Chapter 53
Gallant suffocated me, his arm tight around my waist, holding on for dear life.
“You are safe with me, my darling!”
His heroic cry could not surmount the screams of terror ringing against the blood-stained stones. It all came in an outbreak of wreckage—the surviving guild reigning death in the name of the gods. A collision of magic and gilded armor.
Violent winds swept and hissed.
A Volant twisted in the air, daggers in hand, eyes locked on a soldier. Precision was no sacrifice to speed—in a blur, the Volant’s daggers slid between helmet and breastplate, scarlet spewing from the golden slit. The soldier gargled beneath his visor and toppled over.
“Release me,” I cried, wedging my hands beneath Gallant’s arms, raring to tear from him. My legs tilted back and forth—he was being yanked by two invisible strings: the spell of Deception binding him to me and instincts screaming, leave her to die.
“Gallant, let me go!”
I did not mold my muscles, as I did not yet know what fate I played in the downfall of mankind—in the uprising of the gods. If the crown knew my loyalty, if I were to use magic before all, I could never again stand before my father and his men. I could never walk beside the crown and lords with skin of my own.
He is coming. Deceit twitched, his attention creeping into my mind, heightening my fears. Get away, now. Carnage has purged Wisdom from the Bloodletter this night.
“Gallant, release me, I demand it,” I called again, though I do not know if he could hear me through the screams and ringing steel. I twisted in his arm and peered into his eyes.
Lost in the spell, his irises had been cased in glass. Mouth slacked, brows vaulted, desperation bred on each corner of his face.
“Raven!” The name rumble into the air.
My eyes followed the voice.
A Feytra grappled a soldier’s head between her thighs, propped upon his shoulders, and kindled flames in her palms. Hands to helmet, the soldier yelled, the gold melting around his face. The moment the soldier fell to the ground in horrid screams was the same moment the Bloodletter emerged, hammer swinging. Taison stepped forward, smashing the soldier’s head beneath his foot.
His red leer never broke from Gallant.
I writhed in Gallant’s hold.
“Let me go, dammit,” I cried, staring into Taison’s eyes—the eyes of promised death. I wailed my elbow into Gallant’s stomach, but he only held me tighter.
“I promised,” he wept in my ear.
“I will stand beside you tonight. I cannot leave you.”
He meant it. He truly could not leave.
Taison closed the distance with godly speed.
“Your fucking reign ends by my hand!”
The Bloodletter’s muscles ripped as he pulled back his hammer, flinging blood. I knew in this moment, Taison would not spare me. The Bloodletter twisted his spine, muscles locked in barbarous intent. The hammer came for Gallant—
And anyone who stood in his way.
War surrounded me, death came for me, and I thought of nothing.
In a final attempt, I emptied my mind of all, and the God of Deception released his grip on me, melting into the nothingness of my thoughts. I became pliable, my skin relinquishing its structure. Gallant squeezed my waist. My stomach concaved until his forearm hit my spine. I folded forward at the waist, draping over his arm like a rag.
Taison’s hammer grazed the curve of my spine. A vicious roar came with red rain. Gallant and I fell to the ground. A ragged breath scraped down my throat, dirt sucking into my lungs.
I was alive. I was still alive.
Snapping into myself, my bones rearranged with fortified skin. Taison threw me upright, Gallant’s arm fumbling from my back. His eyes burned red. He grabbed my face and forced me to look at the aftermath. At Carnage.
“Do you mourn the Raven’s death, Rhoswen? Or do you stay true to your gods?”
My stomach nearly left my throat. I tried to look away from the body, but—
“Look at him!” Taison shouted. His blood-soaked hands locked around my face, near breaking my skull.
“Look at your lord, Rhoswen, and tell me—where does your faith lie?”
My lord was not here, and barely any of Gallant was left. Two legs conjoined at the waist, but the rest was splattered… Gods, I could only make out innards and an arm. All else was crimson. Crimson on the stones and crimson on my gown.
Taison threw me around. The moon hung behind him, no longer of pure ivory, but it had been dipped in blood, bathing Andrael in red moonlight.
