Chapter 28
SERIS
King Aeron sat upon the Hollow Throne.
Not sprawled. Not commanding. Just… sitting. Hands resting on the armrests. His head tilted at an angle no living spine should manage, eyes open, but empty.
Before the throne stood another figure.
Taller than Aeron. Broader. Clad in ancient armor. A crown rested on his head, simpler than Aeron’s, but heavier.
"Seris Vale." Aeron’s mouth moved. The voice that emerged belonged to nothing human. "Last daughter of the Veil-touched line. The bridge between worlds."
I stepped forward. Daemon moved with me, shadows gathering like armor.
"We’ve been waiting," the Devourer continued through Aeron’s throat. "So very long in this cage of flesh and stone have I waited to meet you."
The figure before the throne didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. He simply stood there, a monument to the wrongness consuming the city.
"You know what I am," the Devourer said. "Your teachers told you the story. The alliance. The binding. The cost paid in blood and magic and the slow death of kings." Aeron’s head tilted further, vertebrae crackling. "But they didn’t tell you everything."
Behind me, Kael and Kane positioned themselves at the doors. Zephyr took a knee to my left, crossbow aimed at the space between King Aeron’s eyes. Daemon’s shadows coiled tighter.
"Veil magic." The words dripped with contempt.
"Power drawn from the barrier between dimensions.
So proud were your ancestors. So certain they were the masters of this world because they could channel the Veil.
" Aeron’s lips pulled back into something that almost resembled a smile.
"But the Veil is only a door, child. Its power is limited.
Constrained. It cannot give you what you desire. "
The throne pulsed.
The First King’s armor creaked as something beneath it shifted.
"I can," the Devourer said. "Your ancestors once made an alliance to bind me to this throne. They may have succeeded, but look around you. Where are the Fae of the Veil? Look before you. The valiant First King."
Ice crawled down my spine.
"All those who have opposed me inevitably meet their doom and become simple tools. Even your champions fall to my will."
"Your mother understood," Aeron continued. "Why do you think she ran? Why hide you in the human world, suppress your magic, and teach you to be small?" The puppet-king’s fingers drummed against stone. "Because she knew what would happen when you woke. When the door you carry opened fully."
"She protected me." My voice came out steadier than I felt.
"She delayed the inevitable." The Devourer’s presence pressed against my skin like burning charcoal. "But you’re here now. The bridge stands complete. And I can offer you something the Veil never could."
Aeron rose. Joints popped. Shadows peeled from the throne, clinging to him.
"Your parents." The words struck like blades. "Whole. Restored to exactly as they were before the pyre."
My breath stopped.
"Vaelthorne rebuilt. Every Fae slaughtered, returned. The children. The elders. Lyralei." Aeron descended the steps, movements growing smoother as the Devourer settled deeper into his flesh. "All of it. Real. Permanent."
"If you think defiling a corpse with your sickness brings back the lives of our loved ones, you’re wrong."
"Maybe it looks that way to you now," the Devourer replied softly, "but you won’t know the difference when you take your rightful place by my side."
He stopped ten feet away, close enough for me to see the black veins spreading from his eyes.
"Your suffering can end, Seris. Yours. Theirs. Everyone who died because of choices you didn’t make but are still bound to." Aeron’s hand extended. "I can undo it. All of it. I can create a new reality for you to perceive and relish."
Even knowing it was a lie, even knowing the Devourer would twist my mind until I believed it, I couldn’t stop the images from forming.
My mother. Not the burned corpse swinging from the gallows, but her smile as she braided my hair. My father reading by candlelight.
Vaelthorne, whole and shining beneath Veil-light, music drifting through trees heavy with purple blossoms.
Lyralei’s gentle hand on my shoulder.
All of it.
Real.
Mine.
"You need only open the door fully." The Devourer's voice gentled to something almost empathetic and kind.
"Let the Veil fall. Let the barriers be no more.
Become what you were always meant to be.
Not a weapon, but the one who brings eternal peace to all of existence.
Through you, I bring paradise. Through you, death becomes obsolete. Through you, "
"Through me, you devour worlds."
Silence.
Aeron's smile widened. "Devourer. I never understood why some of your kind chose such a name.
I offer you eternity in the arms of your loved ones, yet you are too foolish and prideful to accept my blessings.
There were once Fae of the Veil who accepted my offer.
They flourished until their time came. Why not make the same choice? "
"I’ve seen what your paradise looks like, filth." Daemon took a step forward. "We’ve traveled far and wide to witness your will burning down villages and killing all those who came across it."
"Son of Thorne, I wonder how you can utter such words when you have taken the lives of so many yourself. A hypocrite, like the ancestor that stands before you."
Daemon turned to me, and the allure of the Devourer’s temptations vanished. The Devourer sensed the hesitation leaving me. His eyes settled on Daemon, full of malice and primal violence.
"We can talk when we’re… undisturbed." He turned and made his way to the throne.
"No." I stepped forward. "I’m done talking. No resurrection. No paradise. No bargains." I reached for the Veil, feeling it sing against my blood. "My mother taught me what matters. Not what we lost, but what we choose to protect."
