“Fire? Really?” Ronyn asks, incredulous.
I smirk. “I play by the same rules Duskae did: none,” I vow, and then I spin to the north. My hands shoot into the sky, Lightborne magic exploding, causing a storm of Starlight.
My magic illuminates the night—revealing the thousands of soldiers that storm the castle grounds.
And I know, without doubt, they will die by my hand.
Altruism has no place in the midst of battle.
And I stopped asking what’s right the moment I learned what must be done to remake the realms.
“Ahhh, a plan? Do we have a plan?” Ronyn asks skeptically, arrow nocked in his bow, eyes strategically measuring distance and angles.
“Do not Meld, Ronyn. You hear me?” Kael snaps, voice cutting.
“This actually feels like the perfect time for a large fucking dragon to call the shots, wouldn’t you agree?” Ronyn snaps back, incredulous.
But Kael’s already shaking his head. “Seren and you are the only things Thalmyr can’t possibly know about. We do not reveal our hand unless we must,” Kael growls.
And for a heartbeat, despite not having one to spare, I relish him planning for the future. For believing in the six of us enough to think beyond this battle.
“Stars fuckin’ save us, I guess. Not having a planiskind of our thing,” Ronyn huffs, training his eye on the soldier leading the charge. “Iamthe first god metal archer in Aevryn, you know?”
His face is all cheek and audacity—exactly the kind of bravado one needs before battle.
And you are the one they never saw coming. Kael’s voice rumbles down the tether in a low timbre.Daughter of the Unknown. The Last Light.
His eyes are on mine, savage and lethal.
Endbringer.I reply.
His eyes glint in satisfaction at my words.
And I already know what he’s planning.
I nod, and together, we say, “Kill them all.”
Then, we charge to the north.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
KAEL
We surgelike a blade through ribs—one breath, one motion—flinging light and shadow into the teeth of the enemy.
The fractured overlap of armor screeching, steel clanging, boots pounding greets me like a lullaby.
The sound of war.
I let the melody descend over me, every muscle, every instinct responding to it like death is the conductor.
The distorted roar of a Caelorian soldier pierces through my focus.
His twisted face charges me, blade raised in manic fury.
I duck beneath his strike with Death’s borrowed precision. Shadows rip from my palms in black ribbons, knotting around his throat. His scream chokes to a thud against the stone; another note, folded into the symphony.
I move like I’m feeding on Death itself. A callous rot coiling through my veins.
