Trigger warning: explicit language. Please read with caution if you're sensitive to this kind of content. Thanks for supporting this story! 💜

Ruagu raised his black eyes to the high ceiling, his gloating diminishing even as he still stood over the rightful ruler of the kingdom he had usurped. "It was centuries ago, several branches before yours on your family tree, Tauram. I, like so many young men before and after me, was foolishly in love. My mistake was choosing Crown Princess Chirasmi of all people, a beauty but a woman of duty." His eyes glimmered as he looked back into his past, and Esmera didn't know if it was in sadness or sentimentality or something else entirely.

Like Esmera, Tauram stared up at Ruagu, his every visible muscle clenched, and his eyes narrowed. Maybe he too didn't know exactly where the tyrant king's tale was leading them.

When Ruagu lowered his gaze, it collided with Tauram's. "Did you know that I should've been the prince consort and your ancestor had your great-great-great grandmother married me as she promised to? Instead, she deserted me three days before our wedding, and I never forgot that."

Princess Kerani was the only person who dared to make a sound, gasping softly where she stood. Esmera, Tauram, Belaren and all the servants Ruagu had gathered to observe this spectacle kept their surprise silent.

"I never forgot Chirasmi." Ruagu's eyes turned distant once again, dreamy. "I never forgot her face, her body, or her grace, which is why I coveted it so when I saw it again." He glanced at Princess Kerani who watched him, eyes wide with mesmerisation, with fear, with the realisation that she was always going to mean this much to him even before she knew him.

Tauram cut through the smoke Ruagu's story had filled the room with, his voice sharp as the fangs Lundas bared at the usurper king beside him. "My question is what you did to make Princess Chirasmi abandon you."

Ruagu's eyes cut back to Tauram's. He gave a maniacal laugh. "Nothing. That was the beauty of the whole event! She married some nobleman by command of her father for the sake of an alliance. Clearly love means nothing to the Morghis dynasty, and you dare to call me power-hungry." Again, his eyes found Princess Kerani, and she shifted on her feet.

She had been brave to express her true thoughts to Ruagu. If she had been anyone else, he might've rotted her where she stood, but the ancestor that had doomed her to this life had also saved her from such a death.

Esmera wasn't sure whether she could believe that Ruagu had been an innocent party in the dissolution of his betrothal. After all, he had lied and conned his way to a throne.

Her thoughts drifted to Jammas, who was still perched on her head. All she felt of him was his weight. He didn't make any movement to tell her that Ruagu was lying, so she had to accept that he was speaking the truth.

"Love does mean something to us, Ruagu. It always has and always will." Tauram lowered his eyes to the ground, letting out a breath. "I'm sorry that Princess Chirasmi hurt you, but taking your anger out on her descendants who did nothing to spurn you will accomplish nothing."

"Anger?" Ruagu raised an eyebrow. "I'm not angry anymore." He shrugged, so casually for someone who had spent so much time plotting against the Morghis family, who had punished and cherished the innocent Princess Kerani because of who she was that Esmera expected that he was feigning it, but once again, Jammas gave no indication that he was.

Tauram frowned, but before he could reply, Ruagu continued.

"Chirasmi showed me the way of the kingdom, of the world. We marry for alliances and fuck for love. I think that's simple enough." Ruagu tilted his head, his gaze pinning Tauram in place. "It's how we maintain pure, powerful bloodlines and personal satisfaction even as we keep them separate from each other. I'm actually grateful to her for enlightening me, or I might've continued to navigate life as a hapless idiot who thought love was as simple as it sounds."

Tauram's brow furrowed. "If you're not angry, then why are you doing all of this?"

"Because your family owes me a throne, Tauram, and nobody was offering it up to me." He leaned down, so close to Tauram that Esmera tensed, ready to strain at the clawed hands holding her back if she should need to fight her way between them. "If someone had done right by me, perhaps the rest of you would have been saved."

"You were my best friend, Ruagu." Tauram's voice shook. "I would've done anything for you, given you anything you wanted if you had just told me all of this before. You didn't have to destroy my family."

"My sweet friend." Ruagu rested a gnarled, taloned hand on Tauram's youthful head. "Is there any positive way to spin the story of an ancient sorcerer who spent years mastering the darkest of Milatanur's arts just for a shot at its throne? Or would your mother have killed me, perhaps sent me to her dungeons first if she had been feeling merciful that day?"

