Chapter 34 #2
I swept the battlefield, desperate, searching.
Where are they? Where—
Maxx. Near the cliffs. A rush of black cloak and flashing steel, daggers dancing, glamours flickering around him like heat shimmer. He fought three soldiers at once, movements acute and brutal, face stripped of every smirk I'd ever seen. He was drowning. Couldn't see me. Couldn't help.
Serenya. Huddled behind a glyph-ward near the altar, clutching her scry-notes to her breast, lips moving in a prayer. Her eyes were too wide. Her hands were shaking.
Dreadscale. A statue of controlled violence, carving through a knot of elite guards surrounding the King. His dragon tattoo smoldered through his skin, his blade an extension of his arm, his focus absolute. He couldn't break away. He was the only thing keeping the altar from flooding with soldiers.
None of them could reach me.
Then a flash of silver at the edge of the chaos.
My eyes caught it before my brain could process—a figure cutting through the maelstrom, Crownforged armor.
Eryndor.
But not the Eryndor I knew. Not the controlled weapon who'd pressed a brand into my chest without flinching.
This male was breaking.
He moved in staggering lurches, each step costing him something I could see. His jaw was clenched so tight the tendons stood out in his neck. Something blazed red-hot against his chestbone, smoking, and beneath it—
Black veins. Crawling up from under his armor, spreading across his throat like cracks in shattered glass. The King's leash, burning him alive from the inside.
His eyes met mine through the mayhem. Something flickered there—not the cold assessment I'd seen before. Something rawer. Horror.
He saw me. He saw the ropes. The conduits. My power ripping out of me and feeding the Codex instead of the Veil.
He knows.
The sky cracked open above us. The King's voice boomed in fury, massive and terrible, his voice shaking the ground.
"Thread-Warden!" The word was a whip. "Your time is up, boy. Deliver her or die by your Oath-stone."
Oath-stone.
The unnatural light I'd seen pulsing on his Mark. The black veins. The way he moved like every step cost him something.
The King's second leash. That's how the King had kept him bound.
The King shook with barely controlled rage, eyes blazing, searing into Eryndor.
Eryndor stumbled. Fell to his knees.
He started crawling.
Toward me.
He might be fighting the command, but the command was winning.
His focus dropped to something on the ground—
My daggers. Lying where Brannick had dropped them.
He is going to kill me himself. Of course he is. That’s what heroes do—they slay the monster before it burns the kingdom down.
Fine. Fine. At least it would stop. At least my power would stop tearing everything apart.
Eryndor's fingers closed around the hilt of one of my daggers.
He didn't look at me.
He raised the blade—
And drove it straight into his own chest.
The world stopped.
My heart hammered a single, frantic beat.
Time fractured into a thousand ringing edges. I stared at the hilt buried in his sternum, and the rest of the world dissolved. The screams. The magic. The war.
All of it fell away until there was only the drum beat of my heart.
Boom.
My vision grayed at the edges.
Boom.
Darkness.
Boom.
Light.
Light exploded from his chest.
He hadn't aimed for his heart. He’d aimed for his leash.
He’d driven the blade straight through the Oath-stone.
Onyx shards burst outward, glowing like embers, then guttering to ash before they hit the ground.
His body seized, convulsed, went rigid.
For one horrible heartbeat, I thought he was dead.
Then he gasped. A ragged, tearing sound that cost him everything he had left.
His eyes found mine. Open in a way I'd never seen—defiance, raw and bleeding, with nothing standing between it and me.
He ripped the dagger free.
And lunged for my ropes.
The blade sawed through the first braid—rough, desperate strokes that sprayed frayed fibers into the air. His hands were shaking. Blood from his chest wound dripped onto my wrists, hot and slick.
Free.
I was free.
And all I could see was his face.
The brand on my chest. The empty eyes in the dungeon. Serenya screaming as they dragged her past my cell. The way he'd stood there, silent, while they broke me.
I launched myself at him.
No daggers. No plan. Just fists and nails and teeth—a wild, snarling thing that wanted to tear him apart with my bare hands. My elbow smashed into his nose. Before he could recover, I drove my knee into his ribs. He didn't fight back.
He grabbed my wrists. Pulled me against him. Held me there—not hurting, just containing—while I thrashed and screamed and tried to destroy him.
"Amaria—" His voice was wrecked. "Stop. Stop."
"You branded me!" The words ripped out of me, raw and bloody. "You delivered me to him like a prize! You took Serenya." I growled.
"I know."
His arms tightened, cradling me. Like he could absorb every blow I needed to land.
"I know," he said again, quieter. "And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
I bucked against him. He didn't let go. He grabbed my face and forced me to look him in the eye.
"There was no other way, Amaria.”
I tried to wrench away from him but he hardened his grip.
“The King told me he intended to claim your power for the Crown. And the moment I saw Kaelen pushing you at the Flame Gate, I knew the truth.”
I slowly lifted my eyes to his. Blood from his chest wound painted my collarbone—hot, steady, a clock counting down.
“He wasn't fighting for your freedom. He was just fighting for the right to hold the leash. ”My eyes fluttered shut as shame and rage flooded through me.
