IRIS
The sound of Valerius’s slow, deliberate applause was a splash of ice water in our faces. The raw, triumphant energy of our successful heist evaporated, replaced by a cold, sinking dread. He hadn’t been tricked. He hadn’t been fooled. He had let us take the crystal. He had wanted us to. The realization was a physical blow, a punch to the gut that stole my breath. This entire night, the dance, the stolen moment in the alcove—it had all been part of his performance, not ours.
My hand went to the hilt of my moonblade, the cool, familiar leather a small comfort against the rising tide of panic. Kaelen moved instinctively, shifting his body to place himself slightly in front of me, a protective, possessive barrier. The dark crystal, the heart of the plague, was still clutched in his other hand, a malevolent, pulsing thing. But it no longer felt like a prize. It felt like a baited hook, and we had just swallowed it, line and sinker.
"Your property?" Kaelen’s voice was a low, dangerous growl, a stark contrast to the feigned, lover’s whispers of moments before. He was the Alpha King again, a predator facing a rival. "You speak of a weapon of mass murder as if it were a misplaced trinket."
Valerius’s smile widened, a slow, reptilian curve of his lips that held no warmth, only a vast, ancient amusement. "A trinket? Oh, no, Your Majesty. It is so much more. It is a key. A lever. A… catalyst." He took a slow, deliberate step forward, his amethyst eyes, glowing with a faint, inner light, never leaving Kaelen’s face. "Marius was a fool. A brutish artisan with a sledgehammer. He sought to smash the world. I… I seek to reshape it. There is a difference."
He was enjoying this. The power, the moment. He had cornered the two most powerful beings in the city and was savoring their helplessness. The cloying scent of his glamour seemed to thicken, pressing in on us, a psychic weight designed to intimidate.
"Let me guess," I said, my voice a cool, even sound that belied the frantic beating of my own heart. I stepped out from behind Kaelen’s sheltering form, refusing to be a damsel in this particular drama. "You’re not going to unleash the plague yourself. That would be too crude. You’re going to threaten to. You’re going to hold this city hostage with it."
Valerius’s gaze finally shifted to me, a slow, appreciative appraisal that was far more chilling than his previous lust. "Brilliant. As expected of the Moon Witch. You see the elegant shape of the board, not just the crude pieces." He gave a slight, mocking bow. "You are correct, of course. The Accords are… inconvenient. They limit growth. They enforce a stagnant peace. But a city held hostage by the mere *threat* of a plague… that is a powerful motivator for negotiation. A new council, with a certain Fae lord at its head, could ensure such a weapon is… responsibly managed."
The sheer, unadulterated gall of it was staggering. He wasn’t just a traitor; he was a profiteer of apocalyptic potential. He saw the plague not as a weapon, but as a political asset.
"You'll never get away with it," Kaelen snarled, his muscles coiled, ready to spring. The air around him began to shimmer, the merged gold and silver of our bond flaring with a violent, protective light. "I will tear this manor apart stone by stone to find you. I will raze the Fae Quarter to the ground."
"You could try," Valerius said, his voice dropping to a low, conversational purr that was more terrifying than a shout. "But by the time you did, the plague would already be… activated. Not released, you understand. Just… begun. A slow, irreversible process. I have tied the catalyst to my own life force. If my heart stops beating, the crystal’s containment fails. A single, city-wide pulse of anti-life. Not enough to kill everyone, perhaps. But enough to create a panic, a sickness, a despair that would bring this precious order crashing down. A messy, but effective, reset."
The cold dread in my stomach turned to ice. A dead man’s switch. It was the ultimate, coward’s gambit. We couldn’t kill him. We couldn't even touch him. He had made his own life the city’s shield and its sword at the same time.
"You're a monster," I whispered, the words inadequate to describe the sheer, cynical evil of his plan.
"I am a realist," Valerius corrected smoothly. "Now, you will hand over the crystal. You will return to your little celebration and smile. And you will wait for my summons. We have much to discuss about the future of this city. A future I now hold in the palm of my hand."
He held out his long, pale fingers, a gesture of absolute, arrogant expectation. Kaelen’s body was a rigid, trembling wire of restrained violence. I could feel his fury, his helpless, burning rage through the bond, a chaotic storm that threatened to overwhelm me. To be this close, to have the enemy at our mercy and to be utterly powerless… it was a special kind of hell.
I made a decision. It was reckless, desperate, and the only move we had left. I couldn’t let Kaelen give him the crystal. And I couldn’t let him attack Valerius. So I created a third option.
