Chapter 344 He Is MINE. The Gods CHOSE Me.
Gavriel Sterling stood in the corner of a bathing chamber ten thousand years before he was born, watching himself protect the woman he loved.
Vesper’s hands shook. Her eyes surged green, and for a second, it looked like she was going to lunge across the chamber and stab Tristan or River.
The doors burst open.
River screamed, grabbing her towel that had slipped, trying to cover herself as Tristan stepped in front of her, shielding her.
Fae guards stormed the bathing chamber in formation, boots cracking against wet marble.
Two of them reached Vesper in under a second. The first seized her wrist, twisting the dagger free with a controlled motion that sent the blade skittering across the stone. The second locked her arms behind her back.
Vesper fought. She twisted against the grip, her dark hair whipping across her face, her voice climbing into a register that carried through stone walls and down corridors.
“He is MINE. The Gods CHOSE me. You cannot imprison a fated mate for claiming what is HERS—”
“Get her out,” Tristan ordered. “Warded dungeon.”
The guards dragged her towards the door. Her heels left wet streaks on the marble. Her protests echoed off the vaulted ceiling and bounced back, layered and distorted, the sound of a woman being removed from a room she believed she had a divine right to occupy.
The doors closed behind them.
The bathing chamber was silent.
River fell to her knees. Tristan was beside her in an instant. He picked her up and carried her to their bed without a word.
Gavriel watched as Tristan held River, stroking the back of her head. Her silent tears eventually stopped, and her eyes closed.
Tristan stared up at the ceiling in the dark, crushing her against his chest. The calm composure he had held the entire day was gone. What replaced it was fury and fear. A man who would burn the world down before he let the woman in his arms go.
✦✦✦
The vision faded into a council chamber Gavriel had never seen, but recognition stirred anyway, faint and stubborn, the way a melody you haven’t heard in years finds you in the middle of a crowded room.
White walls. A large crescent table occupied by Fae Elders and King Atlas Aelindor sitting in the center.
Tristan stood in the center of the crescent table.
“I am formally requesting the Severing Ceremony.”
Gavriel had not been expecting that. The prince was asking permission for the thing that he had done alone. Another difference between fae and wolf bonds.
The elders absorbed the request the way a courtroom absorbs a confession: in total silence, with every face rearranging itself at a different speed.
Elder Maren broke the silence first.
“The Severing Ceremony has been performed twenty times in the recorded history of our people. Half of those resulted in death. You are asking us to perform a procedure with a failure rate that would horrify a battlefield surgeon.”
“I am asking you to free me from a woman I did not choose.”
The sentence hit Gavriel between the ribs. He hadn’t chosen Guinevere either. He had been handed a matebond that he didn’t want and had severed it with the same desperation.
“The Moon Goddess chose her for you. Your preference was never part of the arrangement.”
Tristan’s jaw worked. “I built a matebond with River. Chose it. Sealed it. That bond is on my wife’s neck in the shape of a star, placed there by my magic, ratified by my bloodline. I will dissolve the fated tie to Vesper Willow, and I will do it with your help or without it.”
Elder Vareth, seated at the far end of the crescent, leaned forward.
“Your Highness should consider the political dimensions of this request. Vesper Willow is the daughter of General Aldren Willow, Commander of the Eastern Fae Alliance. Disrespecting her is an insult to them.” He paused. “Do try to see reason, Tristan.”
Reason. Gavriel almost laughed. Reason was for men who hadn’t spent years building something with their bare hands only to watch the gods rip it away. Reason was a luxury that Tristan Aelindor didn’t need to have. Gavriel understood him better than any of these people.
“I see reason perfectly. I see a woman who broke into my chambers last night, who has resisted arrest twice, and who crashed my bonding ceremony in a red dress and accused me of marrying my sister in front of two hundred nobles. That is the woman you are asking me to accept.”
The elders exchanged glances. The glances carried the particular frequency of old men who had been managing inconvenient royals for decades and were accustomed to the inconveniences being smaller.
Atlas, who had remained at the center of the crescent with the impartial stillness of a king presiding rather than participating, who had let his son argue and build his case and meet every objection with the discipline of the commander he had trained, spoke.
“The woman has refused to cooperate with the guard. She broke into my son’s chambers in the night. She resisted arrest on two separate occasions. My guards sense dark magic on her. I sense it myself.” His eyes moved across the crescent, landing on each elder. “You cannot possibly be serious about denying this request.”
Gavriel recognized this strategy. The question was rhetorical. It existed so that the refusal, if it came, would be on record, and the record would show that the King of All Fae had asked politely. Tiberon used it. Dex was learning it. Authority that asked permission was authority that intended to proceed regardless of the answer.
Elder Maren met the king’s gaze.
“The dark magic you sense, Your Majesty, is her soul turning. Rejection by a fated tie corrodes the soul of the rejected. It is documented in every scroll this council has produced on the subject. The darkness on that woman is the consequence of your son’s refusal, and it will deepen until it consumes her entirely or he accepts what fate has given him.”