Chapter 23 Reverie
Reverie
We had won.
At least, it looked like we had.
My pulse was still racing, breath sharp in my chest. Stunned by the ability that had taken over my body.
“Please tell me that was all of them,” Nathan complained.
“No. There will be more.” Jet whispered.
The air turned cold, sharp enough to sting. A ripple of dread crawled up my spine.
Zane flicked blood from his blade. “If that was their best—"
“That I very much doubt.” Deshawn shook his head.
A slow clap cut through the clearing.
Ubel Brummond himself.
He looked at the bodies scattered across the earth with mild disappointment. “Well,” he sighed, “that was faster than expected.”
Zane’s nostrils flared, fire rippling across his palms. “Come closer. I dare you.”
Ubel barely looked at him. His eyes were on me. “Aurathion healing kicking in… bond restored… and somehow you still survived the Varruk.” His smile sharpened. “You’re evolving.”
My stomach twisted. “Go straight to hell.”
“Don’t worry, little Hawthorne.” He smiled evilly. “It’s not as though you killed them.”
He lifted one hand.
Just a flick of his fingers.
The fallen soldiers began to jerk.
My breath caught.
One by one, corpses rolled to their knees—armor scraping, bones cracking. Eyes that should have been shut for good snapped open, milky and wrong. A man whose throat had been slashed open gurgled as he stood, head lolling at an impossible angle, sword hanging from limp fingers.
Jet stumbled back. “What the fuck?!”
Chloe whimpered, and Oliver stepped in front of her at the ready.
“They don’t need breath to serve,” Ubel murmured. “They only need me.”
He twitched his wrist.
The dead charged.
Not human. Fucking zombies.
Pantar lunged, knocking the first one back. Zane roared and half-shifted, wings ripping open the air. Zeke’s ice exploded outward in jagged shards. Kharox slashed with teeth and nails.
I should have attacked, too.
But something inside me locked on the dead—something ancient and furious.
They didn’t want to fight.
They wanted to be released.
And suddenly, I could feel it.
Not their bodies.
Their souls.
“Reverie!” Nathan grabbed my wrist. “Stay behind us—”
He should have known better.
Power slammed through me, white-hot and electric, like a thousand voices whispering the same command through my blood.
“Not his to control.”
The earth trembled. Light flared under my skin. The dead froze mid-lunge—swords inches from my face—turning rigid as stone.
Ubel’s smile finally cracked. “What did you just do?”
My voice shook, but it didn’t break. “I broke your hold.”
The corpses stood motionless, caught between his command and mine—no longer puppets, but not yet free.
“And I’m not done.”
Ubel’s expression darkened. “Interesting,” he whispered. “Trent will want to hear about this.” He glanced in Torren’s direction with a smirk.
And before Nathan’s fire could reach him—Ubel vanished into shadow.
Leaving us in a clearing full of unmoving corpses…
And a power burning in my veins that didn’t come from any Aurathion ability I’d ever heard of.
The clearing was full of flesh-and-blood statues.
Dozens of bodies stood frozen mid-strike, swords inches from their targets, eyes wide and cloudy. They weren’t breathing. They weren’t bleeding. They weren’t alive.
But they weren’t dead either.
Not really.
I could feel them, like whispers pressed against the inside of my skull. Fear. Confusion. Pain that didn’t belong in bodies that should have been at rest.
Zane lowered his flames, chest rising and falling hard. “What… what is this?”
Nobody answered.
Because every gaze was locked on me.
Chloe started forward, but Deshawn laid a hand on her arm, stopping her.
I didn’t remember deciding to move, but I stepped forward anyway. My fingers brushed the chest plate of the nearest soldier, cold metal slick with soot.
His eyes that were soulless a moment ago, shifted just enough to find mine. A plea. The kind that didn’t need words. Not my enemy anymore. Just a soul seeking absolution.
Nathan’s voice was rough behind me. “Nexi… what are you doing?”
“I don’t know," I admitted, my voice trembling while my hands stayed steady. “But I can sense them.”
They were trapped—hooked on tangled threads of magic, tied to Ubel’s will. They couldn’t move. They couldn’t rest. They couldn’t leave.
My throat tightened. “They don’t want to be here.”
Jet’s face went pale. “Reverie, how do you know that?”
“Because I can hear them.”
Kharox made the gesture he’d made several times since we first met. Arms crossed, then running a single claw down his sternum.
A shiver ran through the clearing.
I closed my eyes.
