Calvin stands in the core room. The room is circular, cathedral-like; cables like ribs arch over us. Light filters in through panels now cracked, red and green storms flickering against his skin. He is nearly unrecognizable. His eyes—his eyes are dual. One is Calvin’s—ashen, horrified. The other—the Vorfaluka’s—glowing green inside his socket. He speaks with two voices: one soft, trembling, the other baritone guttural, echoing off walls.
“You come at last,” the Vorfaluka voice says. “You see the beauty of power, Kursk.”
Calvin coughs, voice trembling: “You… you said it would help me.”
The shard is embedded in his chest—greenish-black veins branching outward, knotting under his skin. Flesh around it is raw, jagged; it breathes. He inhales, and wires pulse under his ribs like snakes.
I want to pull him free. “Calvin,” I say. “This isn’t you.”
He—orit—laughs. The laughter splits. Two-toned. The Vorfaluka voice: “You speak of what is lost. I speak of what isbecoming.”
Olivia steps forward. “We can pull it out. Let me help you.”
He tilts his head — as if to consider her. “You strange human,” he rasp:“You want him me live, even as he bleeds the old world for us all.”
“No,” I say, voice raw. “I want you aliveCalvin.Not a puppet. Not this monster.”
He snarls. Forces a knife-sharp finger into my chest. I stagger back, the room spinning. Blood blooms on my shirt. Shards of crystal from the Spear shard dig into his chest like burning barbs.
“Then prove it!” he shouts. And that’s when he lunges.
The fight is wild. Olivia yanks a ribbon of conduit and swings—sparks fly, smoke blinds. I charge, spear raised. The Vorfaluka voice laughs inside Calvin, each swing of his fists smacking with unnatural strength. I brace, deflect, rip a chunk of flesh—monster-laced flesh—from his shoulder. His skin peels where the Shard meets my blade; I taste copper.
Calvin screams, both voices merging, crushing. The house shakes. Panels shiver, cables stretch. The core room trembles.
I drive the blade—Spiritslayer—into his chest, into the shard itself. Heat snaps across my palm. The room cracks. Crystal breaks. Calvin’s body convulses. The shard slides loose with a wet pop, veins retreating like poisoned vines. His dual eyesflicker, then dull. He falls backward as though hit by a gale. The fortress around us roars, collapsing.
Shouts. Crashing walls. Olivia screams my name. I fling myself toward her as the ceiling caves, dust and shards raining down.
We tumble outside just in time—windows explode, beams snapping, the house groaning like a dying beast. The shard in my hand, reunited with the main Spear—now darker, heavier, pulsing with new power. But something changed—something inside it is shadowed.
I breathe air full of dawn. Fresh and cruel. I taste grit and sweat. Olivia’s hand in mine, warm.
We stand together in the ruins. I look at her. She looks at me.
“I… I don’t know how much time,” I whisper, voice hoarse.
She looks away, then back. “One night,” she says. “One peaceful night. Then we fight.”
No illusions. Just us.
We lie on the grass under the sky—stars pinpricked and cold. The Rubicon of night lays over us. She touches my scars, my tusks, my hands. I touch hers—soft skin, the pulse in her throat. The world is silent but for our breathing. For her heartbeat. For mine.
We make love gentle. Quiet. Slow. Every kiss, every touch charged. As though we are gathering ourselves for war. As though this warmth is the only shield we will carry into battle. I feel her just as she is: mortal, imperfect, beautiful. I am not a monster tonight. I am merely human beside her.
She pulls me close as dawn bleeds into the sky.
Morning comes. Birds call. Air tastes of ash and rain. Light fractures over torn fields and broken glass.
And war is waiting.
CHAPTER 17
OLIVIA
Iwake before Kursk. The first sharp strike of dawn finds me watching him sleep—his chest barely rising, ribs taut, skin pale gold from the breaking light. I press myself more into his side, memorize every curve of his cheek, the slope of his tusks, the way his fingers uncurl and flex. I want to hold the image in me—just in case. Because sometimes hope is a photograph you don’t take, you simply remember.
When I move, the floor is cold beneath my bare feet, frost from the broken windows still melting in patches of acidic light. I scoop up my coat, the one with pockets heavy with vials and bandages, and tiptoe out the door. Kursk murmurs, a low sound, and I wait; when he doesn’t stir, I slip away into the cool morning.
