Thousands of Reapers gather below, armor gleaming, blades at their backs, voices lifted in welcome.
The AI announces, “Ceremonial formation complete. Landing vector approved. Welcome home, Kallus of the Storm Clave.”
I take Ayla’s hand again. She takes mine. Chelsea snorts and curls closer to both of us.
“Let them see her,” I murmur. “Let them see what we fought for.”
Ayla nods. “Let them see who sheis.”
And together, we descend into fire and glory.
CHAPTER 28
AYLA
Inever thought I’d be so happy to see Tyrannus.
Our arrival is treated with incredible fanfare. I did not know the Reapers were capable of festivities. It seems that, perhaps, we aren’t as different as I thought.
When Kallus declares there will be a ceremony to formally induct our daughter into the clan, it just feels…right.
The night of the ceremony comes quickly. The Reapers do not lollygag, that’s for certain. The smell of bone ash and sacred oils thickens the air, clinging to my skin like memory. Tyrannus stirs with ritual, the whole Reaper city preparing for a ceremony that hasn’t been performed in a generation. Not for a child like Chelsea—born of jalshagar union, born of impossible love.
I kneel before her, brushing curls from her face. “Hold still, starling. The bone-singers are almost done.”
She’s still but humming low under her breath, the melody Kallus taught her weeks ago. It vibrates in her chest, through her bones. The bone-singer taps his carving tool gently against her wrist, whispering the sacred rites as he carves her temporary identity band—Reaper script etched into calcium, binding her to clan and stars.
“She is brave,” the bone-singer murmurs. “Strong.”
“She’s ours,” I whisper back.
Chelsea looks up at me with eyes that catch too much light—deep crimson, flecked with gold. “Does it hurt, Mama?”
I smile. “A little. But you’re strong. You’ve always been strong.”
She grins. “Like Daddy?”
“Exactly like him.”
The other children, ten of them, gather nearby. Reaper youths, only a few years older than Chelsea, clad in rough leathers and bone-plated armor. They’ve been told what to expect—a child born of Reaper and noble blood. Some look excited. Others… wary.
“She’s small,” one mutters.
“She’s fast,” another replies.
The rite requires them to challenge her. A test of spirit, body, and blood. It’s tradition. And Chelsea steps into the center of the circle like she was born for it.
Kallus stands beside me, arms folded, face unreadable. But I feel his pride. Radiant. Ferocious. This is his daughter. Our daughter. And the way he watches her—it breaks and heals something in me all at once.
“She’ll do fine,” I whisper.
He grunts. “She’ll do better than that.”
The first challenger lunges. A boy with sharpened bone on his knuckles and a scar on his cheek. Chelsea dodges low, rolls beneath him, and plants her foot right into his center of gravity. He goes down hard. Sand flies. The circle cheers.
Another tries. And another. Chelsea fights with precision, with instinct, with a kind of joy that lights her up from the inside.
“That one’s hers, through and through,” the Elder rumbles beside us, voice like cracked stone. “Careful, Kallus. Your own progeny may well challenge you for leadership—and soon.”
