7. Chapter 7
Court representatives filled the chamber, many looking as though they had been pulled rather abruptly from their beds.
Vaelin caught Evric’s eye as he, Aurelia, and Sereth entered, dishevelled as the rest. He shrugged.
Sereth released Vaelin’s arm just before they moved through the doorway, smoothly taking her seat at the council table.
The King’s gaze flicked to Sereth as her wet cough rang through the room. “Let’s make this quick, soldier. It would seem that my High General — and my wife — are feeling unwell.”
Vaelin felt Aurelia stiffen beside him as her eyes snapped to the Queen. The dark beauty sat next to her husband, a light sheen of sweat shining on her brow as she muffled her own cough in the billowing sleeve of her gown.
Vaelin watched as Sereth scanned the room. “Shall we wait for Terrin?” she asked.
The King frowned darkly, his eyes sliding to Aurelia, who paled. “He will not be joining us this evening,” he clipped. Sereth’s eyebrows rose a fraction, but she turned, motioning to the soldier across the chamber.
General Maeylar, a celebrated Windborne soldier, was coated in mud, sweat, and dried blood, more haggard than Vaelin had even seen him.
Vaelin’s hands twitched as though a threat had entered the room.
Maeylar had led battles for well over a century, honing the fae into weapons of steel and magic.
One of the most powerful living windwielders, he was both a force and a stone in the chaos.
Now, his hands shook, exhaustion pulling at the lines etched in his face.
He nodded, clasping his hands firmly behind his back and standing at attention. “Our camp along the northwestern border was attacked a fortnight ago and overtaken.”
It was as though the air had been swept from the room. The fae stilled as a deafening silence stretched. Vaelin’s heart beat loud in his ears as his eyes flicked around the room, cataloguing reactions.
“What do you mean, ‘overtaken’?” The King asked. His silver eyes flashed dangerously as he closed his fist around the glow of starfire magic that bloomed in his palm. Behind him, the fire in the hearth roared, logs snapping with a violent crack.
To Maeylar’s credit, he did not flinch under the King’s stare, nor his swell of power. “We were overrun, sire. Much of our force was… eliminated. Those of us who escaped are still recovering.”
Aurelia’s hand clutched at her throat as Vaelin blinked rapidly, trying to process the unfathomable statement. He glanced at Evric across the chamber, who looked as stunned as Vaelin felt. Maeylar led a force of over a thousand soldiers, all hardened warriors.
“How?” Sereth snapped tightly from her place across the table. She attempted to clear her throat, but it quickly devolved into a punishing cough. She waved him on with annoyance when he paused.
“An unknown force attacked as night fell. We were forced to abandon the camps, our weapons, the hawks —” he cut off, swallowing, “we had no way of sending word.”
“Chased out of our own camps by Askeldrathian savages?” Thane sneered, “Have you gone soft in your advanced age?” His knuckles whitened around clenched fists, embers flashing in his eyes. Cindrath, home to his own Court, lay within close reach of the northwestern war camps.
Sereth shot a glare at the firewielder, but Maeylar shook his head.
“Not men. Not Shifters. This was something else – something… we couldn’t touch. It was… everywhere.”
“Speak plainly, soldier,” Sereth snapped again, beads of sweat now rolling off her brow. She swiped at them irritably.
Maeylar’s eyes slipped out of focus, as though he were reliving the attack. “Shadows at dusk… from the north. They swept through the camp and attacked, cloaking the mountains in darkness — all we could hear were screams. Our weapons were useless. Passed through them like smoke.”
Another crash of silence rang through the room as eyes widened and pulses raced.
“That sounds like shadowwielder magic,” Thane snarled, eyes sparking with accusation.
“We do not have shadowwielders deployed in the camps,” Lunaris responded quietly, darkness lacing his words like a threat. But Vaelin’s stomach lurched as he noted that even the unflappable spymaster appeared shaken.
“A new Askeldrath weapon?” Naerina asked as she, too, grappled for an explanation.
Vaelin’s eyes snapped back to Maeylar as he continued, words coming faster now as the memory swept over him, “The shadows became men, but not. They took form, but changed shape, like liquid smoke, bending around our steel. One moment they were the height and shape of a man, the next on all fours, but larger than a Shifter by far. An impenetrable darkness followed them, blanketing the camp. The windwielders tried to dispel it but it was too heavy, too thick. Blind, we tried to fight them but our magic became corrupted. The air was pulled from my windwielders’ lungs.
The earthwielders attempted to heal them, but they began to choke and vomit, like they’d been suddenly poisoned by the very land they drew life from… ”
He looked up at Thane, then swung his eyes to the High General, marking her flushed, red skin and sweat-drenched brow. His voice shaky, he murmured, “The fireborne legion lost control of their embers… overheating from within, until…”
Silence lay heavy in the air.
The General cocked her head slightly. “Until?”
“They erupted,” he whispered, “Burned alive from within. There was nothing I could do…” he shook his head silently, dropping his gaze to his boots, still caked in the blood of his soldiers.
“Those of us who could escape… we fled.” Shame coated his words, but it battled with the clear terror that laced his every word, and the shadows that haunted his eyes as he recalled the horror.
There was nothing I could do. Aurelia’s earlier words sliced through Vaelin’s head as his knuckles whitened, his grip like a vice on the hilt of his sword.
Sereth drummed her long fingers on the table, exchanging a grim look with the King. The silence stretched as she considered her next words. Then, her voice sliced the quiet like a dagger. “Well. It would seem the Hollowborne have returned.”
The room erupted, the silence split with roars of indignation.
Vaelin felt like one of Maeylar’s soldiers, the wind sucked from his lungs.
