Chapter 62
Chapter sixty-two
Her vision narrowed, black blooming at the corners. Air scraped uselessly in and out, too shallow, too fast. Her lungs refused to fill. She clawed at the ground, fingers digging into rock and ash, the shaking in her arms too wild to stop.
No. No, no, no. He couldn’t be gone.
Blood roared in her ears, drowning everything.
Then—
A face.
His face.
Kaelith. Crouched low next to her, weight braced on his good leg, body angled just so.
“Rynna.” His voice came from far away. Too far. Warped like sound underwater.
Her body jerked with a broken huff of air.
“Rynna!” His hands pressed to her cheeks, thumbs anchoring her in place, fingers pressing just beneath her ears.
His serpent’s eyes were dark and violent, glimmering with flecks of purple that caught the light like amethysts in shadow, dragging her to him, deeper, until she couldn’t look away.
“Stay with me, pet.” He grunted softly as the ground trembled beneath them.
“I...I c-couldn’t stop it,” she rasped. “It t-took him. It took—Fenn—it took him. I saw it—I saw—” Her hand flew to Kaelith, gripping the fabric of his shirt, fisting it between her fingers. “Gone. It—it—he’s gone—”
The cavern shuddered around them as the Wraith wormed higher, a grotesque emptiness yanking its way from the earth. Source sparked off its body in jagged streaks, and stone split like thunder. Chunks rained from the ceiling.
The world was falling apart.
“Rynna.” Kaelith leaned in closer, forehead nearly touching hers. “Listen to me.”
She couldn’t. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Her entire being ached as her soul split wider with every second he was gone. The place where Fenn had lived inside her, solid and safe, had been gouged out, leaving nothing but a gaping wound.
Her mouth opened. No sound came out.
Kaelith swore, casting a glance over his shoulder at the collapsing world beyond. Then back to her. “Fuck.”
His fingers dug into her cheek.
“I know, pet,” he said softly. “I know.”
She sagged forward, forehead pressing into his shoulder. “He’s… he’s—”
“I’m sorry.” His voice was rough now. “But we need you, Rynna. Right now.”
Another quake rocked through the ground. But all she could feel was the cold. The absence.
And his hands—Kaelith’s hands—still holding her together.
Then his mouth was at her throat. She didn’t see him move. One second, he was watching her, and the next, there was searing heat where his lips latched onto the hollow of her neck.
“Ahhh!” A shocking pain lanced through her skin as his fangs sank in, followed by a burst of molten pleasure.
Her body arched, hips jerking forward without permission.
It burned. Stars, it burned. But not just from the puncture.
The bite dug something else up with it, something buried too deep to reach on her own in her current state.
Rage tore through her like wildfire, eating the grief alive.
Her own fangs dropped without warning, the taste of blood and pain waking the primal monster within her.
Her talons shot free. And before she could think, her hand was around his neck, burrowing into the sinew of his throat, just enough to feel the ligaments shift beneath his skin.
His pulse jumped hard and fast against her palm, and she squeezed harder.
Then, his fangs tore from her neck with a gasp, the sudden movement ripping skin, releasing a hot spray of blood across her cheek.
Unflinching, she squeezed tighter, and his eyes fluttered shut as her fingers shoved into the ridge of his throat. His response, though, was not in pain. Or in surrender. But in stillness. Calm. As if her fury was a familiar weight he’d carried before.
Each pull of air shuddered within her, shallow and ragged, as her chest heaved against his. Her lips curled back, then, baring teeth as she stared into his face. Searching. Snarling. As the blood at her neck still ran in slow rivulets, dripping between them.
She wasn’t ready to let go. Not yet. There was comfort in the fury. It was solid. Tangible. A raw, pulsing thing she could hold onto. Safer than the shredded emptiness left behind by Fenn’s absence.
Her hand squeezed again, cutting off his air entirely, yet he didn’t struggle. Didn’t pull away. She exhaled. Once. Then again. The quiver within her didn’t stop, but it steadied. Enough.
Shifting her weight, her palm braced against the floor.
