Chapter 37 Starborn’s Lament
Starborn’s Lament
The Rift howled, black ichor spilling varkhounds into the fortress by the dozen. Kailorien’s blade split skulls, his runes screaming in his bones, the chant of Resh! Resh! Resh! beat like war-drums in his ears.
Reskala fell in waves, torn open beneath claws and riven light. Blood blackened the cobblestones, and still their voices rose above the din—raw, ragged, unbroken.
“Resh! Resh! Resh! Resh!”
The chant had carried them through every battle, every slaughter for the last nineteen years. It was the cry of Krystopolis, of the Doctrine itself, and they flung it into the Void now, even as their throats filled with blood.
And with a cacophony of voices, the Rift answered.
From the throats of the varkhounds came the same cry—perfect, guttural mimicry, as though the dying prayers had taught the beasts a hymn.
“Ressssh…Resssssh…Resssssh…”
Misshapen. Warped. Echoed back in the tones of men devoured even as they called their gods. The wails rolled through the battlefield in a distorted chorus—courage stripped to mockery, a blasphemy flung against the Destroyer and his faithful.
For a heartbeat, the Reskala faltered, horror cutting through discipline. The sound of their own devotion, their own last words, now carried in the mouths of abominations.
Their voices stilled.
Their bodies froze.
And the rift took notice.
The tear widened, and from within spewed forth a packmother.
Monstrous in her bulk, limbs twisted, bones protruding.
Kailorien sank into Thurisaz, gritting his teeth as the force of activation clawed at his ribs.
Like a band, crushing, pounding. His vision turned crimson, strength and stamina overriding burn-out, and just as he prepared to launch himself at the enormous beast, a battlecry sounded from his left.
Thessia, flying like a Glider through the air.
Not with wings. With will—courage, the audacity to leap into the maw of death itself and hope to come away unscathed.
She collided with the packmother, stabbing her glaive into its chest. With a savage yank, she pulled upwards, eviscerating the creature from within.
“Ressssh…Resssssh…Resssssh…”
Still chanting, the thing crashed to the ground in a heap of writhing limbs and pulverized bone, black ichor foaming from three different mouths. Thessia spat on its corpse, using her foot to hold the body still as she ripped her glaive free.
The rift shuddered.
Preparing.
And then light.
Everywhere.
It broke the sky open.
The battlefield faltered—men, beasts, Gliders—all eyes drawn upward. Wings stilled mid-beat. The varkhounds hissed and recoiled, shrieking as they tried to turn and run back to the cover of the walls. The light burned their slimy bodies as they ran.
Everything fell silent.
He whirled, expecting glaives aimed for his throat.
But the Gliders were still. Immobilized.
Staring upwards like they’d just seen the faces of their gods.
Confused, Kailorien looked up. Above the smoke, cutting through the Cycle of Dark, a brilliance burst across the sky.
White fire, not gold, not blue—white, trailing stars with every beat of colossal wings.
Astenos.
Through the pitch and the darkness, his Kelavari war steed flew. But not his stallion of campaign and conquest. This beast blazed with another’s will, veins glowing molten silver, mane and tail bleeding mist into the void. His wings weren’t forged of feather and bone, but of pure starlight.
On his back was Auryn.
Small.
Radiant.
Divine.
Her hair whipped behind her in the wind, arms lifting above her head. Silver mana gathered between her hands, the orb growing and growing until it was larger than Astenos.
For one heartbeat, Stonewake knew silence.
A single whisper cut the air.
“Starborn…”
Another picked it up, sharper, terrified. “Starborn!”
Then it spread like wildfire, panic rolling through the Glider ranks.
“Starborn! It’s the weapon! The weapon of the Flaeme!”
Until it broke into a unified shriek.
“Bring it down!”
Wings thundered, Gliders clawing for the air in frenzy. All eyes on her. All glaives pointed toward Astenos. Some dove to strike. Others tried to flee, their terror scattering them like startled crows.
His fury detonated. Gathering Thurisaz once more, he tempered it with Skaldyr and surged upward, blasting the air with shockwaves that crushed Gliders mid-flight.
He earned the name of Skycleaver once again, flying through the air like a blade of execution.
Wings snapped, bodies plummeted. He grounded each one he could reach, snapping bones like twigs, grabbing the Gliders by the ankles and throwing them to the ground—ripping them from the air like broken dolls.
And above him…
The silver light still gathered in Auryn’s arms, swelling until it burned across the dark like a second sun.
She loosed it with a cry, and the blast swept the courtyard.
Varkhounds and Gliders—all vaporized in an arc of brilliance.
The Reskala flinched, shields raised—yet the silver fire left them untouched.
Silence followed. Not victory. Not peace. Just silence, heavy with terror, awe, revelation. The Gliders had their Skycleaver. Now they had their Starborn. And for the first time, Kailorien knew the truth.
It would not be his legend alone the world feared.
His chest seized. The Bond flared so violently it nearly dropped him to his knees. Pride, terror, awe—love like shards of glass in his ribs.
Auryn!
Kailorien, we must close the rift!
She turned Astenos toward the tear. The beast’s wings folded inwards and it dove down. White Weave burned in Auryn’s hands, her body trembling with the effort. He knew what she meant to do. Recognized that look.
