chapter fourty-five
elysia
Midday finds us trekking through more ruins, the sky a pale wash of winter, light jutting above the jagged, crumbled stone.
Snow crunches under our boots in a steady rhythm as faint chatter weaves between us.
A small, strained attempt at normality while every one of us remains on edge, listening and watching.
The ruins are quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that closes in around you until it’s suffocating.
Ronan lifts a hand, signalling sharply before crouching beside a collapsed archway. His head tilts, hands running over the stone to dust off a thin layer of snow. “Tracks,” he murmurs.
Kaden is at his side in seconds. I drift closer, heart kicking hard as Ronan finishes brushing frost from the structure to reveal deep, clawed impressions. They’re wide and uneven, unmistakably predatory.
“Definitely lacwyvern,” Ronan confirms, voice low. “Fresh too, if the small amount of snow is anything to go by.”
Kaden studies the tracks, then scans the broken landscape around us.
His entire body goes still, and through the bond I can feel his weariness, the realisation and unease.
It settles in my gut like a heavy weight.
The ruins are the same mottled grey as the lacwyvern, making them the perfect environment for camouflage… for hunting.
“No sign of them yet,” Kaden says, stepping back, “but they’re close. Keep moving and keep your eyes and ears open.” He straightens, voice cutting through the air with commanding precision.
The next hour drags, searching through skeletal buildings and snow-smothered streets. It’s eerily empty, no sign of the lacwyvern or their nests, not even a feather. Eventually, we pause in a small clearing, taking a moment to rest and drink from our canteens.
I tilt my head back, letting the icy water roll down my throat, soothing against the burning fear simmering through my veins. Then my eyes catch on the clouds, slightly pink and deepening with each second until a sickly, blooming red crawls across them.
The wind sharpens, cutting through us so fast the air is forced from my lungs, and then a shrill, bone-rattling screech ricochets off the stone around us.
One screech.
Then another.
Then many… too many.
Kaden’s shadows explode across the ground like spilt night, his eyes closed as his shadows stretch and dart along the ground, rapidly searching the ruins.
“Count?” Thane demands, his shield shimmering faintly.
Kaden’s jaw flexes. “All of them.” His voice breaks like a crack of ice. “Fuck. At least thirty… It’s an ambush.”
His shadows draw back as he throws his satchel to the ground, everyone following suit.
“Get ready, they’ll be here any second. Aim to injure, avoid close combat at all costs. If you see anyone get hurt, you cover them. No one gets left behind.”
Warming runes flare brighter across our arms as stances shift and breaths become strained and shallow. The air feels suddenly heavier, and panic starts to rear its ugly head, tugging on that ever-tightening band around my chest.
Kaden strides to me in three long steps, his hands cupping my face.
“Stay close to me,” he orders, voice steady, “Understand?”
My gaze jerks to the clouds, to the ruined stone, to shadows shifting where shadows shouldn’t, resembling four beady eyes and too wide grins.
“Moonfire,” he says firmer, “love, answer me.”
“Yes,” I breathe, swallowing a tremor. “I—I understand.”
“Good.” His thumb sweeps my cheek. “Burn holes in their wings. If they can’t fly, Sirena and Cole can finish them off easier. Aim to cripple, not kill.”
I nod, forcing down the tight knot climbing my throat.
He kisses me quick and fierce before pulling back, barking orders to the squad.
Something warm and thick splatters against my arm. Deep red and too heavy to be rain.
Blood.
My stomach turns as the sharp stench of iron curls into my lungs, and then the downpour begins. It falls hard and relentlessly, soaking into the snow until the glow beneath our feet is drowned, transformed into slick crimson slush.
Flowers that once shimmered softly beneath the frost are drenched and stained, their light flickering weakly before going dark. Beyond them, the faint radiance of the luminescent forest is smeared with red, its gentle glow warped, as though the land itself is bleeding.
“You ready for this?” Cole says at my side, grasping my hand so tight I fear my bones might snap.
I swallow, “No. You?”
“Fuck no.” He breathes, shaking his head.
I look up at him, eyes frantic and pleading, “Promise not to die on me, okay?”
“I promise.” He whispers, placing a kiss on my hair.
The screeching erupts all at once as the lycwvern burst from the ruins, their scales blending and unblending with the stone until they’re suddenly everywhere… above us, beside us, behind us.
Kaden’s shadows whip out like black tendrils of certain death, grasping a lacwyvern by the neck and snapping it with a satisfying crunch.
Sirena and Cole’s lightning ripples along their skin, then cracks the sky in blinding bolts of violet, spearing straight through the skulls of a pair of lacwyvern descending from the blood-red clouds. Thane’s ice erupts in shards, skewering a third as Varo freezes another’s flailing wings mid-air.
Water whips from Edric’s and Odette’s hands, slicing clean through tendon and membrane. Ronan creates a tornado of wind, nearby lacwyvern getting caught in its swirling vortex as Sirena’s lightening cracks through it, striking heads, wings and hearts alike.
Eris drives razor-thin stones from the earth, wrapping them around wings and ankles like living shackles. Enzo and Darion take to simply setting every lacwyvern that gets too close on fire.
And me… fire roars through my veins like it’s been waiting centuries for this. Fear and sheer determination burning through me like it’s the very thing I’m made of.
My hand shoots out, fire striking the wings of a fast-approaching lacwyvern, its body falling seconds later with a muted thud as crimson snow explodes around it from the impact. I continue like that, sending body after body crashing into the snow, Cole striking them dead half a heartbeat later.
