Chapter 26 Enough to Stand
Seri
Foster and I listened to the battle through our earpieces. Static crackled between bursts of my husbands’ voices, alive and confident even in the thick of danger. I pressed my palm against my chest, right where I’d drawn the anti-siphoning ward, and willed my heart to steady itself.
“You’re going to smudge it,” Foster warned me as he lounged against the wall.
“Permanent marker dries fast.”
“And it should activate automatically, right? No need for blood activation or spoken words?”
“Right.” I chewed my thumbnail as my anxiety built. “Our tests could only measure so much without actual siphoning, so I’m hoping to find out if it truly works.”
“I’m hoping you won’t,” he muttered darkly.
We were waiting for the signal, the moment when we would shadow walk to my childhood home and destroy the reliquaries while my husbands kept Arabesque occupied.
Simple.
Except nothing involving my stepmother was ever simple.
“Zane. No improvisation,” Casimir’s command voice held that edge of dominance that made my stomach flutter even in the middle of a crisis.
“Define improvisation,” Zane shot back. “Because that’s my bread and butter, bro!”
Casimir sighed, a sound I’d heard countless times.
“Aw, c’mon, Ko!” Zane was already off on another tangent. “Save some carnage for the rest of us!”
Koa’s reply was a single, flat syllable: “No.”
I shook my head. Even in battle, they were still themselves. Zane reckless and playful, Koa intense and focused, Casimir trying to maintain order.
My boys.
Someone or something gurgled through the comms, followed by a wet thud and Casimir’s cold, detached tone: “No, no. Don’t get up. I haven’t finished killing you yet.”
“Are they always like this in battle?” I asked Foster.
“The banter? Yeah.” He shrugged, his eyes sharp on me. “The body count? Usually higher.”
“Dude, dude! Did you see that?” Zane’s voice exploded through our earpieces again. “Ko crushed that rogue’s throat with one hand! Oh, yeah! My guy!”
“Get down from Cas’ shoulders, you fucking gremlin!” Koa’s growl rumbled through the comms. “What is wrong with you?”
“Lots!” Zane chirped back, sounding delighted with himself.
I pictured them in the heat of battle: Zane scaling Casimir like a demented circus performer, Koa demolishing enemies with his bare hands, Casimir maintaining his deadly calm even with Zane using him as a human rock wall.
Then, “Confirmed sighting of Arabesque,” Casimir said. “Seri, Foster, make your move.”
“Ready?” Foster asked, his face betraying nothing.
Gripping Koa’s knife in one hand, I used the other to hold Brummy’s new collar, a gift from Zane, who’d insisted on engraving the tag with, “Murder Floof.” At my nod, Foster grabbed my elbow, and I pulled us into the shadows.
Shadow walking was so easy for me now. I just slipped between the cracks of reality and, for a heartbeat, we were nowhere. Then we weren’t.
And my breath caught at what I saw.
My family farm looked nothing like I remembered it.
The farmhouse seemed to hunch, the windows were sealed shut with panes of black crystal, and the field that had once grown our vegetables was bare dirt.
The old barn had been reinforced, but its red paint was bleached to the color of dried blood. And the orchard…
Moon Goddess help me, the orchard.
What had once grown the best apples in the state was now a sprawl of deathblight, thorns spiraling up from the poisoned earth in twisted, unnatural patterns.
“I see Arabesque has made some improvements since I left,” Foster muttered as he dropped my arm.
I couldn’t speak as I surveyed what my stepmother had destroyed. Memories assaulted me, running through the orchard as a child, my father’s laughter echoing as he chased me, my mother’s hands guiding mine as we picked apples for pie. Now it was all poison and decay.
Brummy growled low in his throat, hackles raised. His body quivered beside me like a spring uncoiled. He smelled Dark magic. Or maybe just the wrongness.
My earpiece clicked, and Koa’s voice came through, satisfied and breathless.
“Splitter just grew a new arm. I ripped it off again. We’re dancing now, baby!”
“I’ll try not to be jealous,” Foster muttered, then his elbow bumped mine, his grin all sharp edges. “Bet you ten bucks Zane tries to ride Splitter like a bull.”
I shook my head. The mission. Focus on the mission. Find the reliquaries, destroy them, weaken the Gravewrought so my mates could finish them off. Simple steps. One foot in front of the other.
“Let’s move,” I whispered. “Fast.”
We skirted the front of the house, moving in a crouch, with Brummy silent beside us, his blue eyes alert.