The Hollowborne were an ominous legend among the fae, rarely spoken of aloud.
Beings twisted by void magic, half-unmade and bound in shadow, caught between existence and nothingness.
They were said to haunt the underrealm as husks of what they once were, fueled by the flames of fury fanned by past injustices, and nearly impossible to defeat.
Thane shot to his feet, his seat crashing to the ground behind him.
“The Hollowborne are a bedtime story, not true enemies! You take this ancient’s addled words for truth?
” he roared as he paced the floor, pointing accusingly at Maeylar.
“You come here and tell me you’ve lost thousands of my men - my kin - due to your incompetence?
” He swung to Sereth, “And you fan the flames of this insanity with your own tales of visions and demons of myth?”
Vaelin felt fury rumble through his chest as he reached across his body, wrapping his hand around the hilt of his blade.
“Enough, Thane!” the King boomed, and his magic flared.
A clap of thunder split the air, loud enough to temporarily dull their hearing as the waterfalls surged outside the chamber, crashing violently against the mountain.
He seemed to grow in size as he stood from his seat, his silver eyes turned molten as golden embers of starfire sparked within. Thane’s lip curled.
“This is not an isolated incident,” Naerina’s voice rang through the room, pulling focus. She drew her trembling hands into fists on the table before her.
Slowly, the King slid his eyes from Thane’s to address the waterwielder, “Speak.”
A renewed curl of unease climbed its way up Vaelin’s spine like trailing fingertips as he watched the fae exhale shakily. “We’ve just received word that Orion Shipbreaker’s fleet was swallowed by the sea not two days past.”
Gasps rang through the room. The King ground his teeth as the Queen pressed her hand to her mouth, though whether that was owing to shock or to the renewed cough that burst from her chest, Vaelin could not say.
Sereth fought her own cough in the background, only distantly audible over the rising volume in the room.
“A coincidence,” Thane boomed, waving a hand dismissively.
Naerina’s eyes flashed, shades of blue swirling like the seas. “There is no current Orion could not quell, no storm he could not sail. How then?” she glared at Thane, “An entire fleet, gone!”
Vaelin felt like he himself was standing on a vessel in the ocean currents, struggling to keep his balance. Orion Shipbreaker, bested by the seas? It was unfathomable.
“The failures of your Tidecallers are not my responsibility,” Thane said.
“ENOUGH!” Sereth thundered, slamming a fist on the stone table.
Starfire sparked where her hand met the surface, sending cracks spiderwebbing through the stone.
She rose slowly from her chair, leaning her weight on the table.
A faint glow seemed to emanate from beneath her skin as the starfire within her bloomed.
Vaelin’s brow knotted. Had her breathing become more laboured?
“The fae are falling to an illness, a withering we’ve not faced in the centuries I’ve been alive, armies of shadow rise in the absence of the sun, prophetic visions speak of a breaking, a fracturing of the realms…
” Sereth fixed her silver stare upon Thane, “You speak of bedtime stories while the world burns beneath your feet. We must open our eyes and accept that this calamity is coming for us all.” A cough choked her again, and she wheezed for breath.
Thane scoffed. “The Hollowborne are a legend at best, and fear mongering at worst.” He turned, appealing to the King, “If the Windborne cannot manage the armies, allow the Fireborne to take command, as it should be.”
“If I were to put the Fireborne in command, there would be no armies left to lead,” Sereth snarled between laboured breaths, her silver eyes now flaring so bright they seemed to glow.
Thane stalked towards the High General, sneering. “I’ve had enough of taking orders from you over the years, Starfire,” he spat, pointing a finger at her chest, embers sparking at his fingertip. Vaelin growled, his muscles tensing to the point of pain.
Sereth’s breathing came even more heavily now, and a feeling of dread Vaelin couldn’t quite explain turned his blood to ice, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.
Her skin was well and truly glowing now — this was no trick of the light.
Slowly, she looked down at Thane’s sparking finger.
As though suddenly noticing her condition, he blanched slightly, withdrawing his finger and taking an uncertain step backward.
The corner of her mouth twitched, drawn in a sour smile as she rasped, “Thankfully for you, soldier, I suspect you won't need to do that for much longer.”
She staggered backwards, retreating shakily to the open balcony alcove. Blood dripped from her nose.
Thane backpedaled, alarmed, as the King shouted for help. Others rose to their feet, shouts of concern crashing through the chamber. Vaelin was moving before he had made the conscious decision to do so, Aurelia clutching at his arm, struggling to hold him back.
Sereth locked gazes with Vaelin. Suddenly, his heartbeat was all he could hear — a deafening drum in his ears as he watched her silver eyes crack, veins of untamed magic raging beneath the surface.
Her expression crumbled into a mosaic of anguish as brilliant, glowing fissures of light began to split her dark skin like rivers on a map.
Unleashing a piercing scream of fury, Sereth ignited from within, a blinding, burning pyre of starfire.
The very air burned with the heat of the flames as she stumbled further onto the balcony.
Cracks spread across the smooth, stone floor as more screams sliced the air.
Vaelin’s own scream ripped from his throat, grief, rage, and helplessness tearing through him as he fought the hold against him to scramble toward his mentor, the closest thing to a mother he’d ever had.
He didn’t feel the furrows of blood Aurelia’s nails raked down his arm as she struggled to hold him back, or Evric’s forearm braced across his chest. He watched in horror as Sereth burned alive, horrific and magnificent in a blaze of white starfire.
Sereth Starfire crashed into the balcony’s railing, shattering it, sending stone dust and gravel slicing through the chamber. Her body streaked down the mountain like a burning star, a trail of fire and ash in her wake.