Chapter 53 Revelation
REVELATION
CEDRIC
The battle ended, not with a roar, but in sacred silence.
Cedric wasn’t sure how long he knelt beside Dentarius’ body, Elyria gripping his shoulder, Kit on the other side with her head bowed.
Around them, the carnage of the throne room settled.
Sephone disposed of one final cultist with a muffled cry.
Bodies were strewn across blood-soaked marble, while discarded sanguinagi weapons glinted like twisted rubies in the torchlight.
Eventually, more bodies burst through the open throne room doors, but blessedly, they were not enemies this time.
A contingency of the king’s guard poured into the room, bloodied, limping, and battle worn.
Their faces paled as they took in the scene before them, though they were quick to rush to their sovereign’s side, helping Barcroff ease the still wounded—but very much alive, thanks to Dentarius’ efforts—King Callum onto a bench along the wall.
Several took up defensive positions near the door, while others began clearing the room, checking for survivors amongst the corpses.
“The rest of the palace?” Sephone asked one of the guards.
“Cleared, my lady,” he said, chin dipping. “It is in shambles, but the remaining cultists appear to have fled.”
Tristan slunk over with a groan, still clutching his shoulder. “Why?” His blue-eyed gaze went to Audaxus, motionless on the ground, Ashrender still sticking out of his chest.
With a sigh, Cedric gently laid down Dentarius’ arm and moved to retrieve his weapon. “Is it because he is dead?” he asked with a sneer, plucking his sword from Audaxus’ body—and giving it a twist for good measure.
“Or because their plan was foiled?” Kit offered. “They hadn’t expected us to be fighting. Tried to eliminate us before we had a chance to join the fray.”
“That seems to be a common strategy of theirs, doesn’t it?” Elyria said, and Kit blinked at her, as though only just realizing both Elyria and Cedric were next to her.
“Stars a-fucking-bove, Ellie,” Kit cried, wrapping her arms around Elyria’s shoulders. “I’m so relieved you’re here.”
Elyria winced as Kit’s arm brushed her injured wing.
“Oh, hells, sorry, sorry,” said Kit, already weaving a ribbon of healing magic around the wing.
Elyria released a tired, breathy chuckle. “It’s fine, Kitty Kat. I am relieved we arrived in time too.”
“Quite the entrance you made,” said Nox.
Elyria grinned at the nocterrian and got to her feet. “Thank you for your message. Clever bit of magic. You’ll have to show me how you did that sometime.”
Nox nodded thoughtfully. “I believe there is still much we can learn from each other.”
“Yes, well, I—Oh, come on now.” Elyria interrupted herself mid-sentence as one of the newly arrived guards yelped in surprise, darting back from the corner where a cultist woman’s body had lain.
Well, they’d thought it was a body. The fact that the woman was now on her feet, blood dripping down her hand, made it clear that she was very much still alive. Fat droplets hit the floor with a splat, long curls of blood magic emerging from her fingers like scarlet whips.
“Really?” Elyria gestured to the room around her. “You think you can fight us all?”
The woman simply loosed a wild yell into the room, rearing back to attack.
Cedric sighed, tightening his grip on Ashrender’s hilt.
He needn’t have bothered.
Because this final cultist wasn’t the only wild thing in the room. And with a low hiss, Sid was suddenly tearing out of a crack in the air, launching herself at the woman.
The massive shadowcat’s paws landed squarely on the sanguinagi’s chest, and the woman stumbled back, back, back. Bloody ribbons whipped through the air until, with the sound of shattering glass and snarling shadows, the two of them fell through a stained-glass window together.
“Stars damn it all, Sid!” Elyria shouted, racing to the broken window. “Not again.”
“She really has to stop doing that,” Cedric muttered.
He joined Elyria at the window, the two of them peering out, expecting to see a similar scene to what they’d witnessed in Dawnspire—the broken body of the cultist hitting the ground, and Sid having disappeared back into the shadows.
That is not what they saw.
Instead, their gazes drifted up into the sky above them, where Sid had a mouthful of the cultist’s robes between her teeth, her paws wrapped around the woman’s waist as she thrashed and screamed in midair.
In midair, because from Sid’s back had sprouted two wide, shadowy wings. Dark smoke seeped from the tips like feathers as the shadowcat hovered—flew.
Not just a shadowcat.
“Volacarnii,” Elyria whispered in her mind.
“Of course,” Cedric said back, wonder and awe and just a little bit of panic spreading beneath the words. “Should’ve figured you couldn’t do anything halfway.”
