Chapter 53
Aslow, amused clap pitches behind me. “King Ashborne’s bitch is far more rabid than I ever imagined.”
I don’t give Samkiel the opportunity to start in on some bullshit monologue before raising my blade and charging him.
He’s faster than I remember, but the rage fueling every step makes me quicker. His eyes flare in surprise as I close the distance, steel begging for his throat. A soldier intercepts, ramming his shield between us, and my blade scrapes across metal in a shriek of sparks.
I snarl and bare downward, severing his arm from the shield like it’s nothing more than a rotten stump. Maybe my training with Isra is paying off after all. The look of shock flashing in the young soldier’s eyes mirror my own, then he falls to my godsdamned blade.
I leap over his lifeless body and swing for Samkiel again. Only to meet another wall of steel. Three, four, five soldiers rush me at once. I slash one across the jaw, pivoting to bury my boot in another’s sternum. Bone crunches on impact.
I spin and drive the point of my blade through the third’s ribcage, ripping it free in a hot, nauseating spray of blood.
A grin spreads over my lips.
Whether I’ve plunged into the darkness with no means of return, or I’m in shock, doesn’t matter as I hack and slice and carve through body after body to reach Samkiel.
I barely feel the hits—numb to the elbow in my ribs, the fist across my cheekbone, even the sting of a knife slicing my bicep.
Pain is noise at this point—irrelevant and meaningless.
All I can see is Samkiel’s head severed from his body. All I can taste is the scream from his lips when I carve out his eyes.
He watches me slaughter his men with a calm, detached interest, the guardian egg still tucked carelessly under one arm.
“Pathetic,” he sneers, “but entertaining, nonetheless. Tell me, little bitch, are you frothing at the mouth yet?”
“I’ll have your fucking head!” Bodies collide with mine from all sides. A spear catches my thigh. Boots jut into my spine. I fall to a knee, but swing my blade blindly, severing tendons, cleaving through armor. A soldier cries as he falls, tears mixing with the life streaming from his abdomen.
Another disarms me and my sword skids across the ash, but I pounce before he can raise his longsword. My fingers curl around his neck and clamp down like a vice.
His eyes bulge as he gapes and claws and scrapes against my hold, but I unleash a wicked laugh and squeeze tighter. With my thighs around his waist, I snap my weight to the side.
His neck cracks at an inhuman angle. Then he joins his fallen comrades in the heap of limbs, bones, and entrails I’ve left in my wake.
I retrieve his fallen blade. A small jolt of panic slips from the darkness. It’s heavy, but my muscles, stronger and unyielding from Isra’s training, hold steady. I wrap my two hands around the pommel and charge.
The next wave is coming and I fully intend to close the distance first. Using the torque of the blade to my advantage, I follow Isra’s footwork over and over again, imagining his presence beside me.
My arms burn. My lungs claw for air. My vision pulses at the edges. Still I fight—guttural, nightmarish, and greedy for blood. Bodies fall. My steel cuts through bone. The warm breath of dying men rushes against my face.
If Finnick could see me now…I’ve definitely surpassed the seventeen casualty record back where this all started, and I’m a glutton for more.
Someone’s blade slices down my ribs. A fist drives into my abdomen so hard I gag. Another slams his shield into my spine. There’s a crack, then agony throughout my body.
My knees hit the ground.
“Nice try, Nova Lindwen…” Samkiel flashes his teeth at me.
No, I refuse this fate. If I have to hack my way through a whole fucking army, I will. If this is my last moment on Earth, I’ll fight until my skin shreds raw and my muscles fail. I tell myself it’s to protect the continent. To reunite the guardian with its rider.
But I’d be a fucking liar.
I’m enjoying the violence, the death, the monstrosity I’ve become.
I push up before I flatten into the muck, but the blunt end of a spear splinters my cheekbone. Blood seeps from my lips.
Still I crawl.
On exhausted limbs, I drag myself toward Samkiel, fingers gouging out the scorched earth. Ash burrows under my fingernails, mud cakes my face. Samkiel’s boots materialize in my blurred vision, clean and unstained. The egg glitters under his arm.
“Hold her,” he commands.
Hands clamp onto my arms. A knee digs between my shoulder blades. Someone rips my hair back until my throat strains but even pinned, I fucking lunge for him like a caged beast.
Samkiel crouches to meet my gaze. “You don’t know when to give up do you?”
“Fuck you,” I spit, growling and writhing, and fighting with every shred of strength I have left.
