Chapter 65 Godkiller’s Tomb #2
He laid beside her then, close, but not touching. And yet, his magic brushed hers a touch of moonlight on water. When she finally closed her eyes, his presence hummed softly beneath her skin.
He never slept.
She knew it the moment dawn spilled across the land and he was still watching the horizon, sword near, as if daring the goddess to come.
By the end of the day they would reach the sword.
The wilds had teeth.
The deeper they ventured, the more the land seemed to breathe beneath their boots —alive with ancient tension —each gust of wind a warning. Thorn-choked trails slowed their pace, roots curling like claws around stone. The sky sagged low with storm-hung clouds, and the air smelled faintly of ash.
By dusk, they’d found it.
A ravine carved into the cliffs, walls veined with black ivy and silver moss. At its heart stood ruins, part temple, part tomb, half-buried beneath time and shadow. The stone was pale and crumbling, but unmistakably sacred.
Maris stopped at the threshold, heart hammering.
Veil Breaker. Daughter of the woven blood. I have waited centuries for you. A serpentine voice echoed into her mind.
“It’s here,” she said, her voice dry with awe.
Kael's hand drifted near the hilt of his blade, eyes narrowed and alert. His shadows curled around his shoulders, as he took in the ruin.
Alarik scanned the perimeter beside her, his eyes glowing faintly with magic.
Serenya crouched low, running her hand along the cracked stone of the steps. “There was a battle here, long ago. I can still feel the blood in the ground.”
Zairon and Riven flanked the edges of the ruin’s entrance. Riven’s sword was already in hand, his gaze sharp and calculating. Zairon’s fingers brushed the carvings on a broken pillar, murmuring something under his breath in old Fae.
Corin directed the accompanying warriors, checking formation, setting a defensive perimeter around the exterior. None of them would risk being caught unaware in a place like this.
Maris stepped forward, drawn toward the hollow interior.
The chamber was vast and eerie, bathed in silvery dusk light. Vines had crept down through cracks in the ceiling, swaying like tendrils in the windless air. In the center of the ruin stood a tomb.
She knew it the moment she saw it.
The stone slab was etched with symbols that pulsed faintly, ancient, unreadable, older than even the gods she’d come to know.
And on it lay a figure — a warrior’s remains, still clad in rusted armor, one skeletal hand wrapped tight around the hilt of a long blade.
His skull tilted toward the heavens, eyes lost to time.
“The sword…” Maris whispered.
She stepped closer.
It was longer than she expected, narrow and silver-pale, with veins of molten gold and ancient runes seared into the steel. The handle was black leather, aged but untouched by decay. The warrior’s fingers gripped it as if still guarding it in death.
“A god-forged blade,” Alarik said behind her, voice reverent. “Crafted before the kingdoms were born.”
“This tomb predates it all,” Zairon added softly. “Older than our history.”
“Then why was it hidden here?” Riven asked, eyes fixed on the tomb.
“Because Eiren feared it,” Maris said, her voice trembling. “She buried it to weaken me. But she couldn’t destroy it.”
Her sigil began to glow faintly at first, then with blinding intensity. Her fingers pulsed with heat, drawn toward the blade.
The chamber filled with light as her palm hovered over the warrior’s skeletal hand.
Kael stepped forward. “Are you certain —”
“She has to be the one,” Serenya murmured, eyes locked on the tomb.
Maris reached out.
The sigil flared.
The bones crumbled to dust the moment her fingers brushed the hilt.
The warrior’s final defense… undone.
And the sword…
Yielded.
Power surged up her arm like flame through her veins — bright, and ancient. Not like her magic. Not like any she’d felt before.
The others shielded their eyes as the blade blazed like a fallen star, runes igniting one by one in a language none of them could read, but all of them felt.
The moment the blade settled into Maris’s grip, paired with her crown's grounding power, she felt nearly immortal.
Her voice spoke a prayer in a language she did not know she contained. As old as the runes carved in the steel. A spoken promise to a goddess to unravel her webs and ruin.
The rock groaned.
The tomb trembled beneath their boots, a low, guttural hum rising from the stone like the world itself had been cracked open. The air thickened with heat. The light from her sigil dimmed but the power it had stirred did not fade.