A warmth bloomed behind my ribs, soft at first—like someone touching my heart with gentle hands. Then sharper. Older. The feeling of standing in the footprints of a thousand warriors before me.
Female voices rose—not loud or harsh. Whispered. Reverent.
“Let them go.”
Light rippled from my palms, pale and bright as starlight. It sank into the soldier under my hand, then spread through the others like a breath of wind.
Their bodies relaxed.
Swords dropped from stiff fingers.
Helmets tilted back.
And one by one, those cloudy eyes cleared. Not physically, but in a way that made my chest ache. Every soul trapped inside them exhaled at once.
And then—
They fell.
Not like puppets cut from strings. Like men finally allowed to sleep.
Armor hit the earth with dull, final thuds. Grass shifted beneath them. The air tasted lighter. Cleaner.
The magic holding them was gone.
Nathan approached me carefully, as if I were fragile. “Reverie… what did you just do?”
I swallowed hard. My voice came out small. “I freed them.”
Torren stared like he’d seen a ghost. “Only one other ever had that ability.”
My heart stuttered. “Who?”
“Queen Lilibet.”
Silence swallowed the clearing.
Pantar pressed against my side. Zeke looked at me in concern. Oren watched me like I was a storm about to break.
Kharox reverently whispered, “Dhal’ Sira.”
That wasn’t the term he’d used earlier. I really needed to find out what he was calling me, but at the moment, I wasn’t sure if I was even breathing.
Because Ubel didn’t just send soldiers to kill us.
He sent them to test me.
No one spoke at first.
The only sound was armor settling as the bodies finally rested.
My hands were still glowing faintly—soft white light fading slowly like dying embers. I curled my fingers tight to hide it, but everyone had already seen.
Nathan was the first to move.
He stepped close, cupping my face in both hands, searching my eyes like he expected to find someone else staring back. “Reverie… you just—”
He didn’t even have words.
Jet finally found his voice, but it came out thin and unsteady. “You unmade Ubel’s magic. Have you ever heard of anyone being able to do that?”
He directed the question to Oren.
“Not in all of my studies.” He replied, still staring at me in awe.
“It didn’t hurt them,” Zeke said, staring at the fallen soldiers. “It released them.”
Torren dragged a hand through his hair, “Ubel has the ability of necromancy. I’ve fought people with that ability, though it’s rare. This wasn’t that. She didn’t control them—she freed them.”
Oren stood a few paces back, lightning flickered across his knuckles, like he didn’t trust the air around us anymore. His voice was quiet, but dangerous. “We need to move. Ubel didn’t leave because he was afraid. He left because he’s calling for reinforcements.”
Torren nodded hard. “There’s another portal, older and unmarked. But the Dark Faction has probably begun searching for it. After this…” He waved a hand at the bodies. “…they’ll come in force.”
Nathan pressed his forehead against mine, just for a moment. “We’re not losing you. Not after all this. We move now.”
Pantar rumbled at my side, tail flicking, ears forward. Even he felt the pressure in the air—like the forest itself was waiting to swallow us.
Zane stepped forward, voice low. “Precious girl… what did you feel when you did it?”
I swallowed. “Their fear. Their pain. They didn’t want to be trapped inside their bodies anymore.”
Zeke’s breath stuttered. “That’s not an Aurathion gift.”
“It is now,” Oren said fiercely. “And we protect her until she figures out why.”
Torren looked at me with something that wasn’t fear—something that was a mix between guilt and reverence. “Whatever you woke up… Ubel won’t stop. Trent won’t stop. And Selene will tear the world apart to get her hands on you.”
Jet’s jaw flexed. “Then we don’t give them the chance.”
“We’ll try the portal first, but if it’s being monitored, our only chance may be the resistance," Torren mumbled to himself.
A cold wind rushed through the trees—like Aurathia herself agreed.
Oren’s jaw clenched. “Portal. Now. We’ll discuss that if and when it might become necessary.”
No hesitation.
No argument.
They didn’t understand what I was turning into. Hell, I didn’t either. But they closed ranks around me like a shield, weapons raised, powers humming, senses stretched to the limit.
We were running again—for now.
I lifted my chin in determination. I was going to learn how to use these new abilities. These men and our friends were worth everything I had to do from this point forward.
The portal was our only chance…
…and Ubel would be back with more than corpses.
I had a feeling Selene would be with him, and that was someone I would like to avoid at all costs. But if they backed me into a corner this time, it might be them running.