Then Foster grunted and his arm shot out, a throwing knife spinning from his fingers toward a shape darting from the barn.
The blade struck with a wet thud. One of Arabesque’s guards, faceless and masked, collapsed without a sound.
Another came from the side, faster than the first, and Brummy lunged with a snarl so fierce, it shook the ground.
His teeth closed around the guard’s leg; although he was still small for a dire wolf, he was bigger than a timber wolf.
His jaws had more than enough strength to bring the rogue down, and his claws were more than sufficient to slash out a throat.
“Status check, moonbeam,” Zane called.
“Breathing,” I whispered. “You?”
“Same. Fozzinator, want me to bring you a souvenir?”
“So long as it’s not fuzzy gonads,” Foster muttered.
Ignoring them, I approached the back door, which had a binding ward.
I coiled magic in my palm like thread on a spool and unwound the ward.
Exchanging a nod with Foster, I crouched down and pushed the door open, wincing as the hinges creaked.
Foster handled the guard who tried to rush us from the kitchen, driving one of his blades into the rogue’s chest.
“Getting better at this,” he remarked as we slipped inside. “Last time we practiced ward-breaking, you set my eyebrows on fire.”
“That was one time.” I blushed to the roots of my hair. “And they’re growing back, aren’t they?”
“Slowly.” There was teasing in his tone that reminded me of Zane. That same ability to find humor in the most dire situations. “Now let’s get this done, Little Boss.”
I led the way inside, refusing to look at anything too closely, until I paused on the threshold of the living room. It had once been a place where my father read me stories by the fire, where my mother braided my hair while singing. Now it was a shrine to Arabesque’s corruption.
Three reliquaries waited, displayed like trophies on wall shelves, just as Foster had said. Hexed glass, sealed with blood wax and glowing faintly with runes I half-recognized, half-felt, each heart wrapped in black-thorn vines.
The first contained something wet and fungal, a spongy clump of moss and rot clutched around a bloated heart-shaped mass. Ashmouth.
The second was a knot of iron and bone and pulsing crystal. Mechanical gears turned slowly within its bulk. A curved horn jutted from its top, one part machine, one part living tissue. Splitter.
And the last was deceptively simple. A horse’s heart. Whole. Gleaming dully in the low light. I could almost see a mane trailing in the dark. The White Dread.
“Simmy,” I whispered through the comm. “Any dead monsters yet?”
Zane beat him to the reply.
“Ashmouth’s mulch. While I’m waiting to see him regenerate, I’m playing with the rogues. Can we keep one of them? As a pet?”
“No,” I snapped.
Examining Ashmouth’s reliquary, I noticed the runes that sealed the glass were complex, layered with protections and curses. Break them wrong, and the backlash could kill us. I recognized patterns in them, though, at least enough to do the job.
“All those hours studying are paying off now.” I worked for a few seconds, then, with a grin of victory, I broke through the last ward. “Yes!”
The second the glass hissed open, Foster drove his blade straight into the heart of rot, which let out a shriek like a cat’s yowl. Through the comms, I heard an answering cry.
“One down.” Foster yanked his dagger free, and the heart collapsed in on itself, the fungal mass crumbling to dust.
“My turn, beloved,” Koa spoke up. “Splitter’s down. Bastard’s core exploded. Took out a squad of rogues with it.”
“Tragedy,” Zane cackled as I moved to Splitter’s heart, studying the runes.
They were different, more geometric patterns, but the underlying principle was the same.
I reached out with my magic, finding the weak points in the seal.
It resisted more than the first, the wax hardening instead of melting when I first touched it.
I pushed deeper, feeling sweat bead on my forehead as I wrestled with the magic.
It felt like trying to untie a knot underwater, slippery and resistant.
“You can do this, Little Boss,” Foster murmured, dagger held at the ready.
I bit my bottom lip, refocusing. Instead of fighting the hardening wax, I worked with it, using its rigidity to crack it along hidden fault lines. The seal fractured with a sound like breaking ice, and I quickly pulled the pieces away.
As Foster plunged the weapon into Splitter’s heart, the mechanical parts sparked once, bright blue electricity dancing along the blade, then went still. Through the comms, I heard a distant crash, and Zane whooping in victory.
Two down. Then, “Seri.”
A single word, but what I heard in Casimir’s voice stopped my breath.
“Simmy? What’s wrong?”
“The White Dread. It’s Velithorne. The unicorn we told you about rescuing. Remember? He recognizes me.”
