Chapter 32 #2
I pivoted, angling myself to block Nienna. A strike glanced off my weapon with a jolt that numbed my wrist. Guards in black armor surged toward us. The soldier at the front of our line went down. One of theirs ripped his sword free from his fallen body and charged me with a raw war cry.
I parried his blow with my left blade. Steel rang as I drove my spear forward.
The point slid through leather and flesh with sickening ease, like a hot knife through fresh butter.
Wet heat sprayed across my knuckles. My boot slammed into his chest, kicking his limp body to the floor.
He collapsed, eyes wide, blood pooling beneath him.
No time for reflection. He was just one pawn, one hurdle between me and vengeance. Every man who barred my path would fall.
We advanced. Greaves stayed close behind me, a solid presence at my back. His proximity to Nienna steadied something fierce in my chest, bringing me comfort. But anyone who wanted her would have to get through me first.
Bodies lined the stairwell in our wake as we climbed.
Not every citizen of Phares had fled. Some chose loyalty to traitors over survival.
Their choice painted the steps red. Limbs lay twisted at impossible angles.
Guts slicked the stone. Blood soaked into the cracks between black tiles.
My boots left dark prints as we ascended.
Bloodlust sang in my veins. Each movement felt familiar, practiced, honed across years of war. Like an old friend, muscle and instinct guided me. Battle embraced me in a dance, a rhythm that drowned doubt. I moved within it as if inside a familiar song.
A soft gasp cut through the musical clash of swords.
Nienna’s boot slid on a spill of gore. Her foot tangled in a coil of intestines. She lurched.
And the haze of battle shattered. My focus snapped to her pale face under the lantern’s weak light.
This wasn’t her place. She had the right to be here, but she held no weapon.
Beyond these walls, her dragons filled the night sky.
She belonged in the open air, basking in their glory, not trapped in stone. Gods, she despised confinement.
She wrenched her foot free and stepped over the corpse. Blood and urine splashed beneath her heel. Our gazes locked. Fear flickered across her features before resolve, righteous determination, replaced it.
“Velli!” Greaves crowded my flank, warning in his tone.
The creature burst from the side corridor.
He moved with unnatural speed, a man twisted into something feral.
My soldiers flew aside as if weightless.
Armor dented against stone with brutal force.
Dark eyes fixed on me. He seized the soldier before me before he could so much as lift his blade.
Filed teeth tore into his exposed throat.
Crimson sprayed hot across the wall, and the Velli drank in a single violent pull.
Then he wrenched the man’s head free.
My sword rose, spear at the ready as I braced for impact. The creature lunged, power fueled by my soldier’s stolen blood. But he circled beyond my reach and darted past me, ignoring every strike from my men.
Cold fear pierced my chest.
“The queen!” I roared and hurled myself after him.
The tower shuddered. Dust rained from the ceiling as if something massive had crashed into it. A shriek thundered through the halls, deep enough to rattle bone.
I forced through the chaos, shoving bodies aside. A soldier in full plate slammed into me. I twisted to deflect him. The man scrambled, trying to right himself, but Greaves’ arm shot out, shoving him from our path.
Ahead, fingers closed around Nienna’s throat.
One squeeze. A single blink. Her life would vanish beneath his touch.
My spear left my hand before thought caught up. It cut the air and struck true; the impact snapped the Velli’s spine.
I reached him in the same breath. His grip loosened as I slammed him to the floor.
My sword carved a brutal arc. Steel bit deep—and his head tore free in a spray of crimson.
Blood burst across Nienna’s dress, warm and bright.
Nerves still twitched in the severed neck as it rolled and thudded against her boot.
Claus lay at her feet. His own head hung by ragged strands of muscle and vein. Scarlet gushed over her boots in thick pulses. Grief struck hard enough to stagger me. I forced it down. I would mourn him with the others.
Nienna’s pupils swallowed the light, blown wide. A smeared handprint marred the pale column of her throat. Rage shook through me, my hands trembling with it. Greaves warned me—and he was right. Lynx should have stood here. She could’ve been killed.
She kicked the Velli’s head aside, then crouched and pulled her dagger from the creature’s wrist. The blade slid free with a wet squelch. She wiped it clean on her skirt and sheathed it before lifting her chin to meet my glare.
Not fragile. Not broken.
She wasn’t helpless.
