Chapter 56 - Vengeance
I only registered the sound of Riyan’s body hitting the ground as my body filled with light.
I did not know who had fired the deadly arrow…but they would pay.
They would all pay.
I screamed, holding the heat of a blazing star in my throat. Thunder cracked at my command and the clouds poured down on the fortress. My hands twisted around the magic in the rain. My feet left the ground.
Every one of the Man of the Mountain’s tears in the rain, in the grass, and in the blood of the men outside of the Bloodstone Fortress gate lit up in burning barbs of pure pain. My blood was the sun. My scream was the terror of the night.
There was no sky or ground. There was no air.
There was only my hunger for vengeance.
Cries of anguish echoed in the distance. The soldiers of the Lycaster army dropped to their knees, pressing their faces into the mud as they screamed. All of their minds and hearts opened as they begged like worms for me to do anything to ease their torment.
The fabric between worlds stretched at the seams. Mere memories became monsters. Freya’s laughter shrieked through the air. The agonized cries of brother slain by brother tore through the clouds. Barbarian iron clashed with Latiman steel. The Man of the Mountain’s wails filled the sky and suddenly I was not alone.
Someone else was within me—someone I knew, but had never met.
Her power flowed within me. I was her hands and feet. I carried her heart.
The first sorceress.
Then the flames around my heart grew until there was no separation between my body and the magic. I was light. I was punishment. I was justice.
I was a fucking monster.
My bones bent and my skin hardened into scales. I pushed into the sky, using the raindrops like a path to crawl down each of the hundreds of trembling tethers. I slithered through the army’s disgusting minds, my tongue flicking out as I smelled their evil deeds and my fangs glimmering as I hunted down the guilty.
Then I found him. The false hero. The gutter rat that preyed on the vulnerable.
Grigory Orion Thornebow.
He was hunched over on the ground, his bow near his left hand. I hissed through my fangs and his head snapped up in agony as I scorched him from within. His brown eyes popped open and widened when they saw me.
“What are you?” he asked with a trembling whisper.
My power dragged through the rain as I formed a dark and icy claw in the air. A guttural cry tore from my mouth as I forced the claw down Gigory’s screaming throat. I curled the talons around the golden blood bond, the precious gift forged from selfless love.
A gift he did not fucking deserve.
My claw gripped the bond. The fabric between worlds strained.
“Grigory Thornebow,” I hissed, my voice magnified on every drop of pouring rain. The voice of the first sorceress braided with my own, magnifying her ancient rage.
“You do not deserve the magic of my sacrifice.” I yanked on the bond and the golden light leached from his veins and twisted into a rope. The faint glowing line arced through the sky toward the southernmost tower of the fortress, connecting with Annalisa.
I pulled, but Grigory stubbornly held on, even through the torture.
I bared my fangs and threw my power behind me. My vision cleared through the magic in the raindrops—Annalisa and Derrick curled behind the battlements and sheltered Astrid with their bodies.
I focused on Annalisa, letting my words echo in the air around her.
“Let go, Anna.” My voice was warm as the golden fire of my power, but it was not a command. It was a choice.
Annalisa kept her eyes squeezed shut as she gripped the bond.
A gentle voice echoed through the rain. “Let go of him, Lis. I am here. I have not been…and I am sorry.”
Annalisa gripped her twin brother.
“I want you back,” Derrick said into her curls. “I miss you too.”
The two halves of the same soul wove together.
So Annalisa took a deep breath and let go.
The blood bond shredded as I yanked it out of Grigory’s body. It dissipated in the air, returning to the clouds like it was nothing more than a lightning strike. Both the bond and the curse in Annalisa’s blood gently evaporated out of her skin.
She was free.
My heartbeat slowed. My power drew inward. The light emanating from me dimmed and panicked voices grew louder and louder amongst the calming rainfall.
“Sera!” Endre shouted. “Sera! Look down!”
My body returned to flesh and bone as I descended in the air, light as a feather. I blinked and my vision cleared.
A tall, golden-haired warrior rose to his feet at the gate with Grigory Thornebow’s black-tipped arrow in his hand. He clenched his fist and the arrow snapped in half, each end falling on top of the discarded head of his father. His cheek was stained with trails of blood, but two twilight eyes looked back at me.
Warmth filled my body as my toes touched the earth.
Riyan was deathless, just like the Man of the Mountain had said. But I never went under the collar. I never sacrificed myself. Derrick…
My heart stopped. I looked up at the tower and caught a peek of Derrick’s dark curls as he comforted his twin.
Derrick had broken the collar and killed Alastar. He gave up everything, his throne, his crown, his life. He gave up his life because he loved me.
A life for a life given in love—Derrick’s sacrifice balanced the scale and made Riyan deathless.
Riyan’s eyes twinkled as they glanced behind me. His voice rang out through the soft rain, strong and clear. “Only the one who can force me to kneel rules Lycaster.”
Then the kiss of a blade pressed against my neck. Cold steel pressed against my back. I forced down a smile.
“I have your sorceress, beast!” Brietta shouted. “Kneel!”
A small smirk crept up on Riyan’s face and we exchanged glances. The ruler of Lycaster could not be handed power, she had to take it.
