Chapter Sixty-One
ELYSSARA
And the world erupts in light.
Light bursts from my skin, raw and untamed, searing across the square like wildfire made of Stars.
The ground quakes beneath my feet as power courses through me, wild and perfect and terrible.
It’s not a honed thing—it’s chaotic. I can’t see anything, but I hear the scamper of boots retreating back into hiding.
But not for long.
The light dims enough for shapes to form.
And they’re everywhere.
They drop from the treetops like shadows come to life, armored in silver and stormlight.
Others step out from behind the forges, from the shattered windows of the infirmary, from jungle paths slick with rain and earth. Their movements are precise, practiced—too synchronized to be anything but elite.
At least three dozen of them.
An emblem is carved into their chest plates—twin blades crossed into an X.
And I know this isn’t Dravara. Or The Wastes. Or Nymeris.
No. This is Caeloria’s finest.
The hiss of their blades cuts through the air, their boots striking the earth in unison. No shouts. No orders. Just a silent, disciplined advance.
Even the jungle seems to recoil.
But not me.
And not my Starbound.
“You’ve made a big fucking mistake coming to my home,” Kael snarls in a timbre so low it’s almost deadly.
One man steps forward from their ranks. His armor is darker, inlaid with thin lines of blue that hum faintly beneath the rain. A scar splits his lip, though it does little to disturb his handsome face. His expression is carved from disdain and certainty.
Kael goes still beside me. “Prince Vaelor,” he says, voice a low growl.
The man—Prince Vaelor—inclines his head with a mock bow. “Your Majesty,” he drawls, the title soaked in venom and mockery. “My mother sends her regards. She would’ve come herself, but she didn’t think your home was worth the voyage.”
Kael doesn’t take the bait. “You’re far from your mother’s seas. Are you sure you’ll be all right out from under her skirts?”
The muscles in Vaelor’s jaw feather almost imperceptibly, but I notice. “You’re not happy to see me? Shame. We always got along so well as boys,” Prince Vaelor bites.
But Kael stays on target. “The ships shouldn’t have reached Thornewood for another day,” Kael says, his tone measured and cool.
Vaelor smiles, and it’s all teeth. “Ah. That’s the beauty of progress, Kael.
Zerynthia has spent centuries clutching relics, spells and the old ways, and we’ve been building machines.
” He gestures to the sigils along his armor, the faint glow threading through his veins.
“A few of our ships move on tides of Aether now—faster than wind, faster than magic. By the time your Nymerian friends whispered of our approach, we were already at your gates.”
Tides of Aether?
“This will not end well for you,” Kael replies simply, stepping forward, sword gleaming with rain. But I can see the way the muscles in his jaw flick. The way his knuckles go white with the intensity of his grip. The way the tether snaps taut with barely leashed restraint.
“The visit to Thornewood is just for fun, Kael, no matter how it ends. The rest of the units will be in Kryntar before the night’s out, and we’ll take it with ease.
Caeloria will rule Aevryn and all its riches before dawn breaks,” Prince Vaelor taunts with a menacing grin.
As if this is a quarrel between children.
As if we’re not talking about the legacy of a kingdom.
The lives of innocents. The fates of the entire fucking known realms.
But something more sinister rises from the depths of my gut.
If they kill Maldrak before unbinding the spell, they kill all the Marked soldiers, too. And Nalya. Kael. Me.
Fuck.
“Take your unit and leave my lands,” Kael commands, his voice holding the weight of all the kings who’ve come before him. “You will not survive. None of you.”
“You are a fine swordsman, Kael, I’ll give you that,” Vaelor admits with a humorless laugh.
“But I’ve never known you to show mercy.
This is fear speaking. Not to mention you’ve got three bitches and fucking Therion, and whoever this idiot is,” he stabs his finger toward Ronyn positioned high in the tree with his arrow nocked, “against my elite legion of Caelorian-trained warriors.”
Behind him, the Caelorian ranks draw their weapons in perfect unison. The sound is a single, metallic chord.
Kael exhales through his nose, steady and lethal. “You should’ve brought more men.”