Then, with a grunt that was more sigh than effort, she hauled him up with her, rising to her feet in one fluid, brutal motion.
Pebbles and dust rained down around them as the cavern groaned, stone threatening to shear loose from the ceiling. And still, she stared at him.
“I hate you right now, Kae.” She loosened each finger from his neck, one by one.
“I can take it.” He swayed slightly once she let go, blood still glistening at the corner of his mouth. “You’d hate yourself more if you didn’t help them.”
He looked past her then, lifting his head first, then rolling his shoulders back as he drew himself upright. The slack in his frame vanished, each pull of air shallow but deliberate as he reclaimed control of his body.
The others! The thought hit her like a slap.
Rynna turned and froze.
Bran hit the ground first, a sickening bump that echoed louder than it should have.
His limbs crumpled unnaturally, mouth slack, eyes glassy with shock.
Elara staggered next, her hands flailing weakly before her knees buckled.
She fell beside him, her skin gone deathly pale, lips tinged gray.
Taren didn’t even cry out. He simply dropped.
“No!” Rynna’s scream exploded from her throat as her head whipped toward the monster.
It loomed taller now. The last of its stony prison split wide, stone raining around its grotesque frame. Limbs writhed, half-formed and insectile, as mouths opened along its body, all teeth, all wrong. One gaped wider than the rest, greedily swallowing the stolen light from her friends.
She stumbled back, hands hanging uselessly at her sides. There was no fighting this. Not like this. And the version of herself who might’ve stood a chance felt like a myth now. A dream buried beneath centuries of exile, fear, and half-remembered names. The Wise One.
But she couldn’t reach her. Couldn’t be her.
She was just Rynna.
Cracked.
Rotten.
No better than the monster before her.
Powerless.
—
Powerless? The thought struck deep. Are you sure?
The words didn’t come from outside. They came from beneath her skin.
A flicker. Then, a burn. Heat stirred in her core, old beyond memory.
It wasn’t rage, not exactly, but something else from beyond the furthest stars.
Hungrier. The fire she’d buried lifetimes ago uncoiled like a waking beast, stretching its limbs along her bones.
It raked at her, prowling through her veins, demanding to be set loose.
She staggered.
It had been locked down for centuries, chained behind will and duty. The Weaving demanded it. If she let go, now…would it ever stop burning, devouring?
“Let it out.” The voice rang in her ear, not spoken, but sung.
Rynna turned, eyes wide as the Great Phoenix hovered just behind her, wings spread in silent stillness.
“I can bind it again.” Its gaze pinned her in place. “But only you can destroy it.”
The words struck her like a physical blow. She could feel the fire rising higher, eager to be released.
“I can't.” Her pulse thundered as the threads of the Weaving constricted around her.
Her limbs stiffened, spine locking, every nerve screaming for motion, for release. Fists clenching, her muscles flexed with strain, but the resistance only deepened.
The Weaving would let the Wraith devour this world before it let her tap that power.
And it was right to cage her. She remembered what she was capable of when she let go.
The ruins she had left behind in other worlds, the cratered cities, the ash of choices she couldn’t take back—they still clung to her.
A flicker of movement pulled her attention.
Fenn.
His body stirred, sending her heart leaping, and she stepped forward, hand reaching—
“He’s not him anymore.” Kaelith’s arm snapped over her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks.
She shook her head, not willing to believe it. “What are you talking about?”
But then she saw it. The silver in Fenn’s eyes had dulled, fading to a tarnished gray, then black, snuffed out and replaced by a slick, void-dark sheen.
His gaze met hers, and there was only Hunger.
Anything left of the man had been completely subsumed, forced to watch the monster within use the body how it pleased.
His fangs broke past his lips. Talons curved from his fingertips.
“No!” The word tore through her, and she reached for the fire.
But the Weaving struck back. Her entire body convulsed, folding in on itself as pain erupted from her soul, raking through the ties that held her to this world.
Then the air warped around her, and the wind screamed, swirling in tight, invisible spirals.
The ground under her feet suddenly felt less real as the borders of the world started to fray, pulling her toward someplace else.
