49. Kael
KAEL
The tremor starts in my bones.
A pulse runs through the cavern walls, shaking dust from the ceiling. Then come the voices—shouted orders, the metallic chorus of armour and steel. Yara’s acolytes scatter into the shadows.
I know the voice before I see him.
Riven.
He steps through the breach, chainmail stained, light leaking from cracks in the mail like molten gold.
His eyes are alight with amber. They find Seren first. “Shadowborne monster,” he breathes.
Then they find me. “And you—traitor.” He spits on the ground with enough ferocity to burn a hole in the dirt.
Seren moves in front of me, her arms wrapping back as if to shield me. I nudge her away, stepping past her toward Riven.
The chill spreads through my veins, igniting them in a blaze of frozen fire. My eyes buzz, distorting my vision at the edges. Embers burn deep within, summoning power to my fingertips—but instead of the familiar warmth, I’m met with pulsating, icy blue rays that itch to be released.
A wrinkle forms on Riven’s nose. “What have you become, Lightborne?” His palms stretch wide as power surges, the air cracking like whips around him.
“Whatever I’ve become,” I sneer, “it’s better than what you choose to be.”
My veins vibrate like live wires, buzzing with a raw, electric current that seeks an escape I don’t know how to release.
Riven’s men pile out of the tunnel, forming an arc surrounding us. The power speaks a language I don’t yet understand; a torrent of instinct and impulse I can’t translate into action.
Seren notices my hesitation. She reaches out a mental hand toward me. My walls of resistance crumble as a tendril of consciousness stretches the space between us, exposing my mind and soul. Her voice is urgent and breathless: Does now constitute a good time to unleash the shadows?
I pause, eyes glued to Riven.
Do it.
As if responding to my silent command, the air thickens. Wisps of shadow boil outward, creating a suffocating wall of moving darkness that swallows the distance to Riven’s line. Seren moves closer, staff raised high, glowing with violet intent—commanding the darkness like a seasoned hand.
Bones snap. Screams tear through the cloud of black—then vanish. All that remains is an eerie quiet, and Riven, standing alone. The broken bodies of his loyal ones litter the ground like fallen leaves after a storm. His face is ashen, his amber eyes dulled to copper. The light within him sputters.
The shadows retreat, slithering back to tuck tight against Seren’s frame. She advances, her eyes glowing the same violet hue as the staff at her side. A deep growl tears from Eira’s throat, arming every follicle on my body with a sharp, defensive needle.
Seren’s hair whips around her as if carried on a wind. She is pure power; an ethereal goddess made flesh. And for the first time, she frightens me as much as she fascinates me.
The sight stirs something deep within. Something I can’t explain, but wish to explore.
“I wonder what my staff would make of you, High Commander.” Her voice is silk-smooth, but isn’t hers. It’s the voice that caresses my mind like a forbidden lover.
“I wonder whether the Light swirls beneath your skin…” She mimics pointing the sigil into Riven’s face. His copper eyes reflect a purple sheen. “Shall we find out?”
Her lips curve upward, but the tight set of her jaw betrays a true, cruel emotion.
Riven reaches into his pocket, the vitreous lustre of the miren crystal glowing beneath his skin; it sputters like a flame on the verge of extinguishing.
His fingers tremble, urging the power to reignite, but it’s no use.
Sweat beads his forehead and runs down his temples, dropping onto his chainmail. His eyes widen, pupils dilating as they follow the path of the approaching sigil. Seren thrusts the edge of the staff to Riven’s forehead, sending violet waves pulsing outward in undulating rings.
Wind courses through me as the power tingles beneath my skin. Riven stands frozen, shoulders pulled back and head held high, ready to meet his demise and favoured god.
I should feel bad for him—watching a High Commander of my own house readied for slaughter at the hands of our enemy.
But I don’t.
I welcome the end he shall meet.
His mocking smile is tight and unwavering—stoic even in the face of death.
Seren pushes hard against the staff, forcing more light to thread into Riven’s mind.
His eyes roll back, leaving only the whites exposed.
Muscles flicker in his jaw, teeth biting hard against the pain weaving through his body.
“I will not kill you, High Commander,” Seren says, her voice riding the storm she commands. “I will not grant you an easy death. Instead—” Her arm shakes from the weight of the staff. “—I shall give you a painful life, making you the shell of a man that you are.”
A harsh, dry cackle erupts from her, sounding like dry leaves scuffing against stone.
“I will strip you of your Light,” she says, as the glow from her staff pushes deeper into his mind. His neck bends backward, his resistance faltering. “Until all that’s left is the darkness I grant you.”
She pushes the staff into his head until he topples, falling to the floor.
* * *
He doesn’t move.
The wind subsides. Silence follows—dense and immediate.
Seren’s bare heel digs into the dirt as she slowly turns, her gaze shifting to the acolytes spying from the rocks. Riven and his men lie like broken scraps on the ground.
The icy power at my fingertips slows, settling into a deep hum that charges my body. The blue light has faded to a soft afterglow, pulsing in sync with my beating heart.
Yara squints into the darkness, stumbling forward with her hand outstretched, searching blindly. Guided by her shadows and Eira’s presence, Seren steps forward to meet her.
“Where were we?” she drawls.
Despite her age and failing form, Yara moves quickly back to the mouth of the pool, muttering curses about Light’s last protest before the rebirth of shadow.
Seren stands at her side, looking out at the glassy expanse of perfect black.
The water lies dark and still—untouched, indifferent.
Its stillness is unnerving; a perfect abyss captured in liquid form.
The drum of my heart beats wildly; an accelerando building to a frantic, unsustainable pace.
My fingertips prickle, sending shards of frost skittering over my skin.
Power grinds beneath my flesh, a gritty vibration like stone against stone.
I watch Seren and Yara’s lips move, unable to parse any sound over the screaming in my ears.
Time passes. They nod a silent exchange. Yara raises the chalice and blue flame once more. Her words pierce the static rattling my skull.
“Earth to water, burn to light,
Mother rise and pierce the night.
Where darkness took what day forbade,
Return to us, in flesh remade.”
With the final word anchoring itself in the silence, the cavern's ceiling fractures with light. Violet lightning spiderwebs across the stone walls, as the crescent sigil sends jagged bolts downward to lap at the dark, glassy surface of the pool. The ground vibrates, dust doesn’t rain, it pours.
Every instinct in my body screams to close the distance. Panic overrides thought. I bolt for Seren, grabbing her wrist and hauling her back.
She fights against me, a curving smile coating her lips. What are you doing? she asks through the invisible tether.
Trying to keep you safe, I project. Even as the words form, I realise how utterly absurd they are. I let go of her wrist as heat flushes my cheeks.
She notices the flinch and cups a palm to my cheek. The mental link locks tight, joining our minds like two sides of the same coin. Warmth spreads from her—a collision of light and dark, meeting without resistance. A spark of unity that is both raw, and untapped with potential.
Her gaze is an invisible current pulling me deeper into the ring of violet. Her pupils dilate from the surge of power flowing between us, mirroring my own. She tilts her head, her mouth forming a genuine smile I’ve never seen.
After what you’ve seen, you should know it’s not safety I need. Her voice is a whisper of smoke in my thoughts. I can’t help but return the smile.
She drops her hand, my own heat rushing to fill the cold hollow of her absence. And as she does, something rises from the inky depths—silent, vast, and impossible to name. A ghost from the deep, piercing the glassy stillness.