“I do not mourn his death,” I uttered.
“My faith lies with the gods.”
Taison held no tells of satisfaction. I thought he still might kill me here—I’ve wanted to see you bleed for a long time—but he huffed with a nod and released me.
“Then make these men bleed,” he said.
“Be the child of Deception. Fight.”
Taison and I never cared for the other—there was a hatred between us. But, beneath this bloodmoon, in this battle for our brothers and sisters, even Taison and I could lay down our hostility. For them. For no one but our people.
“I will fight. Until the end.”
Taison grunted and twisted his hammer in the air, splattering another man into something unable to define.
“Can you help the prisoners?” He asked, hammer swinging again.
“I saw a ring of keys on the executioner’s belt. If I could get to him, I could convince him to unshackle the guild.”
“Do what you can. I will thin the herd.” Taison gave me a final look before pivoting into the crowd, hammer swinging, muscles contracting, and red raining.
I could not see the guillotine beyond the union of king and gods before me.
Each gilded breastplate reflected the battle, and dark magic stirred around us, a festering of Shadows possessing souls. These men—the vessels to the dark—had black veins, spilling dark blood. The Shadow had yet to beckon me. I prayed to my god alone it would not come back.
I am still with you, child, Deceit hushed in the void.
My eyes were pulled to the edge of the courtyard, the Raven banner torn and burned. Alistair no longer stood beside his house, and I did not pray for his protection—a protection the gods would never allow. And I could not search for him. I did all I could for Alistair, Gallant fallen in his place, and I needed my vows to rule this night.
I took a deep breath and dove into the entanglement of bodies and steel.
Blades crashed, screams ruptured, and the stones quaked with the weight of battle. Threading through combat, I slipped past slashing steel, burning flames, and slick blood. Every heartbeat, every movement, was a gamble. Each second was unpredictable. I could not rely on my eyes, so I darted through, trusting only my instincts and the god in my head.
A sword nicked the air. A corpse fell at my feet.
I had no time to mourn the Volant, his tattooed crown a haze in my sights. I leaped over the fallen, charting through the wreckage. As I delved deeper into battle, the amount of gilded armor sorely outnumbered anything else in this damn place, and I was unable to tell—was it man or gods prevailing?
The guillotine’s blade gleamed above us, plated in red ink and moonlight.
The blade fell. Another body fell.
“Rhoswen!” Vera called with a dagger in hand. Scarlet stained her lips. She clasped my arm and pulled me to the edge of combat. Tucking beside the fountain, we crouched low. Blood could not mark her black combat attire.
“We are outnumbered.”
“I need to get to the prisoners,” I shouted.
“There is a wall of soldiers that we cannot break past,” Vera yelled, her face twisted in rage.
“They knew we were coming, Rhoswen. The king fucking knew! He’s locked the gate. We cannot get out.”
A man fell between us. I startled until I saw the dying flame in his hand. Blood pooled upon his stomach.
Vera knelt down, kissed the Feytra, and hushed.
“Be with the gods, my brother.”
Slumber’s spell rested the final moments of the Feytra’s life.
Vera took a blade from his sheath and set it in my hands.
“Did the men speak of us?” She asked, wiping her lips.
“Did you know the king was ready for us?”
“No,” I said over another scream.
“They said nothing.”
Vera hacked a breath.
A man ran near us, dressed in his family crest, frantic and unarmed. Vera’s attention diverted. Flexing her arm, she lunged out of her crouch and slid her blade through his chest. Her arm and back flexed as she yanked it out. Her movements, her muscles—she’d become stronger. Faster.
Setting herself beside me, the red on her sword was more glaring than her hair.
“I need to get to the guild,” I said. Conviction clawed at me, knowing it was the Shadows that watched in the crypts. I should have known better. I should have known the Shadows were watching.
“We tried to get through, but—” She choked on her words with arms clenched at her sides.
“We can’t get past the king’s fucking men. And now, with the gates shut, we do not have an escape.”
What do I do? I called to the god crawling within.
Child, Deceit’s timbre scraped within. The vision of Sight remains unchanged—‘Mourn those whose death is imminent. This is their place in the tapestry of fate’.
