Chapter 9 - The Tide King's Wrath

Aiel looked at the array of crossbows pointed at Rovik’s back. She felt the heavy, suffocating weight of the trap closing around them.

For a fraction of a second, the old terror—the cold, helpless dread of the auction block—tried to claw its way back up her throat.

Then she felt the heat in her chest.

It wasn't fear anymore. It was an ocean wave building into a towering tsunami, gathering all the pain, the starvation, the chains, and the fury of twelve stolen years into a single, unstoppable force.

She placed her hand gently on Rovik’s shoulder.

"Don't drop it," Aiel whispered.

Rovik glanced back, catching the blazing, molten gold in her eyes, and a wild, fierce grin broke across his granite face.

"I never planned to," Rovik said.

In one explosive motion, Rovik spun around, not to surrender, but to hurl his broadsword straight at Malakor’s chest. At the exact same second, Aiel threw her hands forward, unleashing a massive, blinding shockwave of golden-blue kinetic energy across the entire courtyard.

The shockwave hit the wall of mercenaries like a freight train. Crossbows splintered into matchwood, heavy iron armor crumpled inward, and the thirty archers were blown off their feet, flying backward into the stone walls.

Malakor shrieked in terror as Rovik’s broadsword missed his heart by a hair’s breadth, pinning his heavy velvet cloak deep into the wooden doors behind him.

Before Malakor could pull a hidden dagger, Aiel was already standing before him. She didn't touch him. She didn't need to. The sheer, terrifying pressure of her awakened royal aura pinned the traitor against the doors, crushing the breath from his lungs.

"You took my family," Aiel said, her voice echoing with the resonance of a thousand crashing tides. "You took twelve years of my life. And you thought you could steal a kingdom."

Malakor gasped, his eyes bulging as he clawed at his collar, choking on the very air around him. "Mercy..."

"Mercy," Rovik said coldly, stepping up beside Aiel and yanking his broadsword free from the wood, resting the flat of the blade against Malakor’s shoulder, "is something you show to enemies with honor. Traitors get the tide."

May you like

"I came home early from Christmas dinner and caught my 35-years-older hu...

"My grandmother saw me standing in my aunt’s house with my nine-month-ol...

"My mother gave my daughter a $1.15 clearance bracelet while gifting my...

With a swift, merciless sweep, Rovik ended the traitor's reign.

Absolute silence settled over the courtyard. The surviving mercenaries dropped their weapons, falling to their knees in immediate, terrified submission to the true king and queen of Stormhold.