Chapter 72 The Strike
Chapter seventy-two
The Strike
-Maris-
Magic hummed beneath her boots. The sword in her grip thrummed like a second heartbeat, alive with the fury of the gods. The sigils along her armor gleamed, one for each divine who stood behind her, silent and waiting.
But before the war began…
She stole one last glance.
To her right, Kael.
Rigid. Vast. Cloaked in shadow and silver. The wind tangled in his black hair, his eyes locked not on the enemy but on her. There was something in his gaze that nearly undid her —grief, hunger, love. But no fear.
He’d already died a hundred deaths for her in his mind.
He would do it again before this day ended.
To her left, Alarik.
A fury held behind his ribs. Faelight dancing across his armor, lightning arcing from his fingertips to the hilt of his blade. His expression was unreadable, but his soul? That was thunder. Rage and reverence. He had been her sparring partner, her dream, her danger.
He would tear the world apart before he let it swallow her whole.
Valea, already bleeding from the nails in her palms where she clenched her blades too tightly.
Draeven beside her, lips pale, eyes full of vengeance.
Riven and Corin, nodding once. Ready.
Serenya’s braid whipped over her shoulder as she stepped closer, a whisper of reassurance in her eyes.
Thauren calmed again, but hollow in a way only grief could carve.
Zairon’s hand lifted briefly to his heart. A gesture of honor. Of belief.
Even the human forces from Eryndor stood proud behind her. No glamor. No magic. Just will. Just faith.
And in that breath of silence, that moment suspended in time, a silent understanding passed between them all.
This wasn’t just her war.
It was theirs.
The four gods behind her, towering and terrible, gave one slight bow, not of submission, but of offering. Power rippled off their skin like lightning over still water.
They had made her.
Now they stood for her.
Maris turned back to face Eiren.
And smiled.
It was not cruel. Not triumphant.
It was final.
Eiren’s facade cracked, not a twitch, not a blink, but a full falter.
She vanished.
Mist exploded where she had stood, scattering like breath into cold wind. A heartbeat later, she reappeared at the far edge of the field, high on a ridge of blackened stone, her war beasts snarling at her feet.
The smile was gone.
Good.
Because Maris was done playing.
She lifted her sword high.
And the moment it gleamed in the sky,
“FOR ACHYRON!”
The cry ripped from the human ranks as they surged leftward, steel flashing, banners flying. Their commanders led with blades raised, war horns echoing through the hollowed valley.
The battle had begun.
Veilspawn shrieked.
The dead charged.
Magic ignited.
The air itself caught fire.
And Maris?
Maris did not wait for the next move.
She sprinted forward, gods at her back and destiny in her grip.
Kael unleashed his shadows, no longer slinking tendrils, but monstrous, living things.
They surged like black smoke with claws, snarling through enemy lines, devouring terrors whole.
His sword gleamed like moonlight cracked in half, his eyes silver fire.
He moved like a blade through fog elegant, merciless, deadly.
Alarik roared his voice cracking the sky as lightning speared from his outstretched hand. Bolts of magic shattered into the ranks of Eiren’s beasts, frying flesh, burning through armor.
Thauren charged forward — wind howled around him, bending to his will. The very air rippled with salt and fury, the scent of ozone thick as his eyes glowed like twin storms.
And behind her the Gods moved.
Yseron cleaved through the horde with a blade the size of a tree, every swing a thunderclap.
Syrathe didn’t strike, she looked, and enemies turned to shadow, unraveling with a sound like weeping stars.
Thaleia raised one hand, and rivers erupted from dry earth, drowning Veilspawn in plague-ridden water.
Vaerith laughing set the field ablaze, fire sprinting across bodies and stone alike.
They were not protectors.
They were cataclysms.
And Maris, her eyes locked on Eiren’s distant form, ran with all of it behind her.
She didn’t make it twenty feet.
A blur from the right.
A scream, high and furious.
Something slammed into her, and suddenly Maris was on the ground, metal against rock, sword knocked free for a breathless moment.
She rolled, just in time to catch the strike aimed for her throat.
Astrielle.
The blade sparked against hers, jagged and wrong, reeking of Veil-magic and rot.
Astrielle grinned, lips pulled too wide.
“You think this is your story now?” she hissed, voice warping with Eiren’s echo. “You think you’re some god-made martyr, born for glory?”
Maris shoved her off, breathing hard. “No,” she said, rising. “I know I am.”
Astrielle struck again.
Faster than before. Wild and cruel. Her footwork was flawless. This wasn’t just Astrielle’s training. This was divine possession threaded through muscle and hate.
“Kael would have crowned me!” she spat, swinging high. “I bled for him! I died for him! And he chose you. A mortal. A mistake!”
Maris blocked, then ducked low and drove her elbow into Astrielle’s ribs. “He didn’t choose anyone,” she snarled. “There was no choice to make, it was always going to be me!”
Astrielle’s laugh was fractured. “And now I’ll tear you from him.”
They clashed again, blades ringing.
Magic sparked off Maris’s shoulders, the gods still lending her strength. But Astrielle moved like fire, a predator wrapped in hate.
“Do you feel powerful?” she growled as they locked blades. “Wearing their sigils? Carrying a sword you didn’t earn?”
“I was made for it all,” Maris hissed, slamming her knee into Astrielle’s stomach and throwing her back.
