Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother

Chapter 33

Elara’s POV

The road blurred beneath the wheels of the hired carriage. Every rut, every stone jolted through my spine, but I felt none of it. My hands were locked around the edge of the seat, knuckles bone-white. My breath came in shallow, ragged pulls that never quite filled my lungs.

Valerius. Someone took Valerius.

Brenna’s voice still echoed in my skull—fractured, panicked, the words tumbling over each other like she couldn’t get them out fast enough. Someone picked him up from the academy. He’s gone. Elara, he’s gone.

Then the connection had died. My communication stone—cracked during the violent escape from the Baroness’s manor—flickered once and went dark in my palm. I’d tried squeezing it, shaking it, pressing it against my chest as if my heartbeat could revive the enchantment. Nothing. Dead crystal. Dead line.

I was completely alone.

“Please,” I whispered to no one. To the Moon Goddess. To the air rushing past the carriage window. “Please let him be safe. Please. He’s all I have.”

The capital’s outer walls rose in the distance. I leaned forward, urging the driver faster with a sharp knock on the partition. The horses surged. Cobblestones replaced dirt. Streetlamps smeared into streaks of amber light as we tore through the evening streets.

The academy sat on a quiet lane near the merchant quarter. Iron gates. Stone walls topped with decorative spikes. A place meant to feel safe. A place I had chosen because it was safe.

The carriage hadn’t fully stopped before I threw the door open and hit the ground running. My soft-soled shoes slapped against the wet stone. The gates were locked. Chained. The courtyard beyond them dark and still.

I slammed my palms against the iron bars. The impact sang up through my wrists, my elbows, my shoulders.

“Open the gate!” My voice cracked. Too loud. Too desperate. I didn’t care. “Someone open this gate now!”

Silence.

I hit the bars again. Again. The chain rattled but held. My palms stung. I could feel the ridges of the ironwork imprinting themselves into my skin.

“Please! My son—my son is a student here. Please, I need—”

A lantern bobbed into view from the side entrance. A man in a grey uniform appeared, moving with the cautious gait of someone approaching trouble.

“Ma’am, the academy is closed for the—”

“My son is missing.” The words came out like something torn from my chest. “He was taken. Someone took him from here today. Let me in. Let me in.”

The guard’s expression shifted. The professional caution dissolved into something softer. He looked at my face—whatever he saw there was enough. Without another word, he produced a ring of keys and unlocked the chain.

I was through the gap before he’d finished pulling the gate open.

“The headmistress—Mrs. Henderson—I need her. Now.”

“She’s been notified, ma’am. She’s on her way. Should be here shortly.”

Shortly. The word meant nothing. Every second that passed was a second my son was somewhere I couldn’t reach. Somewhere I couldn’t protect him. I paced the dark courtyard, arms wrapped around myself, my nails digging crescents into my own biceps.

Within twenty minutes, I heard footsteps. Quick, uneven. Mrs. Henderson appeared through the main building’s side door, her silver hair hastily pinned back, her shawl clutched around her shoulders with trembling hands. Her kind, lined face was blotched red. She’d been crying.

My stomach dropped through the floor.

“Mrs. Henderson.” I seized her arm. “Where is my son?”

“Miss Frostfang, I—” Her voice splintered. Fresh tears spilled down her weathered cheeks. “I am so sorry. I am so terribly, terribly sorry.”

“Where is he?”

“A woman came. This afternoon.” Mrs. Henderson’s hands shook so violently that her shawl slipped off one shoulder. She didn’t notice. “Young. Blonde. Mid-twenties, perhaps. Beautifully dressed. She said—she said she was Valerius’s aunt. She gave the family name. Valois.”

The name hit me like a fist to the sternum.

“She had documents,” Mrs. Henderson continued, her words tumbling out between sobs. “Papers with the family seal. She was so polished, so convincing. She spoke about Valerius by name, knew his schedule, knew his favorite—”

“What did she look like?” My voice had gone flat. Dead. The panic was still there, still screaming behind my ribs, but something colder had risen over it. Something sharp and lethal.