It echoed.
Outward.
Through the ruin.
Through the forest.
Through the Veil.
Kael’s head snapped toward the entrance. “ For fuck sake.”
Alarik was already moving, blade drawn, magic igniting along his palms in a violet glow. “That much divine energy,”
“It's a beacon,” Serenya finished, eyes going cold.
Outside, a shriek rang out. Animal, but wrong.
Then another. A hundred.
Zairon unsheathed his long blade with a curse. “Positions!”
They barely made it to the edges of the ruin when the first creature lunged from the trees.
It was a veil terror but not like the others they’d faced.
This one had four legs, long and jointed like a stag’s, but bent backward and was covered in oily fur.
Its maw stretched wide in a snarl that never closed, needle teeth dripping black rot.
No eyes were to be held— only a churning void in its skull, like someone had scooped out its soul and filled it with shadow.
Behind it came more. Built for the hunt.
The first warrior was dead before he could scream.
The second was dragged into the trees.
Maris shouted, lunging forward, her new blade raised — as it connected with the creature’s neck, magic exploded from the steel. The cut was clean, almost effortless, and the spawn’s body disintegrated into ash mid-lunge.
The others creatures hesitated.
Just for a heartbeat.
Kael took the opening, shadows twisting around him like smoke given fang. He carved through a line of them, then another, the fury in his eyes far colder than fire. Alarik moved with deadly precision, dream-magic trailing from his sword like moonlight warped to destroy.
Zairon and Riven fought back to back, a wall of steel and grit. Corin let out a war cry, slamming his axe into one creature’s spine. Serenya, bloody and limping from a blow to her thigh, still managed to run one through, roaring with effort.
Maris turned in time to see the third warrior, an Eryndoran man fall. Torn apart by two of the monsters before anyone could reach him.
Her mind raced.
No time to mourn.
Another lunged for her.
This one faster. Smarter. The leader.
She twisted, slashing across its chest but its claws raked across her ribs. Heat flared up her side. Blood spilled.
But her grip didn’t falter.
She buried the sword in its gut. Light burst out like a flare across the forest.
The thing shrieked as it misted.
With it every terrors evaporated, like they had been echoes of the one she just killed, and with its death, the others ceased to exist.
Silence fell in choking waves.
Only the wind remained.
And the breathless, blood-slick survivors of the battle.
Maris stumbled backward, pressing a hand to her side. Her leathers were torn, her skin scorched, but she was alive.
They all were, save the three warriors who lay motionless at the edge of the ruin.
Kael reached her first, steadying her by the shoulders. “Let me see.”
“I’m fine,” she gasped, even as blood soaked her palm.
"You're bleeding." The stillness in his tone, more dangerous than a shout.
Alarik remained still, the restraint in his posture betraying how badly he ached to be at her side.
Zairon stood over the bodies of the fallen, sword tip resting in the dirt, eyes closed in reverence.
“We bury them quickly, we don’t want to risk another attack.” he said quietly.
Maris gripped the sword tighter, her injury already crusting over in light from the sigil’s slow pulse.
They were closer now. Closer to the battle. Closer to the end.
-Alarik-
Night pressed heavy on the Borderlands.
Their campfire flickered low, ringed by wet stones and shadows that clung too long to the edges of the trees. The air stank of ash and iron, and though the veilspawn were gone, Alarik could feel the residue of their presence, slick and sharp, beneath his skin.
Most of the camp had drifted to sleep. Corin was sharpening his axe beneath a tree, muttering prayers.
Serenya sat beside Riven and Zairon, their low voices murmuring about the three they’d lost. Only Kael kept to the outskirts, pacing like a restless sentinel, his silver eyes cutting through the dark.
Alarik sat beside Maris, crouched in the small tent they’d erected for her near the fire, where she lay on her side atop a bedroll, sweat drying on her brow. Her tunic was lifted to bare the wound, and her skin, usually pearlescent and unblemished, was now scored with jagged, angry red.
It hadn’t stopped bleeding as fast as he expected.
Not for someone touched by divine fire.
Not for a woman wielding the power of gods.
