Chapter 38 Violet Vow
Violet Vow
The barricade shuddered again. Hard enough that the torchlight flickered sideways, shadows flailing across the cracked walls like dying things.
Dust rained from the ceiling in pale cascades, coating Thessia’s tongue with the taste of old stone and battlefield smoke.
Every breath burned. Every heartbeat felt borrowed.
'Riven…I have never prayed to you…not once. Mother said you would come when I needed you. Said you'd never let our violet eyes burn alone. Always knew it was a bunch of horse shit, yet here I am…praying…'
Gods damned waste of time, but so was this barricade.
Minutes.
That was Zarrek’s estimate.
Generous, and she wasn't afraid to say so.
Thessia braced her palm against the trembling doorframe as another varkhound slammed into the other side.
The thick beam they had dragged across the entrance was already warping, nails screaming in protest. The creatures were learning—driving bone spines into the hinges, using their weight, their numbers, their endless hunger.
They threw bodies at the walls, shrieked with the dying voices of their victims.
So smart in their cruelty. So eager to tear through. If another packmother came now, they wouldn't last seconds.
Stonewake is dying, she thought. Not even the gods can save her now.
Behind her, the surviving Reskala slumped against the walls, some clutching tourniquets, some clutching prayer beads, some simply staring at nothing. Their chants had long faded. There was no air left for chanting. No soul, either. Just resignation. The knowledge that this was the end of the line.
Thessia swallowed hard and turned.
Kailorien knelt near the center of the chamber, a pillar of blood and runes and restraint.
He held Auryn tight against his chest, arms locked around her struggling frame.
She looked dead. Pale, limp except for the moments when she found strength to fight the Resh'Agar's grip.
Silver veins pulsed beneath her skin. The freckles on her face and shoulders glowed like her body was turning into starlight and raw mana all at once.
“Auryn,” he murmured, voice ragged. “Stay with me.”
She pressed her shaking hands against his forearms, pushing, pleading, trying to break free. "I have to close it,” she gasped. “I can reach it—I can still reach it, Kail, please—”
“You’ll die,” he snapped, harsher than she’d ever heard him. “You’ll die, Auryn. Not today. Not like this.”
Another blow against the barricade rattled the pillar beside them. Zarrek stepped away from the door, armor cracked, blood streaming down one cheek. He joined Thessia in the thin band of flickering torchlight, voice low.
“We’re Repurposed, Thess,” he said. Not to the room—to her.
Only her.
“We’re not getting out of this. All of us…you know what we are. But you…you weren’t made for this grave. You should have had more time. ”
Thessia's stomach churned.
Repurposed. She hardly knew a thing about the Crystal City, but that word had gotten around.
The unwanted.
The broken.
The returned-to-service because they had nothing worth reclaiming.
Zarrek had told her about the Mandate. She still couldn't believe it. And maybe these fools, the Reskala, believed in their damned Destroyer enough to let Resh slit their throats.
But Auryn—
Auryn was different.
Thessia’s gaze fell on her again. Frail-looking.
Hair like spun moonfire. And yet, Thessia had seen her descend from the heavens on a war-steed blazing with starlight.
She had seen her reshape a battlefield in one breath.
She had seen the way Resh looked at her—as if she were the last truth in a world built on lies.
She had seen something else, too.
Something she didn’t dare speak aloud.
Violet eyes see farther, her mother used to whisper at her bedside. We remember what others forget.
No one remembered what that saying meant anymore.
But Thessia did. Deep in her marrow, she knew.
The lineage she came from—the daughters born to her line—had always been watched.
Protected. Not by kings or gods, but by something older.
A shadow in the sky with wings like duskfire and eyes like storms. The Riven, her grandmother called him.
The half-myth. The guardian of their line.
Thessia wasn’t sure she believed all of it. But she believed the girl before her mattered.
To the world.
To the fate of their bloodline.
To a future Thessia would never see.
But most of all—gods damn it—she mattered to her.
Another impact slammed the barricade. The beam cracked. A few Reskala flinched; one began to sob until Zarrek laid a heavy hand on his shoulder to steady him.
