Chapter 32: The Child Who Died Twice

Azrael was smiling.

Not the cruel smile of a conqueror who had finally defeated his enemies.

Not the satisfied smile of a prisoner who had escaped centuries of confinement.

It was the smile of a father who had just heard his daughter remember him.

And somehow, that made it more terrifying.

“Say it again,” he whispered.

Elara stood trembling in the middle of the chamber. Black tears ran down her cheeks, but the silver in her eyes burned brighter with every passing second.

“Mother killed me before I was born.”

Elaris took a step toward her.

“No, my little moon. You don't understand what you remember.”

Elara screamed.

“Don't call me that!”

The force of her voice shattered the remaining windows. Glass exploded outward, scattering across the courtyard below. The shadows rushed toward her, gathering around her body like a cloak.

Kael moved instinctively.

“Elara, look at me.”

She turned toward him.

For a brief moment, he saw the frightened child who had called him brother beneath the fortress. The girl who had spent twenty years trapped in an enchanted seal. The girl who had cried because she believed her family had abandoned her.

Then another expression passed across her face.

Recognition.

“You were there,” she whispered.

Kael's stomach tightened.

“What?”

“You were there when I died.”

“No.” His voice came out too quickly. “I wasn't even born.”

Elara shook her head.

“You were there.”

Her gaze dropped to his chest.

“And you were crying.”

The second heartbeat slammed against Kael's ribs.

He stumbled backward.

Lucien caught his shoulders. “Kael?”

Kael barely heard him.

The chamber disappeared.

For one terrible instant, he stood in a room made of white stone beneath a sky without a moon.

He was smaller than he was now, though he could not tell how old he was. His hands were covered in blood. Someone was holding him from behind, keeping him from running toward a silver altar.

A woman lay upon it.

Elaris.

Her silver gown was stained crimson. Her hair spread across the stone like a dark river, and her fingers were wrapped around the hand of a newborn child.

Elara.

But the child was not breathing.

Standing beside the altar was Seraphine.

Her face was streaked with tears. In one hand, she held a silver dagger. In the other, she held a small black crystal that pulsed like a heart.

And behind her stood Azrael.

He was younger in the vision, his face free of the shadows that now surrounded him. His eyes were fixed on the motionless child.

“Give her back,” he begged.

Seraphine shook her head.

“If she lives, the fourth bloodline will collapse.”

“She is my daughter!”

“And she is the key to your destruction!”

Azrael lunged toward the altar.

The shadows erupted.

They wrapped around his limbs and dragged him backward as Seraphine raised the black crystal.

Elaris reached for the child.

“Please,” she sobbed. “Don't make me choose.”

Seraphine closed her eyes.

“I am sorry.”

Then she drove the silver dagger into the crystal.

A scream tore through the room.

Not from Azrael.

Not from Elaris.

From the child.

The newborn's tiny chest rose.

One breath.

Then another.

And the vision shattered.

Kael returned to the chamber with a strangled gasp.

He fell to his knees, clutching his head.

Lucien dropped beside him.

“Tell me what you saw.”

Kael could barely speak.

“She died.”

Lucien looked toward Elara.

“What?”

“Elaris's child. She was dead.” Kael swallowed hard. “Seraphine brought her back.”

Seraphine's face crumpled.

“No,” she whispered. “That is not what happened.”

Kael stared at her.

“Then tell us what happened!”

The silver crown above his head flared.

Every person in the chamber recoiled.

Kael had never intentionally used the authority of the Moon King against his grandmother, but the power inside him was no longer waiting for permission.

“Tell me the truth,” he commanded.

Seraphine dropped to her knees.

Her hands shook as she pressed them against the stone floor.

“I did not kill Elara,” she said. “I stopped her death from destroying all four bloodlines.”

“That's not an answer!”

“Because you are asking the wrong question!”

The words echoed through the chamber.

Seraphine lifted her face.

“Elara was never supposed to be born alive.”

Silence.

Even Azrael stopped smiling.

Seraphine continued, her voice breaking.

“The fourth bloodline was dying. Our power was built upon the balance between life and death, but the balance had been broken long before Elara's birth. Elaris was carrying a child who possessed both powers in equal measure.”

She looked at Elara.

“Life and death could not exist inside one child without destroying each other.”

Elara's lips trembled.

“You said I was your first heir.”

“You were.”

“You said you protected me.”

“I did.”

“Then why did I die?”

Seraphine closed her eyes.

“Because your heart stopped before your first breath.”

Elara took a step backward.

“No.”

“I tried every spell I knew. I called upon the ancestors. I offered my own life. Nothing worked.”

“Stop lying!”

“I am not lying!”

Seraphine's voice cracked like a whip.

“You were dead, Elara! Your mother was dying beside you, and Azrael was tearing the world apart because he could not accept what had happened. I had seconds to make a choice.”

She looked toward Azrael.

“I used the only power capable of restoring your life.”

The black crystal.

Kael remembered its pulsing surface.

“What was it?” he asked.

Seraphine looked at him.

“Azrael's original heart.”

A sound escaped from Elara's throat.

Azrael's smile vanished completely.

“You put my heart inside my daughter,” he said.

“I used a fragment of it,” Seraphine replied. “Enough to restart her heart. Enough to give her a chance to live.”

“You bound my life to hers.”

“I thought the fragment would fade.”

“But it didn't,” Azrael said.

His voice had become frighteningly quiet.

“It grew.”

The shadows beneath his feet began to move.

“It became her second soul.”

Elara stared at her own hands.

The black mark on her wrist pulsed.

“And when you sealed me beneath the fortress,” she whispered, “you weren't protecting me from him.”

Seraphine's silence answered her.

“You were protecting him from me.”

“No,” Seraphine said desperately. “I was trying to prevent the two of you from destroying each other.”

