Chapter Seventy-One
KAEL
Wrath tastes like metal and death.
It crawls beneath my skin, threading silver through shadow, whispering of every life I’ve ever taken and every one I’m about to.
I may know the value of life, but it won’t stop me from taking more—the line between savior and executioner is always a matter of who holds the blade.
The power moves like it has a will of its own—alive, sentient, hungry.
The shadows aren’t mine anymore. They move before I command them, folding and unfurling in places that taste like threat. The silver light within them hums, a low, steady sound that isn’t sound at all—more like a pulse through the marrow of the world.
When I strike, it’s not with muscle. It’s with inevitability.
My blade sings through air, and it splits apart like fabric. I can see the threads of it—light, sound, time—unraveling in my wake.
Death magic and shadows lash and maim, barbing through soldiers’ armor like it’s nothing but a layer of parchment.
I see the fear in their eyes through the slits of their helmets, and I feed on it.
The Caelorians surge forward.
They think they’re charging a man.
They don’t realize they’re charging the thing Death made in his own image.
Endbringer.
The words echo through my skull like the truth.
They come at us in waves—shields raised, eyes wild, the clang of steel against stone loud enough to wake the dead.
The shadows surge like a living thing, spilling from my hands and slicing through the Caelorians before their blades even rise. The air hisses. The silver light burns through armor, splitting men and memory alike.
Ronyn is a blaze beside me, his arrows catching what little light remains as they sing through the air, finding their mark, his laughter sharp and manic. “Is this all they’ve got?” he bellows, as another soldier falls.
Seren darts through the chaos, her crossbow finding the necks of leaders directing their men—strategic, precise.
Teddy’s axe comes down hard and fast, splitting bone and sinew without thought. He fights in an arc around me, his duty as my protector in full force as he clears the way through the lines.
Jax harnesses my magic, coils of breathless shadows flying from her hands in piercing spears. The next heartbeat, Lightborne magic erupts from her palms in a blaze of grief and pain.
She shows no mercy, no hesitation. She lets her violence tell the story, instead.
Elyssara’s light floods the hall behind us, Starlight turning the air molten. Her power threads through the room in tunnels of Starlight, cleansing Kryntar Castle of the nation who would take our home. Erase our lineage. Burn our history. End our story.
But I am not a story to forget.
I am the consequence.
We fight as one.
We move as if we were made for this moment—every strike measured, every breath shared.
The castle trembles underfoot.
Tapestries burn.
Onyx cracks.
The walls themselves seem to lean away from us as if they know the tide has turned.
For the first time in what feels like lifetimes, I can taste victory.
It’s bitter and bloody and glorious.
It’s real.
We drive them back up the obsidian steps, through the great hall, across the castle, and through the main doors, where the torches flicker and die.
The sky greets us as we burst into the night, Stars watching us through the rip like they’re not the ones pulling the strings.
I suck in a deep breath as my blade rips through flesh. The sky is our audience, silver dust spilling through the dark.
I was born of its dust—no wonder destruction feels like home.
They fall one by one.
Hundreds falling under the power of our weapons and gifts from the sky.
When the final Caelorian drops to his knees, his helm hits the stone with a hollow sound—like punctuation to the sentence we’ve written in blood.
The air hangs heavy and trembling.
Elyssara exhales, her Starlight dimming around us.
Ronyn leans on his bow, grinning. “We actually did it. I honestly thought we’d die.”
Seren smiles—a real one, small and bright, a sliver of sunrise in the ruin.
For one blessed heartbeat, I let myself believe it’s over. The halls are empty. The surrounding city sleeps.
But something isn’t right.
I snap my gaze to Therion, but he’s already stalking forward, down the main steps and into the castle grounds.
I follow, possessing the darkness like I’m made of it.
“The insects don’t trill,” he whispers, muscles coiled tight and jaw set.
“Light the torches!” I urge in a low, hushed growl.
Jax sparks them to life, racing towards us with the torches raised high.
And that’s when I see it.
The castle gates, blown open in the wreckage by cannons, reveal a horizon that sears into my mind.
An army.
Not dozens.
Not hundreds.
Thousands.
The soldiers in the chamber were nothing more than decoys—sacrifices to draw us out.
I should’ve fucking known when the cannons stopped that there was another plan—they were waiting.
We’re not wolves circling the campfire, we’re lambs to the slaughter.
A tide of Caelorian steel marches on us, torches blaze to life like they’ve been waiting for us to breathe after their distraction. Their banners ripple white and blue against a Starlit sky, but it doesn’t feel like an announcement—it feels like a warning.
“They’re coming from all directions,” Teddy murmurs, raising his axe like he’ll personally take on every one of them. “I can hear it in the way the wind whispers past their armor.”
Fuck.
“El and I can take them,” I growl between clenched teeth.
Teddy grunts in reply. He knows we can’t do that. He knows we’ll burn out in a matter of heartbeats if we try to take on thousands.
The castle’s shadow stretches over us—and still, there’s not enough of it to cover the truth:
We’re outnumbered.
We’re outmatched.
We’re about to be devoured.
Ronyn curses under his breath, and that’s when I know we’re fucked.
Seren’s eyes blow wide in horror.
Jax channels Lightborne magic and it plays on her fingertips—ready.
Elyssara’s jaw sets, the tether thrumming with unspoken defiance.
And me?
I raise a blade in one hand and lash my Death shadows with the other.
I’m the Endbringer.