This isn’t a fairy tale. No heroes. No lessons.

Zetulah Viridian isn’t a savior. She’s the part of you that knows kindness gets you killed.

And her story? It’s the question you’ve been swallowing since life first kicked your teeth in:
How much worse would you burn the world to make it hurt like you do?

Zetulah is just a woman with blood in her teeth and a knife, asking:
How much of your soul would you sell to watch your enemies bleed?



Before wolves ruled the world, war did.

Four dynasties carved the realm of Varkathis apart like a carcass. Their war is no longer about thrones—it’s about erasing each other from history.


For centuries, four houses ruled through brutality and broken vows:


House Emberclaw (South): Flame-lit conquerors with eyes like smoldering coals. They leave only ash and children's bones behind.


House Viridian (West): Healers turned hunted, their once-bright green eyes—symbols of hope, and nature—now dimmed to murky moss. Targets for slaughter.


House Azzuri (North): Ice-hearted titans with gazes bluer than glacial crevices. They would let their own blood freeze before breaking an oath.


House Moriba (East): Puppeteers with golden eyes that flicker like gilded lies. Stare too long, and you’ll wake up throat-cut with your own dagger.


—--------

Zetulah Viridian doesn’t scream when her brother dies. She counts the seconds until his fingers go cold, the Emberclaw dagger still jutting from his throat.

They don’t let her bury him.

Instead, they nail Fenrik’s corpse to her family’s gates—a scroll stuffed between his teeth:
“Let the last Viridian choke on her brother’s rot.”

They take her title.
Her home.
Even her pride—carving the Emberclaw sigil into her land as a warning to survivors.

But rage?
Rage is the one thing they can’t carve out.


Zetulah isn’t fighting for a crown. She’s fighting to keep her tongue, her liver, her green eyes from becoming Emberclaw trophies.

To survive, she kneels to the boy whose family murdered her brother—
Prince Kaelith Emberclaw, whose crimson gaze burns like a forge even as he bandages her wounds with surgeon’s hands, that has snapped more necks than healed them.

Every time he laughs—warm and bright, nothing like the Emberclaw pyres she’s cursed—she forgets, just for a heartbeat, that she needs to kill him.

War horns sound.
Now, Zetulah must choose:
Lead her surviving kin into the hellmouth of battle, or light the match that burns every house—hers included—to cinders.

Because in the realm of Varkathis ?

Mercy is the lie you tell while sharpening your blade.

Power is the scream that haunts your enemies’ sleep.

And Zetulah?
“She’s learned how to make the world scream with her.”


"You won’t like Zetulah. You’ll recognize her—the part of you that knows mercy gets you killed."

Here’s what they don’t tell you about vengeance:
It doesn’t heal. It addicts.

You won’t love this story.
You’ll hate how much you need to finish it.

Quiet? No. Quiet was for fools. The night itched—too still, too wrong. The camp buzzed with the scrape of boots, the clench of fists around hilts, breaths held too sharp. Cold bit through my armor, gnawing at the cracks.


Kaelith leaned against that post like he owned it, all lazy arrogance. But his eyes? Gods, they never quit—darting, slicing, hunting. Like he could smell weakness. Mine.


"Wanna fight for us?" I shoved the hilt at him. The blade glinted—hungry.


"Oaths?" He scoffed. "Thought you'd outgrown nursery rhymes."


"Not. An. Oath." My voice frayed. Damn. "Blood. Or leave."


"A Blood Pact." His jaw twitched. "Your family's delightful bedtime stories."


"Break it, and it eats you alive." I stepped closer. Ash and iron—his scent. "Swear. Or vanish."


"You'd gut me just to watch me twitch, wouldn't you?"


He snatched the dagger. No pause. The cut across his palm was too clean, too easy. Blood pooled, black in the moonlight. I mirrored him. The sting bit deep—breathe, damn it—but I didn't blink.


Our hands clasped. His grip burned, pulse thrashing against mine. Magic flared—a flash, a snap—then nothing. Just his breath, ragged. Mine too.


"My blade's yours," he growled, voice like gravel. "Till you give me a reason to gut you."


"Likewise." I ripped my hand back. The bond hummed, a wasp under my skin.


Mud soaked through the informant's knees. The forest stank of rot and wet earth. Golden eyes flickered—left, right—but the trees kept their mouths shut.


"Done," they hissed. "Blood Pact. They're… together."


A vial appeared—amber liquid, glowing like a trapped firefly. Poison. Smelled like flowers and funeral pyres.


"Dose him," the shadow crooned. "Make him doubt her first. Then watch the fun."


The informant pocketed the vial. Cold seeped into their bones. Too late. Always too late.


Tuban's army ate the world alive. Fields? Ash. Villages? Smoke. The general rode ahead, sword swinging like a butcher's cleaver.


Kaelith. The boy he'd dragged into war. The prince who'd spat on his legacy.


"I made you," Tuban snarled to the flames. "Now I'll break you."


The sky exploded. Fire vomited upward. Ash rained down, gritty between teeth. Tuban's roar chased the heat:


"Your father's ghost is laughing, boy!"


Kaelith stood still. The air around him rippled, heat distorting the light. He didn't move. Didn't blink. But the dirt at his feet blackened, cracked.


Chapter 26 - A Test Of Loyalty