Chapter 14 - THE BLOOD OF AURELIA
The cathedral plaza fell dead silent.
Thousands of northern warriors stopped in their tracks, their weapons lowered as they took in the hostage on the top step.
Mrs. Alvarez knelt trembling on the cold stone, her apron stained with soot, the obsidian blade biting into her wrinkled neck.
A thin line of red trickled down her collar.
"Don't do it, Lord Gideon!" the old housekeeper cried out, her voice thin and shaking.
"Don't let this butcher take what belongs to you!"
Kaelen tightened his grip on her hair, yanking her head back.
"Silence, old hag!"
Kaelen looked at Gideon, then at Hazel, who had just reached the top of the marble stairs.
"Here is the bargain, Hayes," Kaelen hissed.
"The girl surrenders to my custody."
"She steps into the iron collar I brought from the south."
"She signs the charter giving the southern packs full ownership of her bloodline."
"And I leave your broken city without burning your cathedral to the foundation."
Gideon stood ten feet away, his broadsword lowered to his side.
His knuckles were white on the leather grip.
"Let the woman go, Kaelen," Gideon said, his voice deadly quiet.
"Your army is broken."
"Your couriers were captured at the river."
"You have no ship waiting."
"I have this," Kaelen sneered, lifting the thermite grenade.
"One spark, and twenty thousand degrees of magnesium fire vaporizes everything within thirty yards."
Hazel stepped forward.
She walked past Gideon.
"Hazel, no," Gideon growled, reaching out to catch her arm.
"Let me speak to him, Gideon," she said softly, not looking back.
She stopped five paces from Kaelen’s blade.
She looked at the obsidian weapon.
She looked at the man who had hunted her mother for fifty years.
"You spent your whole life hunting white wolves, Lord Kaelen," Hazel said, her voice carrying clear and steady across the silent square.
"Do you know why my ancestors never wore armor?"
Kaelen narrowed his eyes, suspicious of her calm posture.
"Because they were weak," he spat.
"Because they were prey."
"No," Hazel whispered.
She pulled off her leather gloves.
She opened both hands, revealing the jagged scars running across her palms.
"Because healing is not the only thing our blood can do."
Hazel drew her paring knife.
With a swift, clean motion, she sliced both palms open simultaneously.
Dark, glowing crimson blood welled from the cuts, pouring down her fingers like liquid starlight.
She did not touch a wound.
She did not press her flesh against an injury.
She threw her hands forward, flinging two sprays of glowing Aurelian blood directly onto the blade of Kaelen’s obsidian rapier and the casing of the thermite grenade.
The moment her blood struck the metal, an ear-splitting chemical reaction occurred.
The starlit blood of an Aurelian was not just medicine.
To dark alloys forged with dark magic and silver nitrate, it was pure, unadulterated acid.
The obsidian blade hissed, smoking violently, and dissolved into brittle black slag within half a second.
The thermite grenade turned white-hot in Kaelen’s hand, the electronic fuse melting and fusing into harmless lead.
Kaelen screamed in shock, dropping the ruined metal as the acid burned through his leather gauntlets.
Mrs. Alvarez scrambled forward on her hands and knees.
Hazel caught the old woman, pulling her safely behind her back.
Kaelen stumbled backward, clutching his smoking, blistered hands, staring at Hazel with pure, unmitigated horror.
"What... what are you?!" Kaelen shrieked.
Gideon moved.
He did not use his sword.
He closed the distance in the blink of an eye.
His right fist struck Kaelen across the jaw with the full, unbridled fury of an Alpha King defending his mate.
CRACK.
Kaelen’s jaw shattered.
The southern grand marshal flew backward through the grand wooden doors of the cathedral, crashing onto the stone floor of the nave in a heap of broken limbs and torn white fur.
Gideon stepped across the threshold.
He looked down at the broken monster.
"I am Gideon Hayes," the King declared, his voice echoing through the vaulted stone cathedral like the voice of destiny itself.
"And this city is under the protection of the White Wolf."
Gideon turned to his guards.
"Throw him into the deepest salt mine in the northern crags."
"Let him spend the rest of his life chipping stone in the dark."
The soldiers dragged Kaelen away, his groans fading down the marble stairs.
The cathedral doors were thrown wide open.
The afternoon sun broke through the storm clouds above Sunspire, bathing the entire city in brilliant, golden light.
The fifty thousand soldiers in the plaza raised their weapons into the air.
The citizens poured into the streets, throwing winter flowers and cheering until their voices gave out.
Gideon walked out onto the high landing.
He took Hazel’s bleeding hands in his.
He didn't care that her blood stained his royal armor.
He didn't care that the whole world was watching.
He knelt before her on the top step of the royal cathedral.
The Alpha King of the North bowed his head to the laundry maid.
"Will you rule beside me, Hazel Brooks?" Gideon asked, his voice thick with raw devotion.
"Not as a healer in chains."
"Not as a secret in the dark."
"As my equal."
"As my Queen."
Hazel looked down at the man who had faced armies and monsters to keep her safe.
Tears of pure, overwhelming joy spilled over her lashes, sparkling like diamonds in the winter sunlight.
"Yes, Gideon," she whispered, her voice ringing clear over the cheering thousands.
"Yes."
Gideon stood up, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her before the entire kingdom.
The roar of the people shook the mountain foundations.
May you like
The long winter of fear had finally ended.
The age of the White Wolf had begun.