She wants to close it, and she’ll kill herself trying.
The rift shrieked, vomiting hounds endlessly from its depths. The courtyard was overrun. Reskala chants had thinned to screams. Gliders poured through the shattered wards, cutting down men by the dozens. Thessia’s glaive rose and fell, Zarrek’s axe blazed with runes, but their line was breaking.
Even if Auryn closed it—even if she tore herself apart to seal the rift—Stonewake was lost.
Let her die…one less chain to bind us. The Vargrún's voice.
Kailorien’s fury ignited. His runes howled, Raidō detonating like thunder under his skin, melding with Thurisaz and Skaldyr to add power to his jump.
Pain bloomed across his spine, stabbing into his marrow and boiling it—a forge melting steel.
The muscles in his thighs grew taut, his body coiling like a spring.
Kneeling down, he put his full weight into his feet and pushed off with all his might.
Beneath him, the ground bowed inward, the force crushing stone in a circle around him.
He leapt, hurtling through the air at blinding speed. Reaching out with his arms, he collided with Astenos mid-air, seizing the war-steed’s mane and hauling himself onto his back with terrifying force. Auryn screamed. Astenos shrieked.
Her head whipped around, her face pale, blood running from her nose, eyes wild with silver light. No fear there, not even at the sight of his face so close. His violent crimson eyes. The bloodlust within. The madness.
She grabbed his forearms as she shook her head. “Kail, no! Let me—let me close it—”
He crushed her against him with one arm, his voice ragged with desperation. “No. Not this time. I won’t allow it.”
She fought him, fists pounding weakly at his chest. “You don’t understand—we’ll all die—”
“We already have!” he roared. The words broke like a storm. “Look at them! Stonewake is gone!”
Below, the truth was written in blood and plumes of rising smoke—in the stench of burned flesh and mana.
Reskala cut down mid-chant. Riftwardens ripped open before their glyphs could spark.
Mages writhing on the battlements, their bodies contorting from the agony of glyphic backlash.
The hounds overrunning every corner of the keep, now engaging the Gliders, rending them to pieces.
The fortress was collapsing, stone by stone.
She strained toward the rift. “Then what’s left?”
“You. Us.”
Astenos slammed into the ground, the impact shattering stone beneath his hooves.
Zarrek and Thessia charged toward them, bloodied and battered, rallying what remained of their men.
Smoke rolled across the courtyard, thick enough to choke on.
The rift’s mournful shrieks rattled the fortress's foundations.
Varkhounds poured through the breach faster than steel could cut them down.
Zarrek took one look at the tide and spat blood into the dirt.
“Fall back!” he roared. “To the inner hall—MOVE!”
Thessia didn’t hesitate. She signaled to Talia then seized two staggering Reskala by their armor and dragged them after her, shoving them toward the broken archway leading into the keep’s deeper levels.
Kailorien tightened his grip on Auryn, who still thrashed against his grip, mumbling nonsense about closing the rift, begging him to let her get to it. Silvery veins flickered under her skin. Astenos screamed and reared as another wave of hounds burst from the rift.
“We can’t hold this!” Thessia shouted over the din. “Inside! NOW!”
Wounded Reskala retreated in a ragged column—stumbling, blood-soaked, gasping—while Zarrek carved down anything that tried to flank them. Talia strapped her massive shield to her back and grabbed two wounded menders around the waist, carrying them as they clung to her in terror.
Behind them, the courtyard collapsed into chaos: Gliders torn apart mid-air, Reskala swallowed under the packmother’s spawn, ward-light flickering out like dying stars.
The inner archway groaned as they passed under it, stone raining from its fractured seams. Thessia shoved the last survivors through and spun, bracing her shoulder under a heavy beam that could still serve as a makeshift barricade.
“Zarrek!” she called.
He barreled in behind her, and together they heaved the stone slab into place. The impact shook the hall. On the other side, claws scraped and pounded. First one pair, then dozens. The sound curdled the blood.
Inside, the world shrank to a single, choking chamber: low ceilings, smoke clinging to every surface, wounded soldiers crumpling against the walls.
The air tasted of iron and ash. A single torch guttered beside a cracked pillar, its flame trembling as though even the elements feared the coming darkness.
Kailorien held Auryn against him as she trembled, breaths thin, blood still trailing from her nose. She was barely conscious.
Zarrek pressed an ear to the barricade, his golden eyes narrowing. Black blood coated him in violent spatters, sinking into his scars. The runes along his arms and neck burned orange. “Minutes,” he said.
"Generous assessment, Bloodletter," Thessia said. She scanned the chamber, and Kailorien did the same.
Nothing about it promised survival. The doorframe sagged. The stones bled dust with every strike from the other side. This was no stronghold. This was a pause before the end. Thessia's eyes met his then moved to Auryn—small, fevered, clutching at his arms as if fighting both him and herself.
The rift howled beyond the walls.
The barricade shuddered.
And for the first time, the truth settled into his bones.
There was no saving Stonewake.
Only saving her.
Only reaching the Oath Gate before the rift’s spawn did.
Zarrek stepped back from the door, meeting Thessia’s gaze over the heads of the wounded.
It was the moment everything broke.