oh dear,
Lucien thinks he made a mistake.
Seeing Feyre so healthy, so happy, so enraged (at him, at Tamlin), so alive.
Lucien wonders if he made a mistake bringing Nesta and Elain into this.
Lucien ignores everyone and looks down, ears ringing, blood rushing in his head.
He can barely hear the others, his vision is blurry-
“You,” the king said, pointing a thick finger at Feyre, “are a very difficult female to get ahold of. Of course, we’ve also agreed that you’ll work for me once you’ve been returned home to your husband, but … Is it husband-to-be, or husband? I can’t remember.”
First strike. Tamlin bristles.
“Tamlin,” Lucien whispers. A plead. A warning.
But Tamlin didn’t lower the hand stretched toward Feyre. “I’m taking you home.”
Feyre backed up a step—toward where Rhysand still held Azriel with Cassian.
The two Illyrians. Bloodthirsty when it came to protecting their own.
He would have to be fast, have to grab Elain and Nesta and winnow the hell out of here to their home.
“There’s that other bit, too. The other thing I wanted,” the king went on. “Well, Jurian wanted. Two birds with one stone, really. The High Lord of Night dead—and to learn who his friends were. It drove Jurian quite mad, honestly, that you never revealed it during those fifty years. So now you know, Jurian. And now you can do what you please with them.”
Around Feyre, the Night Court was tense—taut. Azriel was subtly moving a bloody, scarred hand closer to his blades.
Feyre says steadily, clearly, to Tamlin, “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“You’ll say differently, my dear,” the king countered, “when I complete the final part of my bargain.”
Cauldron save them, Lucien prays, watching that strike of horror appear in Feyre’s face.
The king jerked his chin at my left arm. “Break that bond between you two.”
“Please,” Feyre whispers.
Lucien blinks once, twice, discreetly looking at Morrigan.
Morrigan meets his gaze, daring him to speak.
They thought she was bonded with Rhysand. They were going to break the bargain bond.
Lucien glances at Feyre, who looked horrified, muscles (muscles, she had been training, she wasn’t being caged) rippling and taut.
Star actress. High Fae were always wonderful with their lies and smiles.
Rhys remained silent, though his grip tightened on Azriel. Observing—weighing, sorting through the lock on his power.
Feyre’s voice cracks as she says to Tamlin, still at the opposite end of the crude half circle they’d formed before the dais, “Don’t. Don’t let him. I told you—I told you that I was fine. That I left—”
“You weren’t well,” Tamlin snarls. “He used that bond to manipulate you. Why do you think I was gone so often? I was looking for a way to get you free. And you left.”
“I left because I was going to die in that house!”
The King of Hybern clicked his tongue. “Not what you expected, is it?”
Tamlin growled at him, but again held out his hand toward Feyre. “Come home with me. Now.”
“No,” Feyre replies shortly.
Lucien flinches involuntarily, drawing Night’s attention.
Cauldron save the,, if they had a meltdown here right now, he couldn’t protect Elain and Nesta-
And Lucien realises something.
They would be using her sisters as a bargaining chip.
How could he not have realised, he had never thought Tamlin would stoop so low, he had thought they were just going to help Feyre assimilate together to Spring again-
Lucien looks directly at Rhysand, begging him with his eyes, telling him to look into his damn mind.
Rhysand was barely breathing, barely moving.
Morrigan was doing the same, letting the blood of the two lllyrians shield the scent of the mating bond further.
He needed to get the two out safe. Preferably without breaking any of his vows.
Jurian’s sword was already out—and he was looking at Mor as if he was going to kill her first. Azriel’s blood-drained face twisted with rage as he noticed that stare. Cassian, still holding him upright, took them all in, assessing, readying himself to fight, to defend. Tamlin was still domineering Feyre, scowl in place. Hybern looked so amused Lucine was tempted to slap that smirk off his face.
“I’ll come with you,” Feyre says softly to Tamlin, to Lucien, shifting on his feet, “if you leave them alone. Let them go.”
Lucien knows, he knows how this is going to go down.
It always ends in a fight. How he could have thought they were compatible with each other, he did not know.
The girl had grown up into a strong woman who did not need Tamlin. Did not like who Tamlin had grown to be, an ugly, twisted version of himself.
Tamlin’s face contorts with wrath. “They’re monsters. They’re—” He didn’t finish as he stalked across the floor to grab Feyre.
Lucien begins to step back to the hidden corner, waiting or the moment to get the sisters.
