Chapter 35 #3
Stephan’s jaw locked. His fury rose, sacred and consuming. It swallowed the ache, erased the doubt, and left only fire. His grip tightened around the hilt of his sword. "I do not believe you."
Kriponius smirked. Stephan did not flinch. He raised his blade.
"And even if fate has written her name beside his," he said, "she is not yours to claim." He stepped forward, then took another. The earth itself seemed to hold its breath. "Not then. Not now. Not ever."
It was more than defiance. It was a promise. A war reborn in flame.
The storm howled, wind screaming across the battlefield. Kriponius stood at its center, a predator savoring the inevitable. His chuckle coiled through the air, indulgent, tightening like a noose around Stephan. "Thou dost not believe me?"
Kriponius’s gaze shifted to Kareon. The beast was gone. What remained was a bare man, breathless and broken. He tilted his head, like a god sneering at a failed creation.
“I knew the truth the moment I tasted his blood.”
The air curled and soured. Stephan stiffened. Eris’s pulse lurched. Kareon’s body locked. Then Kriponius spoke again, quieter now, and worse for it.
"Seraphina’s blood runneth through his veins, as surely as it runneth through thine."
Silence followed. Not the kind that drifts, but the kind that drowns. Stephan’s breath halted. Eris froze. Kareon’s eyes widened, as if pierced.
But Kriponius did not deal in mercy. "Kaelioth’s blood did mingle with Seraphina’s. It carried forward, unseen and unbroken, generation unto generation. This mongrel is as much her get as thou art.”
His gaze moved between Stephan, Eris, and Kareon as the truth settled and poisoned.
Three descendants. One bloodline.
Kriponius exhaled, slow and mocking. His smirk twisted into something colder.
Then, with pure and deliberate disgust: "Abhorrent, is it not?"
His voice slid between them, waiting for their world to break.
Kareon clenched his fists, his breath catching in his throat.
Kaelioth, the old man who had raised him, had lain with Seraphina. He had been kin all along, and yet he had never spoken of it.
Why?
Now the truth aligned. The bond to Eris, and the rivalry with Stephan had never been chance or choice. It had been written in their blood.
Stephan stood motionless, as if the world itself held its breath. He felt it in his bones—an ancient thread, inescapable, binding them by blood and fate. His grip on the sword tightened. Kareon was his kin. Eris’s kin.
The war had been rigged from the start. What did fate really want from them?
Eris’s breath caught as the truth unraveled. Fate had not only bound her to Kareon—it had woven them all together.
This only deepened her resolve. What they shared was sacred, and Kriponius had no right to twist it into something vile.
Eris pushed herself up, legs weak and trembling, but her will remained unshaken. Her green eyes burned as they locked onto Kriponius’s like fire against an abyss. “The only abhorrent thing I see here is you.”
Kriponius’s smirk faltered.
“Thou dost believe the spirits guide thee? Shield thee?” he sneered. “Nay. They but use thee. This tale is not thine, girl. It is theirs. Their will. And thou art but a vessel."
Stephan and Kareon tensed.
Kriponius’s hatred deepened. "They would raise a mongrel from the House of Dragov. Defile the Firstblood line. Replace us with beasts."
Kareon flinched. Stephan’s jaw tightened. But Eris held.
“You are wrong.” Her voice shook but did not break.
“They do not toy with us. They guide us. They protect us. But only if you have faith.” She steadied her breath.
"I pity you, Kriponius." He stilled, but Eris did not falter.
Her voice was not cruel, but unshaking. Her truth was meant to wake, not to wound.
"You turned from faith. From her. You could have chosen love. But instead, you chose war."
Silence followed, deep as a grave. Then she stepped forward.
"You curse the spirits. You blame the world. But the truth?" She let the silence hang like a blade. "You did this to yourself."
Kriponius snapped. His roar shattered the sky. "Thou wretched, mongrel-stained harlot! I shall carve his scent from thy flesh with mine own hands!"
He lunged, fangs bared, fury unbound. Eris did not flinch. But before Kriponius reached her, Stephan’s blade met his in a clash so violent, it cracked the earth beneath them.
His dark eyes blazed with something primal. “You are not taking another inch toward her,” he said, unwavering.
Kriponius growled, baring his fangs in reply. Steel tore through flesh, and he sneered, his voice curling like smoke.
“Thou pitiful, lovesick wretch,” he hissed. “She shall be the death of thee.”
Another blow landed. Stephan staggered, blood pouring as pain shattered his body. A savage kick sent him crashing down, breathless and broken.
