Chapter Fifty-Three #3
Jax’s head snaps up, instinct screaming at her to move, but her body lags a fraction behind.
“Jax!”
Her name cuts through everything.
She turns.
Ronyn is already moving toward her, fast, deliberate, bow in hand. He doesn’t slow as he reaches her, one hand closing around her arm and hauling her fully to her feet.
“I’ve got you, okay?” he promises.
She nods once, even though the motion makes the world tilt.
“Stay with me,” he says, and then he’s already moving, dragging her with him toward the broken shell of a building still standing at the edge of the blast radius.
An arrow whistles past her ear.
Ronyn doesn’t even look.
He draws, fires, draws again in one seamless motion, his body already turning to track the next threat. The arrow finds its mark with brutal precision, embedding itself in a soldier’s throat before the man has even fully raised his weapon.
Another.
Another.
Each shot clean. Efficient. Deadly.
Jax stumbles once, catching herself against a cracked wall as Ronyn releases her just long enough to reposition. His focus is absolute now, the irreverence stripped away.
“Stay low,” he mutters.
She doesn’t argue. She drops into a crouch beside him, forcing her breathing to steady as she scans the street. More Caelorian soldiers are pushing through now, no longer cautious, no longer confused. Just a rush of bloodthirsty, obedient soldiers flooding the street.
They’ve seen what Skyfire can do. And they’re advancing anyway. Maireth doesn’t care about casualties—on either side. She only cares about victory.
“Controlled collapse,” Jax says hoarsely, the words tasting wrong now.
Ronyn huffs once, not quite a laugh. “Yeah. That part didn’t go to plan.”
Another arrow flies. A soldier drops.
Movement to her left registers in her vision. Jax reacts before she’s even fully aware, lunging forward and driving her blade into the side of a man rushing toward them. The impact jars up her arm, but she leans into it, ripping the blade free and pivoting toward the next threat.
This is better.
Closer.
Clearer.
Pain sharpens her.
Around them, the battlefield begins to reform into something recognizable again—nothing close to order or control, but movement recommences. Fighting. Survival. Lines of soldiers trying to organize into formations mid-battle.
A figure crashes through the haze ahead of them, axe already mid-swing.
Teddy.
He doesn’t slow.
His axe arcs through the air and connects with brutal force, cleaving through armor and bone in one clean motion before he steps through the falling body and into the next strike. There is no hesitation in him, no pause to assess. Only execution. Only efficiency.
Jax watches him for half a heartbeat too long.
He’s not the man from the war room. He’s something else entirely. A man with a point to prove.
“Move!” he barks, not even looking at them as he takes down another soldier.
Jax pushes off the wall and moves.
They fall into rhythm quickly—Ronyn at range, picking targets before they can close; Jax slipping in and out of the fray, blade and borrowed magic working in tandem as she presses forward.
Bloodbonds and Aetherstrides surge forward for Dravara, weapons raised, eyes sharpened in focus.
And then, the air shifts again. Heat builds. Not from a single point this time. From everywhere.
“Down!” someone shouts.
Jax doesn’t think. She moves.
Skyfire detonates further down the street, the blast tearing through another row of structures in a violent surge of light and force. The shockwave hits a moment later, ripping through what remains of the battlefield and sending debris flying in all directions.
The ground shudders beneath her.
More screams.
More collapse.
They’re not targeting. They’re leveling. Or at the very least, clearing a path.
Jax’s chest tightens as she forces herself back up, scanning through the chaos.
This isn’t controlled anymore. This is survival. But horror is not done with her yet. It takes root in her bones as something else enters the fight.
At first, it doesn’t register as a person. It feels like pressure. Like something bending the air around it, drawing everything inward in a way that has nothing to do with gravity.
Jax stills. Even Ronyn pauses beside her, bow half-drawn.
“What in the fucking Stars is that?” he mutters.
The smoke shifts. Parts. And through it, something moves. And darkness moves with him. It doesn’t trail. It doesn’t follow. It obeys.
Jax’s stomach drops. She doesn’t need to see his face to know.
“Kael…” she breathes.
The name feels wrong in her mouth now. Because whatever is stepping out of the smoke is not the man she knew.
Across the battlefield, light ignites.
Elyssara.
Jax turns toward it instinctively, her breath catching as she sees her stepping forward into the devastation, power rising around her in a surge that pushes back against the creeping dark.
For a moment, the world seems to hold between them.
Light.
Shadow.
Rise.
Ruin.
And everything caught in-between.
Jax doesn’t move.
She doesn’t breathe.
Because she knows whatever happens next changes everything.