Tamlin lunged for Feyre over the few feet that remained. So fast—too fast—
Feyre becomes mist and shadow, and winnows beyond his reach.
The king let out a low laugh as Tamlin stumbles.
And went sprawling as Rhysand’s fist connects with his face.
It was done in perfect synchrony. Whatever training Feyre had received-
Panting, Feyre retreats right into Rhysand’s arms as one looped around my waist, as Azriel’s blood on him soaked into my back. Behind them, Morrigan leaps in to fill the space Rhys had vacated, slinging Azriel’s arm over her shoulders.
They were a unit, lethal, a force that could not be contained. They were night, they were darkness and shadows and moons and stars.
Look at me, Lucien silently pleads Rhysand.
Tamlin rose, wiping the blood now trickling from his nose as he backed to where Lucien held his position with a hand on his sword.
He had to protect Elain and Nesta, had to-
But just as Tamlin neared his Emissary, he staggered a step. His face went white with rage.
Tamlin understood a moment before the king laughed. “I don’t believe it. Your bride left you only to find her mate. The Mother has a warped sense of humor, it seems. And what a talent—tell me, girl: how did you unravel that spell?”
The hatred in Tamlin’s eyes made Feyre’s knees buckle. “I’m sorry,” Feyre says.
Tamlin’s eyes were on Rhysand, his face near-feral. “You,” he snarled, the sound more animal than Fae. “What did you do to her?”
Oh Tam, if only you knew, Lucien thinks distantly as he edges towards the doors.
Behind, the doors opened and soldiers poured in. Some looked like the Attor. Some looked worse. More and more, filling up the room, the exits, armor and weapons clanking.
Morrigan and Cassian, Azriel sagging and heavy-lidded between them, scans each soldier and weapon, sizing up the best odds of escape. Feyre left them to it as Rhysand and her faced Tamlin.
“I’m not going with you,” Feyre spits at Tamlin, so like Nesta had. “And even if I did … You spineless, stupid fool for selling us out to him! Do you know what he wants to do with that Cauldron?”
“Oh, I’m going to do many, many things with it,” the king says.
And the Cauldron appeared again between us.
“Starting now.”
Talons and wings and shadows were instantly around Feyre, surrounded by water and fire-
Then Feyre gasped.
Lucien knew what was happening.
His vow to Elain and Nesta, made with desperation, was flaring up.
“Ah,” the king said to me, clicking his tongue, “that. Look at you. A child of all seven courts—like and unlike all. How the Cauldron purrs in your presence. Did you plan to use it? Destroy it? With that book, you could do anything you wished.”
Feyre didn’t say anything. The king shrugs. “You’ll tell me soon enough.”
“I made no bargain with you.”
“No, but your master did, so you will obey.”
Feyre hisses at Tamlin, “If you bring me from here, if you take me from my mate, I will destroy you. I will destroy your court, and everything you hold dear.”
Tamlin’s lips thinned. But he said simply, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Lucien cringes. Oh gods.
The king jerked his chin to the guards by the side door through which Tamlin and Lucien had appeared. “No—she doesn’t.” The doors opened again. “There will be no destroying,” the king went on as people—as women walked through those doors.
Four women. Four humans. The four remaining queens.
“Because,” the king said, the queens’ guards falling into rank behind them, hauling something in the core of their formation, “you will find, Feyre Archeron, that it is in your best interest to behave.”
The four queens sneered at them with hate in their eyes. Hate.
And parted to let their personal guards through.
Nesta and Elain Archeron were here.
The final bargain.
Lucien nearly doubles over as the vow pulls towards them, at Elain was quietly sobbing, the gag soaked with her tears. Nesta, hair disheveled as if she’d fought like a wildcat, was panting as she took them in. Took in the Cauldron.
Took in Lucien. Lucien nearly cringes under her damning gaze. Her subtle shifting to point towards Elain.
Lucien steels himself. He is a male of his word.
Nesta nods imperceptibly.
“You made a very big mistake,” the king said to Rhysand, his arms banded around Feyre, “the day you went after the Book. I had no need of it. I was content to let it lie hidden. But the moment your forces started sniffing around … I decided who better than to be my liaison to the human realm than my newly reborn friend, Jurian? He’d just finished all those months of recovering from the process, and longed to see what his former home had become, so he was more than happy to visit the continent for an extended visit.”
Indeed the queens smiled at him—bowed their heads. Rhysand’s arms tightened.