Tauram looked down, the gesture enough of an answer. It was the answer Esmera had expected. Queen Shirisha might've arranged Tauram's marriage to Esmera partly to prevent her from being a threat to the crown, as the destined queen of the land. She wouldn't have entertained any such requests no matter how much she loved her son and he loved his friend.

"I thought as much. That's why I took things into my own hands." Ruagu's voice hardened. "I have been circling the royal family ever since Chirasmi's wedding, looking for a way in that you and Ghallia so kindly gave me. Chirasmi was too clever for me. It was why I loved her but came to despise her. There was no getting past her guards, but patience pays off."

His face broke into a smile soft with glee that Esmera just wanted to tear off him. "I had to wait until I was a warning that became a ghost that turned into a legend and eventually until your family stopped talking about me at all. Until I was forgotten." He smirked. "Forgotten enough to sneak up on you without anyone suspecting a thing."

Tauram looked at the floor, eyes crinkling closed in pain, Esmera imagined, by being the one weak link in an ancient dynasty. He shouldn't blame himself. If Ruagu had been hunting the Morghis family for centuries, taking decades to craft his plan and generations to sharpen his magical skills, Tauram hadn't stood a chance.

Esmera wanted to take his hand, but when she pulled at her wrists, she remembered that her hands, like Tauram's, were pressed against the small of her back. He was brave, and she may be mad at him now, but it also made her mad to see him in pain over something that wasn't his fault.

But Esmera's straining at her fleshy, demonic bonds drew Ruagu's eyes to her. She fell still, wishing she could take that moment back, or at least be swallowed up by the floor rather than his bottomless gaze.

"Esmera Finnaaz." Ruagu rolled her name in his mouth and she flinched, casting aside her pointless hope that he wouldn't recognise her. Or maybe he had been expecting her all along if Anjarah had mentioned she was part of their plan.

Ruagu turned away from Tauram, lavishing Esmera with attention that clenched her stomach because she knew it could turn deadly in an instant. "I never thought I'd see you ever again. Where did your mother send you?"

"Arkōsāra," Esmera murmured. It was just one word, but it took more energy than any other Esmera had ever spoken.

"Impressive." Ruagu nodded his reluctant admiration. He tugged at a stray curl of Esmera's with his wicked fingers, and she didn't even have a hand to slap his away. "I would've never thought to look for you in the Other World, or perhaps I'd have found you and made you the queen you were destined to be already."

Esmera's skin crawled as he traced a pointed fingernail along her jaw. She had seen what it meant to be his wife, and that wasn't the future she had wanted for herself when she escaped Stephan. It definitely wasn't the future her mother had wanted for her when she gave her life to send her away from Ruagu.

She kept her eyes on the tiles and tried not to think about all the blood that must've spilt over them in the centuries since they had been laid down and the decade since Ruagu began his reign.

"Still, it's not too late for me to propose." Ruagu tilted Esmera's face up to his. She steered her eyes away from his, but he grabbed her jaw, startling her into meeting his gaze. "Marry me, swear your allegiance to me, give me your oath that you will never set your army on me, and I will let you live."

Even if his proposal had been more romantic and less of a business agreement, Esmera knew what her answer was and would always be. She couldn't betray her heart even as it had betrayed her. "Never."

"Are you sure about that?" Ruagu cocked his head, his eyes glinting menacingly as his viper hissed beside him.

"Very." Esmera was either very foolish or brave to answer honestly, and she expected the same punishment for her defiance as Ghallia, but to her surprise, Ruagu's mouth curved in a faint, amused smile.

"I could change your mind if given the time."

His confidence was nauseating. Esmera would rather die than entertain such an idea. She hadn't left one villain to bind herself to another. "I doubt it."

She should know by now not to talk back to a man who had his hand on her face, but her fear made her senseless. She flinched when Ruagu withdrew his hand, expecting him to send it swinging back at her, but he didn't. He only took a step back from her, giving her mind space and air to clear itself.

"Challenge accepted." Ruagu smirked, turning away from Esmera and to Belaren, the only member of the treasonous trio that he hadn't yet greeted personally. "And who might you be?"

Belaren cast a cool glance up at Ruagu, somehow unfazed by his imposing height, his dark clothing or the wickedness radiating off his skin. "An idiot who keeps choosing the wrong side."

