Chapter 21
Nyssa
“Of course,” I mutter, tightening my grip on my blade. “Because skeletons were just the appetiser.”
I glance past the kneeling bone-brigade. Shadows detach themselves from the tree line, moving with that fluid, predatory grace that makes my slayer instincts scream. Vampires. Fast, hungry, and definitely not interested in bowing to the new management.
“They will be harder to control under the bloodlust. Move your army, slayer.”
I frown at him, and then at the skeletons behind me.
“My army,” I repeat flatly.
“Less sarcasm, more generalship,” Voren snaps, manifesting his ice hammer again. “Vampires don’t wait for introductions.”
The shadows are getting closer. I turn back to my kneeling subjects. It feels absurd. It feels powerful. It feels like a migraine waiting to happen.
“Up,” I order. The word scrapes out of my throat, heavy with that weird, icy authority I haven’t quite figured out how to holster.
The skeletons rise in a clatter of rusted joints and rotted leather. They stand rigid, empty sockets fixed on me, awaiting the next instruction.
“Kill the fanged ones,” I say, pointing my blade at the incoming blur of motion, wondering what they called vampires seven hundred years ago. “Don’t let them reach the trees.”
The reaction is instant. My bony battalion turns as one and surges forward. It’s not graceful. It’s a tidal wave of rattling unrest. They crash into the vampire line with a sound like a cutlery drawer being thrown down a flight of stairs.
“Now that is entertainment,” Dastian comments, blasting a vampire mid-air with a bolt of chaotic red lightning that turns its hiss into a surprised squeak.
I don’t have time to admire the carnage.
One of the bloodsuckers bypasses the skeletal wall, moving faster than thought, fangs bared and aiming for my jugular.
I side-step, bringing my blade up in a clean arc.
It connects, slicing through dead flesh, but the force of his momentum sends me skidding back into the mud.
He snarls, the gash across his chest knitting together with annoying speed.
He lunges again before I can scramble to my feet, pinning me to the damp earth with a weight that knocks the breath out of me.
“Slayer,” he hisses, fangs extending. “You smell like death.”
“Funny, I was going to say the same about you,” I wheeze.
I bring my knee up hard, aiming for his balls. He grunts but doesn’t let go, his claws digging into my shoulders. Before I can bring my blade up, a bony hand reaches over his shoulder and grabs a fistful of his greasy hair.
One of my skeletal minions yanks the vampire’s head back with a force that snaps vertebrae. The vampire screeches, flailing, but the skeleton doesn’t let go. It just stares at me with empty sockets, waiting for orders.
“Good boy,” I mutter.
I slash my blade through the air, severing the vampire’s head. He turns to ash that mixes unpleasantly with the mud.
“Behind you!” Dreven warns, his voice sharp.
I spin, blade ready, but I don’t even have to strike. The skeletons have formed a defensive ring around me, clattering shields and rusted swords against the encroaching horde. They aren’t just fighting; they’re guarding.
Rusted blades flash, brittle fingers clamp ankles, feet trip sleek monsters into muddy graves. It’s ugly, effective, and deeply satisfying.
Voren wades in like vengeance. Dreven is a moving blackout to my left, cutting vampires out of the air and dropping them into silence. Dastian gleefully turns a trio into ash.
A vampire sidesteps my wall, vanishes in a blur, then reappears behind me. Fangs graze my nape.
“Don’t,” I say without turning. The word drops like a stone in a well. The vampire freezes mid-bite, muscles shaking, eyes blown wide. Something old in me looks back through him, uninterested and absolute.
“Down,” I add, and he drops like I cut his strings.
I step over the vampire’s twitching body. The skeletal guard shifts with me, a clattering army that keeps the rest of the vampires at bay. One of them tries to break through, but a skeleton with a mossy shield bashes it sideways, and Dreven finishes the job with a shadow that swallows it whole.
“They’re thinning out,” Voren shouts from somewhere to my left, his voice carrying that frost-edged calm.
“Good,” I yell back, slicing through another vampire’s neck before it can grab me. “Because I’m about done playing general tonight.”
