The rider stiffens, eyes widening as Daed's presence swells, his power rolling off him like a storm ready to break. He stands tall beside me, his cold gaze locked on the man before us.
“You would dare threaten her?” Daed’s voice is low, dangerous, the sound of it reverberating through the air. “You come into her land, seek to slaughter her people, and you think you will leave here alive?”
The rider shifts in his saddle, clearly unnerved, but he doesn’t back down. “Your Fae tricks don’t scare me,” he snarls, his hand gripping the hilt of his sword. “We will crush you just as we’ve crushed all who stood in our way.”
“Boring,” Zyphoro yawns, emerging from our numbers. “Kill him already, brother.”
Daed smiles, the smoke around him thickening, swirling like a living thing as his power surges. The rider’s mouth opens, but before he can speak, Daed lifts his sword, hovering the sharp point over the rider’s trembling throat.
Then, a new sound emerges from the ranks of the Legion—a steady rhythm of hooves. The soldiers part like a wave as a figure appears from their midst, and the sun catches him in such a way that at first, he is nothing but a blinding light in the distance. My eyes squint against the glare, heart thrumming in my chest as the new rider draws nearer.
The brightness lessens as he approaches, and I make out the details—long, flowing red cloak billowing behind him,shimmering golden armor that seems almost too pristine, marked with a pair of crossed swords, framed by praying hands. But all that pales compared to his golden mask.
The Golden Son tilts his head ever so slightly, his gaze landing on Daedalus first. His blue eyes burning with a quiet fury, cold and calculating.
“Prince Daedalus,” he says, his voice like silk stretched over steel. “I was not expecting to see you here.”
Daed stiffens beside me, his sword still poised, smoke curling from the blade as his power thrums in the air. “You threaten the sacred home of my wife. Where else would I be?” he bites back, his voice dripping with venom.
“Wife.” He looks at me and scoffs, his gaze intrusive, as if he can see my heart beating through my robes. “Traitor,” he hisses. “You have already wasted so much of my precious time. Perhaps I should have killed you when I had you all to myself the other day and saved my horse’s legs.”
Daed’s eyes snap to me, his brow furrowed. “You werealonewith him? When?”
“I tried to negotiate,” I say bitterly, my eyes narrowing on The Golden Son. “But he refused.”
Daed continues to seethe even after my explanation, and I cannot reason why he would allow such a thing to bother him when nothing else seems to.
The Golden Son’s chestnut mare stamps her hooves, growing more irritable with each passing second. “You look upset, Prince Daedalus,” he says, and I can hear the smirk on his lips. “Perhaps you worry it is not only your head I will take from you.”
“You have lived too long, Golden Son,” Daed snarls, his anger building like the storm rolling over the sea. “You should have died in that pathetic hovel of piss and shit you called a village with the rest of your family when we burnt it to the ground.”
I freeze, words lost to me as if I can no longer recall the way my mouth should move or how they sound on my tongue. The only ones who do not look in shock are the Fae, and I realize this is no secret to them. More Fae deceptions.
But rather than retaliate with rage, The Golden Son only laughs.
“It is you who has lived too long.All of you.The time of the Fae is finished. Humans will take back the Sundered Kingdoms and our lands will be washed clean of your filth.”
Smoke swirls around Daed, wrapping him in a cloak of darkness. As it dissipates, he stands clad in sleek black armor, a shrouded helm concealing his face. The scaled plates glisten with a menacing sheen, while razor-sharp spikes line every hard edge of the steel. He grips Death Singer with two hands and raises it over his shoulder.
“Then let us begin.”
And with those words, the battle erupts.
The Golden Son’s horse rears into the air, then stamps its feet as it turns to rejoin the ranks. But the first rider does not escape so easily. As he turns, Daed releases a smoke tendril that lashes out and grabs the rider around his waist, dragging him from his horse and tossing him on the ground. The rider scrambles for his sword, but it is a wasted effort. Daed plunges his sword through the rider’s chest and as he sputters blood from his mouth, smoke envelops him, dragging him to the void.
The Legion surges forward like a wave, the ground trembling beneath the weight of their numbers, their swords raised, their shields gleaming in the dawn light. The air comes alive with the sound of clashing metal and the roars of men with more fight in them than sense.
I stand at the edge, watching as Daed rushes into the fray, his sword slicing through the first line of enemies like a reaper harvesting souls. Smoke curls from his blade, wrapping aroundthe Legion soldiers, choking their screams from their lungs. Zyphoro follows close behind, her movements fluid and precise as her daggers flash. She conjures tendrils of smoke from the void, weaving them into deadly weapons that strike down men before they can reach her.
Arax is a wrecking ball of destruction, his sword heavy and relentless as he cuts through the Legion's ranks. There’s no grace in his movements—just raw, brutal force. He swings his blade with such power that it shatters shields, crushes armor, and leaves bodies crumpled in his wake. He roars with each swing, the sound primal, full of rage and grief that fuels him.
But the Legion is vast. Endless. For every man we cut down, three more take his place. They press in closer, relentless, and the battlefield becomes a sea of chaos—blood, steel, and screams.
Daed and Zyphoro are shadows in the fray, void-walking in and out of the battle like death itself. One moment, Daed is beside me, his sword cleaving through the neck of a Legion soldier, smoke curling from his blade as it absorbs the man’s last breath. The next, he’s gone, disappearing into the void, only to reappear behind a line of archers, slaughtering them before they can even register his presence. Zyphoro moves like a wraith, her daggers dripping with blood as she carves through the Legion's ranks. Her face is a mask of calm, her eyes alight with the same storm as Daed. Every flick of her wrist sends another man to the ground, gasping for his last breath.
The warriors of The Grove, brave and determined, fall faster than the Sisters and I can heal them. I press my hands to a man’s chest, feeling the rush of warmth as the Souls of the Forest flow through me, knitting his torn flesh back together. But even as he gasps back to life, more fall behind him, their blood soaking into the earth.
Overhead, the twenty Blades from Baev’kalath take to the skies, their wings stretching wide as they rain down strikes from above. But they, too, are falling. Legion archers aim their arrows high, and one by one, the Blades are shot from the sky, their bodies crumpling to the ground in twisted heaps.
