Chapter 14 Cost Unseen
Cost Unseen
The Vargrún howls in my blood. Mournful.
Keening. Savage. Madness rips through my spine, and the runes on my body scream back.
I grit my teeth through the wave of heat then let out a roar—detonating the rending pressure in my chest. My hands clench around the jaws of the varkhound before me.
I rip it apart, shredding it to pieces, flaying bone from black-slimed flesh.
The scent of burned mana and rot fills my nostrils.
But the fever isn’t why I throw the monster’s corpse as far as it will go. The cry of the wolf at the nape of my neck isn’t why I stumble and stagger. It’s the break. The shattering.
Of the world.
Of her.
A seizing in the center of my ribcage, not muscle or bone, but something deeper—a bond pulled taut, then yanked like a noose. The moment it strikes, the air around me hisses. The world tilts sideways, and my vision swims red.
“Auryn,” I choke out, my eyes already seeking her, my heart lurching.
Steel clangs behind me. Shouts. Orders. None of them matter. My runes flare to life, igniting down my arms and across my back like molten fire.
“Raidō,” I command, tasting the azure mist of mana as it condenses on my tongue. Morvane hisses in response, blazing at the rune along my thigh.
The world slows to a crawl. I take a breath, push my weight back on my heels, then move. Faster than a blade. Faster than breath. Faster than the thought of losing her. I soar through rows of tents and war wagons. Warriors call after me, and even their chant sounds slow.
“Re…sh…Re…sh…Re…sh…Re…sh…”
The ground shakes, the tremors rising into my skull.
Or is it my body that is shaking now? My heart, which should know only one rhythm, now twists and writhes inside me.
Again, I feel her breaking, and all sound vanishes.
She is in my skin now, etched deep in my awareness.
Burned into me like my runes. Where she goes, a silver trail follows, and I let it guide me now.
I clear the final barricade—
And the sky tears open.
The rift looms above the tetheryard, split wide and weeping agony and shadow. Mana surges in every direction, wild and sharp, biting at my skin.
In the center of the storm—
Her.
Auryn, radiant as the sun breaking through smoke, arms lifted to the sky, silver hair whipping behind her like a banner of silk. She sits astride Astenos, who crouches low and furious beneath her, his hooves stained with gore.
And around her—
Chaos.
Screaming varkhounds and horses. Screaming men. The scent of blood, rotting flesh, and shattered magic. A Reskala warrior shrieks as his spine snaps beneath a writhing packmother with too many arms. A horse rears up, froth and blood streaming from its mouth as it is ripped to pieces.
And yet she stands.
Unmoving.
Singing with no sound.
Threads of mana and light glow in her palms—silver and gold, searing through the Rift like stitches pulled too tight. She isn’t fighting.
She is sealing.
And something inside of me screams to stop her. She's killing herself. This is far beyond stopping a river or blooming some dead flowers back to life.
But I am too far. Much too far.
“Form up on the Sokar!” I roar, but my voice is swallowed in the storm.
Then, through the mess of flailing bodies and black-veined beasts—Thessia.
Like fire and thunder, her glaive catches a hound mid-lunge, splitting its skull in two.
She grins like a woman on her third drink and bellows something into the wind.
“Keep casting, moonbeam! I’ve got your back!”
By the Void, she makes good on her word. Every blow breaks through the wall of rotting bodies. Every strike gives Auryn one more second to live. I can hardly breathe, my eyes fixed on the silver star in the middle of it all. Nothing more than a speck of light within the maws of shadow.
And yet she is doing it. Weaving the heavens back together thread by Voids-damned thread. Vein by vein.
And dying.
Burning out right in front of me while I stand petrified in awe.
Unable to stop her.
Unable to do a thing.
The rift shrieks one more time then takes a mighty breath.
A pull like a second gravity inhales the remaining varkhounds on the field back inside the narrowing tear.
Their claws rip at the ground as they try to find purchase, but this is no mere force.
This is a command. Divine. Hers. And they cannot disobey it.
One more pull. Monsters fly through the air, their bodies breaking as they’re yanked through a space too narrow for their bulky forms. Bones crack. Blood and ichor spray out onto the field.
And then it’s over.
The rift closes.
The world stops.
Exhales.
Breathes.
Above it all, the sky sprawls still and quiet—silver-edged clouds drifting over the freshly sealed wound in the heavens. Mana settles like dust in the air, glittering as it falls. No screams now. No shrieks of monsters, no pounding hooves, no clash of metal on bone.
Just breath.
And silence.
Inside, my heart writhes. Burning. Begging. Pleading.
Auryn, Auryn, Auryn—
“Auryn!”
I run again. Half-blind from the brilliance of her light. Half-mad from the sound of her voice echoing in my soul. The air still trembles from the force of her casting.
I run—
Through ash and smoke and silence—
Astenos turns.