Kareon’s growl broke into a desperate sound, but his body refused to move.
Eris screamed, her voice lost to the storm. She had to act—now. She closed her eyes and reached into Kriponius’s mind, trying to turn the fury into something else, something softer. She wanted him to remember what it felt like to be loved by her.
Seraphina.
But his mind was an impenetrable fortress of madness.
Stephan lay still, strength fading, as the tyrant strode toward Eris. She backed away, but there was nowhere to run. A cold hand clamped around her throat and lifted her into the air.
Kareon strained toward her, powerless. Stephan could not stand, so he crawled forward, bleeding and unrelenting.
“Thinkest thou to win this?” Kriponius’s voice thundered with mockery.
“Dost thou believe the spirits’ design is final?
Nay. Others have seen the tapestry.” His grip tightened around Eris’s throat as she struggled for air.
“If not by mine hand, then another shall rise to burn it all.” His sneer deepened.
“Surrender, Seraphina. I shall slay thee again and again, until thy soul yields. Until thou art mine.” His voice dropped, dark and final. “Mine alone.”
His fingers dug deeper into her throat. The world darkened and her vision blurred. Her strength had vanished, burned away in her last divine act. But a memory broke through the haze.
Dragovs don’t fall. We rise sharper.
Her father’s voice. Her uncle’s. A creed burned into her bones.
She clenched her jaw.
Not like this.
She reached deep, calling to her blood, summoning the ancient force waiting within, until a spark ignited. A pulse surged through her chest. Strength returned, not freely given, but taken through sheer will.
Her hand shot up and clamped around his wrist, unyielding. The air split with a crack as lightning raced up her arm, searing and divine. Her eyes ignited, wild and celestial. Her voice rose like judgment.
"I am not Seraphina." The ground trembled, the air thickening with divine energy. Her voice thundered. "I am Eris Dragov. And you will bow!"
Her body blazed with celestial fire as ancient whispers stirred.
Stephan and Kareon stared, wide-eyed and frozen in awe. Eris was becoming something beyond flesh, beyond fate.
Kriponius’s grip weakened. For the first time, he hesitated. “What sorcery is this?” he rasped, eyes flickering. “What art thou doing to me?”
She was inside him now, breaking through the madness, and she was not alone. Two shadows stood with her: Raphael and Yori. They pushed together, driving deeper.
She plunged into his fury, his hatred, his hunger for vengeance, and shattered it until rage cracked and splintered into sorrow, loss, and love.
Kriponius staggered. His grip broke. Eris collapsed, her body striking the earth, breath ragged.
He dropped to his knees. His eyes—once void—faded, dissolving to gray. The color he had lost long ago. His lips parted as he looked to the sky, to the nothingness that awaited him.
“Seraphina…” he whispered. “Forgive me.”
His hands gripped the dirt, desperate, as if he could claw his way back through time.
"I have become a monster…all thou once didst fear." A tremor shook him. Then came one last plea: “Only thou canst save me.”
And for the first time in centuries, his tears fell.
Then a shadow rose behind him, tall and silent. He did not turn. He already knew.
Stephan stood with his blade raised, unyielding, like a divine executioner.
Time paused as memory surged—the crypt, the book, Seraphina’s vision.
Her prophecy was clear now. This was the moment.
The blade in his grip, fate heavy on his spine.
The wind stirred, carrying a whisper that shattered the stillness.
“Now.”
Stephan struck. Steel flashed, cutting through the dark with brutal finality.
The Dread King’s head fell. His reign ended by the will of the spirits, the fallen, and the one woman who had never stopped waiting to bring him home.
Kareon lay battered and bleeding, blood pounding in his ears. Stephan had done the impossible. Kriponius was dead.
For the first time in what felt like eternity, Kareon drew a ragged breath. His gaze shifted to Eris. She had not moved.
Kriponius’s head lay nearby. Eris stared at it, trembling, her lips parted in silence. Stephan stood before her, unmoving and resolute. He had done it. He had saved the love of his life. The weight of it crashed down upon them.
Slowly, Eris turned to him, and he to her. Tears fell, unchecked. Stephan dropped to his knees. For a moment, neither spoke. There were no words for what they had endured, only the presence of one another.
Stephan reached for her, fingers in her hair, pulling her close until their foreheads touched.
They shared a breath—then came the laugh. It was a fragile, broken thing, frayed by exhaustion and sharp with the relief of survival, that shattered something inside them and mended it in the same instant. They remained there, eyes locked, the silence between them louder than breath.