“Let me go, you unnatural beast!” the cultist cried, scratching at Sid’s forelegs. “You should not exist, I’m going to—”
Sid peered at Cedric and Elyria, like she was waiting for permission.
Elyria shrugged.
And Sid let go.
The cultist’s scream rang in Cedric’s ears for a long time. Even after he turned away. Even after the unfortunate and inevitable whump came.
Gasps rose throughout the room when Sid came soaring back through the window, rolling through the opening with her wings tucked in tight, then flaring them wide.
The way Elyria described volacarnii had made Cedric think they were brutal, terrifying things. But Sid was simply . . .
“Magnificent.”
Sid preened as if she, too, could hear Cedric speak the words down the bond. And the pride in Elyria’s eyes as she watched her creation only made the beast seem more magnificent still.
And yet, Cedric couldn’t help himself when he added, “I thought you said they were as big as a horse.”
“I definitely said a smallish horse,” Elyria replied aloud. “And anyway, who am I to say if she’s fully grown? She went from the length of my forearm to the size of a lion in a couple of weeks. Solaris help us all if she keeps growing at this rate.”
“V-volacarnii,” whispered one of the council members, still cowering over by the king, who was watching the scene unfolding in his throne room with wide eyes.
Cedric crossed the room, giving Sid a pat on the head as he passed. She made a satisfied sort of purring sound, then padded over to the window and pressed her head against Elyria’s hip, her wings dissipating back into mist.
Like mother, like daughter, Cedric thought, grinning internally, and for a single, fleeting moment, the horror and insanity and loss of this night abated.
But then the guards parted for Cedric. He took a knee in front of the ashen-faced king. And it all came crashing back.
“Given what just happened, you will forgive me for not taking you at your word when you said the palace was cleared,” Sephone said snidely from somewhere behind Cedric. “I think I’ll go take a gander for myself. Make sure there aren’t any more blood mages lurking about.”
“I will go with you,” said Nox.
“Me too.” Tristan got to his feet with a wince. “Not sure I’ll be much help if the fighting starts again, but I need to go check on Tenny and the others.”
Cedric returned his attention to King Callum, slumped over on the bench, wedged between Barcroff and one of the council members. A puckered pink scar stretched across the king’s royal neck, and his doublet was soaked with red.
“Your Majesty,” said Cedric, head bowed.
“He didn’t have to do that,” rasped the king. His hand shook as he gestured for Cedric to stand, his eyes pinned to Dentarius’ resting body.
“No, he didn’t,” Cedric replied solemnly.
“Why did he? Why would he? He died for a kingdom that wasn’t even his.”
“We are all here to fight for Arcanis. If the atrocities committed here have taught us anything, it is that we have a common enemy. Havensreach and Nyrundelle are two sides of the same coin, battling a monster that seeks only to pit us against one another.”
King Callum shook his head slowly. “Perhaps I placed too much hope in your victory over the Crucible. In this precocious peace. I should have listened, should have known. What a fool I have been.”
Cedric looked back at Elyria, who watched the king’s rambling with a tilt of her head, Sid laying regally at her feet. “It is not foolish to hope.”
“It is if doing so means being ignorant of this insidious infiltration of my city—my own palace. Blessed Aurelia, how could I have been so blind? Members of my court, my own guard . . .” The king’s trembling fingers went to his throat. “I have been so naive. Leviathan was right.”
Barcroff jumped to his feet. “No, Your Majesty. You are—”
Whatever sycophantic sniveling the imperial steward was about to levy at the king was interrupted by a very loud, very intentional scoff.
Cedric turned to see Kit approaching, rage flashing in her mismatched eyes. The royal guards stiffened, but Cedric waved his hands in a pacifying gesture.
“Leviathan Church is anything but right,” Kit spat. “The Lord Paramount is the very reason for the lives lost tonight.”
A chill ran through Cedric, as though ice was suddenly spreading under his skin.
“What are you saying?” rasped the king. “This was Varyth Malchior’s doing. Lord Church—”
“—is Varyth Malchior,” hissed Kit.
The world tilted. Cedric’s blood froze in his veins.
The room was nothing but a rush of shocked gasps and frightened cries. Sid’s low growl cut through the barrage of questions and memories and riotous thoughts suddenly pummeling the inside of Cedric’s skull.
“He is the stars-damned sanguinagi mastermind behind tonight’s attack,” Kit continued. “Behind whatever happened in Dawnspire and the actions of the Cult of Malakar. Responsible for what happened to my brother in the Sanctum and—”
“This is preposterous,” said the king, his voice little more than a rough whisper. “I have known Leviathan Church for almost thirty years. He has been my most trusted advisor, my friend. I would know—”