Chapter 435: The Return To Nagari

Elián;

The gates of Nagari rise up out of the mist like something out of a dream I almost forgot.

When we left, we used a portal. I guess we all need the break and time an actual Joey wey would proffer...so here we are in a carriage, riding back.

...Back here...

I press my palm flat against the carriage window, watching the jade-scaled pillars catch what little sunlight manages to punch through the clouds.

It’s familiar. Almost unbearably familiar, after everything. It’s sad to think these fortified pillars meant to guard the people inside Nagari had been so easily infiltrated by that...thing.

I remember Asa, and my heart sinks even further.

"You’re staring like you’ve never seen it before," Koda says beside me, low and amused, though there’s something careful underneath it.

He’s been careful with me since Gravemaw. Careful in the way people are when they’re afraid a wrong word might crack something.

"I’m just glad I get to see it again," I admit before looking away from him.

King Wilhelm, sitting across from us, says nothing, but I catch him watching me too. Watching the way I keep one hand pressed low against my stomach... like I’ve been doing without noticing for weeks now.

He hasn’t asked me to explain why I insisted on leaving Gravemaw. I think he already knows, and I think they both feel the same.

I insisted on coming back to Nagari because I couldn’t stand the thought of watching Gravemaw get attacked again.

If that monster turns its attention back to Gravemaw in search of me—after the tears, after the blood, after everyone there spent every waking hour holding themselves together with nothing but stubbornness and grief. After all they’ve faced— I don’t think I will forgive myself. The people there have nothing left to give it. They’ve given enough. Far too much...for my sake.

Nagari is different though. Nagari has magic in its bones. Magic runs deep in every stone of that palace. If something comes for me again, at least we have a fighting chance of still being standing after. But not Gravemaw.

I know Koda wanted to stay. I know some part of him is still back there with his mother, with the wreckage neither of us has properly grieved yet...I know King Wilhelm feels the pull of his wife and people the same way.

But they came anyway. And I know why. My baby...The future of BeastHeaven. That matters more than where either of them wants to be standing right now.

They both know it as well. If I...and my baby would stand a chance...right now, I should be in Nagari.

The journey through Nagari is easy. Uneventful...

I even fall asleep, and only wake up when the carriage rolls to a stop.

I look outside and realise that we’ve arrived on castle grounds.

Koda and King Wilhelm step out, and just as Koda helps me down, I hear my name.

"Elián."

I turn, and find Zephan already crossing the courtyard toward me...faster than a prince probably should move in front of witnesses. The moment he gets to me, his arms wrap around me with so much force and warmth that I freeze in place.

He holds me like I might dissolve into nothing if he doesn’t. Both arms hold me, like I’m something that survived a fall from a great height. A fall he feared would kill me.

"Oh, Elian. How could you leave like that! You had me worried. How are you??" He breathes into my ear, and guilt finds its way to worm into my heart.

I let myself lean into his embrace for a second, just a second, because... it’s in this moment I realise how much I needed someone to hold me. God, it feels so good to be held like this. I feel...almost lighter.

He pulls back to look at me, hands still on my shoulders, and something in his expression shifts....It softens and...darkens at the same time.

"I heard about Bram." He says quietly, and I blink back. I don’t say anything.

"You shouldn’t have had to do that," he continues, with his jaw tightening.

"You shouldn’t have had to stain your hands with something so filthy. I hate that it came to that. I hate that you were the one who had to—" He begins, but I cut him off.

"Zephan," I call gently as I put my hand over his, on my shoulder. "It’s not worth fussing over."

He looks at me, stunned for a moment, like he didn’t expect that from me...Like he’s searching my face for the crack he’s certain is there somewhere.

I give him a small smile instead. The kind that doesn’t cost me anything to produce anymore. I’ve gotten good at those.

"I’m tired," I say. It isn’t a lie, but it isn’t the whole truth either. "I just want to lie down."

He nods slowly, though the crease between his brows doesn’t fully ease.

I slip past him... past Koda and King Wilhelm exchanging some quiet, weighted words with the guards at the gate, and my head turns toward the palace doors, while my hand finds its way back to my stomach.

I don’t get far before I hear her voice behind me—quiet, not meant for me, but I catch it anyway, the way you catch things you’re not supposed to.

"Something has shifted in him," Queen Selthía says. "It troubles me."

I don’t turn around, even though I know she came out to see me. I don’t have the strength for this. I must prepare for the next step of my plan. I have to...

******

Dinner is normal.

Normal in a way that seems...performed...Forced?

