75. Chapter 75
R en floated somewhere between it all, suspended in a place where nothing held shape. Not her breath. Not her thoughts. Not even her own body.
Zakhar’s voice still clung to the inside of her skull.
Flameborne.
Dragon soul.
Test.
Manipulation.
My champion.
He had watched her. Guided her. Lied to her. Strung her along only to break her. And all along he’d known exactly how the story would end – knew exactly where to strike so she’d shatter completely.
And Elira’s words that cut her from the inside.
Absolutely pathetic.
And Elira was right. Ren was pathetic. Pathetic that she couldn’t save Lucan in the tombs and she couldn’t even save Talen.
Ren’s stomach twisted. The betrayal tasted metallic on her tongue.
Lucan’s scream still rang somewhere in the back of her mind, startled, the sound of a life snuffed before it realized it was dying. A loyal friend. Someone who had laughed even when terrified, who had tried to fight the odds with trembling hands.
Gone.
And then Talen.
Talen with the bright green eyes.
Talen who called her reckless with that dimpled smile.
Talen who had stepped between her and death without thinking every time because he believed she deserved a life worth living.
Talen who had defended her the very day they met, when she should’ve been executed for stealing. He’d stood before a court ready to condemn her and convinced them to spare her, as though he saw something in her worth saving.
The realm needed a prince like him, one who actually saw its wounds and refused to look away, unwilling to accept that cruelty was the natural order. The realm needed his stubborn optimism, his unshakable belief that things could be better.
He could have changed everything.
And losing him felt like watching the future collapse.
“I’ll meet you across the Veil.”
The words struck her again with the same brutal force, like a blade sinking deeper each time she breathed. The way he’d said it, not afraid, not angry, but gentle.
Accepting.
She tried to inhale, but her lungs locked.
How could the world take someone like him?
How could this world decide he was the one to die?
Good people weren’t meant to die like that.
But they always did.
Ren’s mind recoiled, tearing backward into darkness. Anywhere away from the truth.
She folded in on herself, curling inward. The darkness welcomed her.
She sank.
And somewhere deep within her chest, the final thread of faith she’d held in humanity snapped.
Ren stumbled into the dark recess of her mind, though it did not feel like hers anymore. The ground beneath her dissolved into nothing, endless and depthless, until she no longer knew if she stood, or fell, or simply floated in nothing at all.
Was she still alive ?
Or was this vast cavern of black death itself?
Her hands trembled as she reached for her body, only to find that even the outline of her form bled into the dark. No edges, no warmth. Just a void that pressed closer.
And that was when she felt him.
Vortharax .
The shadows peeled back, and the cavern trembled in his presence. He rose from the darkness like a mountain dragged into motion. His wings unfolded, blotting out everything else.
Compared to Fryphessyrth, this beast was apocalyptic. He was endless.
Vortharax’s eyes seared into Ren’s, ancient hatred seething in their depths. His voice was an earthquake rumbling through her bones.
“ Why cling to them? They betrayed you. They all will eventually. Give me the reins. Let me take, let me burn – let me purge this world until nothing is left but ash and submission. And you will be free.”
Ren shook her head, but the motion felt feeble. He dipped his enormous head, lowering it until his snout hovered inches from Ren. His breath stung her face, sharp with smoke and rot, like a pyre still burning the corpses it devoured.
His molten gold eyes locked onto hers, unblinking.
Ren’s breath stalled. How in all the hells had something like this been living inside of her? How had her body held even the smallest piece of him?
“ Speak it into fruition . Say yes, and I will end the game for you. No more betrayal. No more weakness. Only power. Only victory. Only fire.”
Ren could see her reflection in the abyss of his eye. Ren’s knees quivered, her legs trembling as though the ground itself wanted to cast her into his jaws.
No more betrayal.
The words sank deep because wasn’t that all she had ever known?
Her chest tightened, breath catching as another memory layered over the first: Eve. Bright-eyed, daring, the one person Ren had once believed she could follow anywhere. Until Eve had betrayed her and the world had never looked the same .
Elira’s betrayal bled into Eve’s, the two faces overlapping until Ren could not tell them apart. Both of them laughing at her, both of them shaking their heads at her foolishness.
You thought we were yours.
You thought we’d stay.
How pathetic.
Ren swayed forward, pulled closer to the abyss of Vortharax’s gaze, to the heat of his breath. Maybe he was right. Maybe trusting was the real weakness. Maybe the only way to stop being broken open again and again was to let him take it all.
Her fingers twitched, her body light, untethered. She felt like she was slipping out of herself, weightless, as though her spirit leaned toward him even as her body trembled where it stood.
No more betrayal. No more weakness. Only fire.
Her lips parted. She touched the scales below his eye, feeling his power pulse beneath – like the end of the world. Her heart thundered with the promise of release.
Closer.
Closer.
If she just whispered the word, it would all be over.
She opened her mouth—
Someone seized her from behind, wrenching her away. The world tilted, Vortharax’s eyes vanished, and Ren was shoved backward into the abyss of her own mind.
Darkness swallowed her whole.