Leave willingly, and the wolf will pass death’s gate, released from the infection’s grip, it whispered. Leave willingly, and you will keep your memories. One world is not worth unleashing your full self.
The Weaving didn’t care that there were still people here whom she loved. There would be no second chances. No return. No way to give Kaelith back all the years they’d lost. And her friends would die.
But Fenn would be free. Tears slid down her cheeks. And I won’t lose them.
Kaelith had already moved, stepping between the creature wearing Fenn’s face and the rest of Fang Unit. Their bodies lay scattered across the stone, unmoving. Whatever strength they had left was bleeding out, pulled string by string into the Wraith.
Rynna fought to remain standing as the storm churned around her.
“You can resist the vortex,” Hika’s voice sang in her ear. “You can save my world from being devoured by this Outsider.”
“It’s too dangerous.” Rynna’s focus remained on the tangle of bodies ahead. “I will destroy this world just as the Wraith would. And even if I could control it, my world still ends. Fenn and Kaelith…” She shook her head. “I will just be taken and erased all over again.”
Kaelith’s snake-like arms twisted around Fenn’s form, fangs flashing as they struggled.
“The Weaving is right to leash me.” Her hand lifted without meaning to, fingers reaching for them.
The vampire jerked within Kaelith’s grip, eyes black and bottomless, as it lunged again, nearly catching Kaelith’s throat.
“You can control it now, my dove,” Hika pushed. “Your time here has eased the pain of losing your other half. My world has healed you.”
Rynna shook her head. “Not enough. The fire is too strong. I can’t control it or myself.”
“Perhaps not forever. But long enough to finish this,” Hika said gently. “You have the Will for that.”
Rynna’s eyes slid to her team. Elara’s arm jerked once, then went still.
Bran’s lips parted, barely moving. Taren still clutched the hilt of a useless blade.
The Wraith had them. Its appendages thrummed where they latched onto her friends, the cords fat and glistening, veins glowing with stolen elemental light.
“If you don’t, all life on this world will be devoured in less than a thousand years.
” The Phoenix shuddered, her bright form shining as she settled on Rynna’s shoulder.
“I will sacrifice this life to bind it, reducing myself to dust, unable to rise again for a thousand years.” A single tear fell from Hika’s eye, landing on Rynna’s skin like a tiny drop of fire.
“But the Wraith will escape again before I return. And when it does, none will be left who can stand against it.”
Rynna’s knees buckled, one fist grinding into her skull as if she could hold herself together. But restraint was failing. And the fire inside her now carved through her mind, grief made manifest, merciless, alive. It wanted out.
“A sacrifice must be made.” Rynna’s head dropped, chin touching her collarbone as her shoulders shook.
Could she do it? Could she give up the only two men who had ever truly seen her? Loved her? The only ones who hadn’t turned away from what she was, even after the masks fell?
The thought sliced through her, leaving nothing untouched.
Water spilled down her cheeks, cutting tracks through the ash and blood smeared across her skin. Her ribs felt like they were collapsing inward as she forced herself to look—to meet Kaelith’s gaze through the chaos.
Kae... she whispered into his mind. I don’t know what to do.
In a flash, his eyes met hers, and in them, just for a moment, she saw it.
The life they’d never gotten.
Moonlight filtering through open windows. Soft woven rugs beneath bare feet. His silhouette kneeling beside a low brazier, waiting with two cups of tea already poured. Her cloak hung to dry by the door. A soundless night. His arms reaching to pull her in.
No fire. No war. Just stillness. A life they’d never been allowed. And he gave it to her now, not as a plea, but as a parting gift.
Do what the wolf would do, he answered, the words faint but unwavering. His limbs locked tighter around Fenn as the other man thrashed, fangs inches from his throat. I forgive you.
Her stomach sank in a wrenched, nauseating pull, and her body rejected the decision even as her soul accepted it. She didn’t have to ask what Fenn would choose.
She already knew.
“Okay.” The word was barely a word.
She drew in one last inhale, slowly, like swallowing a blade, and made her choice.