Thessia moved.
Her boots scraped against the stone as she strode toward Kailorien. Her glaive dripped black ichor, her braids hung in disarray, armor dented so badly it had fused to her pauldron. Blood streamed down her face in thin crimson ribbons. She knelt before Auryn.
“Moonbeam,” she said softly.
Auryn’s head jerked up, tears streaking the silver dust on her cheeks. Her eyes flew wide, as though she knew—knew with certainty—what Thessia wanted to say.
“Wait—Thessia—don’t—you can’t—”
“Look at me," the Lioness commanded, taking Auryn's chin in her hand. Coaxing her still.
Their eyes met.
Riven…your legend was always nothing but a myth. But this woman…if I saw no other moonlight but the one in her eyes for the rest of my life, I'd die happy.
And with that, Thessia made her choice.
She reached behind her shoulder, found the slender violet-threaded braid that marked every woman of her bloodline, and wrapped her fingers around it. The hair was slick with smoke and blood, but it was still hers. Still the inheritance passed from mother to daughter for generations.
Still the last echo of a vow made long before she was born.
In one smooth, deliberate motion, Thessia drew her dagger and cut it off.
The braid fell into her palm with the weight of history.
A spark of violet shimmered along the length of the ribbon.
The room went silent. Even the pounding at the barricade seemed to pause, as if the world itself had taken a breath.
She pressed the severed hair into Auryn’s trembling hand and curled her fingers around it.
“Be strong for me,” Thessia whispered. Her voice did not shake. “Be strong for me now.”
Auryn’s breath hitched. “Thessia—please—don’t do this—”
Thessia leaned forward until their foreheads touched. A gesture her mother once used. A gesture her grandmother said the Riven used with his sister, long before the world broke.
“Wait for me,” Thessia murmured. “I will find you again. Maybe not in this lifetime…but I swear it.”
Auryn broke. A soft, wounded sound tore from her chest as she clutched the braid like it was life itself. Tears soaked the violet thread.
Zarrek stepped forward then—gentle, despite the blood-soaked axe in his hand. He rested one broad palm on Auryn’s hair. “Live, little star,” he said. “Burn bright as you were meant to.”
Another blow struck the barricade—this one splintering the beam.
Time was up.
Thessia rose to her feet. Her muscles trembled with exhaustion, but her resolve was unshakeable. She turned to Kailorien, violet eyes blazing.
“Take her through the Veins,” she commanded.
Kailorien’s jaw flexed. “Thessia—”
“Take her, Shadeslayer.” Her voice dropped, colder than steel. “Or I will.”
Auryn twisted, crying out as the Resh’Agar tightened his hold, lifting her fully into his arms.
“NO—Thessia—NO! We can still fight—we can still—”
“You can,” Thessia said quietly. “And you will. But not here.”
The door beam cracked fully. Claws punched through the widening gap.
A Reskala screamed. Zarrek pivoted toward the breach, runes igniting along his arms, the heat of them scorched the air.
Thessia stepped beside him and lowered into a ready stance.
The Lioness and the Bloodletter—side by side, as they had never stood before.
Talia stepped up beside her, eyes hard. Resolved.
"Keep blocking," Thessia said, "and I'll keep killing. Deal?"
Talia nodded, but her hand trembled.
Behind them, Resh hesitated only one more heartbeat.
Thessia did not look back at him as she spoke.
“Go.”
Her voice was final.
Sharp.
A severing.
He obeyed—cradling Auryn against his chest, running through the smoke-filled hall toward the lower veins. Auryn’s sobs echoed behind him, thin and breaking, the braid clutched to her heart.
The barricade exploded inward.
Thessia inhaled deeply, tasting the last moment of stillness before the world collapsed.
She met Zarrek’s eyes.
He nodded once.
She smiled—the kind of smile only the dying can afford.
“For the Riven,” she said—her ancestor’s shadow warming her spine.
“For the little star,” Zarrek answered—his voice breaking just once.
And together, they stepped into the breach.