“Blonde hair. Golden, like honey. She looked to be in her mid-twenties—”

“Isolde.”

The name left my mouth like venom.

Mrs. Henderson flinched. “You know her?”

I didn’t answer. My vision had narrowed to a single bright point, and in that point was my stepsister’s face. Smiling. Always smiling. The cruelest things she’d ever done to me had been delivered with that porcelain smile.

“I need your communication stone.” My voice didn’t sound like mine anymore. “Mine is broken. I need yours. Now.”

Mrs. Henderson fumbled at the chain around her neck and pressed her communication stone into my palm. I removed her crystal and slotted my own magical crystal into the setting, then channeled the frequency I’d spent years trying to forget—the one etched into my memory from childhood, from the Valois estate, from every miserable day of my youth.

The stone hummed. Connected.

One pulse. Two.

Then a click. And a voice like poisoned sugar.

“Well, well. Dear sister.”

My entire body went rigid.

“Isolde.” The name scraped out through clenched teeth. “Where is my son?”

“Ela! It’s been so long. You sound stressed. Are you getting enough sleep? Motherhood really does take its toll, doesn’t it—”

“Where. Is. My. Son.”

A light, musical laugh. The kind that belonged at garden parties and afternoon teas. “Oh, the little darling? He’s fine. For now. Such a sweet boy, Ela. Those big golden eyes? Adorable. Though I have to say, he cries so much. It got exhausting, honestly. I had to set him down somewhere quiet.”

My blood turned to ice.

“What do you mean, ‘set him down’?”

“Exactly what it sounds like.” Isolde’s tone was breezy. Casual. As if she were describing where she’d left a borrowed book. “I found a lovely spot in the wilderness. Trees everywhere. Very peaceful. Fresh air. Children need fresh air, don’t you think?”

The room tilted. My hand on the stone was shaking so badly I could barely hold the connection.

“He’s four years old.”

“Mm. A bit young to be out on his own, I’ll grant you that. But children are resilient. Isn’t that what they say?”

“If you’ve hurt him—if there is a single mark on him—I will find you, Isolde, and I will cut your throat open and watch you bleed out on the ground.”

The words came from somewhere primal. Somewhere beneath thought. I meant every syllable. Mrs. Henderson pressed a hand to her mouth. The guard took a step back.

Isolde didn’t miss a beat. Her laugh tinkled through the crystal like wind chimes.

“There she is! There’s the fire. I always said you had claws hiding somewhere under all that pathetic obedience.” A pause. When she spoke again, the cheerfulness remained, but something harder glinted beneath it. “Here’s what’s going to happen, dear sister. You’re going to come home. Back to the Valois estate. You’re going to marry Harold. He’s a generous man, you know—perfectly willing to raise your little bastard as his own. Mother arranged everything. All you have to do is show up and say yes.”

“You’re insane.”

“You have two hours.” The playfulness vanished from her voice like a candle blown out. Cold. Precise. Final. “Two hours to get to the estate and agree to the marriage. If you don’t?” The sweetness slithered back. “Well. Your little sweetheart will have to spend the night alone in that big, scary forest.”

“Isolde—”

The connection severed. The crystal went silent in my palm.

I stood frozen. The courtyard spun around me. Mrs. Henderson was saying something—apologies, questions, offers of help—but the sounds reached me as if through deep water. Meaningless. Muffled.

My baby was alone in the wilderness. In the dark. He was four years old and he was alone and—

My hand moved to the carriage key in my pocket. My fingers closed around it. I had to go. Had to move. Had to do something—

The academy’s main gate creaked open.

Isolde walked through the main gate. Her blonde hair was styled to perfection, her designer clothing immaculate. She stopped close enough for me to smell her expensive perfume, then murmured, “Hello, sister. You look awful. Really, Ela, you should take better care of yourself.”