And there she is.
Smiling.
Radiant.
Drenched in sweat and silver blood.
Her hair tangled, glowing like moonlight woven into threads.
And then—
She jumps. Leaps from Astenos’s saddle as though there is no doubt in her heart that I will catch her.
I do. Of course I do. I catch her, because she is the only thing that matters in this realm or any other. My arms close around her shaking body. I snap a ward into place on instinct—one, two, three glowing glyphs to protect her from whatever still lingers in the air.
I crush her to me, hand cradling the back of her head as I look around the field.
Silence.
Utter and complete.
The tetheryard is a graveyard of twisted monsters. Hundreds of dead, steaming bodies litter the earth like a nightmare laid to rest. Black ichor bubbles where it spilled, dissolving into the soil. My blood thunders in my ears.
I look down.
Void help me, my heart stutters yet again.
Auryn is staring up at me, unblinking. Eyes too wide. Too calm. Too still. A thread of silver blood slips from her nostril.
With shaking hands, I thumb it away, my voice a rasp, “Are you hurt?”
She shakes her head, pale lips parting on a rattling breath. “You said to be with the horses,” she whispers. “So, I was. But then the sky broke open. It wanted closed. So, I helped.”
So, I helped.
Like a simple thing. Feeding the horses. Mending a shirt. Like she hadn’t just torn herself open to seal a tear in the world.
I stare at her. Beyond speech. Beyond anything. My mind replays the image of that rift sealing shut—again and again. No understanding comes.
“You closed the rift…”
Auryn nods, slow. Distant. Her gaze drifts to the horizon like she could still see whatever had crawled through the tear.
Thessia is the first to break the spell Auryn had woven over the tetheryard. And me.
“You did it!” she calls, bursting through the smoke with blood on her boots and fire blazing behind her teeth. Her cheeks are streaked with gore, her golden braids whipping like banners in the wind. “Moonbeam, you gods-damned did it!”
My grip on Auryn tightens, shielding her—one arm braced around her back, the other hovering near her side.
She feels so fragile in this moment. This small body couldn’t have borne such powerful magic without consequence.
Her skin has gone pale. Silver blood drips from her nose onto my vambrace, soaking into the grooves between the etching.
She doesn’t notice; her gaze glassy. Distant.
Thessia kneels in front of us, gripping Auryn’s shoulders, eyes wide with awe. “You closed the Rift with nothing but light and song and bare hands—” Her voice cracks. “Gods, starlight—let me swear myself to you. I’d wear your name until the end of days.”
Auryn blinks then gives her a weak, dream-dazed smile. “You should wait…until you’ve seen me in the morning…” Her voice is thinner than age-worn parchment.
“Thessia,” I say through a clenched jaw.
She looks up, flushed and grinning. “What, Shadeslayer? Can’t a woman pledge herself to a miracle?”
“There are more immediate concerns.”
Her grin slips. She glances down at Auryn’s trembling frame, at the way her breath rasps now, thin and rattling. The blood on her lip. Her fingers twitching.
Thessia’s hands freeze on Auryn’s shoulders. “You’re bleeding,” she says, voice sharper now.
A trail of silver blood slides down from Auryn’s nose, bright against her skin. It flows without stopping, dripping, pattering onto my vambrace. With every pat-pat, my dread winds tighter.
Thessia blinks at the shimmering liquid, then looks up at me. Her eyes meet mine, speaking volumes without a single word.
“That’s not right,” she mutters. “Her blood—”
“Is hers,” I reply, tense now. “And you will not speak of it here.” I let out a heavy breath through my nose, slow and sharp. “She needs warmth. Quiet. Not praise.”
Thessia nods, voice gentling. “Yes. Yes, of course.”
Her hand falls to Auryn’s arm, stroking once—tentative. Like she can’t quite believe Auryn is real. My own hands ache where they rest against her back. The feeling is mutual.
Then softer, Thessia bids, “sleep, moonbeam. The rest of us will keep the world turning tonight.”
Auryn nods. She turns to look at me. “Help me walk. Don’t let them see me fall.”
I want to protest. To lift her into my arms. But how could I when she looks at me with stubborn pride and steel-borne grit?
“Hang onto me,” I tell her. “Don’t let go.”
Her hand finds my sleeve. Clings. And though she nods, her legs barely move.
One step.
Then another.
All the while, silver blood leaves faint smears on my arm.
“Are you all right?” I ask again, more desperate this time. Because she can’t be. Not after what she did.
Yet she smiles again. Soft. Quiet. Tired beyond words.
“I will need sleep,” she murmurs, head tilting against my shoulder. “But I will heal.”
I believe her. How could I not? This woman—this star in my hands—has just done something no histories have ever spoken of. Her words are truth. Her will is absolute.
So, I believe her.
And of all the things I would come to regret—this would be the first.