Chapter 25
We exploded from the shadows like a storm given form. My body moved before my mind could catch up, muscle memory taking over with the fluid ease that came from years of training I’d tried so hard to bury.
The first soldier didn’t even see me coming, just felt the moonsilver blade slide between his ribs, finding the gap in his armour like it had been marked for me.
He dropped without a sound.
The second turned at the disturbance, mouth opening to shout a warning. My other blade found his throat, and I was already moving past him before his body hit the ground.
It was easy. Too easy.
I’d almost forgotten how natural this felt—the weight of the blades in my hands, the way my body knew exactly where to step, how to twist, when to strike. Fighting wasn’t something I had to think about. It was something I was.
Beside me, Cindrissian was a blur of crimson and shadow, moving so fast he seemed to flicker in and out of existence. One moment he was there, the next he’d vanished into what looked like mere whips of wind, only to rematerialise behind an enemy with blood already on his blade.
A soldier lunged at me from the left. I ducked under his swing, drove my blade up through his jaw, and kicked his body away before the weight could drag me down.
Three more converged on my position. I let the first one get close, used his momentum against him to spin him into his companion. The third got my blade through his eye socket.
The cavern had dissolved into chaos—screaming, the clash of steel, the wet sounds of violence finding flesh.
I caught a glimpse of Lincatheron across the chamber, and the sight made me falter for half a heartbeat.
His power was ocean. Water erupted from nowhere, forming massive tendrils that moved with his will, crushing soldiers against walls or simply drowning them where they stood. It was beautiful and terrible, like watching the sea itself decide to wage war.
And Fenric’s power wasn’t anything I could categorise. Spikes of obsidian stone launched from his hands, from the ground around him, impaling enemies. Black crystal that seemed to drink in the lantern light, leaving only darkness in its wake.
They fought together, moving in that way warriors familiar with each other do.
But there was something else, something I couldn’t quite identify.
The way Lincatheron positioned himself, always keeping Fenric in his peripheral vision.
The way Fenric’s attacks seemed calculated not just to kill, but to create openings for Lincatheron to exploit.
They moved like their entire purpose was protecting each other, not winning the battle itself.
I didn’t have time to riddle it out.
A soldier materialised in front of me, hands already glowing with the sickly green light of fire magic. He thrust his palms forward and a blast of flame roared toward my face.
I dropped and rolled, felt the heat singe the air where my head had been. The moonsilver daggers flashed as I came up inside his guard, one blade opening his femoral artery, the other finding his heart.
He collapsed, and I was already scanning the chamber.
My shadow fire stirred beneath my skin, eager and hungry. It would be so easy to unleash it, to let the cold flames tear through the remaining soldiers like they were kindling.
But the space was too confined. Too many of ours mixed with theirs. I couldn’t risk hitting Lincatheron or Fenric or Cindrissian in the chaos.
So I kept killing with the blades instead.
A soldier with a spear rushed me. I sidestepped, grabbed the shaft, used it to yank him off balance, and buried my dagger in the base of his skull.
Another came from behind. I sensed more than heard him, spun and caught his descending blade on my crossed daggers, twisted to disarm him, then opened his throat with a backhanded slash.
Easy. It was all so fucking easy.
And somewhere underneath the violence, underneath the familiar rhythm of death, a small voice whispered, This is what you were made for.
My eyes swept the cavern, cataloguing positions, threats, searching—
Where was Varyth?
I’d heard his voice. Heard the chains. But I couldn’t see him yet, couldn’t find him among the chaos of bodies and shadows and flickering lantern light.
Another soldier charged. I dropped him without thinking, my gaze already moving past his falling corpse.
Where are you?
The moonsilver sang in my hands, blood making the hilts slick.
Then I saw him.
Through the chaos of combat, past the falling bodies and dancing shadows.
I saw Varyth. Chained to the far wall, slumped forward with his ashen hair matted dark with blood.
And behind him, a woman with a blade pressed to his throat, already dragging him backward toward another passage that led deeper into the mountain.
Something feral and possessive ripped through my chest.
I was moving before conscious thought caught up, my boots finding purchase on blood-slick stone as I tore across the cavern. Behind me, someone shouted my name—Lincatheron, maybe, or Cindrissian—but the sound was meaningless noise against the roar of fury in my ears.
