Chapter 41
Slade
Leo was on the ground, bleeding and barely breathing. The grey-cloaked Shade that threw him had turned toward Elira— big mistake.
My blades spun once in my hands, and I moved. Steel met flesh. The first man dropped. The another. Soon the bodies began to pile up.
I crouched beside Leo. "Stay down."
He groaned something that might've been 'Thanks.'
I stood—and then everything in me froze.
Across the arena, the crowd parted—not because they fled, but because something darker moved through them.
A figure in robes, eyes glowing red.
He didn’t run. He didn’t shout. He strolled.
And the shadows made way.
Vael.
Lightning danced around his fingertips—soft at first, like static kissing the air, then sharper, arcing across his shoulders and down the edges of his black robes.
I had never met him. But I had heard the stories. What I felt now? It wasn’t a story.
It was instinct. Older than war. Older than me.
This wasn’t a man. This was death in skin.
I shifted my stance and stepped between him and Leo.
And his gaze finally landed on me.
He smiled.
"Ah," he said. "The metal one. Perfect.”
Lightning gathered around his hand like a living thing—coiling tighter, sparking off his fingertips in jagged bursts.
“Let’s see how well you conduct pain.”
He threw the bolt before I could blink.
It hit me square in the chest.
Agony.
White-hot and instant—like fire in my blood. My body seized, lifted clean off the ground. My swords dropped with a clang I barely heard through the roar in my skull. Every nerve lit up. My muscles locked, spine arching—
—and then I crashed to the dirt in a smoking heap.
Elira screamed my name.
I tried to move. Gods, I tried—but my limbs wouldn't answer.
The last thing I saw before my vision flickered was Vael stepping forward—toward her.
**
Elira
I watched Slade fly through the air like a broken doll—lightning still flickering across his body as he slammed into the far wall with a sickening crunch.
“Slade!” I screamed.
Something inside me broke.
The shadows reacted before I could think—rising, shrieking, exploding outward like a tidal wave of rage. The arena shook. Sentinels were ripped from their feet, guards thrown back like toys. Dust and debris whirled through the air, carried by the force of it.
Screams filled the pit—but I only heard one voice.
“Elle!” Phoenix, breathless, fire blazing around his hands. He appeared through the chaos, clothes torn, blood smeared across his brow. “I’ll get Finn!”
I nodded, barely able to breathe. “Get him out of here.”
He didn’t wait. He turned and vanished into the smoke and screams—toward Mother Ashford, who stood in the distance like a statue in the eye of the storm. Her blade was still pressed to Finn’s throat, but she looked rattled now. Scared.
Phoenix moved like wrath incarnate.
But I—
I turned.
Vael stood across the pit.
Untouched.
Lightning still crackled at his fingertips. His robes snapped in the wind my shadows had stirred. Red eyes locked on mine—hungry, reverent, deranged.
He stepped forward.
I stepped toward him.
The rest of the world fell away.