounded completely, ruthlessly fixated on me. "She thinks she can buy an army and dispose of me. But she made a mistake, Elian."

He leaned closer, his lips brushing my ear. A warm shiver ran down my spine.

"She left the most dangerous weapon in the empire unguarded," Stirling whispered, his hand sliding down to grip my waist, pulling my burning body flush against his. "And I think I'm going to steal it."

Before I could even process the threat, the heavy iron lock on the archive doors behind us gave a deafening, metallic crack.

The doors burst open.

Archduke Holden sat in his wheelchair in the threshold, flanked by four heavily armed Imperial Guards, his warm green eyes completely dead as he stared at the two of us.