Chapter 50 Kaelen
Kaelen
Our line remains steady. “ Hold!”
My bellow carries through, nobody changing position as a sea of gold bears down upon us, closing the distance. Turning, I glance over my shoulder. My heartbeat thuds inside my chest as I brace to intercede.
If this doesn’t work, this will be over quickly.
Queen Maelira of Umbraxis stands alone on the rampart, high above our heads as she looks out toward the thousands that are converging on us, getting closer with every moment that passes.
My mother looks tiny against the backdrop of Umbraxis.
Impossibly small. A single, dark speck against a racing tide of anger and hatred.
She raises her hands.
I can’t sense erevas. Very few can. But the hair on the back of my neck prickles, nonetheless, as I turn to look.
“Kaelen,” Darian breathes.
“Hold the line!” I bellow it once more, my hands raising. My erevas flickers to life, but I hold it. Beside me, Lyra does the same, twin flames of light erupting. Eres pulls free the staff he prefers, coaxing it to life until it sits solid and steady in his hands.
Darian stays still, a dagger in his hand.
They’re close enough for me to see the whites of their eyes. A screaming, frenzied horde, determined to wipe us away.
For a moment, my heart stutters. What if she can’t—
It happens in the span between heartbeats. Between one breath and the next, the mounted section of the Lightbringer army… ceases to exist. In the same moment, I throw up a shield to prevent any return, extending it to cover the Darkwielder line as shocked cries ring out.
But the screaming is louder.
Lyra is pale. “What… what was that?”
Because the ranks that were barely a few feet away are now nothing but mist. It hovers in the air, thick and devastating and blanking out the rage they aim at us from the other side.
And close to a third of Vaelion’s forces.
Eldritch’s voice reaches me, high with shock. “I didn’t think she could still do it.”
I turn once more, searching for my mother as the sun enters my eyes.
She lowers her hands slowly. One blast. One blast is all the power she can use; hundreds of thousands of specks of shadow that blew through the Lightbringer forces.
A single, deadly strike, to give us what she can.
She and my father would fight together in battle.
My mother, with her single strike, and my father who would sweep in behind her.
And now it’s my turn.
I turn back—
The glint catches my eye. I watch as it slows. As everything slows.
As I turn, and that thin, golden blade of pure light strikes my mother directly in the hollow of her throat.
No.
The roar catches in my throat as I stumble. Darian grips my arm as she staggers to the edge of the rampart.
And falls.