Sight’s vision can change. You had said so yourself.
“What is our plan?” Vera asked.
I stared at the guillotine’s blade, peaking over the shroud of war.
Sight has no control over what is to come. The god’s eyes rasped behind mine. This, what you see before you, is stronger than any vision the god might draw. Their deaths, Rhoswen, are imminent. Blood bleeds beneath the lightless sky, yet the white rose blooms from the desolate soil. A new crown will rise from the ashes of their deaths.
No. I deny it!
The god was still, numb to my rage.
“We are saving the guild,” I told Vera.
“I told you, Rhoswen, we cannot get through.”
“We serve the gods!” I yelled, the word purged from deep within.
I no longer thought. I no longer owned dominion over my will. If the crown was to know I served the gods, let it be so. If Gwendolyne could survive this day, if the guild could break from my father’s bondage, Sight’s vision would be shattered.
My people would live.
The guillotine’s blade whistled once more, calling to me, mocking me for my failures.
I stepped forward, and Vera took my arm.
“Where are you going?” She asked.
“I need to save them.” I tore myself from her.
“Rhoswen, you’ll die!” She called, and I fell further into the mass of blades and gold.
Child—
No, Deceit, be silent! You cannot change my mind.
I had to save them.
My steps were hurried.
A man lunged before me, drenched in blood, with a blade in his bony hand. He recognized me before I recognized him, and Deceit made fists in my mind.
“Fallen,” Briarwood seethed, standing with feet steady on the ground—dividing me from my father’s device. Sweat clung to his tan and grey hairs, darkening the strands.
“I told you, my dear, our paths would cross again. And look,” he said, motioning to the guillotine.
“It is already waiting for you.”
Like the god in my head, I hissed.
At the edge of my sight, the guillotine’s blade fell. Another server to the gods was executed. The bloodmoon dangled above us.
Rage burned my blood.
“Let us see if the gods favor you.” Briarwood’s voice was smooth in hate. His blade sliced the air between us, and he charged for me.
I curdled air in my lungs.
At a cross, our swords met, and I flushed his face in air so putrid, breath so rancid, his eyes watered. He coughed through a gagging throat.
“You wish to lay down your sword, Briarwood,” I deceived.
“Do not twist my mind with your whore tongue!”
“How are you alive?” I asked.
“You should be in the sands.” Briarwood bit his tongue, so I blew more sour taste. “Tell me.”
A dying man screamed.
“The Potion of Disguise,” he wrenched from his throat, eyes turning to glass, sword still locked against mine. A stranger’s blood mottled his face.
“Lucien supplies the poison. I supply the potion.”
Someone rammed into my back, threatening my stance, pressing my face closer to Briarwood’s blade. His steel was sharp against my cheek, but he did not compel it any further—I could see it in his eyes, he wanted to. But he was locked in my spell.
“You killed the Head Alchemist,” I said.
“You took the potion.”
“I am one of the last wise men in this realm, and I will be damned if fools stand beside me as mankind rules in the Dark Era. You will fall. Your lord will fall. The righteous will stand.”
I paced each word, filled with sour air.
“Lay. Down. Your. Sword.”
Before magic could draw out consent, a Bloodletter plowed through the crowd—Moira’s bronze hammer coated in red as vivid as her eyes. Red splattered upon us all, her weapon building a divide of bone and blood. Briarwood was thrown back. The guillotine’s blade fell again. Briarwood was already on his feet with a hard glare, and Moira was ripping a man to shreds between us. He could not come for me—not with Carnage acting as a wall.
I wanted to finish this, to finish him, send him to the sands, but—
I pursued the guillotine. My name was a bitter yell from his throat.
Each step was a battle in its own right. Fists clipped my ribs, and a pummel struck my back. Pain blurred into the noise. A boot slammed into my side. I grit my teeth and wailed onward, shoving myself between the bodies, slick with blood and sweat. Someone grabbed my arm, but I ripped free and fell further into the chaos where gold and gods distorted into a bloody haze.
