Chapter 35 #2
Eris froze, fingers still trembling over Kareon’s wounds.
Kriponius stepped forward, his face hardening, fury carved into every line. “Even across centuries, through lives unnumbered, thy loyalty flickers like ash from a fire long dead.”
Her breath hitched, but her chin lifted, defiant.
His gaze turned cold. The ground split under him as his power surged outward, warping everything around them.
Then he moved—fast and brutal—and seized her by the hair, yanking her upright.
Eris screamed, twisting in his grip, her hands clawing at his wrist.
Kareon lunged—or tried to. One arm reached out, shaking and desperate, but the moment he pushed up, he collapsed. He hit the earth hard, breath choking, vision dimming at the edges. His muscles would not respond. But his golden eyes never left her.
For the first time in his life, Kareon was powerless. He would have given anything to reach her.
Kriponius dragged Eris away.
She kicked and thrashed, teeth bared. “Let me go!”
He did not answer. He threw her to the ground. She hit hard, then forced herself up on trembling arms. Before she could rise, Kriponius crouched before her, close enough for his breath to touch her skin.
"Look at him, my dear," he whispered. “Look well, for this shall be the last time thou seest him draw breath.”
Kareon growled, low and sharp. Kriponius’s smile curled in amusement.
“I was merciful once,” he said. “I let thy beast crawl away with his life. I let him carry the weight of thy death, knowing my hands had touched thee last.”
Kareon’s fists pressed into the soil.
Kriponius inhaled deeply. His eyes lit with something twisted and satisfied.
“But now, I think I shall enjoy this more.” He leaned closer.
“I shall kill him before thine eyes,” he said, his voice a knife.
His fingers traced the line of her throat, slow and possessive, as though he were carving his claim into her skin.
“So thou shalt live knowing his death was thine to bear. That every dream shall bring back the moment his blood spilled for love of thee.”
Eris’s fingers dug into the dirt.
Kriponius smiled against her skin. “And perchance, this time, thou shalt learn. Thou art mine, Seraphina. Only mine. Forever.” His hand gripped her throat as if molding her into what he believed she must become.
“I shall have thee. Untainted. Unchallenged. Unrivaled. And when I claim thee, Seraphina, thou shalt scream my name and none but mine.”
A moment passed, heavy and still. Then Eris wrenched herself free, met Kriponius’s gaze, and whispered, voice like a blade.
“The only time I’ll ever scream your name…
is to curse it.” Kriponius stilled. Eris bared her teeth.
"You can force your hands upon me, but you will never feel my surrender.
You will never have my desire. You will never have me. "
For a beat, silence.
Then—
Crack.
The slap split the air like thunder. Her head snapped to the side, blood rising on her split lip.
Kareon snarled, a sound not meant for this world.
Kriponius sighed. “This incarnation hath left thee wild, Seraphina.”
Eris wiped the blood from her mouth, slow and deliberate. She raised her chin and met his gaze without flinching. He smirked.
“But fear not,” he said softly. “Even the wildest beasts learn to kneel.” His voice dropped, cold and cruel. “And I possess all eternity with which to tame thee.”
He turned with casual certainty, as if walking through ruins that already belonged to him. His gaze fell on Kareon. Kriponius raised Sanguine Oath, the blade gleaming with hunger.
“Look well, Lycan. Etch her into thy soul. For once I end thy wretched life, never again shalt thou lay eyes upon what was never thine to claim.”
Kareon tried to rise, but his body refused to move. The sword came down, and Eris screamed.
Then came the clash.
Steel met steel as a shockwave rippled through the battlefield. Kriponius’s blade was stopped and forced back. His eyes widened. Eris gasped. Stephan Dragov stood before them, bloodied and unyielding. Alive.
Kriponius’s lips curled in fury. "Thou," he seethed.
Stephan’s grip tightened, his dark eyes burning like a dying star.
"Thou shouldst be rotting in the crypt where I cast thee," Kriponius snarled, disbelief curdling into wrath.
Stephan smiled, steady and unshaken, his stance unbroken. "Yet here I stand."
The storm raged like a god unchained. The sky, a black abyss split apart by veins of lightning, turned the battlefield into a world of flickering shadows.
Stephan Dragov stood by sheer, unrelenting will.
He should have been broken, trapped in agony, sealed beneath stone and fate.
But he had dragged himself back from the brink.
He had stalked the battlefield, sinking his fangs into fallen Obsidian soldiers, breaking the sacred bans, drinking real blood like the Firstblood kings of old.