The woman spotted me coming. Her mouth curved into something cruel and satisfied.
“Well, well,” she called out with the same sharp authority I’d heard echoing through the passages. “The little human who thinks she’s—”
She didn’t finish.
She tossed Varyth aside like discarded cargo. He hit the ground hard, chains rattling, and his eyes found mine—pale silver, half-conscious, and suddenly widening with terror.
“Isara?” His voice was raw, broken, but urgent.
The woman’s boot slammed into his ribs, cutting off whatever warning he’d been trying to give. The sound of impact made my teeth ache.
She drew two short swords from her back, spinning them once in a show of skill that was probably meant to intimidate. “I’m going to enjoy killing you almost as much as I’ll enjoy telling her about it.”
Her again. That mysterious she who’d felt magic, who these soldiers answered to.
I didn’t care.
I was already calculating distances, angles, the space between the woman and where Varyth lay gasping on the ground. The obsidian collar around his throat gleamed in the lantern light, runes pulsing with sickly energy that made my skin crawl.
Far enough apart. They were far enough apart.
The woman shifted into a fighting stance, those short swords held with a competence that suggested centuries of training. “Aren’t you going to fight, little—”
The black fire erupted from my hands in a torrent of cold fury.
It hit her mid-sentence, mid-breath, mid-smirk. The flames consumed her so fast she didn’t even have time to scream, just a brief, choked sound of surprise before the shadow fire turned her to ash and memory.
I was already moving, already dropping to my knees beside Varyth before the last embers faded.
Behind us, the sounds of combat continued. Steel on steel, screams, the wet sounds of violence. But it was distant, muffled, unimportant compared to the way Varyth was looking at me with eyes that couldn’t quite focus.
“Get the fucking collar off,” he rasped, every word seeming to cost him. “Now, Isara.”
My hands moved to the obsidian band around his throat, fingers searching for a seam, a lock, any kind of mechanism that would let me remove it. The crystal was ice beneath my touch, colder than it should be, and those runes pulsed with a rhythm that felt wrong.
Nothing. No seam. No lock. Just smooth, unbroken metal that seemed fused directly to his skin.
“I can’t—there’s no—” Panic clawed at my throat.
“The daggers.” Varyth’s hand caught my wrist, his grip weak but desperate. “Moonsilver. Nyxarian metal. They can break it. They’re made to break it.”
I looked down at the blades clutched in my hands, blood-slicked and gleaming.
“Turn your head,” I commanded, my voice steadier than I felt. “Away from me. Now.”
Varyth obeyed without argument, exposing the side of his neck and the collar that was slowly killing him.
I raised the first dagger, aimed for where the collar sat against his collarbone, and brought it down with every ounce of strength I possessed.
The impact sent shockwaves up my arm. The runes flared brighter, angry, like the collar was fighting back.
Again. I struck again, moonsilver against obsidian, the sound ringing through the cavern like a bell.
A hairline crack appeared.
“Again,” Varyth gritted out. “Don’t stop.”
I didn’t.
Third strike. Fourth. Fifth. My arms burned with the effort, sweat dripping into my eyes, but I kept hitting the same spot over and over until—
The collar shattered.
Obsidian shards exploded outward, those pulsing runes dying like extinguished stars. The pieces clattered to the ground, inert and powerless, and Varyth sucked in a breath that sounded like resurrection.
Power flooded back into him. I could feel it, the sudden surge of magic that had been dammed up behind that collar now pouring free. Mist began to coil around his arms, his shoulders, alive and furious and absolutely devastating.
His eyes found mine, fully focused now, burning with something that made my breath catch.
His hand came up to cup my face, fingers surprisingly gentle despite the violence surrounding us. “Are you hurt?” His thumb brushed across my cheekbone, my jaw, checking for injuries.
“I’m fine, I’m not—”
“Good.” His expression shifted, gentleness replaced by fury so fast it gave me whiplash. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Coming here. Putting yourself in danger.” His hand dropped from my face, but only so he could grip my shoulders. “You should have stayed at the castle where you were safe. Where you were supposed to be.”
Heat flared in my chest, pure, undiluted rage. “You’re joking. You’re actually—”
“Do I look like I’m joking?” He gave me a small shake, just enough to emphasize his point. “You could have been killed. You have children, Isara. What the fuck would they do if something happened to you?”