Chapter 6 — The Death Meant for a Queen
1029 Words
POV: Mason
The palace had survived war.
It would not survive betrayal.
I felt it before it happened—the bond tightening like a blade across my ribs. A pressure. A warning. The kind that only comes when death is already moving.
I was in the eastern corridor when the wards flickered.
Just once.
Just enough.
“Shields!” I roared through the link.
Too late.
The first explosion tore through the western tower in a plume of black fire and starlight. Stone screamed as it shattered. Servants scattered. Guards fell mid-stride. The scent of void-magic flooded the halls.
They weren’t attacking the borders.
They were inside the palace.
“Protect the queens!” a warrior screamed.
I was already running.
My wolf surged forward as I shifted full stride, tearing across marble and falling debris, instinct screaming one name over and over:
Damieon.
The corridor to the healing wing collapsed in front of me just as three assassins dropped from the ceiling like living shadows. Void blades ignited in their hands.
Star-Hunters.
Inside our walls.
I ripped the first apart before he could lift his weapon. The second drove a blade into my side — shadow lightning ripped through my ribs, searing, poisonous. I crushed his skull anyway.
The third vanished.
I felt him shift directions.
Toward the star-chamber.
“No—” I snarled and launched through the smoke.
Alex and Riley were already there when I breached the chamber.
Moonfire scorched the walls. Starfire crawled across the ceiling like living constellations. Seraphyne lay unconscious in the center of a shattered healing circle, her blood glowing bright as a dying star.
Damieon stood in front of her in full wolf form.
Bleeding.
Snarling.
Unbroken.
And behind him—
The assassin materialized.
Not shadow.
Not void.
Nytherion-forged.
This one wore royal death.
Forged to kill gods.
Its blade was already descending.
Riley screamed.
Alex unleashed moonfire.
But the assassin moved through the magic.
Straight for Damieon’s heart.
And then—
A body slammed between them.
Not Damieon.
Not the queens.
Not me.
Her.
Liana.
Mason’s other mate.
Damieon’s aunt.
The blade pierced her straight through the chest.
Starfire erupted in uncontrolled fury from Seraphyne’s body at the same instant as Liana’s blood hit the floor.
The assassin didn’t even scream.
He was erased.
Liana collapsed.
Damieon shifted back instantly, catching her before her body struck the stone. His hands shook violently as he pressed them against the wound, silver power pouring from him in blind desperation.
“No—no—no—stay with me—” he begged. “Aunt Liana—please—please—”
Her blood was dark.
Too dark.
Nytherion poison.
Alex dropped to her knees beside them, hands blazing with royal healing fire.
It did nothing.
Star-blood rejected lunar spellwork.
Riley joined her, power screaming.
Still nothing.
Liana looked up at me weakly.
Blood bubbled at her lips.
“Mason…” she whispered.
I collapsed beside her, hands shaking as I held her face between my palms.
“I’m here,” I choked. “I’ve got you. You’re not allowed to leave me.”
Her faint smile broke me.
“You were always bad at giving orders,” she whispered.
Damieon’s sob tore through the room like a living thing.
“Don’t die,” he pleaded. “Please… I already lost my parents… I can’t—”
Liana’s gaze shifted to him.
Soft.
Loving.
“My little moon—” she whispered. “Listen to me.”
Damieon leaned down instantly.
“You are forged for more than loss. For more than blood and war. You will carry this line when we cannot.”
Tears streamed down his face.
“I don’t want to be alone.”
Her hand trembled as it lifted to his cheek.
“You won’t be.”
She looked at Seraphyne’s flickering form.
“Protect the star.”
She looked back at me.
“And you… protect the boy.”
Then her eyes dimmed.
Her breath stilled.
The bond between us snapped.
I screamed.
The palace fell into chaos.
Nytherion’s forces vanished as suddenly as they had struck.
The price was already paid.
Seraphyne stabilized—but only barely. Her pulse flickered like a dying ember. The healers said star-blood coma.
Weeks.
Maybe months.
The queens sealed the palace under full war lockdown.
But none of it mattered.
Because Damieon stood on the eastern terrace that night holding Liana’s blood in his hands.
Shaking.
Silent.
Orphaned.
Again.
I approached slowly, heart in pieces.
He did not look up.
“They killed her because of me,” he said flatly.
“No,” I said hoarsely. “They killed her because Nytherion fears what you will become.”
He finally looked at me.
His eyes were no longer those of a child.
“They killed her to reach my mate.”
My throat closed.
“Yes.”
He turned away.
“I will never forgive him.”
The stars overhead dimmed.
Not from clouds.
From response.
Three days later, the prophecy shifted.
Alex felt it first.
Then Riley.
Then the Alphas.
Then the Moon.
A bloodline severed.
Another empowered.
Damieon’s inheritance ignited into royal dominance completely for the first time.
The Heir of the Royal Moon—
Fully awakened.
Without parents.
Without protection.
With a sleeping star-blood mate.
Bound to a war that had only just begun.
Thirty nights later, Seraphyne finally woke.
The first thing she whispered was:
“Nytherion is not whole.”
The room went silent.
Her glowing star-silver eyes opened fully.
“He fractured himself across realms to survive the first banishment. You did not defeat him.”
Alex stiffened. “Then what did we do?”
Seraphyne turned her gaze to Damieon.
“You wounded the god.”
The stars outside shattered into silent streaks of light.
“And gods do not forgive wounds.”
Damieon stood.
Fourteen years old.
Mate bonded.
Orphaned.
The heir of a throne carved from death.
His voice did not shake.
“Then I will finish what my blood began.”
The Moon answered.
The stars answered.
And far beyond the veil of worlds, Nytherion began to move.
- Writer
