Chapter 27 #2
One soldier goes down under a pile of bodies. His helmet rolls away across blood-slicked cobblestones. His sword disappears into the crowd, passed hand to hand until it finds someone who knows how to use it.
Corwin raises it above his head, catches my eye, and smiles.
Beyond the immediate crush around the soldiers, people are overturning stalls to build barricades.
Others grab whatever weapons they can find—carving knives, hammers, rope.
One soldier breaks free and runs toward the street that leads to the garrison.
He makes it ten steps before someone tackles him from behind, sending both men sliding across stone.
They roll, grappling, until others join in and overwhelm the soldier, pinning him to the ground while they strip him of his weapons.
The violence spreads, and I track its progress by sound and movement. Breaking glass, shouted orders, the clash of weapons. Voices carry from neighboring streets as word spreads and more people pour out of buildings. Some come armed, others bring nothing but rage and hatred.
The captain staggers, overwhelmed by the sheer numbers coming toward them.
Blood runs from a cut above his eye. His swings grow wild, desperate, as hands grab at him from every direction.
When he finally falls, the crowd doesn’t stop.
They keep hitting, kicking, tearing at the uniform that represents everything they’ve learned to hate.
The remaining soldier, barely more than a boy, backs against a wall with his sword held in shaking hands. His eyes dart left and right, searching for escape routes that don’t exist. The crowd advances slowly, savoring his fear the way he and his kind have savored theirs.
“Please,” he whispers. “I never hurt anyone.”
A woman steps forward, holding a knife. “Neither did we. But that never stopped you.”
The circle tightens around him. The terror in his eyes reminds me of every scared kid I’ve ever seen, and my stomach twists. They’re about to kill someone barely old enough to shave because he’s wearing the wrong uniform.
How does that make them any better than the Authority soldiers who have terrorized them for years?
I can’t let this happen, but I also can’t waste the time I need. Things are fast reaching a point where I have to call lightning. My eyes track the woman moving toward the young boy.
No. I would never be able to live with myself if I allowed them to cut this boy down where he stands.
“Stop!” My voice cuts through the air before the woman reaches him.
The crowd freezes, every face turning toward me.
“He’s just a boy.” I step forward, pushing through the crowd. “Look at him!”
The young soldier’s eyes find mine, wide with terror. His sword shakes in his grip.
“He wears their uniform. He serves their purpose,” someone calls out.
“Yes, but is that because he believes in what they stand for or because he has no other choice? How many of you have had sons join their ranks because it was the only way they could feed their families?” I stand in front of him, stretching my arms out to either side.
“You have a choice. You can spill his blood, or you can show him mercy.”
“They never showed us mercy!”
“No, they didn’t. Which is why you’re better than them.”
Behind me, the young soldier's breathing comes in ragged gasps. I turn my head.
“What is your name?”
“M-Matthis.”
“How old are you, Matthis?”
“Seventeen.”
A murmur runs through the crowd. Seventeen. Some of them will have children older than that.
“You have a choice, too. You can die here defending a system that has already seen your captain killed, or you can live to see what comes after the fall.”
His sword arm trembles. “I … I don’t understand.”
“Look around you. This is only just getting started. I don’t think the Authority is going to win here today. So, you can stand with them or you can choose differently.”
For a long moment, the only sounds are distant shouts and the crackle of flames. Then, slowly, Matthis lowers his arm. The blade drops from his fingers and clatters to the ground.
“I choose differently,” he whispers.
The people in the crowd look at each other, then to me.
“What do we do with him?”
“There will be others like him. Find them, make them see. It’s time to take Ashenvale back and return it to its rightful sovereign.”
Matthis is already pulling at the cloak that marks him as Authority, fumbling with the clasps in his haste to shed the uniform that almost got him killed.
The second it falls from his shoulders, he kicks it away.
“I know others who only joined the army to provide for their families. I’ll help get them. ”
I step away from the crowd, leaving him to join them, my heart hammering.
Smoke is rising from multiple directions.
The uprising is growing, spreading exactly as planned.
Everything inside me is screaming that the moment I’ve been waiting for is here.