I reached out, not to Valerius, but to Kaelen. My hand closed over his, the one that held the dark crystal. *Trust me,* I sent, the thought a silent, desperate plea through our shared consciousness. *Now.*
Before he could react, before Valerius could comprehend my move, I acted. I poured my magic, not into an attack or a shield, but into the crystal itself. I didn't try to destroy it. I did what Valerius had accused Marius of being too crude to do. I tried to *reshape* it.
My moon magic, a cool, silver river, flooded the dark, pulsing crystal. I met the sludgy, malevolent energy within it not with force, but with a will of my own. I tried to bend it, to twist its purpose from one of wide-spread decay to one of… something else. Anything else. A focused, localized weapon. A harmless bauble. I poured my very soul into that act of magical reformation, my entire being focused on that small, dark object in Kaelen’s hand.
For a single, heart-stopping second, I thought it was working. I felt the dark energy within the crystal shudder, its structure buckling under the pure, authoritative light of my moon magic. I felt it begin to yield.
Then Valerius laughed. It wasn’t a sound of mirth, but of pure, unadulterated contempt. "Oh, you foolish, foolish child," he sighed, as if genuinely disappointed. "Did you really think I would leave such a valuable tool unguarded? It is not just tied to my life force, little witch. It is tied to my *will*. And my will is… absolute."
A wave of psychic force, so immense and so cold it felt like a physical blow, slammed into me. It was Valerius’s power, a brutal, uncompromising command that was the antithesis of my own delicate, weaving magic. It was a hammer. And my spell was a glass sculpture.
The connection between me and the crystal shattered. I cried out, a sharp, ragged sound of pain as the backlash ripped through my mind. The dark crystal, freed from my influence, didn’t just return to its dormant state. It reacted to the violent intrusion. It reacted to Valerius’s will.
It began to glow.
A soft, pulsing, purple light emanated from the crystal in Kaelen’s hand. A low, humming sound filled the corridor, a discordant, nauseating thrum that vibrated in my teeth and in the marrow of my bones. The air grew thick, heavy, and tasted of dust and forgotten graves.
"No," Valerius whispered, his smooth, arrogant composure finally cracking, replaced by a flicker of genuine shock. "That's not… I didn't command…"
The crystal pulsed again, brighter this time. The purple light intensified, and a wave of shimmering, translucent mist began to pour from its surface. It didn’t just leak out; it erupted, a geyser of malevolent, purple haze that filled the corridor with impossible speed. It was the plague. Not the city-destroying wave Valerius had planned to threaten, but something else. A raw, uncontrolled release. An accident. Our spell, his counter, the conflict of our wills… it had broken the damn.
"What have you done?" Kaelen roared, his voice a sound of pure, horrified fury. He tried to drop the crystal, to throw it away, but it was stuck to his hand, fused to his palm by the same malevolent energy it was now spewing into the world.
The purple mist reached us. It didn’t burn or corrode. It was worse. It was a wave of pure, unadulterated despair. It was a psychic poison. As it washed over me, I felt the strength drain from my body, the hope drain from my heart. Visions of every failure, every loss, every fear I had ever had flashed through my mind in a nauseating, overwhelming cascade. Daniel’s betrayal, the fear of being a pawn, the terror of losing Kaelen—it all rose up, a tidal wave of emotional agony that threatened to drown me. I stumbled, my knees giving out, a choked sob escaping my lips.
I felt Kaelen’s own pain through the bond, a raw, gut-wrenching torment of his own deepest fears and regrets. The loss of his parents, Lyra’s betrayal, the weight of his people’s lives—it all crashed down on him at once. He roared, a sound not of rage, but of pure, soul-shattering pain, stumbling back against the wall, the glowing crystal fused to his hand a grotesque, pulsing brand.
From the ballroom, a new sound rose. Not a cheer, but a scream. A single, horrified cry that was quickly joined by another, and another, until the elegant music was drowned out by a rising chorus of pure terror. The mist was seeping under the door, spreading into the party. The plague was loose. Not as a strategic threat, but as a chaotic, uncontrolled force of nature, unleashed by our own foolish pride.
Valerius stood frozen, his face a mask of utter, disbelief. His plan, his masterpiece of political blackmail, had just gone catastrophically, world-endingly wrong. He had tried to control a force far beyond his comprehension, and in his arrogance, he had shattered the cage.
I pushed myself to my hands and knees, the psychic poison a heavy, suffocating blanket. I had to fight it. I had to… I looked up, my vision swimming, and saw Kaelen, slumped against the wall, his body trembling, his face a mask of agony. The crystal was pulsing in time with his own frantic, terrified heartbeat, pouring the poison into the very air we breathed.
He was the source. The conduit. And the plague, now unbound, was pouring from him into the heart of the city.