Because she turned, eyes blazing, and I saw it.
Her tail.
The end was arcing upward, shifting,splitting.
“No!” I screamed.
Pain lanced through the bond like a whip, and the world exploded. A burst of air rippled outward from my chest—too fast, too much. It slammed into the trial circle like a shockwave.
I was thrown off my feet, the stone under me cracking as I hit it hard enough to rattle bones. Everything blurred, sound, motion, breath, but I heard the gasps, the stammered cries of riders being flung off balance.
I rolled onto my side, blinking against the dust in the air. Standing back up unsteadily.
Kaelith scanned the crowd with her eyes. Unbothered. Unmoving. Her wings flexed once, beautiful, terrible, and her eyes locked on me like she barely recognized me.
Her tail continued to split down the center, a second blade beginning to form—a perfect mirror to the first.
The major was yelling something. I didn’t hear it.
Because I was too busy realizing I wasn’t in control anymore.
Kaelith had just begun to show the world what she really was.
ChapterThirty-Two
Kaelith’s tail split with a sickening, fluid sound, like bone and steel being sheared apart and reborn all at once. A second scythe unfurled beside the first, curved and deadly, glowing faintly with a violet sheen that shimmered like lightning through smoke.
Silence rippled through the Ascension Grounds.
And then, panic.
The guild members stumbled backward, weapons half-raised, but no one dared get too close. Even Iron Fang, smug and unshakable, looked ready to bolt.
Hein took a step forward, low and unhurried, a soft rumble in his chest.He was trying to calm her.
But Kaelith turned her head, and those blazing eyes narrowed before she exhaled.
Flames poured from her mouth like liquid rage, licking the sky, forcing Hein to veer off and land with a grunt. He didn’t challenge her. He wouldn’t. Because she wasn’t just posturing anymore.
She was done hiding.
Done pretending she was anything less than what she was always meant to be.
A beast born of chaos and purpose.
The major stumbled back two steps, his face pale and ashen, his hand trembling at his side. “By the gods…” he whispered, but it was swallowed by the gasps and shouts from behind him.
Palace guards spilled from the castle, swords drawn, shields raised—but froze mid-charge the second they saw her.
Kaelith, the largest in the Thrall, now stood with two tails, each ending in wicked, mirrored scythes. She didn’t roar again; she didn’t need to. She simply lifted her wings and looked at them, her shadow stretching long across the stones like a warning written in flame.
Back. Away.
And they did.
My knees buckled.
The ground tilted, and I barely caught myself.