A lord stumbled into an opening before me, his jacket a torn flag, bearing his house crest. I’m not sure what told him I was the enemy. Perhaps he was possessed to believe it—standing there, inky veins mapping his skin. All the same, he charged at me with a sword in hand.
I lifted my blade and thought of muscles that were second nature to uphold—Vera’s muscles. My arm strengthened, and I plunged the blade into his throat. Before he could blink, he was gargling on the stone ground. I leapt over him without a second glance.
Behind you, the god uttered, his tail flinching.
I twisted my spine, tucked low, and lunged upward. My steel slipped beneath his chin, punctured through his mouth, and followed towards the crown of his skull. I unsheathed my blade from his head.
I pressed on, hands and ivory gown bathed in red.
Charging near the cusp of battle, the wall of soldiers glistened beneath the bloodmoon. A Volant leaped from the ground towards the prisoners, but a soldier clasped his ankle and wailed him into stones. I did not see what happened next, but steel sung a song of devastation.
Three more gruesome steps, and the guillotine fully revealed to me.
The executioner, cloaked in black, grabbed Gwendolyne and drew her towards the beheading. Upon the platform, blood was puddles, and bodies were left like discarded scraps.
Gwendolyne was the only guildmember that remained.
As the cruel claws of defeat scraped at me, I thought of another. No, I thought of many. As I charged towards the wall of soldiers, my mind melded together the strength of Knox, Vera, and Moria. I held onto Evandor’s speed and even Deceit’s tail. I did not know if I could adopt a god’s feature as my own, but I would soon.
Skin boiling, I prepared to disfigure my bones and flesh like never before.
Once more this day, I would become the beast.
Rhoswen, look to the holy Gem. Deceit held the creation I aimed to become, capturing it in his hands, and drew my eyes to Gwendolyn—the holiest of Beauty’s jewels.
She looked down at me from on high. Her eyes were exquisite marbles, and they did not reflect the horror before her. No, her soft gaze crafted a light that did not exist in this realm—sacred and pure.
Gwendolyne’s glass palm lifted to me.
I obeyed. I halted before the gold-laced wall of soldiers, the war raging on.
She stood delicately before the instrument of death, sorrowful grace sculpting the curve of her lips. Here I understood, this was her final act—a concord with surrender. Surrender to the vision of Sight, that she was to fall so a new crown might rise. Gwendolyne needed to fulfil the prophecy. Her death, her sacrifice, to allow a new leader to rise.
I could not bring myself to become the beast. Not when I beheld such beauty.
This creature, the amalgamation of many, was at the edge of my thoughts and ready to pounce, but I let it fall from me. I did not change, I did not morph. I remained as I was.
The executioner held Gwendolyne’s shoulder, and he compelled her down. Her knees knocked the stone with a crack. Like a breaking vase, a ripple of splinters carved up her neck and cheeks. And yet, she smiled at me. Beautiful and decaying, her cheeks broke into endless pieces at the edge of her lips.
A final glass tear filled the brim of her eyes. A final glass tear fell into broken pieces.
Fate needn’t drag her down. Gwendolyne lowered herself to the guillotine’s bend before the executioner reached for her.
I could no longer feel the beating of my heart.
Black gloves strained over the level, and, in one damned act, the guillotine’s blade cut down from the hollow air.
Gwendolyne lifted her sights. It was the last moment her gaze held me.
The edge of impact. The blade of the guillotine.
Force had met fragile.
My father’s devise had attempted to destroy Gwendolyne, to leave her crumbling into ruin, but it was not so. As one crack beget another, a thousand hairlines crept over Gwendolyne’s skin. Sliver by sliver, she shattered and became crystal stardust drifting in the air, soaring above us to adorn the Everlaides.
Each shattered piece was a reflection of the beauty she embodied.
The holiest of Gems joined the High Gods in the Everlaides, eternally swathed in peace. And, where she once knelt, there was only a gown. A gown, destined to be painted red, was bathed in ivory moonlight, untouched by the crimson of the bloodmoon. Untouched by sin.
The glass stars float beyond my sight, carrying far above. And the tears poured down my face in solemn reverence.
Gwendolyne was gone. Forevermore.