Chapter 33 #2
The storm churned above, but Stephan Dragov didn’t look up.
His focus stayed fixed on the enemy ahead, on the warriors behind him, and on whether the name Dragov would be etched into history or erased from it.
Today, he fought for his people, for his queen, and for the throne.
But he also fought for the bloodline that shaped him—for the kings before him and the father whose death had left fire in his hands.
He tightened his grip around Sanguine Oath. The blade shimmered with blood, drawn from his enemies and sealed by legacy.
He leaned forward and whispered low, "I swore to you…
Dragov will not fall." He exhaled, steady, and lifted his head.
His voice rose, not as a king, but as a man standing with his brothers.
"FOR DRAGOV!" Adrian’s blade tightened in his grip.
"FOR OUR FALLEN brOTHERS!" Theon spun his dagger, eyes sharp, grin fierce.
"FOR THE KING WHO WILL LEAD US INTO LEGEND! "
Cassiel stepped forward and struck his sword against his shield, the sound echoing like a war drum. The ground trembled beneath their feet. Stephan raised Sanguine Oath high. His voice cut through wind and thunder. "WITH ME!"
The Dragov army answered. They advanced together, fury and loyalty in motion. They moved not as many, but as one blade drawn by gods.
The first wave of Obsidian warriors surged forward, their formation precise. Merciless. Stephan met them not as a man, but as steel driven by purpose. One cry rang out as blood burst into the air. The enemy fell before realizing they had already lost.
To his left, Adrian advanced with ruthless precision, his blade cutting down attackers without pause. To his right, Theon slipped past a spear and opened a throat in one swift movement. Cassiel moved behind them, silent and controlled, each strike exact and unyielding.
An Obsidian soldier lunged at Stephan, but Adrian intercepted the blow. "Stay on your feet, my king."
Stephan turned, driving Sanguine Oath into the ribs of the next soldier. "Then fight harder, Valcairn."
Theon slashed through a mercenary, his grin sharp beneath the blood. "Just don’t slow us down."
Cassiel brought down another enemy and spoke without pause. "No more words. We finish this."
A horn blared from the Obsidian lines, a sharp and desperate call to regroup. But regrouping couldn’t undo what had already begun.
The Dragov warriors had already decided what history would remember.
Across the field, as Stephan’s command rolled through the storm, Gavriel Morayne grinned. His blood surged like wildfire. His pulse pounded with the rhythm of battle. Before him, the mercenaries hesitated. He did not.
Gavriel bared his teeth in a grin that bordered on a snarl. Blood dripped from his blade, dark and heavy, trailing behind him like ink across parchment.
He raised his voice, not to taunt, but to condemn. "Look at you. Fighting in a war you don’t even believe in. You think you can stand against men who have already decided they cannot lose?"
One soldier wavered, another looked for a way out. Gavriel’s eyes lit with madness. He loved this moment—the breaking point.
He lifted his sword, blood-soaked and ready, and shouted, "FOR THE QUEEN! FOR DRAGOV! FOR WAR!"
Then he charged.
He crashed into the enemy like a storm unbound. His blade flashed. Blood sprayed. Laughter tore from his chest and echoed across the valley like a prophecy fulfilled.
With every strike, every shout, and every kill, Gavriel Morayne wrote himself into legend.
The Obsidian Order had expected victory. They had seen the Dragov legions stagger and the Lycans falter. But when the sky split open, everything changed.
The warriors of Dragov did not fall. They stood.
The Lycans did not retreat. They howled.
Mercenaries had been raised to believe that gods did not walk among men and that power came only from coin and steel. Now they saw warriors rising with eyes burning not just with rage, but with conviction. Doubt began to spread among them.
Their hands trembled. Their steps faltered. Their blades hesitated. Doubt created fear, and fear led to death.
A captain turned to call for support, only to see his men stepping back with dread in their eyes. A mercenary watched as the storm split apart, revealing Eris Dragov standing at its center, wrapped in divine fury. He stumbled backward, his voice hoarse and broken.
"We can’t win this."
The words passed from one soldier to the next.
One whispered them, another repeated them, and dozens more heard.
Panic took hold, and they ran. Weapons clattered onto frozen ground.
Shields fell from hands gone slack. Discipline crumbled.
Commanders shouted, but their voices were drowned by the sound of collapse.
They had come to conquer. Now they were prey.
A commander seized one of his men and shouted above the chaos. "We are the Obsidian Order. Hold the line!"
The soldier broke free. "Then die in it."
He disappeared into the storm.
The line fell.
Mercenaries stumbled over their dead, scrambling to flee.
From the high walls of his citadel, Avaristo watched it all. The sky had split. The battlefield was chaos. His soldiers scattered like rats before a flood. There was no loyalty, only survival.
His hands gripped the railing as his breath caught. He had spent a lifetime conquering, believing power belonged to those with blades or gold. Now he stood on the wrong side of history.
He had mocked the Firstbloods and Lycans, calling them relics and zealots. But faith—what he had scorned—was winning. He could not deny it.
"We leave." His voice was clipped and hollow.
Miloseva moved without hesitation. She understood—the Obsidian Order was collapsing.
Avaristo turned his back on it. As long as he had gold, he could rebuild elsewhere. The Skyrer waited, its engines screaming against the wind.
Miloseva boarded the craft, Avaristo close behind. Rurik was already inside, waiting.
The doors closed, and the storm swallowed them. The vessel rose, fighting the sky as if it would ever let them pass.
Miloseva sat in silence. Rurik said nothing. Avaristo stared into the clouds above. He believed he had escaped. He believed he had outlived gods.
Then the sky flinched. Silence followed, vast and unnatural. The wind ceased, and the storm bowed. A wound split the clouds as a single golden bolt descended, final and absolute. It did not strike. It erased.
The Skyrer became light, then ash, then nothing.
It was not vengeance, but divine correction—order restored. No survivors. No remains. Only a sky gone quiet, as if the divine had spoken, and been obeyed.
Far below, Eris stood beneath the torn sky, breath steady. She had not spoken, but the storm had listened. Her hand lowered slowly. Her eyes stayed open.
There was no triumph in her. Only the stillness of justice, at last fulfilled.
But as the wind settled and the earth exhaled, something ancient stirred. Something she had awoken.