Let Them Kneel (kaelani and Julian) novel Chapter 171

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Chapter 171

Julian lowered his shirt slowly, the fabric falling back over the spreading decay.

“Because you wouldn’t have taken it,” he said.

“You’re damn right I wouldn’t have.”

Julian’s jaw clenched.

“And I wouldn’t have either,” he shot back. “We would’ve stood there arguing like idiots until that rot finished the job and killed us both.”

The words came out fierce. Final.

Julian dragged in a slow breath, the effort visible in the rise and fall of his chest.

“Look…” he said, quieter now. “I don’t know how much time I have left.”

Jace’s expression hardened, but he didn’t interrupt.

“I just need to find her,” Julian expressed. “I need to see Kaelani… just once more.”

His voice faltered.

“To tell her-”

The words died in his throat.

For a moment neither of them spoke.

Jace muttered a curse under his breath, shaking his head as he scrubbed a hand over his face.

“Damn it, Julian.”

The anger was still there.

But something else had settled over it now. Something heavier.

He gave a single nod toward the dark corridor ahead.

“Then let’s go.”

They moved forward together.

The castle corridors stretched long and quiet before them, shadows pooling in the corners like something alive.

Then they saw them.

Massive doors

seemed to glow.

towering nearly to the vaulted ceiling, carved from pale stone veined with faint threads of gold that no longer

It was the entrance to the throne room.

They didn’t hesitate.

The massive doors groaned open beneath Julian’s push, the sound echoing through the frozen silence like a warning no one was left conscious to hear.

Both men stepped inside, their eyes immediately landing on her.

regal even in stillness, platinum hair spilling like liquid starlight over Lyressa sat upon her throne at the far end of the hall her shoulders. One hand rested upon the arm of the throne. The other lay limp in her lap.

Her expression was stricken with grief.

As though the world had ended around her… and she had been forced to watch it happen.

“What the hell is going on here…” Julian murmured.

They approached slowly.

Every movement sounded heavy. Intrusive. Inappropriate in the suffocating silence.

Julian shrugged the straps of his backpack from his shoulders as they reached the dais.

He reached inside and pulled out something wrapped tightly in dark cloth–layer upon layer bound around it, as though whatever lay beneath was too important… or too fragile… to leave exposed.

Jace frowned.

“What is that?”

Julian finished unwrapping the final layer.

Light caught the object in his hands.

A disc of strange crystalline glass framed in ancient silver metal – etched with symbols that seemed to shift if stared at too long

A looking glass.

Better known as The Veil of Truth.

“Another gift from Lazarus,” Julian finally said.

His voice was quiet. Focused.

“He told me it emits a light of truth… reveals someone’s true nature.”

Jace stared at the object.

Skeptical. Uneasy.

“He said…” Julian’s gaze darkened slightly as memory pulled at him.

“I’ve seen kings hide behind beauty… and monsters hide behind crowns. This shows what they truly are.

Julian looked back toward the frozen queen.

“I told him that something felt off about the Fae lord,” he continued. “If I’m right… this will prove it.”

He began to raise the Looking Glass toward Lyressa.

Jace’s brow furrowed deeper.

“Why are you using it on her?”

Julian hesitated.

The question hung like a stone between them.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

His words came more subdued.

“I just have this feeling…”

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