Zenara asks about the journey, and I answer with something easy, something forgettable. Zethar makes a joke about something from years ago that has half the table laughing—His attempt to lighten the mood—I guess it works. Because even Koda and King Wilhelm, whose shoulders have been tight with something unspoken since we crossed back into Nagari’s borders...laugh.

Queen Selthía watches me more than she eats. I feel it without needing to look at her directly—the particular weight of someone studying you like you’re a puzzle they used to be able to solve and suddenly can’t is something I’m starting to get used to.

Zephan keeps glancing at my hands. I don’t know what he’s looking for. Blood that isn’t there anymore, maybe... Some visible proof of what I did, something he can point to and say, there, that’s the wound; let me tend it. But he finds nothing.

There isn’t one... Not one he can see.

The food is good. The wine is warm. Someone laughs too loud at something, and it startles a real smile out of me, brief and unguarded, and for one whole minute I let myself believe this is just dinner. Just family. Just a night where nothing is wrong.

But underneath the laughter, underneath the warmth of candlelight and familiar voices, something in me stays...very still. Alert. Listening for something none of them seems to hear.

This is usually too long for peace these days.

That’s the thought that keeps circling back no matter how many times I try to set it down. Everything about this table, this room, this family gathered around it like nothing’s happened. Like there’s no looming danger over our heads— it’s too smooth. Too easy. Like the world is holding its breath and pretending it isn’t.

I excuse myself before everyone is done eating, and let myself back up to my room...Koda’s room.

The room hasn’t changed.

Someone kept it exactly as I left it—the same soft blankets, the same crystal lamp glowing dim gold in the corner, the same window overlooking the gardens... I stand in the doorway for a moment, just looking at it, at how untouched it is, like the version of me who lived here before Gravemaw is still supposed to walk back in and pick up where he left off.

I’m not that version anymore... I don’t think I ever get to be him again.

I walk over to the window and push it open, letting the cool night air in. Below, the gardens stretch out dark and quiet. The serpent statues along the paths catch faint moonlight on their coiled stone bodies, and something about the sight of them gives me...peace.

I press a hand to my stomach, and my little one moves quietly under my palm. She’s been less restless these days. Quiet, and still...Maybe that’’s why I’ve grown the habit of checking up on her more often. This small, quiet check-in...this reminder that there’s something in here that depends entirely on me not falling apart.

"You’re safe," I whisper, more to myself than to the child. "We’re both safe now," I add.

I don’t fully believe it, though I want to. But I say it anyway, because saying it feels like the only spell I have left that might actually work.

My mind drifts, the way it’s been drifting more and more since Gravemaw. It drifts to Bram’s face in that final moment, to the sound that came out of him that I still hear sometimes when things get too quiet... To the fact that I didn’t hesitate. Not once. Not for a single heartbeat.

Zephan called it filthy. Called it something I shouldn’t have had to touch. He’s not wrong. But he’s also not the one who has to live with how easy it was...

I press my forehead against the cool glass of the window, eyes closing for a moment, letting the quiet of the room settle over me.

Then something makes me open them again.

I don’t know what it is at first. There’s no sound or movement I can point to. Just that odd, animal instinct that Zethar and Koda both have in spades and that I somehow inherited without ever asking for it. The feeling of being looked at.

My eyes drift down, scanning the tree line along the garden’s edge.

At first, I see nothing. Just shadows, just the slow sway of branches in the night wind.

...Then I see it.

Behind the largest tree, half-swallowed by darkness—A silhouette. Tall, broad-shouldered...and cloaked in something heavy enough to swallow any features, any detail that might tell me who or what it is.

It’s not moving. It’s just standing there. Just watching.

My hand tightens against the glass as my heart starts pounding.

Could it be that monster again? 𝙛𝓇ⅇ

I don’t call out for help. Neither do I move to alert the guards.

Something tells me—some quiet, cold certainty settling low in my spine—that whoever, or whatever, is standing beneath that tree wants me to see them.

...Wants me to know they’re there.

I stare into the dark, and for one long, breathless moment, the shape seems to stare back. Then a cloud shifts over the moon, and when the light returns, the space behind the tree is empty.

I stand at the window a long time after that, hand still pressed flat against my stomach, as I struggle to calm my heart.

It’s time. I knew I wasn’t going to get enough time to prepare, but this...this is too soon. Still...I won’t back away.

It’s the only way to end this.

"You’re actually going to do this?" Elien’s voice floods into my mind, and I draw a deep breath.

"You ask like there’s another choice."