On the drive to the summer camp, the one where the flaming marshmallows attacked before hell shadows did, the boys told me how a client had hired them to hunt a unicorn and they’d ended up hunting him.
Later, as I was recovering from being Dark sick, Zane had told me the story of how the unicorn had given them its true name, Velithorne, before disappearing into the mist. A victory they were proud of.
A rare moment of mercy in their violent lives.
And now that same creature was bound to Arabesque’s will, forced to fight the very ones who had saved it.
“This isn’t your fault, Cas,” Koa rumbled over the sounds of battle in the background.
“I know. Still.”
I closed my eyes, pain lancing through me. This was hurting Casimir, and that hurt me.
“You gotta do it, bro,” Zane said, his voice softer than usual. “It’s not Velithorne anymore.”
“Damnation!”
I looked down at the last reliquary. It wasn’t just a magical object anymore; it was the heart of a being that had shown something beautiful to my mates, that had trusted them enough to share its true name.
“We’ll wait for your signal, Simmy,” I said.
“Unlock it.” Foster jerked his chin at the glass box. “So I can do it as fast as possible.”
I nodded. My fingers hovered over the glass, feeling the magic pulsing beneath. This seal was different again, simpler, but somehow deeper, layers of protection woven with care rather than malice. Arabesque had valued this heart more than the others.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, not sure if I was speaking to Velithorne or to Casimir. Maybe both.
I reached for the seal, fingertips brushing the old glass.
The runes flared at my touch, recognizing lunar magic, perhaps.
I began to unravel them, working slowly, carefully.
The wax softened under my touch, not melting, but yielding, like it was accepting my intent.
Like it wanted to be broken. I dug through the seals one by one, the glass warming beneath my palms. This wasn’t just about destroying Arabesque’s weapon; it was about freeing a noble creature from torment.
“Almost there,” I said both to Foster and through the comms, as tears trickled down my cheeks.
“Serafina!” Koa suddenly boomed. “Arabesque’s gone! Z and I had her cornered and then nothing. Like she just dissolved.”
“Teleported or used a charm. I dunno. Maybe she ducked back through her own portal,” Zane rambled.
Suddenly, Brummy let out a roar that shook the floorboards. Foster stiffened, his nostrils flaring as he scented the air, and I knew.
I knew.
Something—a pressure, a presence, a darkness—made the hairs on my arms stand on end, and a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature slithered down my spine.
“She’s here, Little Boss,” Foster growled. “Come to see who’s killing her monsters.”
The final seal gave way with a soft sigh, and I stood.
“Finish it.” I nodded toward the reliquary as I headed for the doorway. “Destroy the heart. Free Velithorne.”
“And what are you gonna do?” Foster’s eyes told me he didn’t need the answer.
“You already know.” I laid a hand on dear Brummy’s head. “Stay. Guard Alpha Toast for me.”
“Seri, no!” Koa’s voice broke through the static, raw with fear. “We’re coming! Just stall!”
“The White Dread is still alive. The super rogues are still attacking. You need to finish that first.”
“Serafina,” Casimir started, but I cut him off.
“This is my fight, Simmy.” My voice was steadier than I’d expected with my hands shaking the way they were. “Mine.”
Koa was still arguing, Zane was swearing, and Casimir had gone silent, a sure sign he was furious.
I understood their fear. Part of me shared it. But another part, the part that had endured years of Arabesque’s cruelty, the part that had survived her siphoning my magic until I was hollow, the part that remembered Papa’s face… That part was ready.
“I love you all,” I cut through their protests. “Now let me do this.”
Then I dropped my earpiece into my pocket. I would need all of my concentration for what was to come.
I was surprised Foster didn’t try to stop me, but when I glanced over my shoulder, I saw him following me, the glass reliquary in his hands and Brummy at his side.
These men. These infuriating, magnificent men.
Squaring up my shoulders, raising my chin, I headed back the way we’d come, the door still hanging wide open.
My nose wrinkled at the stench of Dark magic, and my own power rose to meet it, liquid moonlight flowing through my veins.
Maybe it wasn’t enough to match her, but it would be enough to stand my ground.
Striding off the porch, I scanned the yard, the driveway, the…
Ah. There she stood. In the grave of Papa’s orchard. Tall and beautiful and terrible. My stepmother. My tormentor. My enemy.
Arabesque Harrow’s smile carved itself across her face like a wound, and the world seemed to darken around her.
“Hello, Serafina. Been waiting to welcome me home?”