Hundreds of Veinbloods are hidden both inside and outside the city waiting for my signal.
This is it.
It’s time to call the storm.
But when I reach for the power, nothing happens.
Oh no.
I close my eyes, and search for the lightning that should be building in my chest, but there is only a faint pulse, weak and uncertain.
My hands shake as I try again, reaching deeper, pushing harder. Silver flight flickers across my hands. The power feels distant, muffled, as though something is blocking the connection between my will and the storm.
Panic rises, tightening my throat. Everyone is waiting for this signal. The entire revolution depends on me lighting up the sky. If I can’t do this, everyone will die.
I force myself to breathe, to think past the fear drying my mouth. My power responds to emotion—grief, rage, determination. It’s manifested through all of them. But standing here trying to force it, trying to make it appear through will alone … I’m fighting against its nature.
Your power responds to your emotional state. Learn to control one, and you’ll gain mastery over the other. Sacha’s voice fills my head, rich and smooth.
I take a deep breath. In through my nose. Out through my mouth. Just like he taught me.
The power is there, waiting. I haven’t lost it. I just need to reach it.
I think about what has been done to this city. What it must have cost Sacha to flee from it when the Authority took over. I wrap myself in my determination to see Sacha on the throne that was taken from him.
I try to shut out the noise going on around me and focus on the sound of my heart. As it steadies, I become aware of the mist stalker sliding over my skin, the static running through my veins. Instead of fighting against me, it’s coiled and waiting, ready for that moment of connection.
Light flares along my arms, following the pattern of my veins, flowing like molten silver toward my fingertips.
I throw my arms up into the air, and the first bolt fires free, so bright it turns my vision white.
Thunder follows, a sound that shakes stone and sends every bird launching up into the sky.
And this is just the beginning.
I tip my head back, and open myself up completely, letting the power flow through me in waves that make my bones sing.
Lightning branches across the sky in patterns that have nothing to do with weather, and everything to do with pure magic given form.
The air crackles with energy, lighting up the sky.
In response, the city shakes as Earthvein power tears through stones, collapsing the outer wall. Flames reach the sky as Flameveins target the barracks. Water bursts from fountains and wells as Tideveins call it forth.
Screams erupt around me as people dive for cover.
The crowd that was just debating Matthis's fate scatters in all directions, some throwing themselves behind overturned stalls, others running for the nearest alley.
Soldiers scatter, their formations broken by walls of water and fire that appear and disappear at will.
Horns sound throughout Ashenvale, sharp blasts echoing off the walls.
The revolution has begun.
My arms drop, energy spent and I stumble forward.
I need to get away from the square, and find Corwin.
I’m supposed to stay with him. I was warned that the display of power I’d need would drain me, and they were right.
My hands won’t stop shaking. Silver zips up and down my veins.
My vision is blurred at the edges. Every breath tastes like lightning.
But I have to move. The market square isn’t safe.
I stumble across the now-empty square, past overturned stalls and pools of blood. Bodies lie twisted between broken pottery and scattered fruit. Some wear Authority red. Others don’t. The distinction doesn’t seem to matter anymore.
A group of Authority soldiers charge down a side street, only to be met by a wall of earth that rises from the ground. It swallows three of them whole before sinking back down leaving no trace they were ever there.
The survivors flee, screaming.
Fire blooms across rooftops as Flameveins target anything that bears Authority symbols. One building becomes a bonfire, whatever is inside feeding flames that lick hungrily at neighboring buildings. Orange light dances across the faces of people who cheer and throw more fuel into the blaze.
I stumble past an alley where five men are beating a fallen soldier with their bare hands. His pleas for mercy are lost in their shouts of rage. Blood spatters the walls. I look away and keep moving.
A woman’s scream cuts through the air. Then another. My stomach lurches. Jorana warned me that people would be hurt, that it wouldn’t just be Authority soldiers that lost their lives. But that still didn’t prepare me for this. This isn’t the revolution I imagined. This is chaos with teeth.
Water geysers from a broken fountain as Tidevein power floods the street and washes debris against walls. People slip and fall in the rushing current. Some don’t get back up.