She stepped forward.
One step past Kael.
One step past Alarik.
One step into the space between hope and horror.
The wind shifted.
Her voice didn’t rise like a queen or a commander. It rose like prophecy.
“You think dreams are weak.”
Eiren’s head tilted. Curious. Amused.
“You think hope is for fools. That mercy is a failure. But you’ve forgotten something.”
Maris drew her sword from her back, the god-forged metal gleaming with veins of firelight and silver frost. The crown of bones burned faintly above her brow.
“Dreams change things.”
The magic surged up her arms, green and gold and violet and white, the hues of all four gods who had touched her. Her armor pulsed with their sigils. Her blood thrummed with a power no mortal should have lived through.
“Dreams give us power. And purpose. And teeth.”
She raised her blade, pointing it directly at Eiren across the field.
“You were mercy once. You chose to become ruin. I was ruin, born from mercy. And I choose to end you.”
The veil rippled.
The ground split with a sound like mountains dying.
Four figures fell from the heavens, slamming into the ground beside her, so hard the land cratered, so loud the air itself cracked.
The gods.
Not shadows. Not whispers.
Not absent anymore.
Yseron. Wreathed in blades, skin like onyx and flame, his war helm crowned with antlers of molten steel.
Syrathe. Dressed in drifting robes of moonlight and star flicked night, eyes blind but all-seeing. Her magic smelled of cold and memory.
Thaleia. Barefoot in a cloak of rivers, her skin shifting like currents.
Vaerith. Tall and cruelly beautiful, with hair like wildfire and eyes that held no end, laughter on his lips and ash at his heels.
Each of them towered behind Maris. Their power rippling across the battlefield like heat over stone. The army behind her staggered. The Veilspawn shrieked and hissed, some collapsing in place.
Eiren only laughed.
Her voice was delight and defiance twined together.
“My sweet siblings. You can’t kill me. You know you can’t.”
She turned in a slow circle, arms raised. “You’ve tried before. You failed before. You always will.”