“The brave, cunning Jurian, who suffered so badly at the end of the War—now my ally. Here to help me convince these queens to aid in my cause. For a price of his own, of course, but it has no bearing here. And wiser to work with me, my men, than to allow you monsters in the Night Court to rule and attack. Jurian was right to warn their Majesties that you’d try to take the Book—that you would feed them lies of love and goodness, when he had seen what the High Lord of the Night Court was capable of. The hero of the human forces, reborn as a gesture to the human world of my good faith. I do not wish to invade the continent—but to work with them. My powers ensconced their court from prying eyes, just to show them the benefits.” A smirk at Azriel, who could hardly lift his head to snarl back. “Such impressive attempts to infiltrate their sacred palace, Shadowsinger—and utter proof to their Majesties, of course, that your court is not as benevolent as you seem.”
“Liar,” Feyre hisses, and whirls on the queens, daring only a step away from Rhysand. “They are liars, and if you do not let my sisters go, I will slaughter—”
“Do you hear the threats, the language they use in the Night Court?” the king said to the mortal queens, their guards now around us in a half circle. “Slaughter, ultimatums … They wish to end life. I desire to give it.”
The eldest queen said to him, refusing to acknowledge Feyre’s words, “Then show us—prove this gift you mentioned.”
Rhysand tugged Feyre back against him. He says quietly to the queen, “You’re a fool.”
The king cut in, “Is she? Why submit to old age and ailments when what I offer is so much better?” He waved a hand toward Feyre. “Eternal youth. Do you deny the benefits? A mortal queen becomes one who might reign forever. Of course, there are risks—the transition can be … difficult. But a strong-willed individual could survive.”
The youngest queen, the dark-haired one, smiled slightly. Arrogant youth—and bitter old age. Only the two others, the ones who wore white and black, seemed to hesitate, stepping closer to each other—and their towering guards.
The ancient queen lifted her chin, “Show us. Demonstrate it can be done, that it is safe.”
Elain does not look at any of them. Elain only looks at him, at Nesta.
Lucien takes a small step away from Tamlin.
The king nodded. “Why did you think I asked my dear friend Ianthe to see who Feyre Archeron would appreciate having with her for eternity?” Feyre glances at the queens, the question no doubt written on my face. The king explains, “Oh, I asked them first. They deemed it too … uncouth to betray two young, misguided women. Ianthe had no such qualms. Consider it my wedding present for you both,” he adds to Tamlin.
But Tamlin’s face tightens. “What?”
The king cocks his head, savoring every word. “I think the High Priestess was waiting until your return to tell you, but didn’t you ever ask why she believed I might be able to break the bargain? Why she had so many musings on the idea? So many millennia have the High Priestesses been forced to their knees for the High Lords. And during those years she dwelled in that foreign court … such an open mind, she has. Once we met, once I painted for her a portrait of a Prythian free of High Lords, where the High Priestesses might rule with grace and wisdom … She didn’t take much convincing.”
Feyre looked like she was going to vomit. Tamlin, to his credit, looked like he might, too.
Ianthe, that fucking bitch of a whore.
Lucien’s face slackens. “She sold out—she sold out Feyre’s family. To you.”
Nesta now looks at him.
Lucien inches closer.
“Sold out?” The king snorts. “Or saved from the shackles of mortal death? Ianthe suggested they were both strong-willed women, like their sister. No doubt they’ll survive. And prove to our queens it can be done. If one has the strength.”
“Don’t you—
The king cut Feyre off, “I would suggest bracing yourselves.”
And then hell exploded in the hall.
Power, white and unending and hideous, barreled into everyone.
Rhysand’s body covering Feyre as they were all thrown to the floor, the shout of pain as he took the brunt of the king’s power.
Cassian twisted, wings flaring wide as he shielded Azriel.
Cassian’s scream as his wings shredded under talons of pure magic was the most horrific sound Lucien ever heard. Morrigan surged for him, but too late.
Rhysand was moving in an instant, as if he’d lunge for the king, but power hit them again, and again. Rhysand slammed to his knees.
I kneel only for my queen
Nesta and Elain scream.
Lucien bites down on his frustration and moves further away, slowly, surely-
But Elain’s cry—a warning. A warning to—
To Feyre’s right, now exposed, Tamlin ran for her. To grab her at last.
Feyre hurls a knife at him.
