The Cost of Kneeling
1351 Words
It took me a fortnight to recover under Atum’s suffocating devotion. I healed fully, bone and blood mended, but something else had changed. I had been watched, protected, claimed—long before I ever opened my eyes.
While I was bedridden, Elyndor did not waste a single breath.
She pressed the Council relentlessly—private audiences, urgent assemblies, whispers wrapped in silk and threat. The wedding, she insisted, must be set. The empire needed certainty. The people needed spectacle. And if certainty could not be provided through vows, then it must be enforced through fire.
The Council, spineless as ever, turned to Atum with sharpened smiles.
A date—or blood.
Intensify the purges. Expand the arrests. Claim more witches. Make an example so brutal it would remind the world who ruled Andrax.
He refused.
Both.
The refusal sent tremors through the palace. I felt them even through fever and morphine-dreams, through Atum’s hands never
leaving mine, through the suffocating care that bordered on obsession. He did not attend Elyndor’s summons. He did not bow to the
Council’s threats.
And Elyndor did not forgive humiliation—especially not when it came at the hands of a witch.
It was obvious she would not surrender. Not power. Not pride. Not a throne, she believed, was already hers.
What I had not expected… was Atum.
It took me a fortnight to recover under his relentless vigilance. When I finally stood again, whole and unbroken, the palace felt different. Taut. As if it were holding its breath.
We stood in the gardens at dusk—his gardens, where he walked every evening like a ritual, like penance. The air smelled of iron and jasmine.
“When will the wedding be?” I asked quietly.
Atum stilled.
“I was just thinking about that,” he said.
The words cut deeper than the wound Elyndor’s knights had given me. Deeper than the betrayal. Deeper than the fire.
“Well,” I said, forcing the words past the burning in my chest, “I hope you and Elyndor will have a happy marriage.”
Saying it sent shivers down my spine. It felt like tearing something vital out of myself and offering it up politely.
Atum turned sharply.
“I won’t,” he said. His voice was cold, absolute. “I would rather go to war than marry that wench.”
The relief was immediate—and terrifying.
“You can’t,” I whispered.
“I will.”
“But how?” I demanded. “Belinium is as strong as Andrax. Their armies are disciplined. Their coffers full.”
His gaze locked onto mine.
“You.”
The word landed like a blow.
“Me?” I echoed.
“Yes. You,” he said without hesitation. “Your people. The witches. You are the key to winning this war—and ending it quickly.”
My breath hitched. “You want me to convince them to fight for you?”
“I want you to help them trust me.”
I laughed softly, bitter. “Now that is a challenge.”
Silence stretched between us, heavy and charged.
Then Atum did something that made my heart stop.
He knelt.
Not ceremonially. Not for show. Just… down on one knee in the dirt of his own garden, crown discarded at his side.
“Be my queen,” he said. “Not my weapon. Not my shield. My equal.”
The world tilted.
“Rule with me,” he continued. “Stand beside me. Help me dismantle this empire from the inside and rebuild it into something that no longer needs pyres to survive.”
My hands trembled.
“You want me to marry you,” I said slowly, “so my people will bleed for your war.”
“I want you,” he said. “And I want a future where neither of us is alone in this.”
I stepped back.
“I can’t,” I said. “Not like this. Not with my people still hunted. Not with Elyndor alive and watching.”
His jaw tightened. “This is the only way.”
“No,” I whispered. “This is your way.”
Pain flickered across his face—but he did not chase me.
That night, Elyndor’s spies delivered the truth to her.
Not rumours. Not guesses.
The truth.
That the Emperor had knelt for a witch.
That he had offered her the crown.
That the war he threatened was not for Andrax—but for me.
By dawn, she had made her move.
She caught me as I was going to Thalassas to clear my head, weigh my options. Deciding the fate of Andrax and myself.
The carriage smelled of myrrh and steel.
I sensed her before I saw her—the way the air tightened, the way my magic recoiled like a wounded animal.
Elyndor stepped from the shadows as if she had always been there.
“You travel poorly for a queen,” she said lightly.
My hand slid toward the hidden blade at my thigh. “You should not be here.”
“And yet,” she replied, circling me slowly, “here I am. And you are alone.”
Her mask was gone. Her face was bare and cruelly beautiful, eyes bright with triumph; she no longer bothered to hide.
“You should have stayed in your bed,” she continued. “Atum keeps his pets best when they’re broken.”
“I am not his,” I said.
Her smile sharpened. “That’s not what he thinks.”
Guards emerged from the darkness—Belinian knights in silver and blue, their armor etched with sigils meant to disrupt magic. I felt it immediately. The air went thin. Heavy.
Anti-teleportation wards.
“You made him kneel,” Elyndor said softly. “Do you know how humiliating that was for me?”
I gathered magic anyway. Pain lanced through my veins.
“I will kill you,” I said.
She laughed. “No. You won’t. Not yet.”
She leaned in close, her whisper venomous. “Because if you die, he burns the world. And I need him to be predictable.”
The first blow came from behind.
Cold iron slammed into my spine, stealing my breath. I fell to my knees, gasping.
“Careful,” Elyndor said, amused. “Don’t damage her face.”
I tried to speak—cast—move—
Chains snapped around my wrists, runes blazing white-hot. The pain was immediate and merciless, magic ripping out of me like a scream swallowed mid-breath.
I cried out.
Elyndor crouched before me, gloved fingers tilting my chin upward.
“You really thought you could win?” she asked gently. “Against empires?”
She studied my face like a collector assessing a rare artifact.
“You are not his queen,” she said. “You are leverage.”
She rose and gestured lazily.
“Take her.”
They dragged me toward the carriage, my boots scraping stone, blood smearing the path behind us. I fought until my vision blurred, until the world fractured into sound and pain.
As they threw me inside, Elyndor followed, settling across from me with regal ease.
The door slammed shut.
The carriage lurched forward.
Belinium waited.
Elyndor folded her hands in her lap, watching me with open satisfaction.
“You should know,” she said, as the wheels began to turn, “he will come for you.”
I swallowed blood and lifted my head.
“Then you’ve already lost.”
Her smile faltered—for just a heartbeat.
Then it returned, colder.
“No,” she said. “I’ve just started the war.”
And by dusk—
I was gone.
I fled Andrax under illusion and blood, leaving behind silk sheets and a crown that would never sit on my head. I crossed borders that smelled of rain and betrayal, running straight into the heart of Belinium.
Into Elyndor’s waiting hands.
And behind me, I knew—
Atum would burn the world to bring me back.
- Writer