He watches me for a moment, curiosity glinting in his narrowed eyes. “You truly don’t know?”
He leans in close, breath hot against my bruised cheeks. “Would you like me to tell you what I found in Sovereign’s archives? I’m sure you read my note.”
“You will die today, Samkiel Ashar. I swear it to Astora.” My teeth chatter.
“See, Nova…that’s where we disagree. You’re one person, and while I applaud your enthusiasm, you’re outnumbered.
I’d ask where Jace Ashborne is, but I simply don’t care.
Do you know how easy it was to plant Saphine amongst your ranks?
To break the ward your precious King of Shadow put in place around his faction?
While you were out scavenging the continent for other Sovereign vermin, I was here.
Now, the Ceti signet ring…that was difficult, but your beloved Lightbrood back in Storm just happened to have one meant for you.
” He taps the tip of my nose. One more opportunity and I’ll bite the digit clean off.
“Do not speak of Yaris Lightbrood!” My throat burns with Yaris’s mention, and the silver ring he once wore.
I should have stayed by his side. Samkiel’s army explains the broken wards, but he doesn’t possibly know the fate he’s sealed for our continent.
“I’m going to make you regret ever stepping foot over Smoke’s border, you miserable bastard. ”
Samkiel chuckles cruelly. “You’re cute. Now, the archives in Sovereign.
The ones that burned to the ground along with the rest of your miserable faction.
Did you know of the catacombs beneath the ruins?
Of the chambers hidden away and unburnt?
Those held a plethora of information, ripe for the picking. ”
He straightens to his feet. With multiple soldiers suckered to me, I’m forced to listen as he spews his bullshit after all.
“It seems Astora’s servants weren’t nearly as faithful to their oath of chastity as told by our historians.
There were hundreds, maybe thousands of written accounts of broken oaths—children born to priestesses, hidden amongst the other factions.
But one…” He raises an index finger. “Just one record of a certain Ceti son seduced by a priestess. Buried by an extensive cover up—a false marriage, a failed escape to Sea before the war. You know it’s quite unfortunate there wasn’t room for you amongst Neressa’s priestesses.
Maybe none of this would have happened if you’d disappeared as intended. ”
My pulse fractures. My breathing stutters, sharp and ragged. The soldiers tighten their grip as if my rage alone might snap their bones. “Bullshit.”
Samkiel retrieves a scroll from his pocket and waves it in the air. “Read for yourself, Nova Lindwen—or should I say Nova Ceti.”
My eyes land on the scroll, a cracked wax seal glinting off the moonlight. The insignia matches Astora’s servants perfectly. Each angle and curve of the design strikes at the memories long since buried.
“What is that?” I flinch as Samkiel unfurls it.
He clears his throat in a dramatic display then kneels beside me again.
I’m so close to the Astralwing egg I can taste the waning power emulating from its opalescent armor.
If I can get one hand free, maybe a quick jab to Samkiel’s nose would buy me time, but the soldiers’ grip tightens, securing me in place.
“Dated the fifteenth of Scorath’s year, this is a classified correspondence between Astora’s High Priestess and House Ceti.
The priestess in question claims the child to be a descendant of your wise house.
Born from an assault taken place within the temple walls during the solstice ritual.
It is our intention to keep the child secret, as execution is strongly forbidden.
A place within another godly servitude is concurrently being secured.
We ask only that the Ceti son accused of such heinous crimes, be given appropriate punishment.
Signed, the high priestess of Astora’s servitude. Does that clear things up?”
Samkiel tosses the scroll over his shoulder. The parchment sinks below a falling blanket of ash and disappears entirely. Something in me rips like a seam I didn’t even know existed. My chest cracks and every breath afterward feels wrong.
No. This isn’t real. He’s lying. He has to be lying.
Except that seal is real, and the timeline aligns with my birth.
All the pieces I never had about myself, the blank space that haunted me, the emptiness I built. Everything rearranges into a full force of clarity. And the blow lands harder than any hit I’ve taken tonight.
My mother left the priestesses shortly after I was born, the secrecy and isolation of our lives after. She never spoke about her time with them, not because she wanted to protect herself, but because she wanted to protect me.
The memories lodge in my chest like shrapnel. My pulse thrashes at the edges of my vision. I can hear it now—the drumming, deep and ruthless. There’s a ripple of light around the egg, no brighter than a reflection across water. How did I not see it before?