He had to dive to miss it. And he backed away at the second one she had ready, gaping at her, at Rhysand, as if he could indeed see the mating bond between them.
Tamlin was festering. Tamlin was going to kill them all one day, and Lucien could not believe that this was how it was going to end.
Lucien was near now.
Feyre whirls as soldiers pressed in, cutting them off. Whirls, and ses Cassian and Azriel on the ground, Jurian laughing softly at the blood gushing from Cassian’s ravaged wings—
Shreds of them remained.
Lucien stamps down the urge to hurl. Illyrians, with their prized wings, and Cassian’s-
War was never for the faint-hearted.
Feyre scrambled for him.
Morrigan, on her knees beside Cassian, hurtled for the king with a cry of pure wrath.
He sent a punch of power to her. She dodged, a knife angled in her hand, and—
Azriel cried out in pain.
She froze. Stopped a foot from the throne. Her knife clattered to the floor.
The king rose. “What a mighty queen you are,” he breathed.
And Mor backed away. Step by step.
No, Lucien thinks in horror, stopping his slow walk to the sisters.
“What a prize,” the king said, that black gaze devouring her.
Eris’s eyes flashing mockingly. “Your choice in females are absolutely atrocious, she’s just a whore” “Like your first bride?” Lucien had snarled, then screamed as fire burned him, burned his clothes to cinders, flayed his skin.
Azriel’s head lifted from where he was sprawled in his own blood, eyes full of rage and pain as he snarled at the king, “Don’t you touch her.”
Morrigan looked at Azriel—and there was real fear there. Fear—and something else. She didn’t stop moving until she again kneeled beside him and pressed a hand to his wound. Azriel hissed—but covered her bloody fingers with his own.
The blood, the blood and scents all over the place was helping to cover their bond. Morrigan always stayed near Rhysand, to cover it up.
Wonderful, wicked liars.
Rhysand positioned himself between Feyre and the king as Feyre dropped to my knees before Cassian. Feyre ripped at the leather covering my forearm—
Lucien begins his approach again. There were too many guards, best to make a distraction first before getting them. Perhaps Night would, he knew they would never surrender like that.
“Put the prettier one in first,” the king said, Morrigan already forgotten.
Feyre twisted—only to have the king’s guards grab her from behind. Rhysand was instantly there, but Azriel shouted, back arching as the king’s poison worked its way in.
“Please refrain,” the king said, “from getting any stupid ideas, Rhysand.” He smiled at Feyre. “If any of you interfere, the shadowsinger dies. Pity about the other brute’s wings.” He gave the sisters a mockery of a bow. “Ladies, eternity awaits. Prove to their Majesties the Cauldron is safe for … strong-willed individuals.”
Feyre was shaking her head.
Rhysand, look at me-
Lucien felt the vow screaming, dragging him-
Nesta was no longer looking at him, but at the King with such hateful eyes.
Elain, Elain was shaking, sobbing, as she was hauled forward. Toward the Cauldron.
Nesta began thrashing against the men that held her.
Tamlin said, “Stop.”
The king did no such thing.
“Stop this,” Lucien breathes out, lacing command with the two words.
“Your compulsions will not work here, young one,” the king says to Lucien, looking at him with pity and sadistic amusement in his eyes.
Nesta was bellowing at the guards, at the king, as Elain yielded step after step toward that Cauldron. As the king waved his hand, and liquid filled it to the brim. No, no—
The queens only watched, stone-faced. And Rhysand and Morrigan, separated from Feyre by those guards, did not dare to even shift a muscle.
Tamlin spat at the king, “This is not part of our deal. Stop this now.”
“I don’t care,” the king said simply.
Tamlin launched himself at the throne, as if he’d rip him to shreds.
Lucien moves forward.
His High Lord-
That white-hot magic slammed into him, shoving him to the ground. Leashing him.
Tamlin strained against the collar of light on his neck, around his wrists. His golden power flared—to no avail. Feyre tore at the fist still gripping my own, sliced at it, over and over—
Lucien staggered a step forward as Elain was gripped between two guards and hoisted up. She began kicking then, weeping while her feet slammed into the sides of the Cauldron as if she’d push off it, as if she’d knock it down—
“That is enough.” Lucien surged for Elain, for the Cauldron.
He would not fail.
And he was on the ground in a moment.
Lucien flares up his power, fire and some unnamed thing in him burning against the runes.
Rhysand barely glanced at him.
Lucien glances at Elain and Tamlin again.
