Chapter Sixty-Nine
The world had always believed that King Erevan had three sons—that Hadrian’s siblings were all boys.
Even I had believed it, once. Their eldest child, princess Selara, was fashioned in the likeness of a prince.
In those days, it was unthinkable for a firstborn to be a girl.
So, for her protection and to keep rival nobles and lurking enemies from grasping at the throne, they let the realm believe Selara was a man.
And so she remained, until the day she proved her worth beyond dispute, and the kingdom bent its knee to its first queen.
Of course, history is a fickle thing, ever bending to the prevailing wind.
For Selara was never the first wyverian queen.
She was the second.
Tabitha Wysteria
Adriana swerved as another blast of magic tore through the air beside her. Her wyvern roared, spitting torrents of blue fire down upon the witches and warlocks below.
Yet far fewer fell than she had hoped.
Shimmering shields of magic had risen around them, deflecting the wyvern’s flames so that the fire broke uselessly against invisible barriers.
The battle was proving far more difficult than anyone had anticipated. As usual, the kingdoms had forgotten their own history, forgotten why witches had once been so deeply feared. Wars against them had always been rare, for good reason.
They were simply too powerful.
One witch could stand against ten trained warriors.
There was a reason drakonians had struck first in the dead of night, long ago, slipping into the homes while the witches slept peacefully in their beds. Killing a witch was never as simple as brave tales made it sound.
Ahead of her, King Ozul guided his enormous wyvern sharply to the right. So Adriana veered left.
A part of her longed to land, to leap and draw her sword, and fight upon the ground where the battle felt honest and clear. But the skies needed warriors as well.
Many soldiers had been given wyverns to mount, their task to strike from above while the armies clashed below.
And the land itself made the fight even worse.
The witchlands stretched vast and treacherous, riddled with swamps and hidden hollows where witches could vanish and strike without warning. Broken ruins dotted the landscape like the bones of forgotten cities, and the witches knew every shadowed corner of them.
Again and again they lured their enemies there, only to unleash their magic from the darkness.
Adriana kept a vigilant eye upon the shifting lines of the army, guiding her wyvern in wide arcs above the battlefield. Whenever a flank faltered or a unit began to fall back under the witches’ relentless magic, she swept down to lend her strength, her mount’s wings cutting through the smoky sky.
Yet despite the sheer size of King Ozul’s forces, doubt gnawed quietly at her.
She was no longer certain they would cross the witchlands so easily.
Far behind the front lines, beyond the chaos of fire and spellcraft, the wounded were carried to the long rows of tents where healers worked tirelessly. In one of those tents lay her husband, Keir.
Adriana had left him there.
With every passing day he looked worse. His body was weakening, slowly unraveling beneath the immense power it struggled to contain. It would not be long now before the vessel failed completely, before the mortal shell finally tore itself apart.
Adriana refused to think too long about that moment.
She did not want it to come.
Selfishly, she wanted to remain here in the mortal world, living the fragile illusion they had built together—pretending she was nothing more than a woman with a husband and a life among mortals.
But the truth would not be denied.
Soon she would have to leave.
Their borrowed time had run its course.
Mal Blackburn had become the God-Killer, and the world itself seemed to be splintering apart beneath the weight of it.
Adriana could no longer afford to cling to the lie.
The life they had built had always been temporary. They had both known it from the beginning.
Her path was clear now.
Adriana needed to face Eris.
And she needed to bring this war, and the goddess behind it, to an end.
Adriana guided the wyvern further north, towards the heart of the battle where the fighting had thickened into a brutal storm of steel and spellcraft. Below, bodies collided in violent waves—sword against sword, shield against shield.
But the witches had woven magic into their weapons.
Their blades glowed faintly with dark enchantments, turning even the lightest strike into something deadly. Against such power, the wyverian steel seemed almost mundane.
It was a bitter sight.
Wyverian soldiers were among the finest warriors in the kingdoms, trained from childhood with relentless discipline. They were not meant to fall easily. And yet Adriana watched them collapse, one after another, cut down by magic that cared little for skill or strength.
Then her black eyes caught a strange movement amid the chaos.
A lone wyverian.
Marching straight through the battlefield.
No sword in his hand.
Adriana’s breath left her in a sharp gasp.
Her heart lurched so violently she nearly slipped from the wyvern.
Keir.
Her husband walked steadily across the scarred earth, moving through the clash of armies as though the battle did not exist at all.