He dipped the cloth into the basin again, wrung it once, and pressed it gently to the edge of her wound. Her breath hissed through her teeth.
“Sorry,” he murmured.
The sound of the cloth swished. The fire crackled low.
Then, her voice soft —closer to sleep whispered.
“I thought it would heal faster.”
Alarik’s jaw clenched. He dabbed again, more slowly this time.
“Your body is like ours, although it’s no longer human, but it still takes some time to fully heal,” he said. “Even if your power is beyond ours.”
Her eyes fluttered open, just a little. “But the sigil…”
“Is a weapon,” he finished for her. “Not a shield. Not for you.”
She didn’t answer, but her fingers curled slightly into the edge of her bedroll. A silent sign of discomfort, and exhaustion.
He reached for the salve Zarion had handed him earlier, one of the fae-blessed kinds that stung like hell but prevented rot. He applied it in slow, careful strokes. She winced but didn’t pull away.
“I hate that I’m now just a weapon,” she whispered, finally.
He glanced up.
A heartbeat passed.
Then he said, “You aren't to us.”
She blinked at that. Her lips parted like she wanted to argue but no words came. Just silence. A shared space where neither had to pretend.
He secured a fresh bandage around her ribs, careful not to touch more than he had to, though every fiber of him ached to brush her skin. To hold her. To feel her weight against him and know she was safe.
Instead, he shifted to sit beside her on the bedroll, his back against the tent post. The wind hissed outside, and somewhere in the darkness, an owl called once.
She sighed, the sound low and tired.
Then her hand found his.
“Stay?” she said.
Alarik’s throat tightened.
“Of course.”
She shifted closer to him, her breath soft against his shoulder, and he adjusted the blanket over them both. His arm curled around her waist without thinking. He could feel her heartbeat.
Even now, wounded and weary, she burned with purpose.
And still he couldn’t help but marvel that she let him be near that fire.
He pressed his lips to her hair, barely a touch. “Sleep, my queen.”
She did.
But Alarik did not.
Not for a long time.
Not while she was wounded.
Not while the Borderlands watched.
And not with the apprehension of what tomorrow might bring plagued him.
-Maris-
The cliffs of Calanthe rose — a jagged crown on the horizon as they rode like hell.
The return journey from the Borderlands, was tense — though no more veilspawn had stalked their path. Every gust of wind felt like a whisper from the other side. Every shifting shadow made hands tighten around hilts.
They crested the final hill just before dusk.
Nerium’s towers shimmered through the mist, the sea crashing far below, and for the first time in days, Maris allowed herself to exhale.
They were almost home.
If it could still be called that.
She sat astride her horse in silence, Kael to her right, Alarik to her left, the three of them an arrowhead leading their worn company toward the city gates. Behind them rode Zarion, Riven, Corin, Serenya, and the remaining warriors, each one battered and stained, but alive.
Maris hadn’t forgotten the three they'd left behind
She could still see their faces. The screams an echo in her mind.
Kael glanced toward her. “You’re quiet.”
She met his gaze. “I’m thinking.”
“Of what?”
She gave a brittle smile. “How strange it is to return to a home, not to rest, but to wage a war.”
He didn’t reply.
But his hand gloved and cold, reached over to briefly brush against hers on the reins. Not a claim. Not a demand. Just acknowledgement.
When the gates opened, guards bowed without question.
Maris kept her head high as they passed beneath the stone archway. The people of Nerium — those who still lingering in the streets, paused to watch them ride by. Some knelt. Some whispered.
As they dismounted in the outer courtyard, a steward rushed to alert the others. Torches were lit. Rooms readied. Healers summoned.
And still, Maris stood there, staring up at the rocky silhouette of the castle that now felt like the last notes of a powerful song.
Alarik moved beside her, his voice low. “You did it.”
“No,” she said, the sword heavy across her back. “We all did.”
He didn’t press her.
Kael appeared at her other side. “We should meet with the generals soon.”
Maris nodded, though every bone in her body cried out for a moment to breathe. “An hour,” she said. “I just need — a moment.”
Neither argued.
They flanked her as she made her way inside.
The sword began to hum louder as they moved into the depths of Nerium’s walls.
As if it knew war would soon begin.