Chapter Sixty-Six
KAEL
“You?”
My heartbeat riots in my chest.
Elyssara’s confusion scrambles down the tether.
“Yes. Me, boy,” the old woman says, the knotted curtain of her gray hair giving her the look of someone who’s been plotting too long and sleeping too little.
Every memory collides with the truth.
Every interaction with Mavyrn is a tangled web of conflicting truths.
Because I don’t fucking understand.
“You played us,” I grit out.
But her face goes smug. “I played everyone,” she counters matter-of-factly, waving a dismissive hand.
I angle the tip of my blade at her throat. “Speak,” I demand in a growl that rumbles through my chest.
“I’m Maldrak’s Arcanist,” she says flippantly, as if that should tell me everything.
But Elyssara’s hands flare in a glow that almost blinds the room, her temper flaring with Mavyrn’s non-committal answers.
“You opened the Gateway to take me to Kryntar,” she snarls through clenched teeth.
But Mavyrn doesn’t falter at the accusation. “Yes. And I’d do it again!”
The words echo through the room like a truth that needs repeating.
But my mind rips through every memory, every scrap of history I thought I understood, trying to make sense of it all.
Because that’s when the truth hits—
“You did the binding spell,” I breathe, mind racing as I trip over my words. “You knew. You fucking knew he was going to kill my father! And you helped! You started it all!”
My breaths come ragged and furious.
Elyssara’s blade now points at Mavyrn’s heart, her eyes narrowed into pained slits.
“Exactly!” Mavyrn explodes. “I started it all. The prophecy wouldn’t be in play at all if it wasn’t for me.
I knew. I knew all these years that you were the Sky.
And I knew you’d find your Light. And I knew from the minute you were born under the Obsidian Serpent sky, that you’d be the one to break and remake her into the one that could save these godsforsaken realms! ”
My mind quiets into a silent storm—a clash of opposing truths whirring incessantly.
“So you executed my father for it? Gave up my Starbound? You do not get to play the role of the gods with our lives!” I bark the words with a viciousness that rattles my bones.
“Someone had to,” she snarls. “The gods are gone, Kael. They left us a prophecy and a broken world. So I stepped into the vacancy.”
I grip my blade tighter, turning my knuckles white. “To what fucking end, Mavyrn?”
“To the very end of the realms, Kael. Because I believe in the prophecy. I believe it is Elyssara who can reunite them. I believe it is you who will help her do it—you must tread as one, boy. And I believe, with the very bones of my body, that love and war play by the same blood-soaked rules. Your father was a good man, but his obsession with peace stopped him from being a powerful king,” Mavyrn snarls back.
“My father was the greatest king Zerynthia has ever seen!” The words rip from my throat.
Mavyrn just clicks her tongue in disapproval. “You have his big heart, Kael. But you have your mother’s head—a strategist. And you won’t like me saying it, but you have your uncle’s ruthless cunning and violence. You’ll need all three to bring the world to heel.”
Disgust roils in my gut. Her words land like a blade sliding home—quiet, inevitable, and cold.
“How?” Elyssara cuts through the silence, tracks of tears carve clean rivers through the dirt on her face.
Mavyrn shifts her eyes to Elyssara, as if she finally asked the right question.
“I’m half-witch,” she says, voice flat. “The Codex wants the old blood, not purity. So I stole it. I performed Maldrak’s binding and vanished.
When you showed up half-dead on my doorstep, I felt the witch-blood in Seren, the fire in you,” she stabs a bony finger at Elyssara.
“I knew it was time. I returned each moon to tend Maldrak’s hunger, to keep his trust intact—and the rest of the time I pulled strings.
Lesara? She follows crumbs. She’s been my puppet from the start. ”
She fucking played me. She’s known everything.
The contents of my stomach threaten to spill.
Elyssara says nothing, but she doesn’t lower her blade.
“You had her tortured,” I repeat, voice cold and lethal.