So mote it be.
“Please,” Feyre was begging the king, who motioned Elain to be shoved into the water. “Please, I will do anything, I will give you anything.” Feyre shot to her feet, stepping away from where Cassian lay prostrate, and looked to the queens. “Please—you do not need proof, I am proof that it works. Jurian is proof it is safe.”
Lucien’s magic screams against the wards, bangs on it in desperation. The vows, the vows entailing him and strangling him, providing strength and desperation to break it apart-
“You are an interesting bunch,” the King says, gaze not straying Lucien and the Cauldron.
He knew. He knew something, that bastard.
The ancient queen said, “You are a thief, and a liar. You conspired with our sister. Your punishment should be the same as hers. Consider this a gift instead.”
Elain’s foot hit the water, and she screamed—screamed in terror that hit me so deep I began sobbing. “Please,” Feyre says to none of them.
Nesta was still fighting, still roaring through her gag.
Elain, who Nesta would have killed and whored and stolen for. Elain, who had been gentle and sweet. Elain, who was to marry a lord’s son who hated faeries …
The guards shoved my sister into the Cauldron in a single movement.
The vow lurches.
Lucien bites down on his tongue to keep from screaming-
Oh gods, the vow, he had to get out, he had to, she was dying and his magic was being sucked away to keep her afloat, please-
She did not come up.
Nesta’s screaming was the only sound. Cassian blindly lurched toward it—toward her, moaning in pain.
The King of Hybern bowed slightly to the queens. “Behold.”
Rhysand, a wall of guards still cleaving the,, curled his fingers into a fist. But he did not move, as Morrigan and Feyre did not dare move, not with Azriel’s life dangling in the king’s grasp.
And as if it had been tipped by invisible hands, the Cauldron turned on its side.
More water than seemed possible dumped out in a cascade. Black, smoke-coated water.
And Elain, as if she’d been thrown by a wave, washed onto the stones facedown.
Lucien nearly sobs as his magic is forced back into him.
As he meets Nesta’s gaze, the betrayal and anger shining in them, he knows he has failed.
-
Her legs were so pale—so delicate.
The queens pushed forward. Alive, she had to be alive, had to have wanted to live—
Elain sucked in a breath, her fine-boned back rising, her wet nightgown nearly sheer.
And as she rose from the ground onto her elbows, the gag in place, as she twisted to look at Feyre—
Nesta began roaring again.
Pale skin started to glow. Her face had somehow become more beautiful—infinitely beautiful, and her ears … Elain’s ears were now pointed beneath her sodden hair.
The queens gasped.
Oh gods.
Lucien throws his magic against the chains again.
“So we can survive,” the dark-haired youngest breathed, eyes bright.
Feyre fell to her knees, the guards not bothering to grab her as she sobbed.
What he’d done, what he’d done—
“Did you know,” the king says, “a mating bond can be repressed, and replaced, as long as there is a powerful mage?”
Lucien heard nothing, blood pounding, symbols on his chains flaring, he had done this once, he had to do it again-
“I find it delectable that your father,” the King says, jerking his head at Rhysand,” placed a security factor on your bloodline that your mating bond would be repressed when in true danger. So why is it that I can scent not one, but two mating bonds here with such a signature?”
The entire Night freezes. Even Nesta does.
The King smiles, sharp and dangerous.
“Such honey-ed lies you pour into their ears, child of night and darkness. Did you really think I would not be able to scent the bond between your supposed mate and our mistress of truth?” The King purrs.
Morrigan snarls.
“You lie,” Feyre says again.
“No, you do. His and her scents are very similar, is it not? And there is the matter of the second one. No worries, we will find it. It has been buried for centuries. Yours, of course, has just come to the surface,” the King laughs, laughs as though he had not just ruined their chances of survival.
“The hellcat now, if you’ll be so kind,” the King of Hybern said.
Feyre whipped her head to Nesta as she went silent. The Cauldron righted itself.
Cassian again stirred, slumping on the floor—but his hand twitched. Toward Nesta.
Elain was still shivering on the wet stones, her nightgown shoved up to her thighs, her small breasts fully visible beneath the soaked fabric. Guards snickered.
Lucien gives one last snarl before the containment breaks.
He ignores the calculating gaze of the king. His vow is flaring up, must help, must save, must defend.
First Elain, then Nesta.
Lucien hangs his jacket around Elain and Nesta growls at him.
Lucien gives a nod. Nesta has not forgiven him.