His thumb traced my cheek—trembling. “And I knew you’d never believe me.
Never trust me. So, I had to act." He held my gaze and would not look away.
My Fury stuttered.
He knew.
He'd known what Kaelen was planning. Known I wouldn't listen. Known I'd have to watch it burn before I'd believe it.
And he'd let me hate him anyway. The bastard had let me hate him.
"I was trying to protect you. I thought the King's dungeon was the only wall strong enough to keep Kaelen out. I wasn't leaving you there—I was buying time. I was waiting for the moment I could break you out without getting you killed."
A muscle in his jaw twitched, then spasmed. He gripped the back of my neck and pulled me to him, our foreheads pressed together.
"Serenya was not supposed to be there." He whispered through clenched teeth. "She was not part of the plan."
He lifted his head, and murderous fury flickered behind his eyes.
"I'm sorry." His voice was barely controlled. "She should never have been touched."
I went still against him. My hands, which had been clawing at him, flattened against his back. I could feel his heartbeat—too fast, arrhythmic, the cost of shattering the Oath-stone still echoing through his body.
He was dying. And he had used the last of his strength to free me.
"I don't fear the end of the world, Amaria." He murmured. "I fear the end of you. If this place has to break for you to survive, then let it break."
I wanted to hit him again. Wanted to shove those words back into his bleeding chest where they belonged. Not now. He didn't get to say that now.
"Then prove it," I whispered. I lifted my gaze to his. "Help me end this."
His throat worked. He reached out, his thumb brushing a streak of blood from my cheekbone—claiming the violence on my skin as his own. His expression darkened, focusing entirely on me. Ignoring the war. Ignoring his own bleeding wound.
"Done," he rasped. He turned his head toward the mayhem, his body shielding mine completely. "Stay close. I carve the path. You walk it."
Eryndor's hand gripped mine. A silent promise. Then we moved.
The vanguard flooded around us, but I had eyes only for Kaelen.
He stood at the altar, contorted with fury, his inner circle closing ranks around him. Grey cloaks. Drawn blades. Fanatics who'd die for his vision of a burned-clean world.
Good, I thought. Let them try.
Eryndor struck first.
He moved like something unshackled—fluid, brutal, every motion costing him but none of it slowing him down. His longsword snared a loyalist's blade, scraped it aside, opened the male’s throat in one continuous arc.
I was a step behind him.
My daggers were back in my hands. Stars on my forearm. I strapped the rest on as we moved—elbows, knees, wrists, ankles, shoulders—fingers finding buckles and cinching them tight between strides, every blade slotting back into place. Cold hilts. Familiar weight. Every edge back where it belonged.
The Fury found a shape it recognized. A loyalist lunged. I slipped under his guard, drove my dagger into his gut, tore it loose before he hit the ground.
Another. And another.
We cut toward Kaelen.
Another loyalist with a pike came low. Eryndor caught the shaft, snapped it one-handed, drove the broken end back through his guard and into his hip.
I was already past—sliding under the next blade, my knee catching his thigh on the way through and the strapped blade opening him up before my dagger finished the job in the soft gap between cuirass and belt.
The body folded. I planted my boot on his shoulder and yanked the blade free.
Three more between us and the altar. Then two. Then one—a female with a short sword and dead-certain eyes who swung for my throat. Eryndor's longsword took her arm at the elbow before the stroke could land.
And then—there he was.
Kaelen. His loyalists were thinning but he was still standing. Still fighting.
Eryndor appeared at my side, blood on his blade, his breath ragged but his eyes clear.
We moved together. Toward the altar. Toward Kaelen.
We didn't make it.
Dreadscale cut through the madness like a frigid wind through mist. He stopped in front of Kaelen.
His hand shot out—gripping Kaelen's face, forcing his head up, forcing their eyes to meet.
His Mirrorheart Mark flared beneath his collar—a burst of white-hot light that bled through the fabric. Dreadscale’s power surged between them, twisting Kaelen’s perception inward and forcing him to stare directly into the abyss of his own fanaticism.
"Look at what you've become. See if your sanity can withstand it."
His voice was gravel and iron. But it wasn't just words.
It was a command.
Kaelen's eyes went wide—then wider. His pupils dilated until there was almost no color left. His body began convulsing. He was seeing something. Experiencing something. Something Dreadscale was making him see.
Himself.
His face morphed grotesquely. The expression of someone watching the ground open beneath his feet and realizing there was never any ground at all. That he'd been falling the whole time and calling it flying.
A sound escaped him—thin, high, animal. His hands flew to his own face, clawing at his eyes like he could tear out whatever he was seeing. His body jerked, spine arching, muscles seizing in violent spasms.
He was trying to scream. His mouth was open, throat working, but nothing came out. Just that horrible silence where a sound should be.
Dreadscale didn't blink. Didn't waver. Just held him pinned in that invisible mirror.
Three heartbeats. Four. Five.
Kaelen's legs buckled. He hit the ground hard, body curled inward like he was trying to fold himself out of existence.
When he finally lowered his hands, his eyes were open. Empty. The eyes of someone who'd seen the shape of their own soul and didn’t survive the view.