He did not care, so long as he could save her.
War rebuilt him—bone, blood, rage—piece by piece, until fire in his chest consumed the agony, until vengeance ceased to be promise and became certainty.
"You made a fatal mistake, Kriponius," Stephan’s voice rasped with wrath.
The Dread King tilted his head, amused. "Oh? And what folly dost thou claim as mine error?"
Stephan stepped forward, voice dipping into a lethal whisper. "You left me alive." The air shifted, thick and electric, charged with something ancient. "I have come back from oblivion to fulfill my vow," Stephan said, eyes blazing. "You will not see the end of this night."
Kriponius smirked, mocking and unbothered, but Stephan was already moving. His sword screamed through the air, relentless and precise.
Kriponius met him, blade to blade.
The battlefield roared to life with the clash of gods.
Eris gasped. Her body would not obey. She was too broken to rise, but her heart, by the gods, her heart was coming undone. He stood before her. Glorious. Unyielding. Alive.
"Stephan…" His name left her lips like a vow remembered across lifetimes. Tears spilled as she shook, caught between awe and disbelief. "You are alive."
The words rose as a cry, as a sacred invocation. Her fingers clawed through blood and ash, reaching for him, as if will alone could bridge the space between them. If this was a dream, let it take her wholly. She would not wake.
Kareon’s lips parted, but no sound came. His trembling gaze said what his body could not.
Stephan had returned. There was still hope.
Kriponius tilted his head, his smirk pure malice.
"How moving," he murmured. He opened his arms, a shadowed herald summoning the final act.
"Behold the sacred triad. Bound by fate, torn by desire.
The stars weep, no doubt, for such a tender farce.
" He laughed, low and cold, void of mercy.
"I did unmake the spirits’ design once. By mine own hand, I shall undo it anew, and again, and yet again.
" His gaze fell on Eris, burning with something eternal and absolute.
"Until the heavens themselves concede their folly and return thee unto me, Seraphina. "
Stephan lunged. The storm answered him. Winds howled like vengeful ghosts through the blood-soaked field. "I will not let you break her, not like you broke your queen, Kriponius."
Steel struck, sparks leaping like dying stars. Stephan moved with the violence of prophecy, vicious and unrelenting. His blade fell with the judgment of thunder.
But the Dark King only smiled. He parried, deflected, played. He drank Stephan’s fury like wine, savoring every moment. Then, with a flick and a cruel turn, Stephan was cast backward. He struck the ground, breath driven from his chest.
Kriponius laughed, soft and knowing. "Thou art so sure of her love, art thou not, boy?" He stepped forward, smirking cruelly. "Tell me this. Wilt thou still hold such certainty when she offereth her sacred flesh unto the beast?"
Stephan halted, his breath stilling.
The tyrant’s voice darkened. "When she whispereth eternal love unto thee…and her womb beareth the mongrel’s spawn?"
Eris could not breathe. Her gaze snapped to Kriponius, wide with disbelief.
Seraphina and Kaelioth had birthed a child. Would fate now compel her to bear a child of her own with Kareon?
Her blood turned to ash. She looked to Kareon, and he, broken and bloodied, looked back. His eyes trembled with something sacred.
They could have a child, a future born of their love, a bond made eternal. He had never dared dream of such a fate. But now that the vision had taken root, he ached for it.
Eris remained silent, her heart shattering beneath the weight of it.
Not because it was not beautiful, but because the image bloomed too easily—Kareon’s hands on her belly, his voice soft in the dark, their child born beneath a blood moon.
And Stephan, alone, forgotten, undone. Stephan, who had bled for her. Who had lived for nothing but her.
She could never do that to him.
The thought of carrying Kareon’s child felt like divinity and betrayal. The gods could offer, but only she would decide what would root in her womb. That was her power.
Her head turned, slow and aching, until her eyes found Stephan. He was already watching her, and gods, his eyes were breaking. His breath came shallow. His fingers flexed, then fell still. She tried to speak.
Don’t believe him, Stephan. Please. Not like this.
But no sound came.
Then he stepped back. The silence that followed tore through her like judgment.
Stephan stood, still and burning. He had seen the plea in her eyes. Yet Kriponius’s words struck like a poisoned blade. He had always known her heart. But now…what if the gods wanted her for another? What if fate demanded she become something he could never be part of?
No. He would not break.
Kriponius was playing another game, crafting lies to unmake him.