Riyan slowly knelt and laid his axe in front of him. He lowered the crown of his head to the top of his knee.
The last Hyton heir had yielded.
Brietta lowered the blade from my neck and I turned. She shifted the Hyton dagger to her other hand as Evereon handed her the Conqueror’s spear. The Taurus shield was strapped to her arm. Daylight broke through the clouds and illuminated the crown on her brow as a gentle breeze fluttered the Hyton Blue cape around her shoulders.
Brietta made her demands without ever opening her lips. She was a Hyton—stubborn, unyielding, and fixated on problems that she intended to solve.
Most importantly, she would show all of Lycaster that she had the spirit of the Conqueror.
She was ready to play her role and I needed to play mine. I had just tortured the entire Lycaster army, seen their evils, resurrected the phantoms of history, and ripped a blood bond before their very eyes. Unlike Fraleigh, I truly was powerful, and unlike Fraleigh…
…I would submit to the crown of my own will.
I swept my arms, letting my white sleeves billow in the breeze. Slowly, I lowered to my knees and bowed, ensuring that everyone outside the gate could see me.
The most powerful sorceress on earth would not kneel before a tyrant, but she would serve and protect a friend.
Brietta held the spear firmly in her hands, but a tiny smile that only I could see rose on her face. “Do you, Great Sorceress of Nordingaard, pledge yourself to the House of Hyton?”
A flush spread across my cheeks. “My eternity is yours, Brietta.”
A low rumble echoed outside the gate as the Lycaster army realized the auburn-haired woman wielded not only the Conqueror’s spear, but every bit of my power as well.
Brietta turned to the open gate and held the Conqueror’s spear in front of her. With a swift jerk of her arms, she snapped the spear over her knee.
The army and the Barons gasped as the pieces of one of Lycaster’s oldest relics fell to the dirt.
Brietta held her head high. With a signal from Evereon, trails of red-uniformed soldiers bled from the stone walls and flanked her.
She stepped through the open gate and Riyan rose to let her pass. He walked toward me, each one of his steps getting heavier and his shoulders sagging with the weight of what he had just done.
The whinny of a horse made my head snap to the gate. As soon as Father’s mare made it into the courtyard, Father slid from the horse’s back with Mother in his arms.
Mother’s small body convulsed and twisted. The Thornebow thistle had her.
Brietta addressed the crowd outside the gate as Mother and Father crumpled into a heap. Her voice was bright as the dawn, “People of Lycaster—”
A muscle in Father’s cheek twitched, even though his eyes stayed clear of any poison. Their blood bond was taking them both into the black fire.
Not if I got there first.
I ran through the soaked grass and dropped to my knees next to Mother.
“You did it, dear,” Father whispered. “Ragnar is gone. Anders is gone. You avenged our boys.”
Mother’s eyes were squeezed shut. Something between a grimace and a strained smile spread across her twitching face.
I grabbed Mother’s shaking hand as my white light flowed into her skin.
“ Easy there, Viper, ” I whispered into her mind as my magic purged the poison from her veins. “ Freya wants you to stay and see the new Lycaster. ”
Mother’s heartbeat slowed. Her blood bond with Father glowed brighter as my white light extinguished the black flames.
A tear leaked onto her cheek as she slowly fluttered her eyes open.
“They are here, Frederick,” Mother said as she looked up. “They came to take us to the other side.”
I followed her eyes. Erik and Endre stood above me. Endre shook his head as he barely held tears back. Erik’s face was still stoic, but his eyes watered.
I swallowed my cowardice and clutched Mother’s hand. “No, Mother. You are alive and so are they. They never left us.”
Her dark eyebrows knitted and I held back a wince. Just when I thought she was going to scream at me for keeping the truth from her, she launched out of Father’s lap and flung herself into Endre’s waiting arms. She buried her face in his shoulder and her chest rattled with sobs.
“My boy!” Father cried as he crushed Erik to his chest.
A large hand appeared at my side. I took it as Riyan slowly helped me up.
Brietta’s speech continued over my parents’ joyous sobs. “No more shall brother turn against brother. No more shall the provinces fight with one another.”
Riyan nearly folded in half as he wrapped his arms around me and rested his head on mine. I took in a breath of nectar and wheat as I stroked his hair.
“Breathe, Riyan,” I whispered into his chest.
He let out a hollow chuckle. “Don’t need to do that anymore.”
I pressed my cheek against his heartbeat. “Then do it because it feels good.”
“Nothing feels good right now.”
I pulled away slightly, only so he could look me in the eyes. “It does not have to.” I sent a sweep of magic over his skin, cleaning the trails of crimson blood from his cheek and the splatter of black blood from his hands. “Feel the grief and the pain and the sorrow. Let yourself feel everything because I will feel it all with you.”
He kissed me on the forehead and the light of our bond sang, but his eyes drifted to the top of the southernmost tower. Derrick held both Annalisa and Astrid as they cried, their sobs barely audible amongst the triumphant celebration.
“What can we do?” Riyan said in a heavy sigh.
Brietta’s voice rose over the fortress walls. “We shall progress! We shall fix what is broken!”
I eyed Astrid. “I made a promise and I intend to keep it.”
“And tomorrow,” Brietta said, “the dawn shall break on a new, better, glorious Lycaster!”