Chapter 47

Elouera

The cold, damp air of the underground tunnel made my skin sting, but the fear in my stomach was much worse.

I stood in the shadows beside Jace. The broken iron chains still hung from his thick wrists, covered in blood. He stood between me and the main corridor, breathing slowly but heavily. His dark eyes were filled with anger and a fierce need to protect me.

He looked ready to destroy the entire palace if that was what it took to keep me alive.

But as I looked at him and felt the golden bond between us pulsing softly in my chest, a frightening truth slowly became clear to me.

I was completely alone.

It was a painful truth, but I couldn’t deny it. Jace loved me. I could feel it through our mate bond every time his heart filled with the need to protect me.

But he didn’t understand Holden. Neither did anyone else.

Jace thought Holden was just a clever politician, a crippled uncle who used his position in a wheelchair to manipulate the royal court. Callan saw him as nothing more than an irritating man. The Empress believed he was a harmless, defeated reminder of her past.

But I knew the truth.

I understood just how terrible my uncle’s plan really was.

Holden didn’t simply want to destroy the Empress. He wasn’t just trying to cause a scandal at the Equinox Gala or start a war between the Northern House and the Crown.

He wanted to turn me into a weapon capable of destroying everything.

He had planned every detail.

He knew that when my true Omega heat was triggered, the Alphas around me would lose control and begin attacking one another. He knew the Empress would order my execution, pushing Callan into a rage that could make him betray the Crown.

And he knew that the ancient Sunfall blood inside me would awaken, destroying the balance of magic that protected New Avalon.

I wasn’t his beloved niece.

I was nothing more than a weapon to him. A beautiful, living bomb that he had spent years preparing.

He planned to use me to destroy the capital, killing everyone I had ever known. Then he would sit on his iron throne and watch the city burn, surrounded by the ruins of the world he had destroyed.

But I wouldn’t let him win.

If Holden had spent years preparing me to become a weapon, then I would find a way to turn his own plan against him.

“Elouera,” Jace whispered.

His rough voice pulled me from my thoughts. He reached for me and gently brushed his thumb against the side of my neck, right where the golden mark of our bond glowed against my skin.

“We have to go,” he said quietly. “The Vanguard guards are searching the lower vaults.”

"Give me thirty seconds," I rasped.

I pulled the small, dark velvet pouch I had taken from Master Vane’s cabinet out from beneath my coat. Inside sat a crystal dropper and a small, unlabelled amber vial filled with the concentrated, raw liquid of Catalyst-7—the exact Night-bloom toxin Holden had spent six years feeding into my daily tea.

Jace’s eyes snapped down to the vial, his hazel gaze darkening with immediate, feral alarm. "What is that?"

"My survival," I whispered.

My hands were shaking, but my mind was terrifyingly clear. Holden believed my body was a delicate, volatile glass vessel, waiting for his catalyst to shatter it into a hundred pieces. He believed I was defenseless against the poison in my veins.

If I wanted to beat a strategist who had spent a decade planning my execution, I couldn't just run. I had to make my body unyielding. I had to force my nervous system to adapt to the very venom meant to destroy me.

I unstoppered the small amber bottle. The sharp, bitter scent of vaporized silver and crushed black petals hit my nose, making my stomach violently turn.

"Elouera, no!" Jace hissed, his hand shooting forward to grab my wrist.

Before his fingers could close around my arm, I lifted the glass dropper to my mouth and let a single, undiluted drop of the Catalyst-7 hit the back of my tongue.

The reaction was instantaneous and blindingly violent.

It felt as though someone had driven a red-hot iron spike straight through the roof of my mouth and down into my throat. My lungs violently seized, refusing to draw air. My vision flashed pure, blinding white, white-hot agony shooting down my spine as my Omega biology screamed in terror.

I dropped to my knees on the cold stone floor, my body convulsing as the concentrated poison hit my bloodstream.

"Elouera!" Jace growled, dropping beside me, his massive arms wrapping around my waist, his face flushed with sheer, unadulterated terror as he pulled my thrashing body against his chest.

I bit my lip so hard blood burst across my chin, fighting the urge to scream, forcing my failing pulse to ride out the shockwave. Slowly, agonizingly, the blinding fire in my throat receded into a dull, throbbing burn. My lungs dragged in a ragged, shallow gasp of air.

My body had survived the single drop. The localized immunity had begun.

I looked up through the tears blurring my vision, my hand clutching Jace’s leather coat.

And then, I heard it.

A sharp, metallic click echoed from the ceiling directly above our heads, followed by the heavy, ominous groan of iron gears grinding together.

The stone floor beneath our knees suddenly gave way, plunging us both into a pitch-black, bottomless drop.