The words hung in the air like a challenge, and I braced myself for her retaliation. For whatever vicious comeback she’d unleash, for the way her power would lash out in response to being called irrelevant.
Instead, Xyliria’s gaze slid away from me entirely.
To Fenric.
A slow, vicious smile curled across her lips.
“Fenric,” she purred, letting his name roll off her tongue like she was savouring poison. “Such a lovely reunion, don’t you think?”
I felt the temperature drop, not from his magic, but from something far more primal.
Xyliria’s smile was a blade. “I do hope you haven’t been too... lonely here, Fenric. I know how... particular your tastes can be.”
The words slithered across the table like poison. Innocent on the surface, but loaded with implications that made my blood turn to ice.
Linc—gods, I could see the tremor that ran through him out of the corner of my eye.
But it was Fenric who terrified me most.
Because he wasn’t moving. Wasn’t breathing. Wasn’t reacting at all.
“After all,” Xyliria continued, her voice dripping false sweetness, “it’s been so long since you’ve had... proper company. The kind that understands your needs.”
She knew.
Somehow, this vicious bitch knew about them.
“It must be difficult,” Xyliria’s laugh was ice. “Especially when one’s appetites run toward?—”
Black flames surged across the table, roaring toward the Nyxarians. A living tempest of my fury.
The moment shattered into chaos.
Xyliria’s magic snappedupward,crimson clouds colliding against my firein a burst of heat and shadow. The flamessputteredagainst it, licking at the edges before beingconsumed.
Fuck.
The airsplit.
That’s the only way to describe it. Like reality itself was cleaving down the middle, peeling apart to accommodate the violent eruption of magic that exploded from every body in the room.
My black fire roared outward in response to Xyliria’s crimson clouds, the flames screaming for blood, for flesh, for anything that had threatened Fenric and Linc. They poured from my skin like I was bleeding, dark and hungry and utterly feral.
Varyth’s mist surged up from the floor in a wall of silver-white fury, condensing around us in a shield that hummed with killing intent. It twisted and coiled, alive with predatory consciousness, reaching for the Nyxarians like it wanted to drown them.
Ashterion’s shadows erupted. They punched through the floor, tore from the walls, ripped the very light from the air. Living darkness that moved with terrible purpose, wrapping around the table, around his people, aroundhim.
But something was wrong.
His shadows weren’t attacking. They wereprotecting.
The crimson clouds from Xyliria’s magic slammed against my fire with a sound like breaking bones. Impact shuddered through the chamber, cracking stone, splintering the obsidian table down its centre.
Fenric’s power erupted in response. Jagged spikes of black crystal punching up through the floor, ripping through stone like it was flesh. They launched toward the Nyxarians, each spike drinking in the light until they were nothing but absence given form.
Elowyn’s hands came up, and violet energy exploded outward—raw power that collided with Fenric’s obsidian in a shower of sparks and screaming magic. The purple light wrapped around the spears, crushing them to dust, and Fenric snarled as he sent another wave.
Darian’s vines tore from the walls themselves. Living, writhing things thick as my torso, covered in thorns that gleamed like moonsilver. They whipped toward Elowyn with predatory speed, wrapping around her violet shields, trying to tear through.