Vaelor smirks, laughing in an arrogant huff. “I’m intrigued to know how you plan to take on an elite unit of trained killers with these… slum rats, Kael.”
But Kael is lost to bloodlust. He’s lost to the calm that descends right before he kills. He goes preternaturally still—like an animal on the hunt. He sheathes his blade, as if the weapon is unnecessary. Because he is the weapon.
Then, he moves—
He stalks towards Vaelor, each step a warning.
“I will flay the skin from your bones and stretch it into the banner we hang from the square,” he says, voice low enough to curdle the air.
“I’ll pluck the eyes from your skull and let the crows feed on your arrogance.
I’ll take your tongue and return it to your whore of a mother with my wax seal on the box.
When your men see what’s left of you, they’ll forget the word loyalty. ”
He stops inches away from Vaelor, voice nothing but a promise of death. “You think skill wins wars? You’ve never met wrath.”
The words land heavy as a death knell.
Vaelor tries to hold his ground, but no one misses the way he retreats. Just an inch.
“Fighting for riches will never win over men who fight for a reason. You should remember that better than anyone,” Kael taunts, tapping his lip in the same place Vaelor’s lip is scarred. Hinting at past rivalries, it seems.
“But you are right about one thing,” Kael admits.
“What’s that?”
I can see the slight twitch of Vaelor’s hand, itching for his own blade. He’s unnerved.
“I show no mercy.”
Vaelor tries to stay calm, nonchalant. “Is that right?”
“Look closer,” Kael snarls, gesturing towards my hands that still gleam gold. “You won’t live long enough to tell the story of how this ends.”
And then the prince’s nerve shatters, raising his blade. “Kill them.”
The Caelorian lines surge forward.
Their armor catches the light of my magic—mirrored steel etched with veins of living silver. The reflections of my own gold burn across them, refracted and wrong, like the light itself refuses to touch them cleanly.
One kneels, touching the wet earth, and I watch the silver pulse beneath his skin as if alive.
Augmented.
Altered.
Not human, not fully.
And then they move.
Kael’s roar cuts through the blaze, all muscle and blade and mortal fury.
No shadows, no god-gifted magic—only him.
Flesh, grit, and a single zarethite sword slicing through the night.
He fights like the battle owes him blood.
His sword an extension of him. His movements calculated, lethal. His focus, unyielding and impenetrable.
He is beautiful. A storm made flesh.
My mother doesn’t leave my side. Standing ahead of me like a sacred guardian, winding her whipstone once, twice—then she looses it. The air screams as the weighted end finds its mark, cracking through helm and skull alike.
Teddy moves with his usual lethal precision—Aetherstride blurring his form, his axe splitting through armor before a single drop of rain can fall.
Seren’s crossbow snaps; each bolt a whisper of death, each duck and weave a pre-meditated plan.
Ronyn aims true, god metal arrows gleaming faintly in the dark, the hiss of their flight almost holy.
And Jax—gods, Jax. Her grief burns white-hot. I can feel her seeking my magic, channeling it into her own veins, and my light surges through her hands like lightning caught in flesh. Her scream splits the air as she wields her chakram, wreathed in my gold.
Her fury is wild. Her grief unhinged.
I know she’s fucking hurting. And I know she blames herself for it all.
The scent of crackling fire fills the air, mixing with blood.
We move as one—blade and light, shadowless and furious.
Kael slams his sword through one soldier’s chest, the effort brutal, sweat slicking his brow.
A Caelorian lunges toward him—too fast to be natural.
I don’t think.
The light moves before I do, exploding outward from my palm, tearing through the air in a golden wave.
It hits the soldier mid-stride and burns him to fine, glimmering particles that turn to ash.
The world stills for a heartbeat.
The others look at me, their faces lit in gold and horror.
This is what it feels like to be unbound; my magic responds with such ease.
No more cage. No more restraint. Just unbridled access to the power that’s lived in my veins all this time.
The light hums, alive, listening.
It waits for command.