Elara began to laugh.

It was a small, broken sound.

“You let me believe I was a forgotten child. You let me believe my father abandoned me. You let me sleep for twenty years because you were afraid of what I would become.”

She looked at Azrael.

“Did you know?”

Azrael did not answer immediately.

For the first time, he looked uncertain.

“I knew a fragment of my heart had survived,” he said. “I did not know it had been placed inside you.”

“Then why did you keep calling me your daughter?”

“Because you are.”

“Because of my blood?”

“Because I have searched for you every day since they took you from me.”

Elara's face twisted.

“You searched for me while I was sleeping beneath your feet?”

Azrael lowered his head.

“I could not reach you.”

“You could have tried harder.”

The words struck him with the force of a blade.

For several seconds, the ancient being who had frightened kings and broken kingdoms had no answer for a little girl.

Then Elara turned toward Elaris.

“And you?”

Elaris looked as if she had been waiting centuries for that question.

“I loved you before you were born,” she whispered.

“Then why did you let them do this to me?”

“Because I was dying.”

“You could have stopped them!”

“I tried!”

Elaris's voice shattered.

“I begged Seraphine to save you. I begged Azrael to stop fighting. I begged the ancestors to take my life instead. But your father refused to accept that you were gone, and Seraphine refused to let him destroy the world trying to bring you back.”

She reached for Elara.

This time, Elara did not move away.

“I was too weak to protect you,” Elaris whispered. “And when they placed you in that seal, I was trapped beyond the veil. I could hear you sometimes. I could hear you crying, but I couldn't reach you.”

Tears filled Elara's eyes.

“Were you the one who told me not to trust the girl?”

Elaris went still.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I saw what would happen if you remembered everything.”

Elara's breathing quickened.

“What would happen?”

Elaris looked at Kael.

Then at the black mark on Elara's wrist.

“Your father's heart is waking inside you. And your brother's second heartbeat is connected to it.”

Kael felt cold.

“Explain.”

“The fragment inside Elara and the fragment inside you were never meant to exist separately. When Seraphine restored Elara's life, the remaining essence of Azrael's heart was sealed inside the Moon Crown. Your father believed that dividing the power would prevent Azrael from returning.”

“My father put the other fragment inside me?”

“Not directly. He sealed it into the crown, then bound the crown to your bloodline. When you were born, the crown chose you as its vessel.”

Kael stared at her.

“So Elara has one part of Azrael's heart, and I have the other.”

“Yes.”

“And if the two parts reunite?”

Elaris hesitated.

Azrael answered for her.

“I will be whole again.”

Lucien rose slowly.

“And then?”

Azrael turned toward him.

“Then the first pact ends.”

“That sounds almost reasonable,” Lucien said cautiously.

“It should frighten you.”

Azrael lifted one hand.

The chamber walls became transparent.

Beyond them, Kael saw the kingdoms.

Black Fang.

The Crimson Court.

The ruined Moon Kingdom.

And far beyond the mountains, a fourth territory appeared where no territory should have existed. Its towers were made of pale bone and silver glass, its rivers flowed upward, and a dark moon hung over its capital.

At the center of that kingdom stood an enormous throne.

Empty.

Waiting.

“The first pact was never created to imprison me forever,” Azrael said. “It was created to prevent the fourth bloodline from claiming its rightful throne until the world was ready.”

Seraphine stood abruptly.

“That's not true.”

Azrael looked at her.

“You have spent centuries telling that lie.”

“The fourth bloodline was destroyed because you tried to rule life and death!”

“No. It was destroyed because the other three kingdoms feared what we could do.”

He turned toward Kael.

“Your father knew the truth. That is why he tried to hide you. That is why he made bargains with the Crimson Court. That is why he allowed the Moon Kingdom to fall.”

Kael shook his head.

“My father died trying to stop you.”

“Your father died trying to undo what he had done.”

Azrael's gaze shifted toward the hovering crown.

“He thought he could divide my heart, conceal my daughter, and erase the fourth bloodline from history. He believed that if no one remembered the throne, no one could claim it.”

His eyes returned to Kael.

“But the crown remembers.”

The silver crown above Kael's head began to turn.

A fourth point emerged from its jagged rim.

Then a fifth.

Then a sixth.

The crown was changing.

Kael felt its power pouring into his bones, searching for something buried deep within him.

A memory.

A name.

A command.

He heard his father's voice.

If the fourth door opens, do not enter.

The four doors from his earlier vision appeared around him.

Silver.

Crimson.

Black.

And the plain, unmarked door that represented Lucien.

But now there was a fifth door.

It was made of white stone, and a black eye had been carved into its center.

The door opened.

A little boy stood on the other side.

He had Kael's face.

Elara's eyes.

And a black mark across his throat.

Kael stopped breathing.

The boy looked directly at him.

“You took your time,” he said.

Kael could not move.

“Who are you?”

The boy smiled sadly.

“The part of you they buried before you were born.”

The vision began to collapse.

Lucien seized Kael's hand.

“Kael! Stay with me!”

The boy's smile widened.

“Ask your mate what his father really promised.”

Then the fifth door slammed shut.

Kael was thrown back into the chamber.

His crown disappeared.

The black mark on his palm vanished as if it had never existed.

For three heartbeats, everything seemed normal.

Then Lucien staggered.

He pressed a hand to his chest.

His wolf let out a terrible, agonized howl.

Kael caught him before he fell.

“Lucien?”

The Alpha's eyes turned black.

But this time, the voice that emerged from his mouth was not Azrael's.

It was King Draven's.

“The Moon heir must die before the fifth bloodline awakens.”

Lucien's body went rigid.

And somewhere beneath the fortress, something answered the command.

A child's voice.

A voice that sounded exactly like Kael's.

“Too late.”