The Ugly Duckling Of The Tiger Tribe

Chapter 424: This is the justice you built for yourself

While the Sovereign Wing was a sanctuary of new life, the air in the Audience Hall was charged.

The air was thick to the point one could suffocate, but beneath it was the sharp, metallic tang of Veyra’s failing strength.

She lay on a pile of furs, her face pale, the jagged scars across her cheeks standing out in stark, white relief. Every breath was a rattle.

"She must choose!" the tribal midwife cried, her hands stained red. "Chieftain, the cubs are turned! If I do not cut her now to save them, they will die. But she is weak—if I cut, she will surely bleed out."

Rakan stood over his daughter, his face a mask of crumbling stone. "Veyra... my child..."

"Save me!" Veyra shrieked, a sound like tearing silk. Her hand clutched at Rakan’s tunic. "I don’t care about the cubs! Kill them! Just let me live! I am the daughter of the Chief! I am the beauty of the Stormhole! I cannot die here. Not while that monster is living up there."

The tribal members, huddled in the shadows, turned their faces away. The murmurs weren’t of sympathy anymore; they were of disgust.

Even her own mates stood back, their dull eyes filled with a sudden, horrifying clarity. This was the female they had fought for? This was the ’golden’ soul of their tribe?

The heavy doors of the hall swung open.

Fenric and Damar stepped in. They didn’t look like the doting, panicked husbands who had just been hovering over a birthing pool. They looked like the apex predators they were. Fenric’s arm was still crudely bandaged from my bite, a badge of his devotion.

"Arinya has made the decision," Fenric’s voice boomed, silencing the room.

Rakan looked up, hope flickering in his eyes like a dying candle. "Did she... did she send mercy? Did she send the healers to save my daughter?"

"She sent us to ensure the innocent survive," Damar hissed, his silver tail sliding across the stone with a lethal rasp.

He looked at Veyra—really looked at her—and saw the same monster that had haunted ’Arinya’s’ memories.

Fenric walked to the midwife’s side. Then, he looked at the woman who had spent her life trying to extinguish the light of his mate.

"You chose yourself," Fenric whispered, leaning down so only Veyra could hear him over her ragged gasps. "But in this kingdom, we value the future more than the rot of the past."

He turned to the midwife. "Save the cubs. Do not worry about the witch."

"No!" Veyra screamed, her voice breaking. "You can’t! Zevak! Ashren! Father! Help me!"

She called out, her voice raw and hollow, but no one answered, not even Rakan. It was as if he knew, deep down, that this was the right decision.

Veyra had offended me too much, and while he cannot blame her completely for the reason we had a bad relationship as Father and daughter, she was mostly to blame.

So, for the betterment of the tribe, and for his grandchildren, this was... he clenched his fists and shut his eyes... for the best.

Kaelor stood by the pillar. He looked at his sister, then at the two healthy tiger cubs being cradled by a female across the room.

Ashren and Zevak had their hands tied, too. They wanted to live a good life too, and even if it was shameless and selfish of them, they chose to turn their backs.

"We are done helping you, Veyra," Kaelor said, his voice flat and dead. "This is the justice you built for yourself."

As the midwives moved in, performing the brutal, necessary task to save the two small lives trapped within her, Fenric and Damar stood as silent sentinels.

They watched until the first wail of an innocent cub broke through the hall. Then the second.

Veyra’s eyes, once so full of pride and malice, slowly dimmed, fixed on the high stone ceiling she had so desperately wanted to claim as her own. She died as she had lived—clutching at a world that had already moved on without her.

Seven Days Later

I woke up to the feeling of sunlight on my face and the rhythmic purring of a very large cat.

I opened my eyes to see Fenric sitting at the foot of the bed, watching me with a look of pure, unshielded adoration.

Beside me, Damar was fast asleep, his tail draped over me like a living weighted blanket. Thalor and Noah were by the window, speaking in low tones with a head healer.

As soon as Fenric noticed I was awake, his lips curved.

"Welcome back, sleepyhead," he whispered, moving to sit beside me.

"The babies?" was the first thing out of my mouth.

I had slept for seven days because the exhaustion was just too much for my body, and I needed to recover. But I assumed my husbands and the healers were working overtime to make sure my babies were taken care of.

"Healthy. Beautiful. And currently being spoiled by Taruna and Solin," Noah said, walking over to press a kiss to my forehead. "Talia is mostly in charge of the triplets." He added. "And the twins... Well, they have quite the appetite, Arinya. They’re already trying to bite the silver spoons."

I smiled, feeling a deep, soul-level peace. "And... the hall?"

The room went quiet for a moment.

"The cubs survived," Damar said, opening one emerald eye. "A boy and a girl. They are being cared for by the tribe’s wet nurses. They are healthy, Ari."

"And Veyra?"

Fenric took my hand. "She is gone. She chose herself, but there is no place in this world for her. We buried her outside the walls, in the dirt she loved so much more than her own kin."

I let out a long, shaky breath. It was over. I didn’t think Veyra’s end would be like that, but somehow, it happened. How uncinematic. How didn’t even get a villain’s grand end.

"What about Rakan?"

"He has asked to be allowed to stay as a common laborer," Thalor said, his voice neutral. "He says he wants to earn the right to see the grandchildren he doesn’t deserve. I told him he could work in the gardens. He’s currently pulling weeds near the West Gate."

I chuckled weakly. The Chieftain of Stormhole, pulling weeds in my garden. There really was a god of irony in this world.

"And Zevak and Ashren?"

"They are working in the stone quarries under Oryn and Harok’s supervision," Fenric smirked. "Oryn is a very... thorough teacher. They’ll be too tired to plot anything for the next ten years."

I leaned back into the pillows, feeling the warmth of my husbands and the vibrant life of the kingdom I’d built. I looked at the purple-haired sea twins being brought in by the nurses, their tiger eyes glowing with a fierce, familiar intelligence.

"You really did good, Stephanie," I whispered to myself, watching my children.

I had come to this world as a broken soul in a broken body. I had been an ’outcast’, a ’sinner,’ and a ’monster’. But as I held my children and looked at the men who loved me, I realized the truth.

I wasn’t a monster. I was the architect of a new world.