Chapter Fifty-Six
ELYSSARA
I see him then.
Kael.
Buckling at the knees. Sword slipping from his grasp. Sweat slicking his skin, his breath coming too fast, too ragged.
“Kael!” His name rips from my throat, raw, desperate—terror overtaking everything else.
I move, carving a path toward him, but I’m too far, the press of bodies slowing me down.
Too slow.
A guard steps forward, towering over him, blade gleaming as he crouches low—aiming straight for Kael’s throat.
“No—”
The guard pauses, the tip of his sword hovering just shy of skin. A cruel smile spreads across his face. “Well, we’ve been looking for you for years, son,” he sneers, tilting his blade just enough to catch the flickering torchlight. “And now I’ve got myself a pretty little Lightborne and a—”
He never finishes.
Because something inside me breaks.
Magic slams into my ribs like a living thing, thrashing, fighting against the binds still caging half of it away.
It wants out.
It wants blood.
The pressure swells—hot and suffocating—boiling in my veins, clawing through every limb like wildfire, hungry and endless. The air thickens, humming with power.
The guard senses it—they all do.
He glances up at me, and for the first time, I see it. Fear.
I unspool.
Tear my magic free.
The world splits apart.
Light detonates from my hands, raw and unchained, a force that shakes the ground beneath us.
A scream rips from my throat, guttural and primal, as I flood the tunnels with white-hot Lightborne magic—a storm of celestial power unleashed.
But Kael doesn’t burn. As if responsive to my intentions, the magic cocoons him, wrapping him in an unbreakable shield—safe. Mine.
But the others?
The ones who tried to take from me?
Who thought they could touch him?
They don’t stand a chance.
The light consumes them—shredding through flesh, searing through armor, reducing them to nothing but flickering embers in the air.
No screams.
No time to beg.
One heartbeat, they exist.
The next, they’re ash.
And the tunnels fall silent.