Page 82 of The Nymph King

One knelt with a rag, wiping blood from the stone. The cloth came away red. Another swept gray dust into a shallow pan with short, efficient strokes. Any remnants of Tanyl’s reign disappeared between dancers’ shoes and servants’ hands with obscene speed.

She had been friends with him.

Tanyl hadn’t merely been a king to overthrow or an enemy occupying her throne. She had stood in rooms with him, lain in his bed, and laughed with him. At one point, she had fed from him.

Now his magic lived inside her, and servants were sweeping the rest away.

The sickness in her stomach worked itself up to her ribs.

Her eyes slid shut again. After months of running, bargaining, hiding, surviving Kiran, surviving Tanyl, she had become powerful enough that no man could decide what happened to her next.

Tanyl was dead, and Essenheim was hers.

There should have been some enormous feeling waiting for her on the other side of victory, but instead, she stared at the blood disappearing from the floor and wilted with exhaustion.

With her chest rising, she forced one slow breath into her lungs.

Then another.

Only when the servant rose with the bloodied cloth did she finally lift her chin.

Ellisar crossed the floor, the crowd parting naturally as he made his way to the dais. He took the seat beside the throne without looking to her first, exuding the easy claim of a man who had already decided the space was his.

Tingling broke out across her skin. Maybe it was the exhaustion… but she enjoyed being next to him.

Around them, the court recalibrated. Everyone knew the monarch’s mate belonged in that seat… and the chair had been empty for years. Murmurs passed between clusters of nobles in a loose, wandering wave. Women held fans to their faces, and men raised brows as they drank from their cups.

Keeping his voice hushed, Ellisar leaned in, ensuring his words remained private to the throne. “This doesn’t end here,” he said, eyes still on the room as if nothing had shifted between them. “What you’ve done tonight solves one problem, yet creates several more.”

She leaned closer, her lips almost grazing his ear. “I understand,” she responded softly, her eyes still scanning the room for Kiran, even though she knew he wouldn’t be there. “I’m ready.”

Imani brought Tanyl’s Drasil into view without preamble. Ancient magic pulsed from it, making a shiver run up her spine. She studied it—her wandlore brand burning at its power—before extending it toward Ellisar. He took it without ceremony, and for a moment neither of them moved. The wand sat in his palm, an object that had no simple explanation for existing.

Ellisar turned the Drasil in his hand, testing its heft. He said nothing, but his jaw set—the look of a man who had just confirmed a suspicion he hadn’t voiced yet.

It had taken Imani years to find her Drasil wand, and only a witch with a wandlore brand could calibrate it to a person’s specific magic.

Who exactly gave Tanyl this wand? And what did they do to make it work for him?

Powerful Deity breeds from the Upper had armed Tanyl with that wand, had chosen him as the hand to hold it—and had done so with intent that reached beyond anything he could have conceived on his own. She didn’t know who or why, but she would find them. And then she would deal with them.

But not today. Today, she had other problems.

Imani rose again, drawing the room’s attention like a tide pulling back before a wave, and waited until the silence had resolved into an expectant feeling.

“The High Sentinel of Norn elves and I are aligned to be mated,” she said. “Our people, our power, and our futures will move as one.”

The reaction swept through the ballroom in layers.

Conversations broke apart around them. A woman near the front lowered her glass without drinking, while two older nobles turned immediately toward one another, whispering behind raised hands. Others looked past Imani to Ellisar as if expecting him to contradict her.

He didn’t, spurring confusion and awe at once.

The elusive High Sentinel of the Norn elves, who rarely left the Draswood, had not merely supported Imani’s claim tonight. A mating tied Vathis to whatever government emerged from Tanyl’s death far more tightly than military cooperation ever could. Ellisar brought an established territory, a disciplined army, undisputed political authority, and a name the court already understood. Imani had taken the throne by force, and now she was telling them that one of Essenheim’s strongest powers intended to stand beside her after the blood dried.

Some faces brightened, while others became harder to read.

A few nobles glanced toward the doors, perhaps already calculating what the announcement meant for their own territories, alliances, and ambitions. Imani caught one elderly lord looking at the crown, then Ellisar, then back at her with the strained expression of a man realizing the balance of power had changed twice in a single evening.