I step toward the temple door. Outside the hall corridor hums — distant alarms, distant fear, distant death maybe. I taste ash on the wind, pine smoke, rain-thunder on the far horizon. The air hums with tension.
I don’t look back. I won’t give them hope. I don’t look for Parfi’s light. I don’t need salvation. I need vengeance. I need rescue. I need survival.
The moment I step past the threshold, I am no longer the broken woman in chains. I am the ghost in the armor. I am the spark in the darkness. I am the storm coming.
I don’t know what waits behind those walls. Death. Betrayal. Blood. But I do know: I’m not easy to catch. I’m not easy to break. I’ve survived before. I’ll survive again.
I swallow deep. The metal knife cold at my thigh. The leather armor tight at my chest. The night wind roaring low beyond trees.
I run. Not away. But in — into the eye of the storm.
Because they think they stripped me of everything.
They’re about to learn what they left behind.
I will go back in.
And I will bring hell with me.
CHAPTER 24
VOKAR
Darkness tastes like ash and metal when I step across the threshold of what remains of the compound. The air is thick with smoke, the hiss of cooling fires, and the sharp tang of blood drying on stone. My boots echo hollow on cracked floor-plates, and I smell it all: charred wood, scorched fabric, musk of fear, and the bitter tang of betrayal.
I come back like a reckoning.
I don’t give a war-cry. I don’t signal mercy. I just walk — shirtless, bones bare beneath torn plates — clutched ribs burning with old fractures, muscles still pulsing with pain from the crevasse climb. Every breath tastes of iron and salt and promise. And somehow — that’s enough.
There are no cheers. No welcoming hands. The courtyard is littered with dust and silence. Smoke drifts low across broken tents, half-collapsed shelters, abandoned weapons. It smells of ruin. Of loss. Of nights ended in screams.
But it also smells of something else: fear. Weak fear. The kind that crawls under ribs when you realize your king is dead, your warlord cast down, your rule smashed.
I kneel low, hand pressed to old stone steps. My palm picks up grit — ash, soil, something soft, maybe tree bark. I press it to my nose, inhale hard. I don’t choke. Because I survive. I draw in life. I draw in vengeance.
A soft shift — shadows at the edge of broken hallways. A guard? A lurker?
“Vokar.” The voice cracks like dry bone. Gravel soft, old. “You… you live?”
I rise. My shoulders back. Spine heavy with blood and bone, but standing. Armor shards clink limp against skin. I flex claw-hand, shake dust free.
Yorta steps into torch–glow. His face is ragged, scarred, pain-lined. One arm hangs limp; a deep gash scars his flank. He limps — heavy — but he limps forward. Eyes clear. Loyalty hard-carved.
Behind him, a huddle of survivors: a dozen warriors, some armor cracked or scorched, eyes wide with something — hope, fear, awe. They don’t raise weapons. They don’t shout. They just stand. Silent. Waiting.
I look at them. I let silence settle, heavy.
“Warlord lives,” Yorta rasps.
A ripple — not of relief, not of joy. Of recognition.
I step forward. My boots crunch ash and debris underfoot. Every foot-fall a drumbeat. The fire in my chest speaks louder than words. I draw in a breath — hot, ragged — and exhale.
“Then listen,” I say. My voice cracks, hoarse, when it hits the still-air. “They think they broke us. They think they can erase us. They stole from us. They kicked us. They spat on our name. They thrust us into pits. But they forgot one thing.”
I raise my arm. Claws flick; shadow dances on broken stone.
“We rise.”