Astrielle skidded but didn’t fall. Her hair, streaked with soot and blood, clung to her cheeks. Her mouth twisted into a sneer.
“You think you’re special,” she breathed. “But you’re just next. Just another girl the gods will gut when they’re bored.”
“No,” Maris said softly, voice like steel drawn across stone. “I’m the last.”
She charged.
Their blades screamed against each other, magic lighting up the space between them.
Here at the center of it, Maris fought not just for fate.
She fought for every girl who had been overlooked.
Every warrior turned martyr.
Every dream crushed under someone else’s throne.
And she fought like the veil feared her name.
-Kael-
He saw it.
Through flame. Through mist. Through the howling of the damned.
Maris, his queen, locked in a brutal dance of steel and fury with the creature that had once been Astrielle.
And Kael ran.
Not because of heartbreak.
Not because of love lost.
He had not loved Astrielle.
She had been sharp, loyal, hungry for power, one of his best blades. And that was all. A weapon in his hand, never one in his heart.
But this?
This twisted shade wearing her face?
This snarling mockery of what she’d bled to become?
This was his fault.
He had cultivated her ambition, sharpened her rage, and ignored the way her eyes had always flicked toward his throne like it was a place she might someday sit beside him.
He’d been the one to strike her down.
Not out of mercy.
Not even regret.
But necessity.
Now, she stood reborn, by Eiren’s hand. All that hunger turned to rot. All that potential twisted into poison.
And she was trying to kill Maris.
That was all Kael needed to see.
His vision tunneled, every sound drowned in the thunder of his pulse.
He moved, not as a general navigating a battlefield.
But as a king crossing the threshold of war.
The shadows surged up his legs like a cloak reawakening. His armor reknit itself across his body in panels of blackened steel. His crown, hidden for so long, formed from smoke and obsidian, ringing his head with sharp, floating shards of power.
The battlefield bent around him.
Soldiers stumbled.
Veilspawn fled.
Because Kael wasn’t running anymore.
He was descending.
He crossed the bloodied stretch of field toward her, toward them, like death itself made flesh. His shadows spread wide behind him, cutting trenches into the soil, splitting open scorched craters with each step.
And when he reached the edge of that fight, just as Maris’s blade deflected a strike meant for her throat,
He intervened.
The shadows struck first, knocking Astrielle back in a violent wave of black. She crashed to the ground, rolled once, and hissed as she staggered to her feet.
Maris didn’t look surprised.
She had known he would come.
The shadows flared around him like wings.
“I will end you once more.” he said, voice like frost.
Astrielle screamed, lunging and Kael moved.
“Go.” He called to Maris.
She looked at him with longing. But with the dip of her head and hand to her heart she was gone. Running straight for Eiren.
-Maris-
They moved like a flood.
Maris at the center, gods flanking her, every step forward a cleansing. Veilspawn fell like wheat under a scythe scorched, drowned, dissolved, crushed. Their screams were nothing compared to the silence that followed in her wake.
She was no longer just human.
She was the fury of four gods wrapped in mortal form.
To her left, Yseron tore through a line of armored beasts, his molten blade swinging wide and leaving only cinders.
To her right, Vaerith laughed as he spun in a cyclone of flame, his fire catching the sky itself.
Behind her, Thaleia sent rivers of poison flooding into the enemy’s flanks, her voice a hiss of incantation.
And Syrathe, drifted forward without touching the ground, and wherever her shadow fell, the Veilspawn simply… unraveled.
Maris didn’t stop.
Didn’t look back.
Her sword was weightless in her hands now. Every strike split the air with light. Every heartbeat drove her closer to Eiren, the monster that had ruined this world, had turned hope into a weapon and mercy into mockery.
The twisted goddess stood ahead, perched high on her ridge of black stone, untouched and grinning.
But not for long.
Maris could feel it, the power winding tighter in her chest, the voices of the gods like drumbeats in her ears. The Veil was warping under their presence. The air tasted like ozone and ending.
A streak of silver.
A rush of wind.
And Maris was slammed backward, her boots skidding through bloodied earth.
She caught herself with a grunt, blade up instantly.
A figure stood in front of her now.
Elenwe.
Bone-sharp and cold as ancient stone. Her hair was twisted in a knot of thorns, her face still beautiful, but expressionless, except for the rage.
And when she spoke, her voice was like splintered glass dragged across silk.
“You wear their favor like it means something.”
Maris rose slowly, blade steady. “I don’t wear it,” she said. “I earned it.”
Elenwe’s lip curled.
“You stole it. Just like you stole him.”
The battlefield fell away.
“Alarik?” Maris asked quietly.
A muscle twitched in Elenwe’s jaw. Her voice sharpened like a dagger.
“He was mine. My crown. My future. I died for kingdoms that forgot my name, and now you sleep in the bed meant for me.”
She stepped forward, power crackling off her in steady pulses.
“You think he loves you?” she hissed. “You’re a distraction. A replacement. A dream he’ll wake from the moment the war ends. Just like Kael will.”
Maris didn’t flinch.
But the words hit like stones.
Elenwe’s smile was ice.
“They’ll forget you. Just like they forgot me. You’ll die for them, and they’ll let it happen. And the world will go on without your name ever spoken again.”
She drew her bow.
A single arrow appeared, made of glowing Veil-glass, humming with death.
“I was mercy,” she whispered. “Now I am vengeance.”
And then she fired.
Straight for Maris’s heart.