Without a second thought, Adriana forced the wyvern into a sharp descent. The beast folded its wings and dropped from the sky, landing heavily only a few paces in front of him, cutting off his path.
The ground shuddered beneath its talons.
The battle still raged beyond them, a storm of steel and screams, but Adriana scarcely heard it now.
She turned to one of the nearby commanders.
‘Take the wyvern and return to the skies,’ she ordered sharply.
It was far too dangerous to leave the beast on the ground.
Adriana rushed towards her husband, her body colliding with his as she reached him. Her hands gripped his arms as though afraid he might vanish if she let go.
‘Keir, what are you doing?’ she demanded breathlessly. ‘Why are you not in your tent resting?’ She glanced over his shoulder, searching the battlefield behind him.
‘Where is Cronan?’ she asked sharply.
She had left the enormous wyverian in the tent with Keir for that very purpose, to watch over him, to make certain he did not attempt something reckless.
‘I sent him back,’ Keir said quietly.
Adriana stilled.
‘What do you mean?’ she whispered.
Without waiting for an answer, she guided him away from where they stood. Though they were not at the very heart of the fighting, the land around them remained dangerously exposed. She led him towards a small cluster of trees and helped him settle against the rough bark of one of the trunks.
Keir swallowed with visible effort.
‘He is no longer here,’ he said at last, his voice strained. ‘It is time now, Adriana. Time to return.’ His dark eyes lifted to meet hers. ‘Let me unleash my power. I can get the army across the witchlands.’
Adriana’s breath caught.
‘If you unleash your power…’ Her voice trembled. ‘You will die.’
Keir gave a faint, weary smile. ‘I am already dying.’
‘I don’t—’ The words faltered as tears slipped down her cheeks, and she cursed herself for the weakness. ‘I’m not ready to say goodbye to this life.’
Keir reached for her hand and pressed a soft kiss to her knuckles.
‘We made a good one here,’ he said. ‘But it is time.’
His breathing came harder now, each inhale a quiet struggle.
‘I need to find a way to stop my daughter,’ he added. ‘To stop all the damage our family has done to this world.’
‘Please, Keir…’ Adriana pulled him into a tight embrace, clutching him as though she might anchor him there through sheer will alone.
She knew, of course, that this was not truly goodbye.
They were gods.
All they were leaving behind were these fragile mortal vessels. When these bodies failed, they would return to their realm, and if they wished, they could one day walk the mortal world again wearing new forms, new faces.
But Adriana had spent years living as Adriana.
She had built a life here. A world that felt real beneath her feet. They had made friends. Created memories. Learnt the strange, fragile beauty of living as mortals.
She refused to let this life slip through her fingers.
‘Let us go together,’ Keir said softly. ‘Let us return.’
Adriana did not quite understand why she nodded. Perhaps it was instinct. Perhaps it was love.
‘I will follow you, husband,’ she said.
Together they stepped back out into the vast, scarred expanse where the battle still raged. The cries of soldiers and the crack of magic echoed across the land, yet for Adriana it all seemed distant now, as though she were walking through the memory of a war rather than its living heart.
When the moment came, she reached for him.
She kissed him once slowly and tenderly, and then stepped back.
Keir turned and began to walk.
He walked across the torn battlefield, through churned earth and drifting smoke, onward and onward until he reached the side where the witches gathered in their dark ranks.
Adriana lifted her hand and gave a small wave of farewell.
He would expect to see her soon.
But Adriana… she did not know if she could surrender this life just yet.
And the realisation made her hate herself.
For lying to him.
Keir stopped at last and stood utterly still.
He closed his eyes.
The witches approached, cautious and curious, though none dared come too near. From a distance they raised their hands, sending blasts of green magic towards him.
It no longer mattered.
A light began to bloom from within Keir’s body.
At first it was only a faint glow beneath his skin. Then it grew brighter, fiercer, spilling outward until his entire form shone like a star fallen upon the earth.
The light swelled.
It grew and grew, expanding until it could no longer be contained by mortal flesh.
Then Keir’s body burst apart, disintegrating into nothing.
The light surged outward in a blinding wave.
It spread across the battlefield, devouring shadow and colour alike, until the world itself seemed made of white fire.
Adriana threw her arm over her eyes, shielding them from the unbearable brilliance. But the light exploded outward like a weapon.
The force of it struck her, and the world vanished as the blast hurled her into darkness.