“Yes! I knew it would happen and I did it anyway. Who do you think got Rhyven to turn?” she snarls, and my veins turn to ice. She turned Rhyven on us.
“Oh, don’t look so surprised, you foolish child! I’d do it again. I’d make every hard call your parents were too scared to make, because look where that got us. War requires sacrifice!”
I still, muscles coiled so tight I can’t move.
Because I fucking hate her.
Gods, she’s horrifying… but she’s not wrong.
My father played a safe game of politics and our people continued to suffer. The Decay stayed standing, the realms remained fractured.
And still, betrayal does not go unpunished.
I lift my gaze, branding her with my stare.
“You will not see another dawn,” I vow.
For the first time, I see her falter. She swallows thickly, scared, but almost as if she’s accepted it, too.
“I know,” she confirms, lifting her chin in defiance. “You were always a smart child, Kael. I knew you’d figure it all out. And I knew that once you did, I’d have but heartbeats remaining.”
Elyssara steps forward, almost pleading. “We need her to undo the spell! We can’t.”
For all my fury, I know she’s right. Without Mavyrn, the spell stays whole. The realms stay broken.
But through my riotous thoughts, Mavyrn speaks.
“No. You have Seren. She can perform the spell. She’s of the old blood—a full-blooded witch.”
Again, I’m left wondering where her allegiances lie, because her words are the blade that will cut her own throat.
“She doesn’t know how—she’s only learned the Gateway,” Elyssara snaps, impatience and confusion bubbling out in a wave of frustration.
“She knows,” Mavyrn breathes. “I showed her in Nymeris before you all arrived. She’s brilliant.”
Elyssara’s face twists in confusion again. “Who the fuck are you helping, Mavyrn? Whose side are you on?”
Mavyrn’s mouth cracks open with a knowing smile. “Such narrow thinking,” she scoffs. “I don’t pick sides, girl. Sides die. I choose whatever future still has breath in it.”
“Even if the cost is your life?” Elyssara asks, incredulous.
“Especially then. The cost is irrelevant if the gain is greater,” the old woman speaks with something like wisdom.
But I promised my friends no mercy.
And Mavyrn fucking betrayed me. Betrayed us all.
I step forward, closing the distance between us, the point of my blade still angled at her throat.
“One more thing,” she croaks, a rasp like bone on steel. “If you can get to Lara, the war is won.”
Lara? Who in the fucking Stars is Lara?
“Who? Where?” Elyssara presses.
Mavyrn’s eyes narrow into knowing slits. “You children think the realms end at the sea? The Perils will prove you wrong,” she whispers.
“How do we get there? Mavyrn?” Elyssara pleads, desperate.
But Mavyrn sucks in a long inhale, closing her eyes in finality, and leans into the point of my blade until a slow trickle of crimson pools and spills down her neck.
I look at her.
Truly look at her face.
She isn’t a woman in this moment. She’s an ideology wearing skin.
But her fate has been sealed.
She was right about some of it, and that thought feels like rot.
“Haven’t you ever wondered how the Lightborne barrier holds?” Mavyrn asks, a knowing glint in her eyes.
But it’s too late.
I thrust the blade through her neck, and a wet, gurgle ripples up her throat.
I know she expects this. She’s engineered even her own death like the last step in a ritual she planned decades ago.
Her eyes spring open in response, gaze pinned on me, as if she’s not done yet.
“Lara,” she gurgles. “Get to Lara.”
Her body goes slack, muscles unwinding from the grip that kept her here.
I withdraw my blade, wiping the blood on her robes as I unfold her to the ground. The light leaves her eyes, and the Final Gate takes her.
But one word echoes in my mind: Lara. Lara. Lara.
The name carries weight—heavy, ancient, wrong.
Not because I know it.
Because I don’t.
A name erased is more dangerous than a name remembered.
Even in death, she pulls strings and dances on the edge of allegiance.