The Devourer didn’t wait. His power filled the throne room like crashing waves. Creatures of shadow, formed from all those he had poisoned over the years, crawled out of the stone. The First King pulled his sword, but before they could take another step, I struck.
The Veil compressed around Aeron’s legs, folding space into itself. Bone shattered. Flesh pulped. The king’s body crumpled as physics remembered how fragile mortal frames actually were.
He hit the floor. Shadows erupted from his ruined form.
Then he stood.
Legs whole. Bones intact. Death magic knitting him back together faster than my eyes could track.
"Disappointing," the Devourer said.
Hidden panels exploded open along the throne room walls. Dozens of soldiers poured through.
Daemon’s shadows rose to meet the Devourer’s.
"Engaging!" Zephyr’s first arrow took a soldier through the throat. His second, third, and fourth found their marks in the chests of the mages standing in the back.
Kane roared forward, hammer sweeping in arcs that shattered armor and bone. Kael cut down those thrown out of position by Kane’s blows.
Daemon’s blade met the sword of the First King.
I focused on the throne.
The Devourer turned.
"You refuse salvation," he whispered. "Then experience damnation."
Unlike any magic user in our world, the Devourer’s attack was effortless. No movement was necessary for him to turn my extended hand pitch black. Magic rolled off the ancient entity like smoke off fire.
My hand wasn’t bruised. The flesh and bone began to decay, moisture vanishing in seconds. Then I saw it spreading past the wrist.
I cut off my hand with my blade.
The scream tore out of me.
"Seris!" Daemon disengaged from the First King. His shadow tendrils latched onto the stump, sealing it before the blood loss could kill me.
I collapsed. My vision whited out. The throne room floor kissed my cheek, cold and indifferent.
Through the haze, I saw it happen.
Daemon took a step toward me, but the First King’s blow stopped him in his tracks.
Daemon’s blade met it. The weapons locked, grinding against each other. Daemon dropped one of his daggers and held the First King’s blade back with one hand.
The King’s sword descended and cut into Daemon’s collarbone.
Panic shot through me, forcing my vision to steady.
Before I could attempt to help, Daemon’s free hand struck the chest of the reanimated monarch.
His hand, reinforced with shadows, emerged from the king's back, holding something wet and vital. The King’s arm folded and his grip of the sword loosened.
He dropped to his knees in front of Daemon.
Then, he collapsed face flat on the stone.
Whatever magic had sustained it guttered like a candle in the wind.
Daemon turned on Aeron, clutching onto his left shoulder, but eyes filled with determination and fury. He dropped his blade and his shadows grew into a violent storm. His magic filled the throne room, drowning out every noise.
His shadows weren’t tendrils anymore. They had taken the shape of daggers, hundreds of them, floating around him, all pointed at the Devourer.
He struck.
The shadows shot across the throne room at incredible speed. A shockwave tore through the castle as Daemon attacked.
For one heartbeat, I thought we had won. Not even Lyralei would have survived something like that.
But the Devourer was more powerful than anything that existed in this realm.
The shadows stopped an inch from King Aeron’s body, as if they had struck an invisible wall.
The impact sent another shockwave through the throne room.
Then the Devourer laughed.
The sound came from everywhere, from the throne, the walls, the air itself.
Shadows erupted beneath Daemon and wrapped around him. They lifted him into the air and squeezed.
I heard ribs crack.
Blood streamed from Daemon’s nose and ears as he coughed, choking on it.
"Did you think," the Devourer asked gently, "that your shadows were yours?"
Daemon struggled. His own darkness fought against him, constricting tighter with each heartbeat.
"You were born of a curse. You’re a child of darkness," Aeron said, his throat knitting as he spoke. "My darkness."
The shadows tightened.
Daemon’s scream was wet.
I tried to rise, but I hadn’t recovered from the last attack.
Around me, combat raged.
Soldiers were closing in on Zephyr before he could take them out from a distance. He resorted to driving arrows into their throats at close range, stepping back with each strike.
Kane fought alone, trying to hold our flank, narrowly avoiding being surrounded. Even with his immense strength, the swings of his hammer were beginning to slow.
Kael had made his way behind enemy lines, trying to reach Daemon, but the enemy forces closed around him.
He was attacked from every side. He caught spears after dodging the thrusts, using them to block incoming blows, but there were too many.
Cuts were beginning to stack across his body, even as he avoided anything fatal.
We were losing.
The Devourer held Daemon suspended, crushing him slowly.
My vision blurred at the edges. Daemon’s shadows had vanished from my wrist, and blood pooled beneath me. The Veil screamed against my bones, demanding release, offering to unmake everything if I would just let go, but I was paralyzed.
Daemon’s struggles weakened.
There were too many soldiers around Kael for me to see him.
Kane’s hammer dropped to the floor. His arms hung limp at his sides.
Zephyr stood with his back to the wall, facing a line of spears.
And the Devourer smiled through my enemy’s face, patient, eternal, utterly certain of victory.