Chapter 7 - The Turning Tide
Torren was the first to reach his feet. Drawing his sword, he placed himself directly between his weakened mother and the towering shadow.
"Julian! Get her behind us!" Torren commanded, his voice filled with the fierce authority of a true prince of House Veyne.
Julian scrambled across the cracked stone, wrapping his arms around his mother and pulling her back toward the edge of the cavern. "I've got you, Mother. I'm here."
Eleanor looked up at Julian with tired, loving eyes. "Your brother... save Adrian..."
Across the circle, Adrian was collapsed on his side, weeping as the full weight of his actions hit him. The dark crown had fallen from his head, clattering across the stone floor. The black smoke cleared from his mind, leaving him shattered and overwhelmed by remorse.
"What have I done?" Adrian sobbed, staring at his hands. "What have I done to our family?"
Victoria’s face twisted into an expression of sheer rage. "You weak, foolish boy!" she snarled, drawing a dark ceremonial dagger from her cloak. "If you won't take the sovereign's gift, then I will harvest your blood myself!"
She lunged toward Adrian, her blade dripping with dark poison.
Before she could strike, a heavy blade intercepted her dagger with a loud metallic clash.
Torren stood over his older brother, his gray cloak billowing in the draft of the cavern. "Touch him, and I will cut you down where you stand, Victoria."
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Victoria sneered, stepping back toward the shadow of the Sovereign. "You think you've won? You are just mortal men playing with the power of gods!"
The Shadow Sovereign raised its massive, clawed hands, summoning a storm of dark ash and razor-sharp obsidian shards that filled the cavern air.
