Chapter 5: The King’s Redemption

"Kill them all! Don't let them reach the pods!"

The scream ripped through the sterile, white halls of the Navia Syndicate’s core lab. It was cut short by the wet thud of Kaelor’s fist meeting a guard’s throat. We moved like one machine. I was the eyes, snapping off shots with the black handgun Kaelor had given me, dropping snipers before they could even line up a shot. Kaelor was the engine—a blur of shadow and raw power that tore through reinforced steel doors like they were wet paper.

The air in this place smelled of ozone and bleach. It made my skin crawl. This was where the "Goddess Virus" was born. This was where my father played god.

We hit the central lab, and the world stopped.

"Kaerith..." The name tore out of me, jagged and raw.

My sister was suspended in a glass stasis pod in the center of the room. Tubes snaked into her arms, pulsing with a sickly, rhythmic glow. Her blood—the Vaelis blood—was being sucked out, filtered through a machine that hummed with a low, predatory vibration. She looked like a ghost. Pale. Transparent.

"Aradaa, watch out!" Kaelor roared.

I didn't turn. I didn't need to. I felt the surge of heat in my chest—the nanotech, the "Pure-Blood" legacy Malrec had tried to steal. It didn't just hum anymore. It screamed. My vision turned a blinding, electric white.

Shut. Down.

The command didn't come from my throat; it came from my soul. A pulse of blue energy rippled out from my body, hitting the lab’s mainframe. The lights flickered and died. The hum of the blood-draining machine vanished. Every electronic lock in the room sparked and died.

"You always were a stubborn little b**tard," a voice drawled from the darkness.

Emergency red lights kicked in, casting long, bloody shadows across the floor. My father—Don Malrec—stood on the observation deck, his face twisted into a mask of smug cruelty. Beside him was Garron Blackmere, his broken wrist wrapped in a dirty bandage, eyes wide with a coward’s hunger.

Malrec held a small, black detonator. His thumb hovered over the red button.

"One click, Aradaa," Malrec sneered. "One click and this whole floor becomes a crater. You, your sister, and your little beast boyfriend. You were a failed experiment from the start. A scholar? A weakling? I should have bled you dry the day you were born."

Kaelor didn't wait. He launched himself at Garron, the two of them crashing through a glass partition. They hit the floor below in a tangle of limbs and snarls. Kaelor wasn't fighting like a man anymore. He was the Beast, his claws raking through Garron’s expensive suit, his teeth bared in a silent promise.

I ignored them. I walked toward the observation deck, my boots crunching on the glass.

"Put it down, Malrec," I said. My voice sounded different—heavy, echoing with a power that made the air vibrate.

"Or what?" Malrec laughed, his thumb pressing down. "You’ll read me a book? You’re nothing but a vial of medicine with legs."

I closed my eyes. I didn't reach for my gun. I reached for the air. I reached for the microscopic machines floating in Malrec’s own lungs—the same "virus" he’d used to kill a generation.

Freeze.

Malrec’s hand jerked. His thumb stopped a millimeter from the trigger. His eyes went wide, his face turning a dark, suffocating purple as his own muscles locked into stone. He couldn't even blink. The detonator slipped from his paralyzed fingers, clattering harmlessly to the floor.

I didn't kill him. Not yet.

I turned to the pod. I smashed the glass with the butt of my gun, the shards slicing my hands. I didn't care. I caught Kaerith as she tumbled out, her body cold and limp.

"Aradaa?" she whispered, her eyes fluttering open. She reached up, her thin fingers touching the collar still around my neck. "You... you came back for me."

"I'm taking you home," I promised, my voice breaking.

Behind me, a final, sickening crunch signaled the end of Garron Blackmere. Kaelor stood up, his face splattered with blood, his chest heaving. He looked at Malrec, then at me. The rage in his amber eyes softened into something else. Respect. Maybe even awe.

"It’s over," Kaelor said, his voice a low rumble.

"Not quite," Malrec wheezed. The paralysis was fading, but he was pinned against the railing by Kaelor’s guards. He spat blood at my feet, a dying man’s grin on his face. "You think you’ve won? You think you’re a Vaelis? You poor, stupid kid."

I narrowed my eyes. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I didn't keep you because you were my son," Malrec hissed. "I kept you because I stole you. Twenty-one years ago, during the raid on the old Dreadfang Citadel. You weren't a Vaelis prince. You were the only son of the true Dreadfang King. My greatest trophy."

The world tilted. I looked at Kaelor. He had frozen, his gaze locked on mine.

We weren't just mates. We were the two halves of a stolen crown. The scholar-king and the beast-king. One bloodline, ripped apart by a war of greed, now standing in the ruins of the man who did it.

"Boss!"

The lab doors burst open. Voren Ashclaw stepped in, his eyes darting to the fallen detonator. He raised his weapon, his face set in a desperate snarl. "The Syndicate belongs to me now! Kill them! Kill all of them!"

But his men didn't move. They were staring at me. They were sniffing the air.

The air didn't smell like bleach anymore. It smelled like rain. It smelled like life. The blue pulse from my awakening was spreading through the ventilation, the nanotech in my breath neutralizing the plague in real-time.

One by one, the Ashclaw enforcers lowered their guns. They knelt. Not for Voren. Not for Kaelor.

They knelt for the Pure-Blood.

"Get up, Voren," Kaelor said, stepping toward his half-brother. "It’s over. The plague is dying. And so is your claim to this city."

The sun began to bleed through the shattered windows of the skyscraper, the first light of dawn hitting the smoke-filled streets of Navia. The city was quiet. The alarms had finally stopped.

We walked out onto the rooftop helipad. Malrec was in chains, being dragged away by the very men he had once commanded. Kaerith was wrapped in Kaelor’s coat, safe in the arms of a medic.

Kaelor stood at the edge of the roof, looking out over the city. He turned to me, the golden light of the sun catching the amber in his eyes. He didn't say a word. He just sank to one knee, bowing his head.

"Don't do that," I said, my voice sharp. I reached down and grabbed his shoulders, hauling him back up. "I’m not your king, Kaelor."

He looked at me, a smirk playing on his blood-stained lips. "Maybe not. But you’re the heart of this city. And you’re the heart of me."

I pulled him into a kiss that tasted of iron, salt, and the beginning of something new. The "Pretty Prince" was gone. The "Weak Scholar" was a ghost.

I looked out at the horizon. The underworld was waking up to a world where they didn't have to hide in the shadows. And I was going to make sure it stayed that way.

"Let’s go home," I said.