The skeletons don’t tire, which is handy, but commanding them feels like holding a storm on a leash—exhilarating and exhausting. I spot Dastian turning a vampire into a living firework, sparks flying as it screams and crumbles.
Another wave crashes against my bony barrier. I focus, pulling on that cold thread inside me, the one that feels like the Crown’s whisper. “End them,” I command, and the skeletons surge forward in a tide of rattling death.
It works. The vampires don’t stand a chance against the relentless press. One by one, they ash out, until the cemetery falls quiet again, save for my ragged breathing.
I lower my blade, chest heaving, and look at the skeletons standing sentinel around me. They’re waiting. Expectant. It’s unnerving.
“Oh, what now?” Dastian asks, turning at the sound of shuffling.
“Zombies,” Voren states. “Fun.”
“Not,” I add under my breath and heave a sigh. “The Devourer is starting to piss me off.”
“Starting to?” Dreven asks.
“Okay, I passed pissed off about a week ago. Skelly’s, get the zombies.”
That is a phrase I never thought I would say, but here we are.
The skeletons don’t need finesse. They surge like a rattling tide. Rotted arms come off at the elbows. Knees go sideways. Heads detach with polite pops. It’s disgusting and brutally efficient.
Dreven’s shadows snap, carving a vampire straggler into obedient shadow before it can reform. He’s a dark slice at my flank, steady and furious.
I draw the cold in. Not ice. Not silence. Authority. The Crown sits in my bones, smug and waiting. I let it bleed into my voice. “Down.”
The closest corpse stutters. It’s not enough. Zombies are noise stitched into meat. Command alone won’t untie them.
“Try a burial order,” Voren calls, smashing a skull with an impatient swing. “Be literal.”
Literal I can do. “Return to the ground.”
It lands like a verdict. The soil sighs. The muck at our feet flexes like a lung. One by one, the bodies hesitate, then… sink. Not dramatic. Not cinematic. My skeletons hold them while the earth reclaims what it’s owed. Fingers claw, then vanish. The last skull gurgles and slips under.
The cemetery settles. Wind in the oaks. Drizzle is trying to be mist. My bony guard stand ringed around me, waiting for the next decree, the picture of a patient apocalypse.
“Return to your graves,” I say. “Rest.”
“You sure about that?” Voren asks, looking around.
I close my eyes and breathe in deeply, trying to sense if there is anything else undead coming our way.
There isn’t.
Or I can’t tell.
Either way, I’m done for tonight. I need a fucking shower.
The hush that follows pricks my skin, and I open my eyes to see that the skeletons are back where they belong.
“Nice,” Dastian says brightly. “Ten out of ten for necromantic crowd control. Would watch again.”
“Please don’t,” I mutter, scanning the trees. The oaks stand there, judgemental as ever. “I can’t sense anything else. You?” I ask Voren.
Voren cocks his head, listening with that graveyard radar of his. “Quiet.”
Dreven shakes his head. “Not quiet,” he corrects. “Coiled.”
I nod. That is how it feels. But if we have downtime, I’m taking it. “Home, shower, more food, sleep.”
“Sex?” Dastian asks hopefully.
“Only in your dreams,” I reply and head towards my cottage.
I’m wrung out and buzzing at the same time, which is a horrible combination.
The gods close in around me without discussion as we cut back through the wet grass.
The oaks mutter. The village lights blink like they’re scared to look us in the eye.
By the time we hit my front door, my hands have stopped shaking.
The Crown in my bones purrs, smug. Dreven goes in first, shadows spilling ahead of him like a welcome mat with opinions.
Voren peels off to sweep the perimeter with a cold ripple.
Dastian flicks the light switch, and I flinch from the brightness.
“Shower,” I repeat.
Dreven’s gaze skates over my throat, my wrists, my face. He doesn’t touch. He doesn’t need to. “Eight minutes,” he says, which is either a command or care wearing his voice. “I’ll make tea, and whatever food I can find.”
I nod on my way down the hall and strip on autopilot. The hot water hits, and I sag against it, eyes shut. For exactly three breaths, there’s just steam and the thud of my heart.