Light detonates from my hands, the blast cracking through the night like thunder. The nearest Caelorian disintegrates—armor melting, bones atomizing into golden ash that rains over the square.
Kael doesn’t flinch. He’s already moving, carving through the line like judgment itself. Every strike is deliberate—an anatomy lesson in violence. He drives his zarethite blade through one man’s throat, rips it free, pivots, and opens another from hip to sternum in a single, fluid motion.
Teddy barrels past him, a blur of speed and precision, his axe cleaving a man in two so cleanly the body doesn’t fall until he’s already gone. Each swing leaves a shockwave in its wake—one that reverberates through the square like the heartbeat of war.
Seren crouches low on a fallen beam, loosing bolts faster than breath. Every trigger-pull is perfectly planned, every shot an orchestrated move to disrupt their ranks, working in time with Ronyn’s arrows that fly from the tree above for maximum carnage.
Ronyn balances on a forked branch, god metal arrows gleaming faintly in his quiver. His eyes are steady, movements calm amid the chaos. He doesn’t just shoot—he commands. One arrow through a helm. One in a kneecap. Another to spear swords from hands. The battlefield bends to his aim.
But Jax burns brightest of all. My light still coils through her like divine possession, gold veins spidering across her arms. She spins her chakram, and each sweep of the weapon slices through flesh and metal alike. Her grief has become a language the enemy can hear.
My mother defends like she’s proving a point—that she loves me. That she’ll fight to keep me safe. But I push past her, ripping my Starforged Blade through flesh.
Because I’ve fought for myself. Defended myself. Found safety in my pain.
We move as one—a unit of warriors who’ve memorized each other—our hurt, our joy, our technique. Everything.
And through it all, Kael.
Bleeding. Beautiful. Ruthless.
His eyes trained on Vaelor like his death is an overdue task.
He sheathes his blade again, refusing to let a weapon take his glory, stalking toward Caeloria’s prince with the promise of violence.
Vaelor breaks rank, fury twisting his face. “No shadows today, Prince Ka—”
He never finishes the taunt.
Kael’s hand snaps up, shoving Vaelor’s forearm mid-swing, the clatter of his sword screeching across the gritty earth. Kael drives his knee into Vaelor’s chest, knocking the breath—and the arrogance—clean out of him.
“That’s for Eldric,” Kael snarls, but I know he’s not done.
Kael’s hand grips Vaelor’s throat. Strong, unrelenting, but not fatal. No. His grip is psychological.
Vaelor thrashes, clawing at Kael’s forearm. “You never knew when to shut the fuck up, Vaelor.”
Then his thumb finds the hollow beneath Vaelor’s jaw, driving up hard until bone splinters and his scream cuts off in a wet choke. The rain swallows the sound.
No fanfare.
No show.
No weapon.
No mercy.
Only him.
“That’s for Daelen and Merrik,” he whispers with finality.
And I know, deep in the marrow of my bones, that Vaelor’s death will come with retribution. Queen Maireth will respond. But right now, I don’t have time to dwell on it. And I don’t care.
But before I can register movement—
Kael takes a blade through the ribs. A wet, squelch rips through the air as Kael clutches his side where the soldier’s blade threaded through the slit in his armor.
“Kael!” I scream, my legs lurching into a sprint.
Kael twists the soldier’s arm until the bone snaps, a low, pained grunt the only sound he makes despite the injury.
But I am beyond restraint now.
The light in me surges, answering something deeper than command.
Something like protection.
Purpose.
I open my palm.
And the world ignites.
A corona of gold sweeps across the square, devouring everything in its path—fury and Starlight braided together. The blast lifts the Caelorian line off their feet and burns through their augmented veins like divine retribution.
The golden motes of their remains float across Thornewood like a spattering of Stars, a beautiful contrast to their ugly invasion.
When it’s over, the rain hisses against the smoldering ground.
Silence.
Ash.
The air hums like a struck chord.
Then—
The faint, rhythmic clang of metal.
A shiver of current through the air.
A pulse I know better than my own heartbeat.
Shadows.
“Morrathys,” Teddy breathes.
And we run.