Where Anjarah stood on the dais, she raised her eyes from her feet. When she fixed them on Belaren, they were wide. Her knuckles went white as she clenched at the hem of her kurta.

Ruagu tutted his sympathy. "Is there any chance I can convince you to join the right side?" He leaned downwards, his eyes intense as if hoping to hypnotise Belaren.

"I'm afraid not." The lord's eyes drifted from the king almost lazily, but Esmera could see his resolution in the set of his jaw.

"Then of what use are you to me?" Ruagu folded his arms over his chest, casting his narrowed eyes down at Belaren.

The hairs on Esmera's neck stood on end. She wanted to tell Belaren to be careful with his answer, that this wasn't Tauram who would forgive almost anything he said but Ruagu who had carried a centuries-old grudge. Unfortunately, he spoke before she could warn him.

"I'm a touch summoner, but I am afraid I cannot be hired. I serve my friends and my family, and the last time I checked, you were none of the above."

"Pity, that." Ruagu's arms uncurled from around him. He touched a clawed hand to Belaren's silk-wrapped chest, and Esmera knew what was going to happen before it did.

But there was nothing she could do about it. Her restraints held her in place even as she fought against them.

Esmera saw it happen in slow motion, the cruel king's deadly touch fraying through Belaren's shirt, then his skin, then his bones until it stopped at his back. Esmera started towards him as he slumped to the side, unmoving, but Anjarah was there before her, pushing past Ruagu and falling to her knees beside Belaren, her monal familiar at her side. Belaren's squirrel, Myresh, burst from his pocket in a panic and disappeared somewhere beneath the dais.

"No, no, no, Belaren. No..." Anjarah's mouth trembled as she turned Belaren's head to face her and saw his open, empty, still eyes at the same time Esmera did.

Esmera's face convulsed as she turned away, her pain solidifying into tears prickling at her eyes and sobs tearing at her throat. She had seen Belaren alive, and she had seen him dead, but she couldn't pinpoint the moment when he died. It had been so quick, like he was a flame extinguished by a quick, sly gust of wind in the middle of his beautiful dance.

Anjarah tilted her mouth up to the ceiling and let out a wail more animal than human. She brought her gaze back to Belaren's head lying lifelessly on her lap, and renewed grief spilt from her. She leaned over him, running her quivering fingers through his hair while her tears fell onto his fatal wound.

If this was a fairy tale, Anjarah's tears may have healed and resurrected Belaren, but it wasn't. He was well and truly dead, never to grin at Esmera, never to cook for her, never to mock her in that way that she never could help but laugh at.

Before Esmera could close her eyes and contain her tears behind her lids, they streamed down her cheeks. She wished she had the strength to tear Ruagu apart where he stood in front of Anjarah and Belaren, but she couldn't even stand, so crippled was she with grief and agony.

It crushed her chest with its force. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't speak. And she didn't want to because it wasn't fair that she was alive and Belaren wasn't.

Tauram apparently didn't grieve in the same way. He lunged at Ruagu, but he never got to touch the villain, because the yaoguai behind him kept their firm holds on him. All that happened was that his legs left the rest of his body behind, losing his balance when the demons released him and falling to the floor with a thud.

He groaned, and Esmera was saying his name, but like with Belaren, her yaoguai captors held her firmly in place when she tried to get to him.

Ruagu's deep, black gaze was unmoving, untouched by his merciless murder when he rested it on the prince. "Take him to the vault."

"No." Princess Kerani swept down from where she stood on the dais, shaking her head. "Ruagu, he's my brother. You can't lock him in there." A wall of yaoguai blocked her off from the king. "Ruagu!" she yelled. "Please...the vault is for criminals. It's no place for Tauram."

As if Princess Kerani hadn't spoken, Ruagu continued. "As for the girl...you can set her up in the snow leopard chamber." He turned away, dismissing his henchman with a wave of his shrivelled hand.

The two yaoguai yanked Esmera to her feet. Her ankle protested as it took on her weight at an awkward ankle. Her meagre resistance was no match for their strength. Neither was Tauram's as they pulled him upright beside her.

He reached for her. Their outstretched hands brushed, almost tauntingly as the yaoguai wrenched them apart and dragged them away in opposite directions while Princess Kerani protested and Anjarah watched in horror at what her actions had led to.