Something shifts to my right, a lacwyvern diving headfirst for Thane from above. A ripple of magic courses through me, and with just a thought, I drive a pulse of tidal influence upward like a wall, slamming it away before it can reach him.
The air is thick with screams, and the rain becomes an avalanche, pouring down so fast and with so much force that I almost can’t see anyone or anything around me.
I turn on the spot, eyes straining and counting out of instinct.
Six. Nine. Fourteen. Neytiri, save us—twenty, twenty-three… this isn’t two flocks.
It’s a swarm.
Thirty. At least thirty-five… and that’s counting the ones that are alive, not the ones we’ve already dropped.
Something behind me shifts, and I spin just in time to see a lacwyvern glide low, jaws too wide.
I drop, grasping my dagger as my knees hit the crimson slush, and slash upward.
My dagger tears a long, jagged line through its belly as it passes over me, black blood misting over my body, coating my face and my neck.
I gag, nausea crawling up my throat as I desperately spit away the taste of iron and evil.
I shove myself upright and pivot, plait whipping around me as I drag the back of my hand across my mouth. The action does nothing; blood coats every inch of me. Warm, thick and sickening.
My eyes scan the clearing and land on Varo just as a lacwyvern’s talon streaks across his side.
No.
A brutal, ripping sound tears through the air as talon tears through skin and flesh. Varo reacts instantly, spearing ice straight through its chest. The lacwyvern writhes and screeches for a pulse and then goes slack.
But Varo… Varo goes pale and drops, his body limp in the snow.
“Varo!” I scream, calling my satchel.
My feet move faster than they ever have before, and colours blur around me as I move at an unnatural speed.
Three lacwyvern dive towards me at once in my peripheral and tidal influence explodes outward from my chest, violent and instinctive, throwing them back like ragdolls.
Snow and blood spray into the air as their bodies land with a loud thud.
I reach Varo and drop to my knees, flinging a ring of fire around us for cover.
The flames roar high, buying us precious seconds.
I flip Varo onto his back, using every ounce of strength in me and a piercing, sickening scream rips from his throat at the movement.
He chokes on his own blood, hands clawing at the snow, then at his necklace, desperately grasping it in his fist.
“Okay, okay….” My hands fumble through my pack “Stay with me, Varo….”
I grab the tonic from my satchel and pour it over his wound desperately. It hisses against his torn skin, the liquid sizzling and bubbling against exposed flesh. The scream that tears from his throat is nothing short of primal, and his body writhes as he fights the agony coursing through his bones.
“I’m so sorry. I know this must hurt, just hang in there.” I press the spelled cloth into the gash with desperate, trembling hands. “It’s going to be okay. You’ll be alright.”
He grunts at the pressure, wheezing with each rapid and shallow breaths, gripping his necklace so tight his knuckles blanch. “I—” He releases a wet cough, blood spilling over his lips. “Elysia… I’m—”
“No.” My voice cracks. “No. Don’t you fucking say it.” I push the cloth in further, willing it to work. “You have to go home. You have to go back to your little girl.”
A shaky laugh breaks from him, weak and fading. “She—she’d scold me… for getting blood on it.” He coughs again, a haunting sound. “Elysia… I’m not going to make it home, am I?”
His question breaks me open, and I sob, tears streaming down my cheeks before I can stop them.
“Yes, yes, you are. You just have to hold out a little longer,” I gasp, catching my breath between sobs. “The tonic will work, it has to.”
His fingers shake violently as he tears the necklace from his neck, then pulls his engagement ring free from his finger. With the last of his strength, he grabs my wrist from his wound and folds my hand around his most beloved items.
“Please,” he whispers, breath stuttering. “Give these to them. Tell them I love them. That I fought… with everything in me.”
Tears track down my face, hot and scalding. “You’ll tell them yourself, when we get back you’ll—”
He shakes his head as another shaky breath shudders through him. “Tell them… promise me.”
I nod frantically, eyes blurring with tears as his grip weakens with every passing second. “Tell them I’ll be waiting for them, beyond the veil.”
His hand slips from mine, then his chest stills.
Tears streak down my cheeks, hot enough to burn despite the cold. The world beyond the ring of flames is chaos, all screeches and magic and the unmistakable tang of blood… but inside this circle, for one suspended heartbeat, everything goes silent.
Grief cleaves through me, raw and consuming.
For him.
For his fiancé.
For his little girl who will never again feel her father’s warm embrace, hear his calming lullabies.
My hand leaves his wound and hovers over his eyes, closing the lids with more calm than I feel.
“I condemn your soul to Noctis.” A shuddered breath escapes me, “May he guide you through the veil.”
My hand drops, and the grief sharpens into anger, molten and violent.
Not the frantic kind, not uncontrolled. No…
this is deep and scarring, a fury that feels carved into my bones.
With shaking hands, I tuck his necklace and ring into my satchel, wrapping them carefully in cloth as if they’re made of glass.
Then, with more strength than I feel, I release the flames around me and rise, my gaze locking with Kaden’s across the battlefield.
His shadows surge for me in an instant, faintly tracing every inch of my body as if searching for injuries. The bond threaded with concern and fear, slamming down so hard it steals my breath.
“Are you—” he starts, snapping a lacwyverns neck.
“I’m fine,” I interrupt, though the word feels like acid. “But… Varo…” My voice splinters across the link. “He’s dead.”
His shield flickers by just a fraction before he slams it solidly back into place. Even still, his grief bleeds into me like a second bloodstream, pulsing through me with a strength that makes my knees wobble.
And then everything starts moving again.