Claimed by the vampire prince

Chapter 529: Chapter 529

It pushed back against her touch.

Thalora came to stand beside her. She had already extended her own power. Her eyes grew distant as her magic took over

As expected, the presence reacted to the both of them just as aggressively.

They crossed the field together. The grass was damp underfoot and the air grew noticeably colder as they neared Marzen’s grave.

Thalora studied it for a long moment. Then she pressed one hand flat against the stone.

There was a creaking groan then the sound of something splintering.

"Marzen," Thalora said quietly, as though confirming something she had already suspected. Then she glanced at her daughter. "His soul never crossed over to the land of the dead."

Circe frowned. "But why?"

Thalora withdrew her hand from the stone slowly. "The magic he used to rip through the veil, it was a dark and consuming kind. It is still whispered about in the faelands till this day and was one of the first stories I was told as a child. It was a kind of magic that does not simply leave a mark and fade. It bound him to this place after death as thoroughly as any chains could. His soul cannot move from here. Penance for the corruption done to his soul."

Circe looked at the monument with fresh revulsion. "And the veil itself. Is that why it has never healed? Because of what he did to it?"

"Power like the veil’s is ancient and finely woven. Magic of that age does not simply mend after a wound." Thalora said. "The veil is not a passive thing. It remembers what was done to it, and it will not heal of its own accord while the one who harmed it still exists. It wants retribution. It wants him."

Marzen. The first king of Lamora. The man in all the histories and the statues, the founder they built a kingdom around. But before he was a king he was a conqueror, and before he was a conqueror he had ripped a hole in the fabric between realms to flood a living world with his kind. He had slaughtered every person he found there. He had taken the land and called it his own.

"Then we give the veil what it wants," Circe said. "If that is what it will take to stop the beasts from crossing over to their realm. That way the people no longer have to worry for their lives every winter solstice."

"It will not be simple. He is strong, even now. He has been here for millennia." Thalora told her truthfully.

"Will you help me?" Circe didn’t even need to ask. There was nothing Thalora wouldn’t do for her.

A moment later, they positioned themselves on either side of the grave and began.

Thalora was calm and diligent as she worked to lay the framework of the ritual. Circe poured her death magic into it in steady waves, pressing against the presence sealed away. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom

The ground beneath her feet turned cold enough that frost formed in the grass around her.

Marzen’s soul fought them as soon as it understood what was happening.

It came up hard and vicious, slamming against their combined hold with the full weight of a thousand years of concentrated rage. Circe felt the force of it like a physical blow. Her vision blurred and images tore through her mind without warning. She was burning settlements, screaming, the crunch of bone.

Batting the memories away, she locked her jaw and held on.

Together they drove deeper and found the soul beneath it all and they wrenched it free from the stone.

The air above the monument split.

A figure flickered into existence. It was tall, its eyes two points of cold hatred and Circe seized it before it could orient itself and contained it, folding her power around it the way she might close her fist.

But rather than driving it toward the place where the dead go, she reached elsewhere.

She reached for the sentient cave she shared a bond with.

The connection was already there, a thread at the back of her awareness that had existed since the day she had walked into that magical place and freed her mother from a state of perpetual sleep.

She pressed her awareness toward the cave now, for it drew magic straight from the veil. "I need your help. Take him. Use him."

The response came back without delay, a low acknowledgement that moved through her like a vibration.

It can absorb him directly into the veil. His essence would be used to mend the thing he broke.

The contained soul fought and drove against the boundaries of Circe’s hold with everything it had. Then she sent it away for good.

It vanished in an instant. Moments passed and nothing happened after that.

The burial field was silent. Circe stood with her arms at her sides and her heart hammering as she waited.

Then the earth shook beneath them.

The violent tremors came without warning, knocking Circe to one knee before she had time to brace. The ground rolled like something vast was moving beneath it, deep underground, and the monument of King Marzen cracked straight down the center with a sound she felt in her teeth. Trees at the field’s edge shook as well, a few snapping from the force. Old graves shifted in the earth.

Thalora caught her daughter by the arm and they held each other through the shaking, neither speaking as both of them waited for whatever came next.

It lasted a long time.

When the tremors finally stopped, Thalora released Circe’s arm and let her magic spill outward again. Circe watched her mother’s face.

The tight focus dissolved slowly into shock. And then, unmistakably, joy. A startled laugh escaped her

"It is working." She gasped. "The veil is — it is taking him. I can feel it knitting back together."

She turned to face Circe fully, the loose strands of her blond hair whipping around her face in the wind, and without hesitation she pulled her daughter into a fierce embrace.

Circe went still for half a moment, not quite prepared for it.

Then she wrapped her arms around her mother and held on.

"You did well," Thalora said. "Truly, you will never cease to amaze me."

Circe closed her eyes.

The cold presence at Marzen’s grave was gone entirely and its place she felt only the slow, deep movement of something ancient beginning, very carefully, to repair itself.

Finally they stepped apart and Thalora still had a proud smile on her face.

"I believe Lamora will be grateful to have you as their queen," she said. The warmth in her voice was genuine. "Shall we go and tell your husband what became of the first one?"

Circe exhaled, relieved.

"Yes," she said, "Let’s go home.."