Chapter Thirty-Nine #3
His hand closes around her throat, slamming her back into the wood of the wagon hard enough to knock the air from her lungs. Pain bursts through her ribs, her vision flashing white as she gasps, trying and failing to drag breath back into her body.
“Thought you’d be fun,” he mutters, his breath hot and foul against her skin.
Her magic flickers.
Breaks.
For a heartbeat, Seren is not a witch, not a weapon, not a woman who has survived and risen and chosen—she is a girl in a cage.
And for another heartbeat, she almost lets herself stay there.
Her panic is severed when a blade drives clean through his throat.
The force of it jerks him backward, his grip loosening as blood spills hot and sudden over Seren’s hands pressing into his chest. He makes a choking sound that never quite becomes a word, his body shuddering once before the blade is wrenched free.
He drops.
Screams tear from the wagon.
Seren staggers forward, coughing, dragging in air like she has been pulled from deep water. Her hand presses to her throat, her pulse hammering violently beneath her skin as the world rushes back in around her.
She looks around, desperately trying to understand what happened.
Her eyes snag on a figure.
She knows that stance.
Knows the weight of that presence.
“Little Star,” a man mutters.
Nobody has called her that in months. The nickname cuts through the chaos cleaner than any blade.
Her eyes narrow.
Revryn.
He stands there as if nothing has changed—blade already wiped clean against the man’s tunic, shoulders squared, eyes sharp and alert as they take in everything at once.
Alive.
Relief crashes through her so hard it almost brings her to her knees.
“Revryn—”
The name breaks from her, rough and unsteady.
“I have a lot of questions,” he murmurs, taking her in as if cataloging the changes. The fighting leathers, the braid, the leather strap secured around her forehead, the women in her company. And perhaps, not just what she’s become, but what she no longer is: afraid.
His eyes dart around, assessing the situation.
“But we don’t have time. I’ve got the girls from the wagon,” he says, already moving past her, already climbing onto the wagon with the same quiet authority he always carried. “You’ve got incoming.”
Seren hears the thud of bootfalls closing in.
She spins back to Revryn. “So much has changed,” she says, at a loss for words. She grips her blade firmer, preparing for the soldiers.
Revryn’s lined face breaks into a smile. “I know,” he breathes, as if he truly does know.
Seren shakes her head, but words fail her.
“Gellesk,” Revryn explains. “He told me everything. I’ve been waiting for you to return here.”
I’ve been waiting for you.
The words land somewhere deep and tender inside her. Somewhere light doesn’t reach. Somewhere she closed off so her father couldn’t reach.
“I need you all to come back to me, Seren,” he says, voice breaking. “Come home.”
His voice breaks again. Seren sees it then—not hope. Something far more painful. A man who has spent twenty years refusing to grieve a daughter still alive, so he loves Seren, Elyssara, and Ronyn with the love he’s never been able to give to her. His daughter. His tragedy.
Seren nods, but there’s no time for anything more. She turns.
The witches are finished.
Bodies lie scattered across the dirt, blood soaking into the cracks of Virellin’s broken streets.
Daphinia stands with her hands loosely at her sides, as though she’s done nothing at all.
Caev wipes her blade once before sheathing it, her expression unchanged.
Lara watches Seren, her gaze steady and measuring, unfazed by the swarming soldiers.
“You hesitated,” Lara says.
Seren drags the back of her hand across her throat, smearing blood and sweat together as she steadies her breathing.
“I… remembered,” she replies.
And remembering almost got her killed.
Lara does not react. “You must carve a future for yourself that is more powerful than what the past carved into you.”
Seren nods, still sucking in frantic breaths.
“I’m working on it.”
Lara’s amethyst eyes bore into her, emotionless and severe. “Do it faster.”
The words twist in her gut, the old version of herself craving compassion, grace… leniency. The way Elyssara and Ronyn had always allowed her to give less, be less, experience less. And the thought sickens her. Because kindness without power never protected girls like her.
Behind them, the tarp is pulled back. The sound that escapes is not what Seren expects.
Not screams. Not anymore. Just quiet. The kind of quiet that comes after screaming stops mattering.
The soft, terrified breathing of girls who do not yet understand whether they have been saved or simply claimed by someone new.
Revryn’s voice shifts, softening in a way Seren has only ever heard with her—with the broken, the frightened, the ones who needed something steady to hold onto.
“You’re all right,” he says. “You’re safe now.”
He says it like he can make it true.
Seren swallows hard. For a moment, her feet don’t move. For a moment, she considers staying. But the shouts are getting closer. The guards are coming. And she has already made her choice.
She just has to keep making it.
“Seren.”
Lara’s voice cuts through the moment, low and certain.
Seren turns back to Revryn, their eyes meeting across the space between them.
“Tell me how to help,” he says.
Always thinking of others. Always grounding the chaos. Revryn had always loved them like they were something saved instead of ruined.
Seren nods once. “I’ll come for you when we need you.”
Shouts echo closer now, steel rasping from scabbards, boots pounding against stone. Seren steps back, magic already gathering in her palm, reality thinning beneath her will.
“Keep them safe,” she says.
Revryn meets her gaze, unwavering.
“I always do.”
The world tears open.
And Seren steps through.