Will probably never, he thinks distantly, as he helps Elain off the ground and Elain shudders uncontrollably.
“Your time has come,” Elain suddenly whispers, and Lucien blinks.
Elain falls silent again.
Lucien lets his flame dry Elain’s clothes and hair as Feyre glares at him, as Nesta glares at the King.
Nesta fought every step of the way.
She did not make it easy for them. She clawed and kicked and bucked.
And it was not enough.
And he was not enough to save her.
She was hoisted up. Elain did not look at the Cauldron behind her, not as Nesta’s thrashing feet slammed into the water.
Cassian stirred again, his shredded wings twitching and spraying blood, his muscles quivering. At Nesta’s shouts, her raging, his eyes fluttered open, glazed and unseeing, an answer to some call in his blood, a promise he’d made her. But pain knocked him under again.
Nesta was shoved into the water up to her shoulders. She bucked even as the water sprayed. She clawed and screamed her rage, her defiance.
Lucien manages to meet her eyes as a half thanks and half hate for saving Elain but saving her too late.
“Put her under,” the king hissed.
The guards, straining, shoved her slender shoulders. Her brown-gold head.
And as they pushed her head down, she thrashed one last time, freeing her long, pale arm.
Teeth bared, Nesta pointed one finger at the King of Hybern.
One finger, a curse and a damning.
A promise.
And as Nesta’s head was forced under the water, as that hand was violently shoved down, the King of Hybern had the good sense to look somewhat unnerved.
-
Dark water lapped for a moment. The surface went flat.
Feyre vomited on the floor. Lucien wanted to do the same too.
The guards at last let Morrigan kneel beside Feyre in the growing pool of Cassian’s blood—let her tuck Feyre into her as the Cauldron again tilted.
Water poured forth, Lucien hoisting Elain in his arms and out of the way. The bonds on Tamlin vanished, along with the gag. He was instantly on his feet, snarling at the king.
Nesta was sprawled upon the stones.
Nesta was different, Lucien realises.
From however Elain had been Made … Nesta was different.
Even before she took her first breath, he felt it.
As if the Cauldron in making her … had been forced to give more than it wanted. As if Nesta had fought even after she went under, and had decided that if she was to be dragged into hell, she was taking that Cauldron with her.
As if that finger she’d pointed was now a death-promise to the King of Hybern.
Nesta took a breath. And when I beheld my sister, with her somehow magnified beauty, her ears … When Nesta looked to me …
Rage. Power. Cunning.
Then it was gone, horror and shock crumpling her face, but she didn’t pause, didn’t halt. She was free—she was loose.
She was on her feet, tripping over her slightly longer, leaner limbs, ripping the gag from her mouth—
Nesta slammed into Lucien, grabbing Elain from his arms, and screamed at him as he fell back, “Get off her!”
Elain’s feet slipped against the floor, but Nesta gripped her upright, running her hands over Elain’s face, her shoulders, her hair— “Elain, Elain, Elain,” she sobbed.
Lucien met Rhysand’s gaze.
Lucien subtly nods towards them as he lets Elain run to Nesta.
“I’m sorry,” Lucien whispers.
Cassian again stirred—trying to rise, to answer Nesta’s voice as she held Elain and cried her name again and again.
Rhysand blinks once.
“Nesta will kill you for that,” Lucien says, drawing attention to him.
Tamlin stiffens.
Everyone’s attention is on him now.
“She is nothing compared to the power of Hybern, little light,” the King dismisses.
“You will pay for going against nature,” Lucien growls back, fire sparking in him even as water dripped down his clothes.
Water, to repress fire. Glass shattering, screaming, dripping in blood from head to toe
“Oh no, I already have,” the King says.
“Have you ever wondered why your name has such a special little meaning?” The King cruelly continues.
Lucien’s world stops.
“Lucien Vanserra, 7th son of Hestia Lysander. Lysander, one who is freed, liberator,” the King sighs,”and on this day, I, King of Hybern, free the ancient magics, I free the bond curse I have placed, I free thy enemy, I free the spirits of the universe and beyond. I call upon you to assist me, I call upon you to help me.”
“I call upon you,” the King continues, as Lucien’s head pounds, as his breaths become shorter,”to free the son of Light and Fire. Heir of Light and Fire, you are restored. Heir of Light and Fire, you will regain your birthright. May light shine, but never against the binder.”
Lucien screams as he his knees buckle and light enfolds him.