Chapter 24
SERIS
The world unfolded.
That was the only way to describe it. It wasn’t tearing or ripping, but carefully opening, like petals spreading at dawn. The Veil wrapped around all of us, a living presence that pressed against my skin with a texture like warm silk.
I held the working steady, keeping my grip light even as five hundred lives depended on my control.
The stone beneath our feet dissolved.
Weight disappeared.
We hung suspended in luminous vastness. We weren’t falling or flying, but simply existing between one place and another. The Veil stretched in every direction, infinite and impossible, filled with colors that had no names and light that came from nowhere.
Someone gasped. A soldier near the front rank whispered something that might have been a prayer.
I understood. The Veil's beauty defied description.
Vast crystalline sheets layered endlessly across dimensions, each one trembling with fragile iridescence.
Through the translucent fabric, I glimpsed other worlds, other versions of reality pressed close enough to touch but separated by barriers thinner than our shallow breaths.
The urge to reach for more power flooded through me. Here, in this space between spaces, I could draw from sources far more vast than the elements. I could pull enough energy to reshape continents, alter timelines, rewrite fundamental laws.
The temptation burned like a fever.
No.
Lyralei's voice echoed in memory. The Veil is not a weapon. It is the fabric that holds everything together. Tear it, and existence itself unravels.
I held my working exactly where it needed to be. I reached for no more and no less. Controlled. Restrained. Precise.
The Veil recognized my discipline and approved.
The luminous vastness shifted around us, guiding rather than resisting. Distance collapsed further. The compressed space between our starting point and destination thinned to nothing.
Reality on the other side pressed against us like glass about to shatter.
I released the working.
The Veil let us go.
We landed hard.
Five hundred soldiers hit the forest ground in perfect formation, the impact sending tremors through the packed earth. Several stumbled. A few dropped to one knee. But no one fell, and no one screamed. When I frantically counted the nearest ranks, every single person had made the crossing intact.
Relief hit so powerfully my knees nearly buckled.
Daemon's hand caught my elbow, steadying me before anyone else noticed. "Breathe."
I did, pulling air into lungs that felt scorched from holding the spell. The protective guard closed ranks around me immediately, shields raised despite no visible threat.
Malzaun's voice cut through the disorientation. "Sound off by battalion!"
"First! Accounted for!"
"Second! Accounted for!"
"Third! Accounted for!"
"Fourth! Accounted for!"
The confirmations came crisp and certain. No one lost. No one separated or left behind in the spaces between worlds.
I had actually done it.
But before pride or satisfaction could fully register, the smell hit.
Smoke.
Thick, acrid, and wrong. It wasn’t the clean scent of cookfires or even burning wood. This carried the stench of burning flesh, spoiled meat, and corruption given physical form.
The forest around us stood silent. No birds. No insects. No ambient noise of living things going about their existence. Just oppressive, unnatural stillness, broken only by our own breathing and the distant sound of screaming.
Kaelen moved to the tree line, her expression hardening to stone. "Forward scouts. Confirm position and assess the city."
Three soldiers melted into the underbrush, moving with practiced silence. The rest of us waited, tension building with each passing second.
One scout returned within minutes, face pale beneath dirt and camouflage. "Ma'am. You need to see this."
Kaelen gestured. The battalions shifted formation, spreading into defensive positions while maintaining cohesion. My protective guard moved with me as I followed Kaelen and Daemon toward the forest's edge.
We emerged onto a ridge overlooking the capital.
Horror stole my breath.
The city burned.
Not from siege or attack, but from within. Fires raged through entire districts unchecked, consuming buildings while citizens ran screaming through smoke-choked streets. But they weren’t fleeing the flames. They were attacking each other.
Through the haze, I watched people tear into their neighbors with bare hands. Watched shops being looted and destroyed not for supplies, but for the violence itself. Watched bodies lying in the streets while others stepped over them without pause, eyes fixed on new targets.
The sky above the capital hung blood-dark despite the sun’s position suggesting midday. Unnatural clouds roiled and churned, shot through with veins of sickly green light that pulsed in rhythm with something beneath the city.
Something in the throne room.
“Gods above,” Zephyr whispered from somewhere to my left.
Daemon’s jaw clenched so tight I heard his teeth grind. “The Devourer’s been let loose.”
“Not let,” Kaelen corrected, voice flat with contained fury. “It’s finally making its move to fully manifest. This isn’t even its full power. It’s weakened the seal on the throne over the years, and parts of it are passing through.”
I forced myself to look closer, to see past the immediate devastation.
The violence wasn’t random. Citizens attacked one another in escalating waves that spread outward from the city’s heart like ripples in poisoned water. Each wave carried deeper corruption. Anger, hatred, and mindless bloodlust transformed people into rabid animals.
Royal soldiers lined the plaza near the main gates, forming defensive perimeters around key structures. But they weren’t intervening in the chaos. They weren’t trying to restore order or protect civilians.
They just watched. Weapons ready, formation perfect, eyes tracking the violence with blank expressions that suggested orders received and followed without question or conscience.
Death magic pulsed outward from the palace in visible waves, thick, oily darkness that clung to buildings and seeped into the streets.
Wherever it touched, the corruption deepened.
Madness intensified. People who’d been fighting with fists picked up weapons.
People who’d been running joined the violence.