A strange, grim satisfaction filled me. “Soldiers, protect your queen!” My voice resounded off the walls, and steel answered at once. Shields closed around her, a living barricade, a ring of protective metal.
We climbed again. Two more Velli met us in the upper halls.
Each fell under blade and spear—their deaths a brutal tally.
One less horror stalking this side of the Craggs.
The last lunged from behind me. Greaves pivoted and relieved it of its head in a single savage strike.
Hot blood cascaded down my neck and seeped beneath my armor, thick and sticky against my skin.
I did not slow.
At the final flight of stairs, the battle narrowed into a spiral of stone.
I took the lead. Soldiers shifted behind me, left-handed fighters surging forward to keep their swords free against the curve of the wall.
My spear hooked enemy ankles, dragging them off balance for my men to dispatch as they fell.
Then silence. It was over.
Bac stood alone at the top, framed by firelight, watching from his balcony as his city smoldered beneath him.
“Phares is burning,” he said. Hands clasped behind his back. Flame cast his bulk in a harsh silhouette. Wind swept smoke away from the tower’s crown and pressed Nienna’s dress against my armor.
“You brought this upon yourself.” My voice remained low. No grief awaited him. My words carried sentence and blade—damnation before the executioner’s blow.
My fist tightened around the spear as I wrestled my options: keep him breathing and tear answers from his flesh, or end him here.
“No. You did this, Kallias.” Bitterness edged his laugh. “You couldn’t keep your hands off her. I was actually happy for you, you know? You could’ve taken your son’s bride and left him the throne. It would’ve been his one day, anyway. Instead, you grew as greedy as the rest of us.”
“Radaan was never mine to claim. The gods granted it.”
I never craved the mantle. At times I wondered about a simpler life, a quiet estate or a farm beyond the capital’s reach. But I hadn’t wished for it. Kingship was my lot. I did not spurn what fate placed on my shoulders.
“And the gods stripped it from you. In the end, they will take everything. Just as they did to me.”
Greaves edged closer, sword shifting between his hands as he measured the distance. One lunge could drag the nobleman back from the ledge.
But I didn’t need him alive. Tallon’s path was clear in my mind. I would scour Radaan of Velli without this man’s breath to guide me.
“I reached for everything and gained nothing,” Bac said. “That shall be your story as well. The king who shielded a generation only to watch it burn under his queen.”
“Dragonfire is purging the rot from Radaan,” Nienna answered, her words cracking like a whip. “Phares’ decay and refuse are burning away. New growth will rise from its ashes.”
He laughed and braced himself against a pillar. Greaves tensed.
“The same flame that cleanses also devours.” Bac sneered. “You will be Radaan’s ruin, Draconis.”
A dragon streaked past the tower, scales flashing blue and green through smoke.
I stepped forward, done with his games. He’d spoken his last words. They weren’t repentant, but repentance wouldn’t have saved him. “Face your death, Bac’phares.”
“I already am.”
He pitched himself off the edge. Greaves lunged and caught only cloth, the fabric tearing from his grasp.
Bac, the mayor of Phares, fell from his tower—choosing his fate instead of meeting his end at the point of my spear.
But he didn’t fall far.
Teeth longer than my forearm punched through his rotund belly. His scream cut short as his torso vanished into a sea-green maw.
Tsunami banked hard and climbed, wings hammering the air. Between her scaled lips, his legs kicked once, twice, then stilled. She crested the tower with a satisfied rumble, blood trailing from her jaws.
A chill traced my spine at the ease of it—as if she’d waited for him.
Smoke swallowed the horizon. No sunset broke through the haze. Below us, entire districts blazed, dragonfire clinging to timber and stone. It would burn until nothing remained.
Smothered below the wind’s howl and dragons’ fury, distant screams marked Phares’ terror. The price they paid for their treason.
My jaw locked, teeth grinding. My anger warred with the sight of my kingdom in flames. Radaan could not be allowed to turn against her king. She would not forsake her gods. I hardened my heart against the inferno, guarding the fragile seed of compassion buried deep within.
Grief would come later.
For now, I watched my kingdom burn.
Her coughing dragged me from sleep.
Nienna curled inward, choking on each breath. I bolted upright and reached for her, turning her toward me to see her face in the low light. She drew in a ragged gasp. Another spasm seized her, shoulders tightening beneath my hands.
Greaves was already moving, but still, I swung my legs over the bedside and snatched the cup of water from him.