And beneath it all, threading through every pulse of dark power, I felt it.
The Devourer.
Not fully manifested. Still bound to the Hollow Throne. But so much stronger than the entity Lyralei had described in her histories. Centuries of feeding on Thorne ambition and expansion had transformed it from a threat into an apocalypse waiting to happen.
It sensed me.
Recognition flared across the distance between us. I could feel its interest, its hunger, so vast that it made my previous sessions with Thaddeus in Blackstone Keep feel like gentle curiosity in comparison.
The Devourer knew exactly what I was. It knew what my bloodline represented and that I carried the power to send it back to the Void.
And it wanted me anyway.
Not to destroy. To consume. To take everything I was and add it to the endless appetite that defined its existence.
The force of that attention crashed into me like a physical blow. My vision blurred. The ridge beneath my feet tilted sideways. Darkness crept into the edges of my awareness, promising peace if I just stopped fighting.
Daemon’s hand closed around mine.
The connection between us flared bright and sharp, cutting through the Devourer’s influence like a blade through shadow. His curse-touched blood recognized the entity’s power and rejected it, creating a barrier that kept my mind my own.
I gasped, awareness snapping back into focus.
“Stay with me.” Daemon’s voice came low and urgent, pitched for my ears alone. “Don’t let it in. Not even for a second.”
I nodded, squeezing his hand hard enough to hurt. The physical contact helped. Grounded me in flesh and bone and the present moment rather than the seductive pull of ancient hunger.
My protective guard shifted closer without breaking their watch on the surrounding forest. They’d seen my moment of vulnerability, recognized the danger, and adjusted accordingly.
They were unrelenting in their discipline.
The thought steadied me further.
I forced myself to breathe and see the situation clearly instead of through the lens of overwhelming horror.
The city was already lost. There were thousands of dead or corrupted civilians who looked beyond saving. The Devourer had transformed an entire population into fuel for its own manifestation.
But it hadn’t won yet.
The throne room remained the anchor point. The binding still held, though it was weakened. And somewhere in that palace, King Aeron Thorne sat on the throne as the puppet of the Devourer.
We could still end this.
We had to end this.
Because if the Devourer broke free completely, this city would be only the beginning. The corruption would spread like a plague, consuming kingdom after kingdom until nothing remained but endless hunger feeding on a dead world.
I looked at Kaelen. “The plan still works. We hit the gates, draw their forces, create chaos. Daemon and I reach the throne room while they’re distracted.”
“The civilians,”
“We can’t help them right now.” The words tasted like ash. “Whatever the Devourer’s done to them, we can’t reverse it from out here. The only way to save anyone is to cut off the source.”
Kaelen’s expression suggested she wanted to argue. Wanted to find another way, a better solution, something that didn’t require abandoning thousands to madness and death.
But she was a soldier. A leader. She understood the burden of command.
“Battalions advance to assault positions,” she ordered, voice carrying across the assembled resistance. “Malzaun, your unit stays with Seris and Daemon. Get them to those tunnels. Everything else is secondary to that objective.”
“Understood.”
“Archers, suppression fire on the gate defenders. Keep them pinned, but conserve ammunition. We need sustained pressure, not a quick burn.”
Commands flowed in rapid succession, transforming five hundred soldiers from resting formation into attack readiness. Weapons cleared sheaths and shields locked into position. Archers nocked arrows and waited for the signal.
The resistance moved with terrifying efficiency. There was no hesitation or doubt, just absolute commitment to the mission ahead.
I envied that certainty. Wished I could feel the same unwavering confidence instead of the churning mixture of determination and terror currently occupying my chest.
Daemon moved close enough that our shoulders touched. “You can do this.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“You already have. You brought five hundred people across the Veil without losing a single soul. You faced the Devourer’s attention and didn’t break.
You’re still standing.” His hand found mine again, fingers interlacing.
“That’s all we need. You standing. Me standing. Both of us moving forward together.”
The soul-bond hummed between us. It wasn’t intrusive or overwhelming, just present, a reminder that whatever happened in that throne room, I wouldn’t face it alone.
“Together,” I echoed.
Kaelen raised her blade high enough for every soldier to see. The metal caught what little light penetrated the blood-dark sky, transforming into a beacon visible across the entire formation.
The resistance fell silent.
“Today we end a curse that has poisoned this land for generations!” Kaelen’s voice rang clear and strong. “Today we face an enemy that has consumed kingdoms and shattered civilizations! Today we fight not for conquest or glory, but for the right to exist without being devoured by ancient hunger!”
Blades rose in response. Five hundred weapons catching that same impossible light, transforming the forest ridge into a sea of steel and determination.
“We are the last defense between the Devourer and total annihilation! We are the inheritors of those who bound it once before! And we will not fail!”
The roar that answered shook leaves from the trees.
Kaelen’s blade swept forward, pointing toward the burning city. After years of waiting, that’s all the soldiers needed.
The resistance surged down the ridge like an avalanche given purpose and direction.
And I ran with them, hand locked in Daemon’s, magic burning beneath my skin, fully committed to a battle that would either save the world or destroy what remained of it.
No room left for doubt.
No time for fear.
Only forward.
Only the throne room.
Only the choice that had always been waiting.
Build or burn.
I chose to build.
Even if I had to burn everything else to its foundation first.